April 30, 2005
Gatto Chapter 7 - The Prussian Connection
The Prussian connection to American forced schooling has been hinted at previously. In this chapter, Gatto lays it out in detail. The connection can not be denied. It all starts at Jena in 1806, when Napoleon defeated a superior Prussian Army. Prussia, basically being a mercenary state, decided that centralized government education of the kids was the key to raising disciplined future soldiers. In America, that famous German engineering, applied to people, would be the path to a greater tomorrow. 100 years later, Hitler would would follow that process to it's awful conclusion.
The Prussian mind, which carried the day, held a clear idea of what centralized schooling should deliver: 1) Obedient soldiers to the army; 2) Obedient workers for mines, factories, and farms; 3) Well-subordinated civil servants, trained in their function; 4) Well-subordinated clerks for industry; 5) Citizens who thought alike on most issues; 6) National uniformity in thought, word, and deed.
To get here though, the family unit had to be busted.
People who wanted their kids schooled had them schooled even then; people who didn’t didn’t. That was more or less true for most of us right into the twentieth century: as late as 1920, only 32 percent of American kids went past elementary school. If that sounds impossible, consider the practice in Switzerland today where only 23 percent of the student population goes to high school, though Switzerland has the world’s highest per capita income in the world.
I poked around Google trying to confirm that Switzerland statistic. I didn't find an exact number, but most kids in Switzerland go through more of an apprenticeship program where they learn a trade while attending school 1 or 2 days a week. 23% appears to be the percentage that goes to full time school in pursuit of higher order careers such as engineering and the priesthood.
Interestingly, Gatto also implies that a Southern victory in The War of Northern Aggression would have derailed the forced schooling effort before it ever got going. It's not a central or important point in the chapter, he just sort of throws it out there. I'm doing the same :)
Also interesting is Gatto's charge that Horace Mann's Report to the Boston School Committee, (the blueprint for American forced education) outlining all the wonderful things happening in Prussian schools, is basically full of fabrications. Apparently he was in Prussia while school was out. He never saw a live classroom in action.
Permalink | Comments (3)Gatto Chapter 6 Supplemental - No Place To Hide
I pulled this quote out to its own post because it is so germane to the current discussion on several home education sites about cyber charters and the danger they pose to the home education movement.
In a New York Times description of the first "Edison Project" school in Sherman, Texas—a system of proprietary schools supplying a home computer for every child, e-mail, longer school days and years, and "the most high-tech school in America" (as Benno Schmidt, former president of Yale, put it)—the local superintendent gloated over what he must have regarded as the final solution to the student-control issue: " Can you imagine what this means if you’re home sick? The teacher can just put stuff in the student’s e-mail....There’s no place to hide anymore!"
No school superintendent will ever "put stuff" in my child's email.
Permalink | Comments (0)Gatto Chapter 6 - The Lure of Utopia
In Chapter 6, Gatto continues his exploration of the people and ideals that led to forced schooling. In short, the ruling class saw that the industrialization of America and the movement of people into the higher density living environment of the cities provided an opportunity. It was an unlikely collaboration of New England Puritans, who believed that the idle time provided by non farm work would lead to debauchery (they were probably right!), and idealist social planners who thought they could manage us to a Utopian ideal.
Plato, Augustine, Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Hobbes, Rousseau, and a host of other insightful thinkers, sometimes referred to at the Boston Athenaeum as "The Order of the Quest," all taught that without compulsory universal schooling the idiosyncratic family would never surrender its central hold on society to allow utopia to become reality.
Gatto spends several pages discussing the role of children's literature in the plans of the Utopian planners. I found this section completely fascinating. It was something I had never thought through before.
Until 1875, about 75 percent of all children’s titles dealt with some aspect of the future—usually salvation. Over the next forty years this idea vanished completely. As Comte and Saint-Simon had strongly advised, the child was to be relieved of concerning itself with the future. The future would be arranged for children and for householders by a new expert class, and the need to do God’s will was now considered dangerous superstition by men in charge.
1845 - 1920 were the crucial years that laid the foundation for all that was to come. Massachusetts started implementing forced schooling in 1850, but it took 70 years for the practice to become the norm. Consider this.
When you consider how bizarre and implausible much of the conformist machinery put in place during this critical period really was—and especially how long and successfully all sorts of people resisted this kind of encroachment on fundamental liberty—it becomes clear that to understand things like universal medical policing, income tax, national banking systems, secret police, standing armies and navies which demand constant tribute, universal military training, standardized national examinations, the cult of intelligence tests, compulsory education, the organization of colleges around a scheme called "research" (which makes teaching an unpleasant inconvenience), the secularization of religion, the rise of specialist professional monopolies sanctioned by their state, and all the rest of the "progress" made in these seventy-five years, you have to find reasons to explain them. Why then? Who made it happen? What was the point?
He drops this following thought in at the very end of the chapter. This is a paragraph I've read about 6 times in the last 10 minutes. It's not that I don't understand the paragraph, I do. However, I'm finding the implication contained in this to be quite frightening as it's a very serious shock to my capitalistic world view.
Erich Fromm thought Bellamy had missed the strong similarities between corporate socialism and corporate capitalism—that both converge eventually in goals of industrialization, that both are societies run by a managerial class and professional politicians, both thoroughly materialistic in outlook; both organize human masses into a centralized system; into large, hierarchically arranged employment-pods, into mass political parties. In both, alienated corporate man—well-fed, well-clothed, well-entertained—is governed by bureaucrats. Governing has no goals beyond this. At the end of history men are not slaves, but robots. This is the vision of utopia seen complete.Permalink | Comments (0)
(Poker) Chip off the 'ole block
When I went to pick up the boy from a sleepover this morning, his friend's father told be that I was now the owner of his minivan as Breck had smoked them all in Texas Holm 'Em. He taught the boys to play and Breck ended up with all the chips.
