Public school teacher here...

Discussion in 'Home Schooling' started by malakala, Sep 28, 2008.

  1. bluesafire

    bluesafire Senior Member

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    You're welcome to your opinion of course. I disagree with you, but hey... so what, right? It doesn't change anything. :)
     
  2. Dakota's Mom

    Dakota's Mom Senior Member

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    I did feel that your posts were confrontational. "I" and I can only speak for myself, but I felt like you were trying to be the enlightened school teacher coming on our board to teach us all the error of our ways. Like I said, my son would not make it in public schools. He needs the one on one support I can give him. He does not need to spend 6 hours a day being taught by someone who may have teaching credentials and then come home so I can undue all the damage the peer pressure, the adhd drugs, the lack of respect, and the teaching to the test would do to him. He wouldnt learn anything in school or at home. This is what works for him. I'm glad you're out there to teach because many parents would be lousy at homeschooling. But dont come on here and try to convince all of us that we need to send our kids to school and then teach them at night. What with the 2, 3, 4 hours a night of homework kids have, when would we have time to teach anyway. Your point has been heard. But I am still homeschooling my child. For him its the best thing.

    Kathi
     
  3. Argiope aurantia

    Argiope aurantia Member

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    My husband is a physical science whiz among other things, And I am good at life science. Our skills balance each other well, and we have already aided in the educations of younger friends and family members. Don't make the mistake of thinking that a language student is versed in nothing else. I taught my friend's seven-year-old to "find the value of X" in an equation one morning. He thought it was a game, and ran off to show his teacher later what he had learned. As I remember, when he tried to show her, she chided him for making the other children feel bad.

    My husband taught his little cousin many things while she was growing up. They saw each other regularly, and he taught her to read. She's an avid reader now at age 13, and has taught her five-year-old brother. My husband takes them to Barnes & Nobles together evey time he visits.

    He will be teaching from his strengths: history (WWII is his specialty, but he likes it all), math, economics, English/literature, current events, physical science, architecture, political science, and home economics (cooking, cleaning, budgeting, etc.).

    I will do the same: art, history (19th century anything, but also ancient history and the later 20th century), math, English/literature, life science, home economics (repair, sewing, knitting, organizing, etc.), languages (Yes, I bloody well CAN teach them if I start from day one.), and comparative religion (mandatory).

    For some things we'll probably have to outsource. If the children desire music, we'll have to get them lessons. I will require both Martial Arts of some kind and Yoga for PE. My father is actually a licensed high school teacher of both history and Spanish. He'll probably be pulled in for history. He was my history teacher, and he's magnificent in that subject.

    And by the way, my petrie dishes in high school "biolab" were white saucers full of agar-agar and saliva from the family dog. It worked well, and my mother was amused that she was the only housewife on the block who was trying to grow bacteria on the kitchen counter. She has a B.S. in Zoology, and BTW still taught English and art quite well.
     
  4. Kinky Ramona

    Kinky Ramona Back by popular demand!

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    I don't feel anything I've said at all has been uppity. This is the internet, words are just words, so you can interpret them how you see them. My responses haven't been with the intention to belittle you but to open your mind as well as you are trying with us.

    Anyway, "Transfers" aren't exact easy when you go to the only school in town and have already been abused by the nearest school district to yours. I did transfer because of a physically and verbally abusive teacher at a school district 12 miles away, and I'd be lying to you if I said my elementary education here in town was poor, because I'd say 85% of it was great, and only 5% of it not being great was in the school district's control because I had some psychological issues that made things pretty difficult back then.

    Honestly, it was my high school education that was so botched and by the time I was in high school, my parents didn't allow me to get my license until I had almost graduated, my mother was ill, my father worked from 6 AM to 5 PM, and driving me 20 or 40 miles to the other school districts was completely out of the question. And the only private schools we had were churches. I'm sorry that your solutions and ideas just wouldn't have worked in my case and I do commend you for still trying to find solutions because one day you may be able to help your students find those same solutions if they need to. My parents moved once for me when I was 7, I couldn't expect them to do it again.
     
  5. Clockwork Purple

    Clockwork Purple Member

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  6. blackcat666

    blackcat666 Senior Member

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    schooling has nothing at all to do with education. they are not necessarily the same thing!
    one thing i notice early on, when i was in public schools was, that the people who work for public schools, would not put their own kids in them. most of them put there kids in a montessori system.
    the people who work in the public school system won't put their own kids into it... THAT SURE SAYS ONE HELL OF ALOT ABOUT "PUBLIC EDUCATION!"
     
  7. malakala

    malakala Member

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    Talk about stereotyping....I know plenty of people who I work with whose kids go to public schools. I never once bashed or stereotyped homeschooling, but rather gave my humble $.02 about what I thought might be a good, ecumenical/holistic approach for those folks out there who might be on the fence. If you choose to 100% homeschool, you have my best wishes and blessings. No foul, no harm. I have plenty of students whose families would not be able to offer them what some of you folks have to offer that I feel there's a place for all of us. But lose the self-righteous indignation please. We can all learn from each other if things are kept above the belt.
     
  8. morsan

    morsan Guest

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    We're unschoolers here so obviously I don't agree with the original poster, and won't bother too much with the approprietness of this sort of discussion on a homeschooling forum.

