The Socialization Myth Used To Argue Against Home-Schooling
This reminds me of the screech about gay parenting -- the notion that two mommies can't possibly bring up a boy successfully because he will lack for male role models...as if we all live on isolated, individual islands and it is impossible for young boys to have male role models in their lives if they have lesbian mothers.
And what of children raised by widows? Nobody's screeching about widows and their children's need for father figures.
Responsible parents see that their children get what they need -- whether they get it at home or whether they bring it into their lives.
By the way, we have a lesbian mom kind of in my family by marriage. She happens to be a Log Cabin Republican, and her two boys are the kind of "upstanding young men" my father always talked about. They are decent, highly intelligent, highly informed, and straight, and lived in one of the Beverly Hills homes growing up that allowed toy guns and all the boyhood trimmings. (The lefty parents' kids used to come over to their house to play with the guns they couldn't get at home. Their mom laughed to me about the time one of these kids came to the door to meet his mom "shooting" some plastic machine gun.)
I suspect the screeching about home-schooled kids is largely by people who don't know any home-schooled kids (along with those with an agenda -- more on that below).
For the record, I only know three kids who are, but I also have a friend who home-schools a group of kids of wealthy parents. She used to work at the LA top-notch private school Crossroads, and is one of the most highly intelligent people I know, and has a truly exciting mind along with knowledge of how to educate and motivate even the toughest cases.
At The Freeman, B.K. Marcus writes about the ridiculous socialization myth people use to argue against home schooling:
The contention that kids kept out of large group schools will somehow suffer in their social development never made any sense to begin with. (In fact, large group schools may hurt social development.) Did no one enjoy any social skills before the era of mass education?Decades of research now support the common-sense conclusion: the artificially hierarchical and age-segregated structure of modern schooling produces a warped form of socialization with unhealthy attitudes toward both authority and peers.
The students who escape this fate are those with strong parental and other adult role models and active engagement with a diverse community outside school. Homeschooling holds no monopoly on engaged parents or robust communities, but those advantages are an almost automatic part of home education.
In 1993, J. Gary Knowles, then a professor of education at the University of Michigan, surveyed 53 adults who had been taught at home by their parents. He found that nearly two-thirds were self-employed. That's more than twice the global average and about 10 times the current national average. "That so many of those surveyed were self-employed," said Knowles, "supports the contention that home schooling tends to enhance a person's self-reliance and independence."
That independence may be the real source of critics' concerns.
He thinks the concern is about creating cogs, but I think it's about a number of things: Support for teachers' unions, support for the status quo, fear of and distaste for religious people, and not wanting to admit that the public schools one put one's children through often pretty much suck compared to home-schooling.
I was a "gifted kid," and I was wildly bored in school and did little -- ever -- in it. However, I was a voracious reader and was always learning on my own.
There's little that would have helped me achieve educationally like being pulled out of public school and taught at home -- especially by my mother, who was the valedictorian of the top Detroit high school, Phi Beta Kappa and a Hopwood awardee at University of Michigan, taught at a top high school before she got married and is a truly exciting thinker.
Instead, my mother (who found motherhood wildly boring in a way she probably woudln't have if she were educating us) went to my second grade teacher, Mrs. Ramsey, and told her that when I say I've read a chapter in class, I've read a chapter, even though the other kids still needed the rest of the hour to get through it.
.
"And what of children raised by widows? Nobody's screeching about widows and their children's need for father figures"
Yea, they are, and they have been for the last several hundred years. Ever heard of Big Brothers? Boys Town? Perhaps?
Social dysfunction is a matter of percentages. You can have a small percentage of people raised in terrible circumstances, and society can generally take care of that.
When social dysfunction becomes the norm, a lot of young men, especially young black men, end up in prison, or dead.
Let's not confuse the middle class widow with a large insurance settlement and a supportive extended family, with the reality of Sectiona 8 housing filled with young men, who don't even know who their father is.
Isab at February 28, 2016 8:30 AM
I do find homeschooling scary. With the right parent, it would be great. That parent would be bright, energetic, motivated, organized, and well-balanced. It's the people that aren't those things that frighten me.
My mother would have been terrible. She is incredibly intelligent but she was impatient, disorganized, and violent. My sister wanted to homeschool. Thank goodness that she did not. She too was disorganized but her biggest flaw was that she had no balance in her life. She was extremely low energy and overprotective. Her daughter was expected to be a little obedient doll. When she was 3, my sister screamed at me for letting her step up on a curb on her own; she scuffed her shoe. We stepped on the grass and the poor girl started screaming. She had never stepped on grass before.
School was my refuge. It was where I could relax. I couldn't imagine staying home with one of "those" moms. At least if you have a bad teacher, you will get a new one the next year in most cases.
Jen at February 28, 2016 8:48 AM
...So children totally don't need Moms.
Right? S'Whatcher sayin'?
Oh, golly, it's all so complicated! It can be very difficult to get a read on how you feel about this!....
Especially when you're too scared for anything but circumlocution.
Crid at February 28, 2016 9:46 AM
"I do find homeschooling scary. With the right parent, it would be great. That parent would be bright, energetic, motivated, organized, and well-balanced. It's the people that aren't those things that frighten me."