That's my boy :)
Permalink | Comments (1)April 29, 2005
MT Upgrade Complete
The upgrade to MT 3.16 is complete. Please let me know if you experience any problems. Those of you already having problems, please lete me know if the site is responding better.
Permalink | Comments (6)April 28, 2005
Gatto Chapter 5 - True Believers & The Unspeakable Chautauqua
Chapter 5 is a tough chapter. Gatto returns to the idea that forced schooling was a planned and deliberate attempt to separate the few worthy of an education from the masses that would be happier just being told what to do each day. He ties together several seemingly disparate movements and the personalities behind them. It's a little tough to grok on the first reading.
Here in a brief progression is one window on the problem of modern schooling. It set out to build a new social order at the beginning of the twentieth century (and by 1970 had succeeded beyond all expectations), but in the process it crippled the democratic experiment of America, disenfranchising ordinary people, dividing families, creating wholesale dependencies, grotesquely extending childhoods. It emptied people of full humanity in order to convert them into human resources.
We are introduced to many of the players of the early 20th century. Gatto refers to them as true believers, ideologues who believed humans were malleable, and under their grand direction, a Utopian society could be formed if just everybody could be kept in their place. It was the schools job to sort them out.
One in particular who had maybe more influence on the direction of forced schooling that anybody else is William Torrey Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education from 1889 to 1906.
Harris believed that children were property and that the state had a compelling interest in disposing of them as it pleased. Some would receive intellectual training, most would not.
Harris was inspired by the notion that correctly managed mass schooling would result in a population so dependent on leaders that schism and revolution would be things of the past. If a world state could be cobbled together by Hegelian tactical manipulation, and such a school plan imposed upon it, history itself would stop. No more wars, no civil disputes, just people waiting around pleasantly like the Eloi in Wells’ The Time Machine. Waiting for Teacher to tell them what to do. The psychological tool was alienation. The trick was to alienate children from themselves so they couldn’t turn inside for strength, to alienate them from their families, religions, cultures, etc., so that no countervailing force could intervene.
Notice how they present this as being good for everybody. After all, who could be against no more wars, or civil disputes? It sounds perfectly reasonable.
Gatto Chapter 4 - I'm Outta Here
In Chapter 4, Gatto briefly recounts his 30 year career as a public school teacher. It's not the most exciting chapter, mostly a collection of stories to illustrate his central thesis that kids don't belong in school. A few interesting quotes...
The biggest mystery lurked in the difference between the lusty goodwill of first, second, and to some extent third graders—even in Harlem—the bright, quick intelligence and goodwill always so abundant in those grades, and the wild change fourth grade brought in terms of sullenness, dishonesty, and downright mean spirit.
I've notice this myself, and have mentioned on this site several times. It's universal to public school kids.
The highest school priorities are administrative coherence, student predictability, and institutional stability; children doing well or poorly are incidental to the main administrative mission.
Job one of any bureaucracy is to protect the bureaucracy. Independent minded kids don't help in that mission.
About one kid in five in my experience is in acute torment from the intimidation of peers, maybe more are driven to despair by the indifference of official machinery. What the hounded souls can’t possibly see is that from a system standpoint, they are the problem with their infernal whining, not their persecutors.
Bullying in the public schools is a persistent problem. Really, it's a problem anytime kids congregate away from adult supervision. And even with metal detectors at the doors and drug dogs roaming the hallways, kids in school are for the most part unsupervised.
A relative handful of people could change the course of schooling significantly by resisting the suffocating advance of centralization and standardization of children, by being imaginative and determined in their resistance, by exploiting manifold weaknesses in the institution’s internal coherence: the disloyalty its own employees feel toward it. It took 150 years to build this apparatus; it won’t quit breathing overnight. The formula is to take a deep breath, then select five smooth stones and let fly. The homeschoolers have already begun.
Yes, we have.
Process kids like sardines and don’t be surprised when they come out oily and dead. In the words of the Albany Free School, if you aren’t making it up as you go along, you aren’t doing it right
And finally, Mr. Gatto pretty much says it all in one sentence.
My life experience taught me that school isn’t a safe place to leave your children.
First Review of ROTS
Director Kevin Smith has already seen Revenge of the Sith and offers up this very encouraging review. No real spoilers - we all know what is going to happen in this movie. But if you don't want to know some details, don't click the link.
Permalink | Comments (1)April 27, 2005
Gatto Chapter 3 - Eyeless in Gaza
Chapter 3 of The Underground History of American Education is a survey of the history of literacy and reading in America. It is also quite possibly the most infuriating material I have ever read. I literally had to stop and refocus several times as the magnitude of what the schools did to literacy became clear to me.
Simply put, forced education turned us from the most literate nation on the planet to a nation of people unable to understand the instructions on a prescription bottle. The military measures literacy as part of the pre-draft induction. At the start of WWII 96% of draftees passed. At the start of the Korean War only a decade later, 81% passed. Vietnam era draftees failed the test 27% of the time. In one generation, the literacy rate in America, as measured by a huge sample of randomly selected draftees, went from 96% to 73%. The military is not asking anybody to read Shakespeare to get in. They are only looking for a 4th grade reading level.
Back in 1952 the Army quietly began hiring hundreds of psychologists to find out how 600,000 high school graduates had successfully faked illiteracy. Regna Wood sums up the episode this way:
After the psychologists told the officers that the graduates weren’t faking, Defense Department administrators knew that something terrible had happened in grade school reading instruction. And they knew it had started in the thirties. Why they remained silent, no one knows. The switch back to reading instruction that worked for everyone should have been made then. But it wasn’t.
I went to DoD schools for most of my K-12 life. I remember learning to sound words out and being drilled over and over again on the basic phonics that make up all words. DoD apparently stuck with what worked in their schools.
At this point, you are probably wondering did happen in the schools. The answer is simple. Whole Language Reading. Phonics was abandoned in the 30's. Gatto provides a devastating take down of the Whole Language movement. This probably sums it up as well as anything.
