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The Horror of Homeschooling

It’s worse than you think! Says them.

Are you prepared for a dark dystopia where YOUR CHILDREN are educated WITHOUT government supervision? Well, that’s how homeschooling is being described… by the failed public education system, once the envy of the world but now a very, very expensive joke.

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36 replies on “The Horror of Homeschooling”

Bill mentioned that there’s a pool of retired professionals and tradesmen who would be willing to assume a teaching role and that’s probably true.

Many of us in here have also given some pretty sound reasons why we would not be interested in doing that too.

Several educational alternatives and opportunities have been discussed on this page. They all boil down to what Laura Fischer is calling “custom schooling” and they are viable alternatives to government sponsored educational corruption.

Because “corruption” is the word that applies here. When the focus is on on the educators and not those being educated you’re always going to get corruption that detracts from true education in favor of advantaging those who we pay to do the educating. The goal is educating not ever more powerful educators influencing the people they’re supposed to be teaching.

I favor using the word “corruption” more often and when it truly applies. The other side has their buzzwords like “racist”, “homophobe” and etc. that they paint a picture with even when it doesn’t apply. Corruption is something that seems to be getting swept under the rug lately. I mean, if our very own walking baked potato that sits behind the desk in the Oval Office can exhibit the kind of corruption that is so obvious, I don’t think we’re really paying enough attention to corruption in all its forms.

In the matter of “custom schooling” — If you are retired and can afford it, or are going to retire in the foreseeable future and can afford it — One of the greatest gifts you can give your grandchildren is a good, solid education. If that’s you, you should be actively exploring and promoting that sort of education in your own circle of family and friends.

Giving your progeny the gift of a real education will advantage them over the future generations of drones we are now producing. It’s one of the most effective things you can do to fight back against the creeping crud that our political system is vulnerable to. If you really care and have the resources to do this then put your money where your mouth is and actually do something useful about this problem while still wisely supporting your own family and friends.

You can’t take it with you and a good education is much, much more lucrative to them than leaving a pile of money to your kids and grandkids. Put the fruits of your labor to work for them instead of just dropping it in their laps when you die.

The most frequent ‘gotcha’ question people asked when I told them my daughter was home-schooling was “What about socialization?” They didn’t realize there were scores of home-school families in the area or that we got together almost every day with those in the neighborhood. And, she usually finished her work early so we would take field trips. Sometimes she would double up on lessons to finish a week in a couple of days. So, while their kids were sitting restlessly in class waiting for 25 other kids to finish their work, or standing in line being herded around the government gulag, she was skiing, planting a garden, visiting with friends, and having fun. That’s socialization.
Incidentally, perhaps the largest home-school convention in the country occurs in Harrisburg, PA, where parents can choose curriculum from dozens of fine programs, either all-in-one or ala carte.

As with most things, the final result is proportional to the effort expended. I have known people who did home-schooling very well including a very rich socialization factor with other like minded families. Those kids generally turn out quite well and make excellent adults.
I also know a few (quite a minority among home-schoolers) who really did it because they were too lazy to get their kids to school and just sat them in front of computer curriculum for a few hours a day. No interaction with others. Those kids are about as mal-adjusted as one might expect. One I thought was headed for real trouble until he forced his parents to put him back into public school in FL. He turned out ok but his sister is a train wreck and is just a lazy as her mother, who was her primary “teacher” in life.

Public school (union) teachers are in it for the money. Homeschool (non-union) teachers are not in it for the money. The union pays a retirement; the non-union are grandparents whose children are the retirement happiness.

I walked away from the traditional classroom in 2016 thinking I was done with education forever. The following year I began teaching live online math classes to homeschooled sixth graders using my own curriculum. Since then I’ve added seventh and eighth grades and now, Algebra, again, using my own self-created curriculum. I HAVE FOUND THE EDUCATION PROMISED LAND! It has been the most rewarding experience in education since I began teaching in 1989. I’m screaming from the rooftops to educators everywhere that you can make a TRUE difference in the lives of kids. Check out https://www.mathwithmrsfish.com/ I swear this is not a thinly-veiled attempt at self-promotion. I’m just following up on what the guys said about the endless possibilities that homeschooling, or what I like to call “custom schooling” provides.