Take your statement here, and plug in *public school teacher who had a bottom third SAT score* and you will know why I find the public schools a lot more scary than homeschooling.
Isab at February 28, 2016 9:46 AM
You can't even just say fathers. It has to be "father figures."
Summayer most rabid men's-rights goofballs would see that as a transparent expression of your (entirely contemporary) hatred of masculinity itself... You can't even say the word without tying it up in piano wire.
But I think your pussyfooting language is merely the important dynamic of a self-generated role model by correlation, one which methinks is a solid binary solution presenting a parsed absolute of assigned values.
...Just like Thursday.
Seriousballs.... How do the the future will regard all your darling little elisions? When you read the newspapers or casual letters of the man on the street a couple hundred years ago, what do you think of them? Will the judgement of your rhetoric be any more forgiving?
"Father figures."
Greaaaaaaaaat.
Crid at February 28, 2016 10:26 AM
Crid, dude, if anybody's being binary around here, it's Crid-dude.
Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at February 28, 2016 10:29 AM
I'm tutoring students and my god, the public high schools are crap.
I'm not saying home schooling is for everyone, but the home schoolers I personally know are liberal Jews, are not home schooling for religious reasons, and all graduated from liberal arts colleges in the 80s and 90s. (IE, not the tea partying, climate denying, vax refusing, gay bashing, gun shooting, wife beating, high school flunking, evolution opposing, welfare taking, Christian Conservatives I was told to expect.)
Our High Schools are in terrible shape. I honestly can't say it's due to Common Core, I think get past Common Core, and our High Schools are STILL in terrible shape. Our High Schools are in terrible shape.
jerry at February 28, 2016 10:33 AM
Sorry for the busted link... Here's Thursday for those who didn't come to class.
"All the undergrad cool kids know that socialization is just a myth...."
Crid at February 28, 2016 10:34 AM
"The children who know how to think for themselves, spoil the harmony of the collective society that is coming, where everyone (would be) interdependent." -- John Dewey, 1899
"Independent self-reliant people (would be) a counterproductive anachronism in the collective society of the future [...] (where) people will be defined by their associations." -- John Dewey, 1896, educational philosopher, proponent of modern public schools.
"Among the elementary measures the American Soviet government will adopt to further the Cultural Revolution are... [a] National Department of Education...the studies will be revolutionized, being cleansed of religious, patriotic, and other features of the bourgeois ideology. The students will be taught the basis of Marxian dialectical materialism, internationalism and the general ethics of the new Socialist society." William Z. Foster---Toward Soviet America, 1932
"Every child in America entering school at the age of five is mentally ill because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, toward our elected officials, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, and toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It is up to you as teachers to make all of these sick children well -- by creating the international child of the future."-- Dr. Chester M. Pierce, Professor of Education at Harvard, addressing the Association for Childhood Education International in April,1972
"The very magnitude of the power over men's minds that a highly centralized and government dominated system of education places in the hands of authorities ought to make one hesitate before accepting it too readily. ...the more highly one rates the power that education can have over men's minds, the more convinced one should be of the danger of placing this power in the hands of any single authority." -- F. A. Hayek ("The Constitution of Liberty", 1960)
The American public educational system is modeled on the Prussian and it's purpose was never to educate (provide the tools to gather information and make rational decisions for ones self) but rather to imbue the children with Nationalistic ideology and provide them with the skills necessary to work in a factory and serve in the military, Germany outlaws homeschooling to this very day. All over the world the same model has been adopted and the "Socialization" ideal is all about the Socialism.
warhawke223 at February 28, 2016 10:38 AM
A male role model is not the same thing as a father and can not make up for the lack of a father in a young man.
It is pure silliness that gay parents are seen on par with heterosexual ones. Just like I think it's pure silliness when people think the fact their biological parents didn't raise them doesn't leave a gigantic hole in their souls.
I'm a little tired of that saccharine narrative that gay parents are just wonderful. I suspect most shouldn't be having children just like most heterosexuals.
It's very alarming to me that the influence of a persons gender on a persons life is seen as insignificant.
I'm not opposed to gay parents (unlike Crid) but I do view them as a bit self indulgent especially when they use expensive means to create a child.
Ppen at February 28, 2016 10:56 AM
Conan the Grammarian at February 28, 2016 11:33 AM
Damned lack of ability to edit. And preview showed it normal.
That should have been:
The dysfunction percentage is getting beyond society's capacity to absorb it. The social dysfunction has reached a point at which it is reinforcing itself now.
That widow is likely living in a neighborhood with fathers. And the children around her son(s) have fathers at home. So, the behavior patterns picked up in fatherless households are not reinforced by the children's friends.
Chris Rock used to joke about his father being the only father in the neighborhood. He says he picked up a work ethic from his father. What did the other kids pick up from theirs?
Conan the Grammarian at February 28, 2016 11:35 AM
Has there been any comparison of the need for remedial courses between home schooled and those in public education schools?
Although it seems that remedial courses are harmful to students (shame the Teacher's Union prefers passing students on rather than teaching the three 'R's).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/06/10/are-remedial-courses-actually-hurting-community-college-students/
Bob in Texas at February 28, 2016 3:31 PM
"Take your statement here, and plug in *public school teacher who had a bottom third SAT score* and you will know why I find the public schools a lot more scary than homeschooling."