The religious purpose of modern schooling was announced clearly by the legendary University of Wisconsin sociologist Edward A. Ross in 1901 in his famous book, Social Control. Your librarian should be able to locate a copy for you without much trouble. In it Ed Ross wrote these words for his prominent following: "Plans are underway to replace community, family, and church with propaganda, education, and mass media....the State shakes loose from Church, reaches out to School.... People are only little plastic lumps of human dough."
The bottom line is that people are not little plastic lumps of human dough, and you can't teach them to read (or do anything else) as though they were.
Even if your not up for the assault on Whole language Reading, you should at least read page 1 of Chapter 3 for Gatto's delightful description of the the differences between a school book and a real book as evidenced by the differences between a classroom and a library. I'll end this with just a taste.
The school edition of Moby Dick asked all the right questions, so I had to throw it away. Real books don’t do that. Real books demand people actively participate by asking their own questions. Books that show you the best questions to ask aren’t just stupid, they hurt the mind under the guise of helping it—exactly the way standardized tests do. Real books, unlike schoolbooks, can’t be standardized. They are eccentric; no book fits everyone.Permalink | Comments (1)
Sometimes, paranoid is not a good thing
I'm security conscious, but this guy is just flat out paranoid. 5 different passwords to log onto his laptop and check mail? Requiring his kids to use 14 character passwords?
I'll bet his kids passwords look something like myDADisanIDIOT
Permalink | Comments (0)Buried Treasure in the back yard
A couple of guys found old currency valued at about $50K when digging a hole to plant a tree in a friend's yard.
I dug up some empty 10W-30 containers in my yard once.
Permalink | Comments (1)The Politics of Star Wars
Or, The Empire are really the good guys.
Permalink | Comments (0)Internet Etiquette Note
In case you are confused...
If you politely explain to Jana why she isn't homeschooling and is in fact jeopardizing the homeschool community by claiming she is, you are rude and inconsiderate.
But when she compares you to a pig,
But I have learned my lesson. Don't mud wrestle with a pig. You'll just get dirty and the pig will enjoy it. 'Nuff said.
she is just being polite.
I'm glad we cleared that up.
Permalink | Comments (1)Which D&D Class Are You?
Hmm, you've got the skills, nobody can deny that. You're a hard nut to crack in a fight, you can hound an enemy like no other, you have a connection to the wilderness that borders on supernatural, and the animals back home love you. Don't be fooled by LOTR though, you are not a natural leader. In fact, you're probably a bit of a recluse, and you are reasonably rash. You gave up understanding why humans treat each other so needlessly bad a long time ago, and have just decided to do what you can for the defenseless of us by savaging the people that harm what you love. If everyone were like you this world would be a great place... but since it's not, better get back to hunting evildoers... with uncanny intensity.
I thought I might come out as a Thief. The best character I ever had was Slick the Thief. He made through a bunch of campaigns.
Hat tip: Ogre the Paladin.
Permalink | Comments (1)April 26, 2005
Backpackit.com
37 Signals has leaked a preview of their new web app Backpack.
Need to send yourself a to-do item from your cell phone or Blackberry? Email it to Backpack and it will be converted into a to-do item with a checkbox. Need to send yourself a text note plus some images and even a file? No problem — send it all in a single email and Backpack will post the note, thumbnail the image(s), and attach the file(s). Clean, quick, effortless — and familiar. There’s barely an easier way to get content online.
That sounds absolutely brilliant.
Permalink | Comments (0)Happy Birthday, Hubble
15 years ago today the Hubble Telescope was placed into orbit. Wired has the story and an amazing slideshow of pictures taken with the Hubble Telescope.
Permalink | Comments (0)New Homeschool Service
Homeschoolers The du Toit's are rolling out a new web based service to help organize the home education process. In Kim's words, What we have created is a software product to help homeschoolers manage their kids’ education, from the scheduling and planning, to keeping track of what the kids are doing, and collating all the work into college/university-acceptable transcripts.
If this sounds like something you'd be interested in they are looking for volunteers to help beta test the software. In exchange, you'll get to use it for free when it goes gold over the summer.
We used Homeschool EZ Records, or something like that. It was an MS Access based application. I think Michelle updated it religiously the first year, most of the time the second year, and pretty much dropped it after that. I think that sort of coincides with us worrying a lot the first year about jack booted government thugs breaking down our doors and demanding school records. We worried about it less the second year, and stopped worrying about it in year 3.
I hope the effort is a smashing success for the du Toits. If you are interested in more info Kim has the details here.
Permalink | Comments (0)Free Star Charts
Good star charts used to be expensive. Not any more. These are free and formatted to print on a standard printer.
Permalink | Comments (1)April 25, 2005
The Well Trained Mind - An ironic review.
The reviewer states upfront that she is vocally pro-public school and has several problems with homeschooling.
There are at least two great exampes of irony in this review.
Can you find them? I found the review to be hilarous, but I don't think that was the reviewer's intent.
Gatto Chapter 2 - An Angry Look At Modern Schooling
I don’t mean to be inflammatory, but it’s as if government schooling made people dumber, not brighter; made families weaker, not stronger; ruined formal religion with its hard-sell exclusion of God; set the class structure in stone by dividing children into classes and setting them against one another; and has been midwife to an alarming concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a fraction of the national community.
Yikes! Summarizing this chapter is just a few sentences is tough. Basically, Gatto claims that forced schooling was a conspiracy set in motion by wealthy industrialists like Rockefeller who understood that the American economy of the 20th century would need a large army of factory drones to man the lines of production. So they worked with a very willing government to put in place a system of forced schooling based on the school system in Prussia that would produce a generation of people with no ambition beyond their next paycheck.
Sound preposterous? Yeah, I sort of think so too. The simplest solution is usually right, and a massive conspiracy that was widely successful is difficult to believe. On the surface, I would think public education is more of a happy accident than a well thought out and planned initiative.
We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.-President Woodrow Wilson, just prior to WWI.
Just a few months before this report was released, an executive director of the National Education Association announced that his organization expected "to accomplish by education what dictators in Europe are seeking to do by compulsion and force."
