O'DonnellWeb Monthly Archives

The Akron Beacon Beating - Day 2

Not a full fisking, but there were a few passages I just could not ignore.

The recent study and one in 1999 that had similar findings make it clear that home-schooling parents want to be the primary influence on their children's moral, ethical and religious views. They don't want their children to be socialized by educators or other children in the public- or private-school setting.

The nerve of some people - thinking parenting is a full time job and not one to outsourced to a government employee.

Among Christian home schoolers, this idea is often expressed as their ``worldview.''

Oooo, scare quotes around worldview. How charming. Does this mean that only Christian homeschoolers can have a worldview?

For others, known as unschoolers or inclusives, there is a ``me and my children'' approach that asserts that no one -- or no government -- should interfere with their lives. They resent negative outside influences and want to keep their children from being programmed by commercial, materialistic views present in society. They want their children protected from the cliques, bullies and potential violence in schools.

And this is a bad thing, how? What I'm really trying to avoid is my kids growing up to be cynical journalists incapable of an original thought.

Michael Apple, a University of Wisconsin professor who opposes home schooling, believes most religious families want their children in a protected environment, a phenomenon he calls ``cocooning'' within their ``fortress home.''

So the home defense drills are a bad idea?

``My kids socialized more after I pulled them out of school than they did when they were in school,'' she said. ``I wish that the public understood we aren't all sitting at home around the kitchen table all day long.''

I find all this much easier when you just stop giving a damn about what the public thinks.

A children's services worker said parents are isolating their children. ``I really think it's emotional abuse when you don't allow your children to interact with other children, other people,'' she said.

I think it's emotional abuse to have to read ill informed, self serving statements like this.

Many non-home schoolers share the belief that home-schooled children are too confined to their own worlds and that socialization comes from learning to get along in different settings with people from different backgrounds.

Who cares? Why should any homeschooler care what a non-homeschooler thinks? I don't. If I wanted their opinion, I would have left me kids in the public school system.

``They don't want diversity. That is why they home-school,'' a focus group member said. ``They want (the children) to be with people who have the same value system.''

No, we want our kids to be around people that have a value system, any value system is fine. Well, anything other than bowing before the god of diversity.

Wilson co-authored a book that argues that Civil War abolitionists ignored the teachings of the Bible, which recognizes slavery.

This is certainly representative of homeschoolers. Can we file a class action defamation suit against the paper? This entire series is one big hatchet job.

The strong religious views that the Becks, Gomez and others hold can stir anti-home schooling feelings in the larger community. In interviews and focus groups, many non-home schoolers pointed to a ``holier than thou'' attitude that they said permeates many families in the movement.

Of course, you'd never see a holier-than-thou attitude from the public school system.

``Not all home schoolers are going to like this, but this will be part of the aim of regulation -- to ensure that even within a home-school environment, children are introduced to and exposed to the world of diversity in a liberal democracy,'' Reich said at the same discussion of education research that Sorooshian attended.

He's damn right I don't like it. Keep your hands off my kids.

``It's the wrong stance to take from a public point of view to forbid home-school children from participating in public school activities,'' Reich told the Beacon Journal. ``It ought to be done precisely because it gives the home-school kids an opportunity to interact with more people than they would otherwise in a way that might have civic benefits.''

Talk about paternalistic and holy-than-thou attitudes. Let the poor under socialized HS'ed kids play with the public school kids, because it's their only hope of seeing the light. What a load of bullshit.

These interactions have not come without friction. Home schoolers are accused of cherry-picking public services

I love how cherry picking the most useful services is presented as a negative. Either your with us or your against us, seems to be the mantra of the public school system. Yet we are the ones that are intolerant.

``I would ultimately like to see the extracurricular stuff taken completely out of the schools and made free-standing, like Barberton Little League is not a school-related organization. It's a separate thing, and the kids go play baseball together,'' she said.

I think this is the perfect solution. What the hell does football have to do with public education anyway? I'm not doubting the value of organized sports, I'm all for it. However, I question whether schools are the best venue to be doing the organizing.

Coming Wednesday: Troubling situations in home schooling.

You mean they don't consider the previous two days to be a witch hunt for troubling situations in homeschooling?

Something doesn't smell right about this series. Why would two reporters so clearly have a vendetta against homeschooling? Is one of them married to some sort of education establishment leader? There has got to be more to the story than just a random subject chosen. The underlying hatred of us is very evident in this.