I'm more scared of the teacher in the top 5%. Smart enough to fool themselves and others into the dumbest of ideas. These are the people claiming there are no difference between men and women. Something one week in the classroom should clearly disprove.
Jerry, your list is a bit odd. Many of those things don't go together. Vax refusing and welfare taking are far left. Tea partying doesn't go with Christian conservative, gay bashing, or even evolution opposing. You need to get out of the echo chamber my man.
Ben at February 28, 2016 5:44 PM
"Ok kids, now let's see if we can count how many dinosaurs Jesus rode! This will be on the final. That and the penalties for wearing poly-cotton clothing and eating shrimp."
Yeah, there are a few arguments against unrestricted homeschooling.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 28, 2016 6:29 PM
"Ok kids, now let's see if we can count how many dinosaurs Jesus rode! This will be on the final. That and the penalties for wearing poly-cotton clothing and eating shrimp."
Yeah, there are a few arguments against unrestricted homeschooling.
Posted by: Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 28, 2016 6:29 PM
No difference between that, and being forced to join the *Church of Global Warming* brought to you, and enforced by your local teachers union.
Sooner or later smart kids mostly figure out how to make their way in the world.
For the dumb ones, home schooling probably damages them less than the local public schools, and certainly no more.
Isab at February 28, 2016 7:59 PM
So, I homeschool my two children (and another child). Let's clear a few things up. It does not require an advanced degree or even a ton of organization.
What it requires is a willingness to get one-on-one (or one-on-two or three) with the kids and figure out what they need. Then either provide it (rides to library) or help them learn how to get it (you want to learn to draw Spiderman? How can we do that?). Obviously, needs change with age, but that's the gist.
About half the time I find that my attempts to "teach" (sage on stage) are slowing them down.
I'm sure that's not true of all kids, but kids who haven't be trained to think learning is boring are usually pretty easy to deal with.
Shannon at February 28, 2016 8:58 PM
Isab Says:
"No difference between that, and being forced to join the *Church of Global Warming* brought to you, and enforced by your local teachers union."
Here you go again on your kick regarding global warming.
This is a topic you have demonstrated time and time again that you have an extremely limited understanding of the relevant details.
If you recall, you once argued that trees produce more CO2 than O2 during a conversation about global warming.
This demonstrates a level of ignorance that should preclude you from being taken seriously on this topic.
As an analogy it would be like taking medical advice from someone who claims that the primary function of blood is to expel oxygen from the body and provide CO2 for respiration to the cells.
Your demonstrated understanding of climate science is 100% opposite to well understood and characterized scientific observations.
As a result your argument here only served to weaken the case for home schooling, it doesn't strengthen it when there are people out there who would happily teach their children that trees on average consume more oxygen than they produce.
Artemis at February 28, 2016 9:16 PM
And what of children raised by widows? Nobody's screeching about widows and their children's need for father figures.
To the extent this is true (and it may not be, see the top post), it's probably because widowhood is not, in most cases, a choice.
Rex Little at February 28, 2016 9:17 PM
Just to be clear on my position. I do not have anything against home-schooling in principle... just like in principle I don't have anything against representing yourself in a criminal trial without a defense attorney.
That being said, in general both are going to be bad ideas for the average person.
Exceptionally well educated parents will have the necessary depth and scope to properly prepare a child across a wide variety of subjects.
Most parents do not fall into this category and unfortunately just about everyone believes themselves to be worldly and well educated regardless of their actual level of comprehension.
At the end of the day there is nothing to stop a dedicated parent who has interest in home schooling from supplementing the educational experience of their child as much as they like while said child obtains the specialized education provided by a public or private school.
Artemis at February 28, 2016 9:49 PM
Just ignore him. He disappears for months on end, comes back, repeatedly melts down over stupid shit, then disappears again.
Patrick at February 28, 2016 11:58 PM
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers: "'Ok kids, now let's see if we can count how many dinosaurs Jesus rode! This will be on the final. That and the penalties for wearing poly-cotton clothing and eating shrimp.'" - Yeah, there are a few arguments against unrestricted homeschooling."
Where are you hearing that nonsense? I've never met any homeschooled person who said or believed anything like that. I admit my experience is limited: I've only been personally acquainted with several hundred homeschooled people over the past 35 years, including my children and grandchildren. The only time I've ever heard that or the many similar "arguments against unrestricted homeschooling" is when the were spewing from the mouths of bigoted, self righteous snobs slandering homeschooling. Their ignorance and envy is bad enough; their lack of integrity is worse.
Ken R at February 29, 2016 12:37 AM
Ken Says:
"The only time I've ever heard that or the many similar "arguments against unrestricted homeschooling" is when the were spewing from the mouths of bigoted, self righteous snobs slandering homeschooling."
Can we please dispel your notion that any criticism of home schooling is primarily driven by bigotry and self righteousness as opposed to legitimate examples that make the notion of homeschooling potentially problematic from an educational perspective?
Let's take Michelle Duggar as an example here. She is a mother of 19 who homeschooled her children. Unfortunately she also functions under the misguided believe that you can determine whether or not overpopulation is an issue based upon the amount of physical space the global population takes up if you were to pack them next to one another shoulder to shoulder:
http://www.inquisitr.com/213038/duggars-dont-believe-overpopulation-is-a-problem-obviously/
“Well, first off, the idea of overpopulation is not accurate because, really, the entire population of the world, if they were stood shoulder to shoulder, could fit in the city limits of Jacksonville. So if you realize that aspect of it, we realize we’re not anywhere near being overpopulated.”