The report mentioned is The Geneticist's Manifesto, in which Hermann Müller reported on his experiments using X-rays to override genetic law in fruit flies. Mueller believed human behavior could be scientifically controlled and exploited. Mueller believed the state must be ready to direct human sexual behavior, and that schools were the place to separate the breeders from those slated for termination. Muller was not just some random quack. He received a Nobel prize and was highly influential with Rockefeller, who at this time was spending more on schools that the entire US Government.
Scary stuff indeed.
Lest you think this is all ancient history,
In 1973, Catherine Barrett, president of the National Education Association, said, "Dramatic changes in the way we raise our children are indicated, particularly in terms of schooling...we will be agents of change.
One more thought from Gatto.
Schools train individuals to respond as a mass. Boys and girls are drilled in being bored, frightened, envious, emotionally needy, generally incomplete. A successful mass production economy requires such a clientele. A small business, small farm economy like that of the Amish requires individual competence, thoughtfulness, compassion, and universal participation; our own requires a managed mass of leveled, spiritless, anxious, familyless, friendless, godless, and obedient people who believe the difference between Cheers and Seinfeld is a subject worth arguing about.
He makes a very good case. However, I can't bring myself to really believe the depth of conspiracy that Gatto is exposing. I think the thought that they could do that is just too frightening to contemplate. Because if a small group of wealthy and powerful men, helped by the government, really can ruin our children like this, what else can they do? What else have they already done?
Permalink | Comments (1)April 24, 2005
The Underground History of American Education - Chapter 1
I'm going to try to read Gatto's classic online over the next few weeks, one chapter per night, more of less. I started tonight with Chapter 1 (big surprise, eh?), The Way It Used to Be.
Chapter 1 is primarily a survey of school throughout history, with the central points being that
- Most of our great leaders and thinkers spent very little time in formal school
- School, where is existed, was primarily a tool used to keep the lower classes uneducated so they would not threaten the status quo.
- Kids are capable of much more than we give them credit for today.
A few quotes that struck me as particulatly interesting...
Something in the structure of schooling calls forth violence. While latter-day schools don’t allow energetic physical discipline, certainly they are state-of-the-art laboratories in humiliation, as your own experience should remind you.
With less than thirty hours of combined training and experience, a hundred million people are allowed access to vehicular weapons more lethal than pistols or rifles. Turned loose without a teacher, so to speak. Why does our government make such presumptions of competence, placing nearly unqualified trust in drivers, while it maintains such a tight grip on near-monopoly state schooling?
I’ve yet to meet a parent in public school who ever stopped to calculate the heavy, sometimes lifelong price their children pay for the privilege of being rude and ill-mannered at school. I haven’t met a public school parent yet who was properly suspicious of the state’s endless forgiveness of bad behavior for which the future will be merciless.
No public school in the United States is set up to allow a George Washington to happen. Washingtons in the bud stage are screened, browbeaten, or bribed to conform to a narrow outlook on social truth. Boys like Andrew Carnegie who begged his mother not to send him to school and was well on his way to immortality and fortune at the age of thirteen, would be referred today for psychological counseling; Thomas Edison would find himself in Special Ed until his peculiar genius had been sufficiently tamed.Permalink | Comments (2)
Where I ramble on about homeschooling
Beth had a few questions, and I answered. It turned into a rather long email dialog. Hopefully, I didn't say anything that will qualify me for my Great Quotes in Home Education page.
Permalink | Comments (3)Start a fire with a coke can and hershey bar
Permalink | Comments (2)April 23, 2005
The Darth Side
Darth Vader has a blog. Although with the resources at his disposal, you'd think he could at least spring for Typepad, or maybe use The Force to "suggest" to Anil that he should be set up for free.
Permalink | Comments (0)Dee Snider goes back to school
Twisted Sister front man Dee Snider joined a high school band that was embroiled in a little controversy over performing his signature tune We're Not Gonna Take It. The school principal originally banned rock bands from the high school talent competition out of fear of dangerous slam dancing. Dee, who is now a disc jockey in Philadelphia, got wind of the controversy and got involved.
In other news, kids today slam dance to 80's hair metal. What's up with that?
Permalink | Comments (0)April 22, 2005
Tony Danza is the man
A college student doing a presentation (in Italian) on Tony Danza for Italian class got a big surprise when Tony walked in to be a visual aid for the report on himself.
The whole class got a surprise when Tony gave each of them a trip to Rome.
In case Jennifer Garner is reading this...I'm doing a report on you next week.
Permalink | Comments (1)I'm #3!
According to ZoomInfo, a search engine for people information, I'm the 3rd most important Chris ODonnell on the Internet.
I can live with that.
Permalink | Comments (1)April 21, 2005
Cyber Charters Are Not Homeschools
I'm going to let Daryl handle this one in detail. This Public School At Home Mom in PA (where else...) claims that she is totally free to do whatever she wants with no interference from the state, even though she is using government provided curriculum and government provided computers in her house.
Permalink | Comments (5)WWHS: Reason #1
So we never live like these folks.
Selected, and utterly depressing snippets from the article.
In short, home life is beginning to imitate the downsized American office.
It means parents and children live virtually apart at least five days a week. They reunite for a few hours at night, sleep and separate again the next morning. In this study, at least one parent was likely to be up and gone before the children awoke.
What’s falling by the wayside?
Playtime. Conversation. Courtesy. Intimacy.
Kim and Gary Zeiss are keeping their children busy by design. They believe it’s a key to being a successful adult in a culture that rewards multi-taskers.
“You know the old saying,” says Gary, a 47-year-old attorney. “If you want something done, give it to a busy person. They’re learning how to be that.
Permalink | Comments (0)A Really Great Homeschooling Quote
My Great Quotes Of Homeschooling category is reserved for quotes that in reality, are not so great. In fact, most of them are embarrassingly bad.
So I'm not sure what to do with this one, because I really like it.