They simply cannot do the logical thing of making Public Schools better again, because it would involve the firing of far too many lame Leftist Union Members and giving up on the Indoctrination Programs. While at the same time finding the necessary people with knowledge and wisdom that can actually impart that knowledge to the pupils!!!

Here in SW VA (it may be the whole Commonwealth) there is a program to get people who have life time of experience licensed to teach the subjects on which they have expertise. It was designed for people who want to retire from their career but not retire completely.
So for instance I could get qualified to teach physics or business or marketing or one of the other jobs I have had. There is a definite teacher shortage down here, and this is one of the ways they came up with to try and fix that problem. It seems to be working and pulling in some business people to teach at the High Schools. Definitely a bonus as one of the school board members told me it brings in older, more conservative people who don’t care what your pronouns are.
If I could afford to retire from my current job I would consider it. But I can’t take the huge pay cut and still live.

Let me start with the Washington Compost, throw in the New York Slimes, okay ’nuff said.
Are we on the road back to one room schoolhouses? May not be a bad thing.
And, why are homeschool folks and folks whose kids go to parochial schools (tuition) still paying for government schools…?
Seems like the government school teachers spend more time counseling and disciplining than teaching. Of course there are parents involved, or not involved in the mayhem…

I’m an Amway distributor, that’s hilarious Steve. They taught me the conservative values that help me support organizations like Bill Whittle. In fact the three of you might learn something from a 10 billion dollar global company on promoting conservatism and what’s attractive about residual income month after month after month that you can pass on to your kids. Or is that too much math for you.

Originally public schooling was not for government control but government support for local schools to provide education. The Bible was officially approved as a textbook to provide the moral framework to sustain our Constitutional Republic.

During the pandemic when children were at home learning online, I read about an idea for neighborhood learning “pods”. These pods consisted of parents with children in elementary school who would each pay into a pool to hire a teacher to teach their children. These pods were small, only about 3 or 4 kids, but it sounded like a great idea to me. The cost is shared and the kids get individualized attention. Seemed like a win-win.

I grew up in the typical family. Dad worked, mom stayed home and took care of the house and us three kids. We had to do our homework after dinner and before watching television. If you lied and said you had already done your homework, my dad somehow knew it and asked to see what you had done. I don’t remember getting away with very much. And if you got in trouble at school, you got in trouble when you got home, too. I think today’s parents are so tired after working all day that they just don’t have the energy to devote to their children’s education. And the schools are lowering their requirements to move up to the next grade. Unfortunately, the children are the biggest losers in all of this.

A good friend of mine retired over this past summer from a large military contracting company. I saw him the weekend before last and I asked how retirement was going. He tells me that he’s so busy, he doesn’t know how he ever had time to work. He’s doing some volunteering, but mostly helping to homeschool his 8 yo granddaughter. He loves it.

Bill – it’s a great thought to use “retired people” to help out with a homeschooling project, but my first thought was, as a retired person — no way in hell would I do that. Reason? The legal crap that would ensue when little Johnny decides he’s going to tell me to pound sand when I tell him to surrender his cell phone. Little Johnny just might find himself with a much bigger problem than a missing cell phone. I’ll just leave it at that.

In my experience (and my experience in education of all forms is deep and wide) if a parent was hiring you to help with homeschooling, they would have your back 100%. That’s the kind of people who homeschool.