This line of reasoning if astoundingly stupid. You do not determine overpopulation based upon the physical space human beings take up... you base it upon the concept of carrying capacity.
Each living human being requires a certain quantity of arable land and fresh water to survive. These resources are not unlimited and it is items such as this that limit our sustainable population size... NOT the amount of physical space all human beings take up if you pack them together like sardines.
This individual homeschooled her children and passed on completely irrational poorly reasoned arguments such as this as examples of how to think through a problem.
I find that concerning as if she doesn't have the ability to formulate a proper argument, what hope to any of her children have if she was the source of all of their education?
She is simply a high profile example of what concerns me about homeschooling.
While I am quite certain homeschooling can and does work well for many families, I do have worries that some children get exposed to poorly reasoned arguments day in and day out by people who have an extremely limited and inadequate understanding of how to determine truth from fiction.
In this case for example, her argument might *seem* compelling and reasonable to an uneducated child who doesn't know any better despite the fact that her reasoning is fatally flawed.
Artemis at February 29, 2016 1:16 AM
Shannon: "So, I homeschool my two children (and another child). Let's clear a few things up. It does not require an advanced degree or even a ton of organization... What it requires is a willingness to get one-on-one (or one-on-two or three) with the kids and figure out what they need... About half the time I find that my attempts to 'teach' (sage on stage) are slowing them down."
Now there is someone who knows what she's talking about.
I've learned from being involved in homeschooling that children want to learn. They hunger for knowledge and skills, and have an innate drive to acquire them. It takes a huge, highly organized, well funded bureaucracy run by zealous, highly educated, well paid professionals to extinguish that drive and destroy a child's desire to learn.
One thing homeschooling parents seem to instinctively understand is that children have an innate ability and desire to learn from their own parents. For at least the last 2.5 million years of human evolution children being raised, trained, educated and socialized by their own parents was the way they learned to survive. Parents who were able to teach their own children well, and children who were most able to learn from their own parents were the most likely to survive, thrive, prosper and procreate. Their offspring had a definite selective, evolutionary advantage over those who couldn't "home school" well. Two and a half million years, a hundred thousand generations... Certainly by now those qualities are innate in human nature. For anyone who fancies himself educated and informed this should be a no-brainer; just common sense. There's no way the huge, government-run bureaucracies that have existed for the last 0.009% of that 2.5 million years, as powerful and oppressive as they are, have been able to extinguish those natural abilities. Submitting one's own children to such oppressive, authoritarian institutions seems so... pathological to me; so contrary to nature.
And socialization? At approximately age five the child of today's "enlightened" parents is institutionalized for six to eight hours a day, five days a week for the next 13 years in some small, regimented, oppressive, authoritarian, fenced-in government compound, euphemistically referred to as a "school"... where children are segregated by age, processed in batches, marched in lines, directed by commands and whistles, their programs and activities throughout the day delineated by buzzers and bells... where they're required to obey the designated authoritarians - rewarded if they do, punished and humiliated if they don't... expected to learn the same things at the same time in the same place at the same pace in the same way as every other child who just happened to be born in the same year. What on earth are those children being socialized for? Prison? Slave labor? It's like intentional self harm... like proactively seeking incompetence. Believing that such a process prepares children for the real world is delusional.
When my kids were growing up we never sent them to "school". They were educated and socialized in the real world, outside the fence, where real life takes place. That's why they and all the other homeschooled adults I know are so well educated, and able to function and prosper so easily and competently and naturally in the real world. They grew up in it.
Ken R at February 29, 2016 3:16 AM
"Your demonstrated understanding of climate science is 100% opposite to well understood and characterized scientific observations." via Artemis
Artemis, You've just stated the exact problem w/climate science today - "Scientific observations".
If 'deniers' are blocked from the discussion then why is there a need for the obvious (observe, review, modify).
After all, it's 'obvious' nothing needs to be changed the theory is 'correct' so any aberrations are insignificant.
After all, polar bears ...
"... The International Union for the Conservation of
Nature estimated in 1966 that there were 10,000 polar bears in the world; in 2006, the
same source estimated that the population had risen to 20,000-25,000 bears."
"... the text on the PBSG’s website he would have found that all but one of
the eight sub-population declines he cited were in fact based on ‘beliefs’ or future projections ..."
http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2013/03/Crockford-Polar-Bears-3.pdf
Bob in Texas at February 29, 2016 4:50 AM
"Can we please dispel your notion that any criticism of home schooling is primarily driven by bigotry and self righteousness as opposed to legitimate examples that make the notion of homeschooling potentially problematic from an educational perspective?"
Wow. So you presented 19 examples out of a population of 1.77 million. Gee, no wonder people are calling your position bigoted and self righteous. Sorry Arty, learn some statistic and math and some day you too can understand science and what statistically insignificant sample size means.
"I do have worries that some children get exposed to poorly reasoned arguments day in and day out by people who have an extremely limited and inadequate understanding of how to determine truth from fiction."
Yeah, it's called public schools. Happens to 10s of millions of kids every weekday.