A large proportion of homeschoolers could be described as people who have given up paying attention to whatever is being shouted through the public bullhorn, and begun to cultivate their own practices and communities on a scale they can still understand and in a manner of which they approve.Permalink | Comments (0)
Read Mike Peach today
I would like to show support for friends of Nathan Jones who committed suicide after being bullied at school. They wrote a poem that was published on line but their site has now been removed after complaints from someone allegedly involved in the bullying.Just Do It. Permalink | Comments (0)
April 19, 2005
The Pope and I just aren't getting along
Today in the car...
Breck: The Pope and I are not getting along.
Michelle: What are you talking about?
Breck: The Pope, I just can't get along with that man. In fact, I've been excommunicated.
Michelle: I have no idea what you are talking about
Breck: My game mom. The Pope excommunicated me in my computer game.
I think he is talking about Age of Empires II.
Permalink | Comments (0)Bo Bice & Sugar Money
AI finalist Bo Bice's real band has some stuff up on Garageband. Not surprisingly, the spirit of Greg Allman runs deep in his original music.
Permalink | Comments (0)April 18, 2005
Eliminate elementary school
I wouldn't stop there. However, this essay makes a very good case for eliminating elementary school and delaying any kind of formal schooling until age 12.
Question: Where is the scientifically-valid evidence that a child who sits through six years in a classroom is any better "educated" than a child who spends six years just being a kid, learning what he or she needs, learning responsibility and reading and manners and math the way kids always have - by doing?
Can I get a big AMEN on that?
Permalink | Comments (2)The Instapundit worries (a little) about homeschooling
Is this a banner day for homeschooling? The Almighty Instapundit has used the term in print ;)
I wonder, though, if the increasing availability of private education and homeschooling doesn't make things worse, by draining off some of the parents whose complaints would otherwise force the system to behave better. At some point, I suppose, the effects of competition will shift things the other way, but that dynamic doesn't seem to be taking hold, yet.
Alas, he doesn't really get it. If the system really was answering to the parents a lot of those parents would not have left in the first place.
We never even gave it a chance. Even if the PS system were providing a top quality education (stop laughing now...) I still would not use it. I value my freedom way too much to subject my family to an arbitrary government imposed schedule for 10 months of the year. Why the hell should a faceless bureaucrat decide how and when my kids will study algebra, or spelling, or take a break, or a field trip, or whatever. We are way more capable of making that decision ourselves. Quite frankly, we have too fun much homeschooling to give it up :)
Update Reader Beth asked in the comments
Your arguments for homeschooling and against public or "traditional" education are often at least reasonable if not persuasive. But they lose something because of the sequoia-sized chip on your shoulder.
Do you at least respect other people's choices not to homeschool as you expect them to respect yours?
Since my response was getting long I decided to move it out front.
I really don't care if anybody respects my decision to homeschool. I do care if they respect my freedom to homeschool though. Way too many people in this country think they know better than us what is best for our kids. Unfortunately, some of those people are in positions of power to dramatically affect my freedom. I don't spend anytime worrying about what everybody thinks of me, and I really doubt there are public school parents out there worrying about what I think.
But if they are...I respect any parent who is doing what they truly believe to be in their children's best interest. Even if they turn out to be wrong. Intent matters a lot. However, for those parents that know their kids are getting beat up every day, or aren't academically challenged, or are labeled ADD and drugged without sufficient medical evidence, yet continue to drop the kids off at the local PS every day without doing anything to help their kid...
Those people I have no respect for.
And that goes double for people that pull their kids out of school and hide behind the homeschool laws in custody disputes or for some other reason not connected to their best interests of the kid.
Permalink | Comments (5)On the importance of history
Historian David McCullough gave a talk recently on the state of history education in the US.
First of all we have to get across the idea that we have to know who we were if we’re to know who we are and where we’re headed. This is essential. We have to value what our forebears – and not just in the 18th century, but our own parents and grandparents – did for us, or we’re not going to take it very seriously, and it can slip away. If you don’t care about it – if you’ve inherited some great work of art that is worth a fortune and you don’t know that it’s worth a fortune, you don’t even know that it’s a great work of art and you’re not interested in it – you’re going to lose it.
And we need not leave the whole job of teaching history to the teachers. If I could have you come away from what I have to say tonight remembering one thing, it would be this: The teaching of history, the emphasis on the importance of history, the enjoyment of history, should begin at home. We who are parents or grandparents should be taking our children to historic sights. We should be talking about those books in biography or history that we have particularly enjoyed, or that character or those characters in history that have meant something to us. We should be talking about what it was like when we were growing up in the olden days.Permalink | Comments (3)
Opt-Out Military Marketing
This business and marketing site has picked up the military recruiters getting public school role lists story that bounced around last year. They seem to be making the point that if the military gets the kids phone numbers on an opt-out basis, any business that wants to market to kids should have the same access.
Uh, no. The military is not just any business. Also, if your kids are in a government school, it's not unreasonable to assume the government agents will have better access to them to discuss government careers.
Anyway, I would argue the parents did opt-in when they put their kids in the government school system in the first place.
Permalink | Comments (0)April 17, 2005
H2G2 Gets A Thumbs Up
The Telegraph gives The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy a positive review.
Whew. My big worry, that it would be too Disney-fied, seems to be unfounded.
Permalink | Comments (1)April 16, 2005
Winnie Cooper is all grown up
Remember Winnie Cooper from The Wonder Years? Well, Danica McKellar is all grown up.
She has a website.
She is um, rather attractive.
She has a math degree from UCLA.
So she is both smart and hot.
Posting from Linux
Wow. I downloaded the ISO for Ubuntu LInux live, a distro that will run off of CD on your Windows PC. The CD booted up, found all my hardware and my Internet connection, and here I am. Pretty damn amazing. This is also by far the best looking Linux distro I've seen. I feel me inner geek getting antsy. It may be time to try Linux again.