That’s reassuring to hear, but I’m afraid that I’m just too frickin’ cynical to even consider delving into that line of “volunteerism.” The entire system involving children has become so corrupted and so polluted that the very idea of even exacting immediate consequences (for this purpose, defined as the teacher-in-charge is backed up 100% absent violence — which is not at all guaranteed in this day and age) on a badly-behaving student invites legal consequences for the very individual who is trying to establish order and discipline to the classroom. No thanks. Not for me. Good luck – and I mean that sincerely – for others.

Hey Scott. An even simpler answer is tell the parents that THEY are their children’s first teachers and to get their kids ready for first grade, And then to follow their progress. The poor quality of American public education starts (and too often ends) at home! But the very simplest answer to give every kid a dad, and go from there
nelson
nelson

Whenever the Left wants to use statistics and data graphing they always bracket the data with only the information that supports their agenda. We see this with the “hockey stick” graph of global temperatures. It brackets the Industrial Revolution and omits the period when the Egyptian pyramids were being built. Which was much warmer than today, but that would blow their narrative so they studiously avoid showing that information.

The Left does this all the time. Another example is graphing the gun deaths in Blue cities where they have done all they can to suppress the 2nd Amendment. Etc. There are many examples but you get the idea.

This is where we get the phrase “lies, damned lies, and statistics” that Samuel Clemens was so fond of citing.

The homeschooling surge is an unintended consequence of the Coof. It is a Newtonian equal and opposite reaction that the Left didn’t count on when it unlawfully seized all that power. Locking down people in their homes put them in a position to observe directly on a day to day basis what their children were being taught by public school teachers. Many of them were appalled at what they saw. But …

Those people already had a realistic and correct worldview. That’s where their disapproval originated. In contrast, the Kool-Aid drinking Lefty parents thought the indoctrination was wonderful.

Sadly the kids being homeschooled are generally the ones that least need to dodge the efforts at government promoted indoctrination. Obviously the parents of those kids are already concerned and involved in the lives of their own children. ‘Obviously’ because these parents care enough to take matters into their own hands. Which takes a considerable investment in money and time and is not a trivial thing. In most cases, not all and I have known examples of those who don’t fit this description but most often — Those families have an economic advantage in that the Father/Husband makes enough money that the Mother/Wife doesn’t need to bring a second income into the household to make ends meet.

It’s true that they could make even more money if Mom worked and was gone to her job all day. The fact that these types are willing to sacrifice that extra income in order to be certain their kids get a proper education just reinforces my point.

These are the parents that know what’s going on and care about their kids while also being in a position to afford to do something about that. When I was younger that kind of parent was common, now not so much. When I was young there was little need for homeschooling because …

The public schools I went to as a youth were very good. I had teachers that were exemplary in demonstrating how to think, not dictating what to think. They gave a true and accurate description of the world.

One teacher in particular is responsible for teaching me the information I needed later to formulate my own Conservative views. Views that were founded in historical and social facts, not magical Neo-Marxist thinking. His name was Mr. Robert Clarke. He’s no doubt long since gone on to his reward but I still think about him and what he taught me. More than 50 years later I still remember his name. That’s a pretty indelible impression to make on a young mind.

I shudder to think what sort of indelible impression modern teachers are making on the generations that will follow us when we’re gone. If homeschooling is our best hope, and it may be, then we need to do all we can to promote it and hope this “silly season” will pass.

To do that, we have to win. We have to select political candidates at all levels that not only fit our ideology but can also win elections. Both things are necessary and too many Conservatives emphasize the former over the latter. This absurd propensity to be “dead right” is as much a part of what got us where we are as any of the efforts of the Left. By insisting on only the purest Conservative ideologies at the expense of winning elections we play right into the schemes of those Leftists who would destroy our way of life.

You never win a football game by running the length of the field to score a touchdown every time you have the ball. There is rarely if never a case where a single decisive battle wins an entire war. Victory is always incremental. It is as much about advancing towards your goal as it is about denying your opponent advancement towards his. When we do only the latter we are setting our own selves up for defeat.