Ben at February 29, 2016 5:47 AM
Artemis, Your arguments from authority are not scientific, and prove nothing.
My point has always been, even if the earth is warming, the "scientific onservations* don't demonstrate what is causing it or whether human industrial activity is the driver.
The theories, and predictions of CO2 being the primary driver have pretty much been blown out of the water when the expected level of warming has failed to materialize.
To do *science* You need both a theory, and then evidence to support that theory.
If you were anything but a rote educated demagogue, you would understand that.
Your head is filled with all sorts of *facts* none of which seem to have gotten there through reasoning.
Much like the public school teachers you so admire.
Isab at February 29, 2016 7:29 AM
I would certainly love to know why at least some (secular?) parents choose to "homeschool" without teaching their kids much of anything. How does that give them any sense of discipline or a work ethic?
And I admit that this family has its merits (from 2000). But I can't seem to find any updates on the oldest daughter, though there are plenty on some of the other children.
http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000227mag-christian.html
A Mighty Fortress
"Abandoning the fight for a Christian America, fundamentalists are retreating into their own homes. But it's hard creating a world apart when the secular world keeps knocking." By MARGARET TALBOT
Here's what I said elsewhere about it:
I'm not at all religious, but much of it is captivating in the same way that stories of Amish families often are. (Though some parts - such as Peter's history textbook - strike me as creepy.)
(end)
Not to mention this:
"Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and most other religious-right leaders don't impress Steve (the father) much -- they 'are mostly political creatures,' he says. The one candidate he admires is the firebrand Alan Keyes, who doesn't stand a chance of getting the Republican nomination."
lenona at February 29, 2016 8:47 AM
You assume an exceptionally well-educated teaching staff at these public or private schools. That is not the case.
A study a few years back found that education majors were the least likely of all majors to read a book outside of class or one that was not in the class curriculum.
In addition, CBS News reported in 2011 that the least rigorous college major was education and that the coursework was rife with easy As.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/heres-the-nations-easiest-college-major/
"Research over the years has indicated that education majors, who enter college with the lowest average SAT scores, leave with the highest grades. Some of academic evidence documenting easy A's for future teachers goes back more than 50 years!"
So, before you decry the average parent's ability to match "the specialized education provided by a public or private school," you should consider whether that "specialized education" should really be held up as the gold standard.
The lack of rigor in for education majors translates into low standards in evaluating teachers:
"Low grading standards in education departments may contribute to the culture of low evaluation standards in education more generally. Although the existence of such a link is merely speculative at this point, there is a striking similarity between the favorable grades awarded to prospective teachers during university training and the favorable evaluations that teachers receive in K-12 schools."
In one public school system, 90% of the teachers were recently rated highly competent or outstanding.
______________________________
Pot, have ya met kettle?
Conan the Grammarian at February 29, 2016 9:03 AM
> I'm not opposed to gay parents
> (unlike Crid)
Whoa-- Slow down, Speedway Sister...
I'm not opposed to gay parents.
(It's weird how everyone has to personalize this... 'That nasty man on the blog is out there being "opposed to" people! Individually! Because he's a real meany! He's probably for global warming and hitting puppies with sticks, too! He's *mean*!')
What I'm opposed to is the presumption that what's best for children is anything besides a loving mother with a loving father.
I wouldn't bother being "opposed" to gay parents, any more than I'd be opposed to flying elephants... Because there ain't any such thing. If gays are raising a child, it's because either Mom or Dad dropped out of the picture, or because Mom or Dad was willfully excluded from the child's life. Conjuring a scenario for such an event without pain or irresponsibility at its core is essentially impossible.
A few others in this forum understand this intuitively. Isab may stand alone in her conversational clarity with this truth... She's the only one who's been comfortable saying it out loud. (Apologies if I've missed others.) I don't know the size of our contingent.
But I know that our 'opposition' is eager to casually gamble with the souls of children in order to pretend to be friendly to gay people.
Crid at February 29, 2016 9:11 AM
Jacksonville, Florida
or
Jacksonville, North Carolina
or
Jacksonville, Texas
or
Jacksonville, Alabama
or
Jacksonville, Arkansas
or
Jacksonville, Illinois
or
Jacksonville, Georgia
or
Jacksonville, Missouri
or
Jacksonville, Oregon
or
Jacksonville, Ohio
or
Jacksonville, Tennessee?
Conan the Grammarian at February 29, 2016 9:12 AM
Shit Fuck, I am *brilliant* at blog comments! Another great one!
Let's see how long it takes someone to gloss right over the "what's best" part. Idiots and illiterates like to read that as 'nothing else could *ever* work at at all, like ever ever evvvvaaaaarr.' But whether they gloss or whether they don't, they won't risk naming the children who deserve less than what's best.
...For good reason.
Check back later and see!
Crid at February 29, 2016 9:16 AM
Artemis,
You are wrong. Many homeschoolers only do so for a few years. Depth and breadth are not at all required for elementary school. The main things learned in elementary in the US are:
reading
writing (capital letters, end marks, spelling)
addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals
animal/plant life-cycles
13 colonies
how to sing in a group
color wheel
Now, when you get to older kids, that's another story, but that is often when parents start hiring tutors, doing online or co-op classes, etc.