If you've been curious about Linux, this is your chance. Download the live version, write to CD AS A DISC IMAGE (I wasted a CD learning that lesson) and reboot. Next thing you know, you'll be surfing in Linux.
Permalink | Comments (1)April 15, 2005
Why Bose sucks
A very in depth explanation of exactly why Bose speakers suck. Bose is a lifestyle company, much like Sharper Image or J. Peterman back in their day. They sell image - not performance.
Another good read - The 10 Biggest Lies in Audio. (pdf)
Permalink | Comments (0)School is no place for a child
I tell friends that my grandkids will be homeschooled and some of them react with how the schools are terrible and should be teaching values and respect, etc. ... and I am literally open-mouthed, because they seem to be asking for more control and more authoritarianism in the classroom, while I trace a lot of problems to the demand for conformity, submission, and suppression of the natural desire to learn that is imposed on children.Permalink | Comments (0)
WWHS #765,123: The kids are out of control.
Assaults on teachers seem to be an everyday event in Cleveland.
via Izzy
Permalink | Comments (0)Hacking the Pope
Security guru Bruce Schneier explains the mechanics of selecting the new Pope, and thinks through how one might hack the election, if one were so inclined.
There won't be any hanging chad issues in The Vatican.
Permalink | Comments (0)April 14, 2005
The 1000 hour flashlight
This very cool flashlight that simply clips onto a 9V battery was invented by a 15 year old homeschooler.
He is now selling them by the millions.
Horseshue sales have been very slow. Anybody have an idea for ramping them up?
Permalink | Comments (0)April 13, 2005
Education is a civil right worth fighting for
This black parent discusses his reasons for homeschooling and bemoans the black community's lack of interest in educational issues.
Since some black people (Bill Cosby anyone?) believe that a combination of bad-a-- kids and bad-a-- parents are to blame, it is very difficult to mobilize people around this issue. And given that we're really talking about black administrators, black teachers, black staff, and black school board members, it isn’t the same as taking on the Klan. It isn't as sexy. It doesn't get people as riled up.
As I've said here on several occasions, if there is any group that has something to gain by bailing out of the PS system, it's black kids trapped in the worst public schools.
Interestingly, the school he pulled his kids from is allegedly one of Baltimore's best.
Blogging Anonymously
The EFF has provided a handy guide on how to blog anonymously without getting outed.
Permalink | Comments (0)April 11, 2005
We survived our first Boy Scout Campout
We survived. A little chilly at night, perfect during the days. Boy Scout camping is very different than Cub Scout camping. When camping with the Cubs, the dads really do everything. Boy Scouts is a boy run organization. If they fail to plan properly and don't buy enough food for the weekend...they'll be hungry. The adult leaders really do let them fail as long as the consequences aren't dangerous.
It's a difficult adjustment for me. Watching Breck struggle with his tent I really did want to go help. But I didn't. The idea is for him to get help if needed from an older Scout. And sure enough, next I looked the tent was up - and it didn't fall down the whole weekend.
I wish I could say the same for my self inflating air pad. About 1 AM Saturday night I was awakened by a loud POP, followed by the sound of air rushing out of my sleeping pad. I guess a seam blew out on it. About 30 seconds later I got much colder as the buffer of air between me and the ground was gone.
We (the adults) ran the knot tying competition. Our boys won, which was cool. Even better, over the day I learned how to tie all my basic knots. If you need a tautline hitch or a bowline, I'm your guy :)
Permalink | Comments (2)April 08, 2005
Convincing the reluctant spouse
Here is another goodie from my email box: Do you have any magic words or potions to convince my husband that homeschooling is truly the best thing for our children? --Frustrated Mom
To begin with, a wife should be willing to submit to whatever her husband decides, since he is the head of their household.
Looks like I'll be sending Mrs ODonnellWeb off to re-education camp. She did not get the message on this one :)
Actually, the advice in the article isn't too bad...if you can get by that begining.
Permalink | Comments (3)Walmart is apparently a target rich environment
From the you thought you'd heard it all department...
WalMart is running very successful singles nights in German stores. Apparently the single folk put a big yellow ribbon on their cart to mark themselves as available.
And yes, they are thinking about trying this here.
I wish I had time right now to come up with the Top 10 Walmart pick up lines...but I don't. Maybe y'all can add a few to the comments - I'll be back Sunday.
Also - ID the movie referenced in the title. This should be easy.
Update: Famous James took up the challenge and posted this Top 10 list over at his place.
Top 10 Wal Mart Pickup Lines
10) What's a nice girl like you doing in a cheap dump like this?
9) Wanna pick up an edited movie and head back to my place? We can watch it on my 13-inch combo vcr/tv.
8) Oh... I was just checking your tag to see if you were Made In Heaven, but it appears you were made in Taiwan.
7) You smell great! Or is it the caramel corn?
6) They might be rolling back prices, but I'm rolling back something better...
5) Nice shoes, wanna... Nevermind. Those shoes really aren't all that nice.
4) Can I get you a drink? Dr Thunder or Sam's Choice?
3) May I have this dance, as soon as I tune all of the stereos to the same station?
2) You look hungry. I'll go get another sample of the microwave popcorn.
And the number one line you might hear on Single's Night at Wal Mart...
1) Remember when this building used to hold a movie theater, ice cream shop, tool store, a five-and-dime, and a record store? This town was a great place to grow up - what happened?
Permalink | Comments (0)April 07, 2005
I'll leave you alone if we can just talk about luncheon meat
Do I need to explicitly tell you which member of my family started a conversation with our son using that phase?
She isn't dealing well with the fact that when we say the Boy Scouts are a boy run organization, we mean it. Even if they appear to be planning on carrying lunch meat sandwiches around in their backpacks for 4 or 5 hours before lunch at the campout this weekend.
BTW, Breck assured her that he will fall back to the emergency cereal bar if that indeed is the plan.
I also don't believe for a second that this is the last we'll hear of it from her.
