Actually, I don't think smart kids suffer too much from mediocre schools. I think they'll excel anyway, and they'll get happy teacher attention.
I didn't. I didn't excel after a point--and yet I didn't get teacher attention, because I was good. Every standardized test I took put me in the 99th percentile for every subject. Ever. Every one. I had the special IQ test, because the results of my standard IQ test everyone else took were so above and beyond. I got bored, lost all motivation, and sadly, was the oldest and only child, so my folks didn't know the ins and outs of the school system. I wasn't on drugs. I wasn't being abused. They just lost me at some point--this good, oh so bright kid. I wasn't the only one. I lived in a bedroom community of Boston, solidly middle class, with no huge social ills or crime issues.
I really don't believe that's an even bet.
I think a parent can make it better than even, with rigourous attention to detail -- in favour of homeschooling. I'm not saying all or most do, but that's a parental failing, not a failing of the premise.
I am with ita, here, even though I don't personally think my children and I are well served by me home schooling them. I can get everything else somewhere else. My kids can be in Scouts, sports, and other group activities. They get group socialization at church and in family situations. We live on a child safe street. We have playgrounds within walking distance. We can join the Y.
My kids are in public school because I think I'd be a stress freak if they were home, and because our particular little school is a nice little school, that a lot of dedicated teachers and parents work their butts off, to keep it a nice, little school.
I do think it's insane that we are revisting the Scopes trial here in 2005 though.
I have data entry on 150 records to do in the next hour. music is required. go go iTunes party shuffle.
I haven't seen another person in over an hour. gak.
I actually know someone who majored in biology at Bob Jones. He had to retake all his classes elsewhere before applying for graduate programs.
Gud, am I wrong that, for a while (I want to say, beginning in 1998) the Kansas State School Board dropped evolution as a required topic? It was a whole big thing being reported at the time.
First people pulled their kids out of public schools. Then they started pulling them out of school altogether.
Although I don't think that home schooling necessarily means "hermetically sealed universe", I do like to remember that in a lot of places, the racial integration of public schools was followed immediately by the placing of white children into private schools. Which always struck me as a bitter, defeated thing to do, and the kids have to have come out the other end of that with some kind of screwed-up ideas about what's normal in today's world.
When I was a kid in Milwaukee, in the midst of school integration, I was the one of the only kids on our block to go to public school. The schools were good, but they were diverse and there was a LOT of white flight going on.
Fair enough, but I think that for the informed parent, it supports homeschooling.
Does it? One of my best friends from college went to a public high school in the middle of nowhere, Tennessee, where she got funny looks from both teachers and students for admitting she believed in evolution. But her parents made sure she had access to better science materials at home than the school was providing, and she made it through Northwestern as an anthropology major with no problems at all.
I think homeschooling has enough drawbacks and too few advantages that it should be considered a last resort, if that.
I don't think smart kids suffer too much from mediocre schools. I think they'll excel anyway, and they'll get happy teacher attention.
I think that REALLY depends on the kid. And the teacher. I had some mediocre teachers, including one who told my parents how happy she was to have me in class, since she didn't have to pay any attention to me.
Yup. I'd say most of the teachers I encountered paid me very little attention, because I was able to get perfect scores on all their little worksheets and fill-in-the-blank tests without any help. There were exceptions along the way, of course. I have enduring fond memories of my band director, the math teacher I had for four years running because he taught everything above Algebra I, my junior and senior year history teachers, and my AP English teacher. You'll note that all of those came fairly late in the process, though.
I do like to remember that in a lot of places, the racial integration of public schools was followed immediately by the placing of white children into private schools. Which always struck me as a bitter, defeated thing to do, and the kids have to have come out the other end of that with some kind of screwed-up ideas about what's normal in today's world.
Aww, Nutty, White Flight is still the guiding reality of many public schools. It pretty much defines the urban schoolscape.
They dropped it for like a year. Basically, the conservatives (that means far right wing Republicans in Kansas) got in power and removed the requirement. Then the conservatives all got voted out and replaced with moderates (that means regular Republicans in Kansas) who put the requirement back in. Since then the School Board has been trended more conservative, so they will probably come out again. I don't think evolution really ever stopped being taught during all of this though.