In our home, we do the above (age appropriately), higher math, sewing (by request), food handling, manners, animal care, basic home maintenance, and whatever else topical comes up (cat got a UTI and we discussed the urinary system).
It just takes CARING to teach and finding teaching moments. Or taking 2 minutes to buy some sort of curriculum if you can't do that.
Shannon at February 29, 2016 9:59 AM
A poster at my son's public school read in part,
"Treat fellow artist's work with respect."
Drove me batty all the grammar mistakes going on. Not that I'm perfect, but if you're laminating it and hanging it up in an elementary school, maybe check it?
Shannon at February 29, 2016 10:01 AM
"Here you go again on your kick regarding global warming."
The most reliable and available data, which is infrared satellite data, shows that global warming is not occurring and hasn't since about 1998. (In fact, some claim that it shows a current cooling trend, although I'm not convinced.) Further, correlating that data to solar data indicates that at least since 1980, there is a pretty strong correlation between solar activity and Earth atmospheric temperatures.
"Each living human being requires a certain quantity of arable land and fresh water to survive. These resources are not unlimited and it is items such as this that limit our sustainable population size."
Allow me to introduce you to Norman Borlaug. Remember, Paul Erlich predicted, confidently, that collapse of the Earth's ecosystem and the deaths of most of the human population would occur by 1980. (Which was also when the world was supposed to run out of oil, according to the UN.)
Cousin Dave at February 29, 2016 10:15 AM
** No difference between that, and being forced to join the *Church of Global Warming* brought to you, and enforced by your local teachers union. **
Let's just let that lay there on the sidewalk until it hardens and dries.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 29, 2016 12:49 PM
"Where are you hearing that nonsense? "
HSLDA
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 29, 2016 1:00 PM
Never mind. I read Aretmis/Orion's link and it turns out that Mrs. Duggar thinks the world's population could fit into Jacksonville, Florida. I thought Artemis/Orion was making that claim. Leave it to Orion to pick the stupidest person possible to use as an example to make a counterargument.
Perhaps the world can fit into Duval County, standing shoulder to shoulder, but I doubt it. It would require something like 900 square miles to fit 7 billion people and Jacksonville only has something like 750 square miles of land. The rest is water.
Still, Duggar's right (words I thought I'd never type) to be skeptical of claims of imminent overpopulation disaster. The Malthusians have been claiming for centuries that we'd run out of food, land, or other resources soon. However, they never factor in the effects of more efficient use of existing resources.
Conan the Grammarian at February 29, 2016 5:24 PM
Cousin Dave, Isab et al:
Phil Plait has a question for you. If it's a hoax...
Note the wide variety of data sources; please check the links.
Federal government suppression of American prosperity is not the answer here (it is the major objection anyone seems to have about the issue), but that is a subsequent issue. In addition to the links, I find it interesting to dig for awhile about the "value added" to the essentially elementary observation that when you set fire to something, the fire is the hot part, as well as to find out who is funded by whom.
Vested interests, anyone?
Radwaste at February 29, 2016 10:26 PM
Crid: I'm not opposed to gay parents.
Ugh. Whiny bitch alert. Let me save you the trouble, Crid.
For the benefit of those who haven't been subjected to Crid's gay parenting argument (and he has only one), this is how it plays out. Ad nauseum.
Trust me on this. Crid and I have both been on this blog since the very inception. He does not change his argument.
Amy will post something, not necessarily about gay parenting (this thread, for instance), but if there's even the remotest tie to parents who might not be the ideal mother-father arrangement that Crid seems to think is indispensible otherwise the hapless child is doomed, doomed, doomed to life of cringing mediocrity, Crid will lash out in his inimitable how-dare-you-istics.
Crid is anything but efficient when it comes to expressing his opinions, even when he's already given them many, many times in the past, but (as seen in his first response to this thread) his opening salvo condenses to something like this:
You're saying a mother's love means nothing! How dare you!
Of course, you could point out that children raised by gay parents are just as successful in both their professional and personal lives as their heterosexually-raised counterparts (backed by the abundant evidence, of course).
Or for some real fun from Ms. Meltdown, you could always try turning his own demagogue tactics on him. Try this: "So, you think children raised by same-sex couples, despite being just as functional as adults as their heterosexually-raised counterparts are somehow defective or just not as good? How dare you!"
That's when you get Crid's next salvo, dripping with contrived indignation, and couched in his characteristically long-winded and excessively flowery talk. I'll give the Reader's Digest version:
We aren't judging the innocent children! How dare you!
Now being a sensible person, unlike Crid, you would logically point out that since we're talking about parents, the only reliable yardstick we have to measure their effectiveness is the success of the children.
That would be a very sound argument, but Crid has never been one to let mere facts stand in his way. With his accusing finger mere centimeters from your eyeball, Crid will insist that you just know that the traditional father-mother parent arrangement is the best one. The only one. Argue all you like for the effectiveness and success of gay parenting, but deep down, you just know.
Basically it's a lot of shrieking and indignant histrionics that devolves into bleating ninnyism.
There you go, Crid. I just ran through your entire argument for you.
Feel free to spare us this time.
Oh, and by the way: I wouldn't bother being "opposed" to gay parents, any more than I'd be opposed to flying elephants... Because there ain't any such thing.