Permalink | Comments (0)Stay At Home Moms Rule
I haven't read Home-Alone America: The Hidden Toll of Day Care, Wonder Drugs, and other Parent Substitutes by Mary Eberstadt of the Hoover Institution, but it strongly supports something I've intuitively believed for a long time.
She has concluded that most of the problems of today's youngsters — from biting toddlers to depressed middle-schoolers to out-of-control teenagers — can be blamed on out-of-the-house moms and absentee dads. "Divorce and dual income, dual income and divorce," she writes. "The refrain hums like a mantra through the literature" of dysfunctional youth.
She also addresses the over medication of our youth today, something else I may have mentioned around here once or twice.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined the phrase "defining deviancy down" to describe how social pressures were leading to the redefinition — the normalization — of behavior once seen as pathological. "In the case of the juvenile mental problems," Eberstadt writes, we are doing the opposite: "We are defining deviancy up so that children who would have been considered normal a quarter century ago are now judged to have intrinsic 'brain problems' and are treated accordingly."
via National Review
Permalink | Comments (3)April 06, 2005
You can't study what you can't find
GeographerJoAnn Vender is presenting her study today at the American Association of Georgraphers meeting. Her subject is the spatial patterns of homeschooling in the U.S. with case studies of four states representing varying levels at which states regulate the practice.
She seems to be a bit frustrated by the lack of data available on us.
Level of regulation does not necessarily correlate with reporting and availability of data. Unfortunately, there are only 18 states with readily available data on homeschooling," says Vender.
To which I respond...that is 18 states too many.
Heh.
Permalink | Comments (2)A classroom teacher gets it right
Classroom teacher John McGeough calls on the schools to stop worrying about homeschoolers and get their own house in order first.
Where have we heard that before?
Permalink | Comments (2)Pink is the new Red
Teachers can't grade papers with red ink because it's too "harsh." Now, the University of Arkansas has stopped using pink jerseys as a form of punishment because it offended breast cancer survivors. (It's a long time football tradition that team members that loaf or lose at a some practice game get to wear a pink jersey as motivation to do better next time.)
At the risk of offending cancer survivors everywhere...if I am ever a cancer survivor I hope I'll value my time on this earth enough to not waste it worrying about what color shirts kids are wearing on a football field somewhere.
Why don't we just outlaw color and become a black and white world?
Permalink | Comments (4)April 05, 2005
The Shoe Blog
I'll regret posting this when my wife reads this and two weeks from now our shoe budget goes through the roof :)
Permalink | Comments (0)Corporate Philanthropy Coming to Homeschooling
In this article, Reason magazine argues that some of the $1.1 billion in corporate philanthropy given to the public school system would be better utilized if it were directed to the homeschooling movement.
I'm not sure I agree. I don't think answering to the WalMart Foundation for Education would be any better than answering to the local school officials. I'm not interested in anybody else telling me what is best for my kids.
via Joanne Jacobs
Permalink | Comments (1)April 04, 2005
Great Quotes in Public Education
The best part of investing in the school system kids truly deserve is that the very programs we are finding it necessary to eliminate while playing the game are the ones shown to actually improve the very test scores we know don’t accurately indicate our children’s potential.-Federal Way Education Assoc Newsletter
Err, if you say so.
Permalink | Comments (1)ODonnellWeb now part of the curriculum
An instructor at Western Michigan University referenced me in his course materials explaining what a "fisking" is.
The class is PSCI 105 (Critical Thinking About Politics)
Permalink | Comments (2)I should write reviews like this
This review of hipster fave websites 43 Folders and Lifehacker is damn funny.
Permalink | Comments (0)I am Clark Griswold
You are Clark Griswold (from National Lampoon's Vacation)! You're full of optimism and boundless energy, and no one loves a good family trip more. No one else can swear a blue streak like you either, Sparky!
Which John Hughes character are you?
I'm dissapointed - I wanted to be Ferris :)
via Andrea AKA Andie Walsh - who is celebrating her birthday today.
Permalink | Comments (3)April 03, 2005
The Right To Play Sports
Another HE'er wants to have it both ways.
"I believe every child should have the opportunity to play sports," she said. "It's the American way and I don't think anyone should be penalized because they are at home with their family and they are doing suitable teaching at home.
-Fairfield parent Tracy Murray, who homeschools her 12-year-old son, and apparently believes that only government can organize a youth sports program.
The really great irony here is that her school district ALLOWS homeschoolers to play sports after a 1 year waiting period. The waiting period is to make it impossible for the super star guard on the basketball team to suddenly become a homeschooler 10 days before he is to lose sports elgibility by failing Algebra I at school.
Let's say they open it up - the system will be ripe for abuse. What will happen a few years down the road? You got it - increased regulation for legitimate homeschoolers because a few people gamed the system.
Do you think Tracy Murry will care then?
BTW - this is in PA. It's amazing how screwed up home education is in that state.
Permalink | Comments (0)Best Article on Gay Marriage Ever
I've generally been firmly in the Why should I give a damn what gays do camp. I couldn't imagine how allowing gay marriage could possibly affect my life.
The argument that gay marriage will not change the institution of marriage because you can't imagine it changing your personal reaction is pretty arrogant. It imagines, first of all, that your behavior is a guide for the behavior of everyone else in society, when in fact, as you may have noticed, all sorts of different people react to all sorts of different things in all sorts of different ways, which is why we have to have elections and stuff. And second, the unwavering belief that the only reason that marriage, always and everywhere, is a male-female institution (I exclude rare ritual behaviors), is just some sort of bizarre historical coincidence, and that you know better, needs examining. If you think you know why marriage is male-female, and why that's either outdated because of all the ways in which reproduction has lately changed, or was a bad reason to start with, then you are in a good place to advocate reform. If you think that marriage is just that way because our ancestors were all a bunch of repressed bastards with dark Freudian complexes that made them homophobic bigots, I'm a little leery of letting you muck around with it.
Megan McArdle just changed my mind. This long but very good essay is without a doubt the most logical and clear headed analysis of the issue I have read anywhere.