This is a problem with Conservative punditry these days. While refusing any compromise or shortfall of what is seen as perfect the promotion of our demise proceeds apace. I like Mark Dice but he’s a prime example of that. He loves transgressing what Ronald Reagan called “The Eleventh Commandment”. He’s also a blazing anti-Semite. So those are two of the things I do not like about him.

It seems to me that the entire nation, on both sides, has adopted a stance where Perfect is the enemy of Good. This is a restrictive, hobbling position that hands our political foes their incremental victories. The more the Left achieves incrementally, the worse this situation becomes on our side. The Left is willing and eager to seize any incremental victory it can get, and call it ‘permanent’. The political ratchet is working against us. If you want to win, that has to change and you are the only ones who can change that.

All of you homeschoolers better prepare for Big Education to come for you.
I’m predicting them using the NLRB to declare home school teachers need to be unionized and regulated accordingly

The downside to grandparents coming out of retirement to teach school would be the resulting plague of respiratory infections that would incapacitate and even kill these well-meaning volunteers. My wife and I get two weeks of a cough every time the little boogers visit, and we’re still relatively young.

Yeah … Factual and accurate, spoken like a true Doc. This is why it’s good to have so many professions represented in the membership here. I’d not have thought of that. But you did so now I don’t have to.

There’s no way I’d teach a class for kids. I haven’t been sick for a dozen years and I’d like to keep it that way. I have a robust immune system but there’s no reason to intentionally put it to the test. I don’t know how much time I have left, could be decades but could be much less. The last thing I want to do is spend one minute of it sick in bed or just feeling miserable and unable to enjoy whatever remains to me for the duration of an illness I could avoid.

Every morning I walk outside to dump my coffee filter and grounds in the trash can so I don’t get fruit flies inside. This morning was a beautiful, clear, cool (50F-ish), sunny morning and I stopped for a minute to appreciate the beautiful day. I don’t want to miss one of those if I can help it.

That might be selfish of me and if so, so be it.

Well said, Keith. Mrs Ron taught little ones for 30+ years. Every year same thing. They come in for the first week or so of school and by the end of that week they are all dribbling mucus and coughing and haven’t learned to cover anything when they cough.
Mrs Ron never got sick after the first year. But Ron. Oh, Ron got sick every year for the first 5 we were together. She brought it all home. I would never be in a class room with little kids. Breeding ground the whole place. I say take off an nuke it from orbit. Only way to be sure.

Cudos to Mrs Ron for doing the job other parents won’t do. Cudos to Mr. Ron for taking one for the Mrs and being the illness sponge.

It falls in place just like they wanted……
First, make life so expensive that both parents must work to afford a home.
Second, take the kids and make them stupid.
Third, manipulate the children and their vacuous minds poisoned with victim-aligning mentality to overthrow capitalism and western thought.

Making public schools great again would work, but it would also defeat the left’s purpose for public schools. So while the left remains in a position to call the shots, it ain’t gonna happen.

The only possible downside with home schooling that I know about, is that if one parent has the primary responsibility for schooling while the other has the primary responsibility of bringing home the bacon, the bread winner better keep a watch on the teacher. This happened to someone I am very close to. Traditional family. Dad worked long and hard to provide for his family, while stay at home Mom, a narcissist and master manipulator, taught disrespect and hatred for Dad along side reading and writing.

This isn’t an argument against home schooling – for government can’t get involved in this kind of stuff – but an argument for both parents to be involved.

Actually, in this case Dad was very involved with his two girls, after work and on weekends, but Mom had those long hours alone with them to do her damage.

Wrecking the schools is just like bombing an ammunition plant in a normal war. The enemy doesn’t want us to have future generations capable of ruling themselves.

There’s a reason Scott’s focus group idea will never be tried: Power doesn’t want us to have the resources to tell Power to eff off. That’s the common denominator of all progressive causes. They want the commoners schools to produce students who have no hope of taking charge of their own lives.

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