Oh, okay. So when gays adopt, they aren't real parents? Let that be your calling card: "Adoptive parents aren't real parents."
I'm dying to see the reception you get.
Or if, say, one partner in a lesbian couple decides to artificially inseminate, by all means, feel free to tell her she's not a real mother, even as she clutches her newborn to her.
Do share the results of this experiment with us.
Patrick at February 29, 2016 10:29 PM
Patrick, I think you're a 9yo boy, so I didn't read it, and trust others will speak up if there's a point to be addressed. Good luck out there.
Crid at March 1, 2016 6:24 AM
That's okay, Crid. For years I've suspected your a self-hating closeted gay. God knows you write like one.
Patrick at March 1, 2016 7:47 AM
No, Crid writes better than anyone here and a great number of published authors. Yes, he's better than you at that skill, don't pout.
And that perpetually cheery self-confidence ("Chicks dig me!") might be grating, but it's not more of an indication of anything closeted than commenting here in the first place.
You're mad. That means he won this time, and not just because of the clarification a few posts ago, something I asked for years ago.
Radwaste at March 1, 2016 8:57 AM
Radwaste: No, Crid writes better than anyone here and a great number of published authors. Yes, he's better than you at that skill, don't pout.
You're entitled to your opinion on Crid's writing. I personally find his style tiresome, long-winded, and excessively flowery. He cannot say in forty words what most people can say in four. It's like a perfumed Shakespeare.
Radwaste: You're mad.
Who are you trying to convince? Or is this projection?
Patrick at March 1, 2016 10:53 AM
Naw, precisely the same arguments I've been making here for twelve years... People just never want to read them. They've decided what others think long ago, and aren't interested in actual data. Patrick is not kidding... His thinking about other people is precisely as he describes it.
Crid at March 1, 2016 10:56 AM
Gee, Crid. I thought you didn't read my post? Oh, wait. No, I didn't think that. You said so, but you could no more avoid reading my posts than you could avoid breathing.
We've been doing this since the inception of this blog, Crid. Please cut me some slack.
Patrick at March 1, 2016 4:55 PM
That was for Raddy. He read it and understood.
Crid at March 2, 2016 2:59 PM
Bob in Texas Says:
"Artemis, You've just stated the exact problem w/climate science today - "Scientific observations".
If 'deniers' are blocked from the discussion then why is there a need for the obvious (observe, review, modify)."
I am not exactly sure what you are getting here Bob.
Do you mean that 'deniers' usually don't end up publishing scientific reports in reputable scientific journals?
If so that should indicate to you that they have been unable to provide publication quality research on the subject... NOT that they have been "blocked" from participation.
The reason 'deniers' tend to have a difficult time getting published is for the same reason homeopaths tend to have difficulty getting published in reputable medical journals... because their claims do not stand up to scrutiny.
Artemis at March 5, 2016 5:16 PM
Isab Says:
"Artemis, Your arguments from authority are not scientific, and prove nothing."
Actually I am not.
What I am arguing Isab is that you have demonstrated a level of ignorance on this specific subject that should result in you holding your opinion at bay one way or the other.
Since you have a serious misunderstanding of the relevant science you shouldn't have a strong opinion at all.
That is my argument, which isn't an argument from authority.
I am not telling you that you are wrong because the authorities say so.
I am saying that when you do not understand something at even the most elementary level, you shouldn't be pontificating on the subject.
For example, you make the following claim:
"The theories, and predictions of CO2 being the primary driver have pretty much been blown out of the water when the expected level of warming has failed to materialize."
That is a pretty strong statement to make without providing one shred of supporting evidence.
This is no different than an anti-vaccination zealot just stating that the "theories, and predictions of vaccination being protective against disease have pretty much been blown out of the water".
These words are easy to say... but neither of them has any credible scientific support.
If you can support your claim please link to a primary source of scientific literature I can look at.
Note that I say a PRIMARY SOURCE... linking to some crackpot website isn't evidence for anything.
Artemis at March 5, 2016 5:25 PM
Conan the Grammarian Says:
"You assume an exceptionally well-educated teaching staff at these public or private schools. That is not the case."
I assume no such thing.
Here are my basic assumptions:
1 - There are some people who are very poorly educated
2 - If someone is taught by a poorly educated individual for a substantial period of time their own level of education will suffer significantly
Just using those two assumptions we can conclude that that children will be in danger of ending up severely uneducated in one of the following two scenarios:
1 - They are home schooled for a substantial period of time by a poorly educated parent
2 - They are taught by a series of poorly educated professional teachers one after the other without a single decent teacher at any point along that path
The odds of scenario 2 happening are extraordinarily low.
The odds of scenario 1 happening are much higher because you don't have compounding odds.
Just like the odds of flipping a coin once and getting heads is far more likely than flipping a coin 10 times in a row and heading heads every time.
" ...unfortunately just about everyone believes themselves to be worldly and well educated regardless of their actual level of comprehension. ~ Posted by: Artemis at February 28, 2016 9:49 PM
Pot, have ya met kettle?"
Conan... you are an idiot.
The only way that statement would make me a hypocrite is if I was suggesting that I would be qualified to home school my children but all those other morons out there are too stupid to do it.
Just to be clear, I have no desire to place all of the educational eggs in one basket so far as it comes to my children's education.