This is not to say that I am now a raving homophobic idiot. However, I now seriously question my belief that gay marriage can't change the institution. Whether that change would be positive or negative is the million dollar question that needs to be understood before we go off making drastic changes.
Permalink | Comments (1)TV that makes you think
I hope this show makes you think. I hope this show makes you question the moral choices that are being made in your name and by your representatives. I hope this show angers you at times and makes you outraged at the actions that good people like Kara and Laura sometimes take. But the show is not a polemic; our aim is not to screech and demagogue these issues in search of facile answers. Good people can make bad, even horrific decisions, just as bad people can make noble, even righteous ones.
This is why Battlestar Galactica is the best show on TV right now. Not because the producer of the the show blogged the above, but because they are addressing these types of questions in the first place. The Cylons just obliterated billions of humans on 12 planets. How much leeway do the remaining 47,000 get when one of them is interrogating a prisoner who may have knowledge of a nuke?
How much leeway do the Marines get when interrogating an Al Queda operative?
BG has just finished season 1, and is in reruns until sometime in July. You have time to catch up with the story.
Permalink | Comments (0)April 02, 2005
Is this suppossed to help?
I think somebody once wrote that their best stories were the ones they didn't write. Whoever wrote this disaster should have heeded that advice. It's supposed to be a pro-homeschooling piece, I think. It's even got the ubiquitous picture of mom and kids at the kitchen table.
Creel said she chose to teach her child at home, but it wasn't because she was unhappy with the public school system, either as a teacher or as a parent. This was the case with all of the parents interviewed.
This is a reoccurring theme in the story. Everybody loves the public school system, but they are homeschooling anyway. I almost get the sense the subjects are afraid to offend the local PS folks.
She plans to home-school until he is in the eighth grade, then decide if he should go to public school for high school. She said she would like to see him take some subjects offered in public school, such as an agriculture class, because she thinks he would really be interested.
I'm sure a windowless classroom is the ideal place to learn about agriculture. I have a really wild, off-the-wall idea. Why not skip the schoolhouse and spend some time on an actual farm? I'll bet he learns more that way.
The Creels are members of the St. Tammany Home Education Association, since there is not an association in Washington Parish. One of the misconceptions of home-schooled children is that they don't acquire appropriate social skills, so the HEA offers many programs for socialization.
It's a misconception, so let's create a bunch of special programs to address a problem that we just said doesn't really exist in the first place. That makes sense.
Lori Warren of Franklinton home-schools a son, 13, and a daughter, 11. She said the most important reason they decided to home-school their children was to make sure their lives were structured in their particular family standards and beliefs, as they are Christians.
Only Christians have standards and beliefs?
She uses several helps in teaching, including the 'Sonshine' curriculum, Math-U-See and others. She feels she has been very successful with her teaching and the children enjoy the subjects, particularly geography, which teaches them about the world around them, and they like being taught at home
That is an interesting use of the world help.
They do schoolwork mostly in the morning hours, when they are ready to learn, with no breaks for recess...Cowart assigns homework and she gives a report card.
How do you assign homework when you are already at home? Homework, no recess, report cards...that sounds just like public school!
Cowart said her youngest daughter will likely go to public school when she enters high school, so she will be eligible for scholarships.
Because only public school students can ever get a scholarship.
While it is true that the public may occasionally see a home-schooled child with the parent during the day at the grocery store or at the mall, according to Creel, that doesn't mean they aren't getting the proper amount of schooling.
They let the kids out in public, during school hours? These people are obviously unfit parents.
"We sometimes get stares and comments, but believe me on such occasions, he has either completed a double day of work the day prior or started extra early that morning. Even while we are traveling, he doesn't get out of schoolwork. I guarantee his books are in the vehicle and he has been studying on the way."
Homeschooling with her sounds like a real blast.
Even though I am a certified teacher, I still worry that my son might not be up to level or that I might not be doing something right, so I go overboard making sure he does all his work and that it is all up to par.
Who are these people? They seem terrified of offending the local PS establishment, and they seem very insecure about the fact they are homeschooling in the first place. Do they even realize it's legal?
All of the parents agreed that there are many distinct advantages to home schooling, but the parents who choose it have to develop a high level of commitment to the future of their children.
I would hope the parents that choose homeschooling already have a high level of commitment to their children.
That was painful. I'm in need a new category here - a Hall of Shame for particularly bad "pro-homeschooling" articles. This is the inaugural member.
Permalink | Comments (3)April 01, 2005
More on Wilderness Therapy
This Outside Magazine article from 1995 provides more background on the wilderness camp experience that Alli is documenting at 63 days.
Also, my wife used to work with troubled teens - including some that had been though these types of programs and were back in treatment again. She reports that nothing in the 63 days narrative to date strikes her as particularly unbelievable. She heard these same types of stories from the kids she worked with.
It's truly frightening that parents would do this thinking they are helping their children. I guess the desperation of losing all control over your teenager can drive you to some very irrational decisions.
Permalink | Comments (0)Lets Go Fishing
PETA wants the Boy Scouts to eliminate the Fishing Merit badge because fishing is a gateway activity to murder.
I'm not kidding.
Promoting fishing teaches young people that hooking, maiming, suffocating, and killing is acceptable.
Actually, I thought promoting fishing taught that fish taste good, particularly when pan fried camp side over an open flame.
Permalink | Comments (6)Political Bumpers hits the big time
My old neighbor gets quoted in The New York Times.
The Political Bumpers spotters, who recorded bumper stickers in favor of or against any of the candidates in the 2004 election, found that the drivers of pickup trucks and large S.U.V.'s were overwhelmingly right-leaning. But the leader of the project, Ryan MacMichael, of Leesburg, Va., said his biggest surprise was the pronounced Democratic skew of bumper stickers on economy cars (71 percent were left-leaning) and station wagons (67 percent).
I was one of the Political Bumper spotters.
Very cool. Way to go Ryan!
Permalink | Comments (3)