    I was however very curious about your proposal for parents to 'augment' their children's public school education. One of the myriad reasons we homeschool is our belief that children, esp young ones, should not be physically passive for as long as the classroom requires on a daily basis. So to add more time to an already long day of school seems almost inhumane to our poor, nature/free-play deprived children. In fact, in some tribal societies, the concept of forcing children to sit at a desk for long periods of time, is percieved as, yes torture (funny, that's pretty much how I would have described it growing up, even in the Swedish school system which is by far more humane than its American counterpart).
    Just as with other primates, human children learn most during free play. Their brains are not empty vessels (seperated from the rest of the body) into which we may simply pour lessons after lessons, and then expect it all to be retained for future use. I'm sure that most of adults would admit that REAL learning from observation and interaction, then acting it out, making mistakes and learning from it as we go, is by far the most successful of pedagogic methods. This is what happens during a child's free play. It rarely happens in a classroom.
    It's such an obvious fact that public schools are failing. You cannot, truly not, expect a child to have the natural inclination to go 'above and beyond' without proper adult guidance. It's much like expecting a child who has been raised by a pack of wolves to walk on two legs. Even if a publically schooled child is lucky enough to have involved parents (who may or may not provide additional home-based education), she will still suffer if exposed on a daily basis to the insufficient guidance of the school system. In my various homeschooling communities, I hear daily stories of how schools have failed their students. If anything, the ultimate proof is simply that they're too large to be able to accomodate the needs of all students. Children are not robots, they're born as unique individuals into the world and they do not benefit from a 'well-rounded' education, a one-size-fits-all curriculum.

    I think I recall seeing a thread on this same forum about John Taylor Gatto. It's very good reading--I highly recommend him. He has received several teacher of the year awards, and knows the school system from the inside out. He doesn't paint a pretty picture, but it's honest.
     
  9. malakala

    malakala Member

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    Thank you very much Mr./Ms. Vygotsky, ahem, Morsan. The "appropriateness" of my posting? Give me a break...how self important a way to put it. Your addition to the conversation here is very well worded and you do bring up some important points. Did I mention forcing a child to sit behind a desk as the aforementioned "augmentation?" I agree, that anyone interested in education should read Gatto. Paulo Freire is another hero of mine...do not consider for a moment that because I'm in the "system" that that means I'm not a critic of some of said system's practices. Only through constant self analysis does one find areas in which improvements must be made. Joking jabs aside, yours is, again, a very informed posting. I'm sure that your child/children will be most successful, and best of luck to them and you! Most important to me is education, whether it fall under the umbrella of home-schooling, public-schooling, etc. That's why I posted on this forum...not to condemn home schooling in ANY way.
     
  10. OlderWaterBrother

    OlderWaterBrother May you drink deeply Lifetime Supporter

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    While what you recommend is a good thing, I guess my recommendation is do what works.
    Back in the days of the dinosaur, when I was in school children were still being educated in public schools but now that's not what I hear. I know of people who have graduated High School who have never read a book or don’t know how to figure how many miles they’ve driven in a day.

    One parent that I know, who had taught their child from infancy and who, when he went to school, was already reading at almost an adult level. His first day of school was the color orange, the whole day the color orange. Needless to say when he got home he was bored and frustrated.

    I know of another child who had always gotten A’s but when she got to Junior High her grades began to fall and although she had always been outgoing she had become withdrawn and would not tell her parents what was wrong. They suggested home schooling and she said she would do better in High School. So an agreement was made that she could go to high School if she kept her grades up. Her grades continued to drop and so they pulled her and began homeschooling. It was like night and day she changed almost over night and began to explain what had happened. She was a big girl and was bigger than all the other girls and most of the boys as well. The girls would pick on her and start fights and she would defend her self and it turned out she had beaten up all the girls that had attacked her and so now the boys where starting to pick fights with her. The fights had become a daily occurrence. She hadn’t said anything because she didn’t want her parents to think her a failure for not being able to cope with school. She is now a normal healthy homeschooled child.

    And these are just a couple of examples that I know of.

    As for socializing a homeschooled child, there is nothing that says a homeschooled child can’t play with other children in the neighborhood and as has already been said; if parents who home school their children, take the time to see that their child are socialized, their children tend to be socialized with people of all ages, children and adults and not just children of their own age.
     
  11. Valdis

    Valdis Member

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    You don't have to be an expert at every subject area nor even a teacher to homeschool. If you think that, you haven't studied up on homeschooling very much. Traditional school methods are not the way, or even the best way, that all learning can be done.

    My daugther has earned a four year academic scholarship at the university of her choice. Did I know Latin and Japanese which she studied? No. Am I great at Algebra, Algebra 2 or Pre Trig. no.

    We found ways to give her what she needed regardless. Thinking that parents are standing at a black board and must have expert level teaching expertise is not absoltuely correct. After all, what would be the point of homeschooling, if we were simply going to do school at home?

    My son is working toward an athletic scholorship, which is quite a bit more difficult, but will also quality for an academic scholorship. Homeschooled kids can do everything and much more than public schooled kids, with less stress.
     

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