Apparently the fact that I don't believe I am qualified to home school my children just like I don't believe most people are somehow puts me into the hypocrite book so far as you are concerned.
As best as I can tell, you wouldn't understand a well reasoned or logically consistent argument if one ran up and bit you on the ass.
Artemis at March 5, 2016 5:39 PM
Shannon Says:
"You are wrong. Many homeschoolers only do so for a few years. Depth and breadth are not at all required for elementary school. The main things learned in elementary in the US are:
reading
writing (capital letters, end marks, spelling)
addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals
animal/plant life-cycles
13 colonies
how to sing in a group
color wheel
Now, when you get to older kids, that's another story, but that is often when parents start hiring tutors, doing online or co-op classes, etc."
Just to be clear Shannon, elementary education in the United States ends when children are age 12.
If all your child knows at age 12 are the things you have listed they are already woefully behind.
Children by age 12 should have been exposed to algebra and be comfortable with symbolic manipulation.
You are highlighting an education suitable for the 19th century.
I mean... you honestly put "colors" and "group singing" on your list but there is no mention of things like computer literacy?
You seriously think a 12 year old has had a complete education for the 21st century without even mentioning anything with relation to computers?
You have only enhanced my concerns and done little to dissuade them.
Artemis at March 5, 2016 5:52 PM
Conan the Grammarian Says:
"Never mind. I read Aretmis/Orion's link and it turns out that Mrs. Duggar thinks the world's population could fit into Jacksonville, Florida. I thought Artemis/Orion was making that claim. Leave it to Orion to pick the stupidest person possible to use as an example to make a counterargument."
You know Conan, you never cease to amaze me at your utter lack of reading comprehension and the urgency with which you try to jump to attack me for being wrong about something when you haven't even taken the time to understand what has been said.
So just to put things on the table here... when you thought *I* was putting forth this argument you believed it was utterly stupid and attacked it on that basis alone.
Yet when you realize that I was using this objectively stupid argument to explain why I have reservations regarding home schooling you suddenly reevaluate the argument and it becomes reasonable:
"Still, Duggar's right (words I thought I'd never type) to be skeptical of claims of imminent overpopulation disaster. The Malthusians have been claiming for centuries that we'd run out of food, land, or other resources soon. However, they never factor in the effects of more efficient use of existing resources."
Just to be clear... you have assessed the exact same words as constituting a good or a bad argument purely on the basis of who you think made the statement.
Can you please just admit you aren't here to engage in reasonable conversation with me?
You have demonstrated time and time again to just argue with me because you desperately want for me to be wrong... not because anything I have said is incorrect.
Artemis at March 5, 2016 6:01 PM
Ha ha ha ha ha.
"The odds of scenario 2 happening are extraordinarily low."
Go home Artemis. Your drunk.
Ben at March 6, 2016 1:44 PM
Thanks for the insightful commentary Ben... you fit right in here with the rest of the morons that have managed over the years to diminish the frequency of intelligent discussion on this site.
Let me guess... you are a Trump supporter, right?
Artemis at March 6, 2016 5:45 PM
Ben,
Also... it should be "you're" as in "you are drunk".
"Your drunk" implies I have a drunk person who belongs to me.
If you are going to bother to insult someone you could at the very least spell the insult correctly.
Artemis at March 6, 2016 5:47 PM
Quality achieved! Two posts in response to one mocking. Demonstrated ignorance of common meme. But at least you got your responses down below one page.
B- Artemis.
Sorry. But in all seriousness your argument was so poor that was the only sane response. You demonstrated such ignorance of the topic at hand rational conversation was unlikely to be worthwhile. Mockery and humor were the only rational responses.
Your eternal drunk. ;-p
Ben at March 6, 2016 8:23 PM
Ben Says:
"Sorry. But in all seriousness your argument was so poor that was the only sane response."
Your brilliance is astonishing.
My argument was so poor that the only "sane response" was to butcher the English language and imply that I was in possession of a drunk person.
That is how you handle an argument while contending that it is I who have "demonstrated such ignorance of the topic at hand rational conversation was unlikely to be worthwhile."
You didn't achieve mockery you dimwitted imbecile.
You can't mock someone by failing at elementary school grammar.
I am guessing you were home schooled.
"Your drunk."... indeed.
Artemis at March 6, 2016 9:51 PM
Ben Says:
"Demonstrated ignorance of common meme."
I realize that this went over your head... but the entire point of me correcting you is because you got the meme wrong.
The meme isn't "go home. your drunk".
The meme is "go home, you're drunk".
You were desperately trying to be funny using a really cliche meme that was 4 words long and somehow you managed to fuck it up. Then when I pointed out your mistake you declare that I was the ignorant one.
Sometimes when I talk to people on this blog I feel like "Not Sure" from Idiocracy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn200lvmTZc
Artemis at March 7, 2016 3:02 AM
You are my little ray of sunshine Arty. Thanks for making me laugh a brighten my morning.
Ben at March 7, 2016 6:42 AM
Glad to help Ben, I wouldn't want to be a dark cloud over anyone's life... now, do you have anything of substance to say that is worthy of discussion?
If not I'll consider this conversation between you and I closed and move on to more interesting discussions.
Artemis at March 8, 2016 4:55 AM
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