IF you tolerate this, then YOUR children WILL be next.

Originally posted by OpusMarkII
I guess the state owns the children ,and the people are nothing more than cattle to bread .

I'm assuming that was sarcasm.

NOBODY OWNS my children, not even us, their parents.

Certainly not this tin pot state we have, now or ever.

They are their own free, individuals, not property.

The large majority of what i have read here in the support of home schooling is a marked overreaction and a perception of this new legislation as an attack on the tradition of home schooling. While this may or may not be the case it is irrelevant to the possible (and neccesary) benefits that this legislation will also bring.

Most parents that home school their children will not be doing it to cover up for abuse but some will. And that minority, as small as it may be makes it neccesary to give those in the right extra work so as to protect those that are being harmed. It is not ideal to say the least, but that is just how systems of human interaction need to work in order to protect the few that are being wronged by a mostly inconspicuous practice.

This may well have been already said but i read to about page 5 of the thread before i tired of the vehement and ill aimed complaints of pro home schoolers. For a forum aparently dedicated to objectivity it amazes me so many people are using ancedotal evidence to advance their opinon. Why WOULD you meet children abused by their parents under the cover of home schooling. The practice of doing so is marked by massive isolation and thus it renders your point moot.

To clarify i hold no opinon on home schooling being bad or good and as a libertrarian i believe it the parents (and childs) right to decide either way. Sadly human nature is not so perfect as to enable a system where we can trust all people to do right.

It may also intrest you to know i am a 16 year old that just finished his GCSES in a London inner-city state school. It really is not AS bad as it is often made out to be, and its not any worse than it was. Theres is a long history of mental, physical and sexual abuse in insitutions of education, arguable worse in public (that refers to paid for schools in the united kingdom) schools paticularly those in which studens stay there residentially.

Let us escape the tradition of believing things are worse than they ever were, it is irritating in its ignorance more than anything.

Peace

reply to post by Godot
Godot - Well done in completing your GCSE's and I hope and wish for the most excellent results for you.

Until something bad happens to oneself or ones loved ones it is easy to believe that things are 'not so bad'.

BUT, things can be horrendous when you are the targeted individual in a class.

Therefore, life can be hell.

As in pregnancy and labour, some women sail through with no problems and deliver a child with ease therefore believing that others are exaggerating their tale of horror. But unless you have experienced the other side of the coin in life's experiences in can be difficult for a youngster to understand that life in school, state or otherwise, can be hell.


Some home educators have never sent their children to school, but as a matter of principle and for the benefit of their children are educating them themselves. Should they be unfortunate enough to have to send their child to the 'wrong' school, they might well not believe what can go wrong in schools.

Some of us have walked away from the state system with our hands clasped on our mouths in a silent scream of horror that anything so bad can be permitted to happen in the name of 'education'.

But every day all over the country, for every child that is walking home after a 'great day' there are others going home broken individuals, horrified at what has happened to them and what has been allowed to happen and fearing the next day.

I have older children who have had a great time in school......,really fantastic! And I have a child who has endured a nightmare and cannot cope with any more.


Walk a mile in another man's shoes and then you will understand!

Each individual must count and their well being must come above all else, even an authoritarian control freak state that is intent on controlling every aspect of our lives.

Seems like the OPs topic got a little forgotten over the pages. They seem pretty worried about the idea of this new found government intervention that includes being able to interview the child/children with no parent present.

While it would appear to be a good idea to keep an eye on the ones doing the teaching and that the child(ren) are getting to at least some predetermined level each year then all should be great. But eve the idea that you can get more honesty out of a child if there is no abusive or whatever bad way a parent cna trerat their children I would think that it would be just as easy to coach the child to say what the interviewer wanted them to say. Especially with a younger child that will have a natural fear of some strange person taking them into a room alone to talk to the about things.

I can see a situation where the interviewer says to the child that they are (work for) the government and if the child was to not answer correctly someone could get into a lot of trouble. Us grown ups have a way sometimes of talking to children in a way that kind of forces them to say what we want.

And I would imagine with many abused kids it's pretty easy to train them to keep quiet about things. Even if there as some inspector coming one day to talk to them. They are being schooled by an abusive parent. I'm sure hey could teach them that too.

Both sides of this argument/debate are looking a little funky to me. I am finding it a little disturbing that the schools are as bad as what I'm seeing in some of these posts. but I know there are schools here that have some pretty bad problems too so throwing stones is not what this glass maker thinks to wise.

At the end of the day these children that we bring into this world are our responsibility. They didn't ask to come, we brought them anyway. We own them the best we have to get them ready for when they get their shot at being an adult. If that involves home schooling then fine. But they should at least be up with other kids their age academically. f they go further then great! As long as these kids have time to be kids too.

If I was home schooling my children then I would expect to see someone about what I am teaching them. What materials am I using, etc. That makes sense to me. expect educators get evaluated so it stands to reason that I would too. But the idea that someone takes my child into a room alone and asks them questions with no parent or guardian is not going to happen. While I do not own the children they are my responsibility. And no one is going to tell me any different. I understand the post(s) earlier saying things like the "line is drawn here". Like most parents I am extremely protective of my children. I see no problems interviewing them but they will have to do it with a parent present. Anything else is a violation of my rights adn those of my children.

Many people out there do not think the public school system is doing a very good job educating the children. happen to believe they fall short but I also believe that there are kind of supposed to. There is not enough time in the day to teach everything and some of that education even of a public school student falls on the parents. Creating an awareness of the world around us and how it works is a 24/7 project. Kids need us as parents as well as the school system to teach them about what is going on in the world and why. Getting more than one source of information on any given subject can be a great thing. It takes more than a school to teach all the things a child will need to prepare them for the world. The one plus I see in educating outside the home is they get more than one person and their ideals on a subject. But I'm sure a parent that is willing to take the steps to educate their children at home thinks about things like that. At least I hope so.

Anyway, opinions are like noses, everyone has one and they all smell (I'm sure a few of you are snickering thinking about a similar saying :lol. This one is just mine. Parents, if you're going to teach them teach them well. And I do hope that they are getting some views besides one persons. It helps with all that forming an independent opinion stuff

What the hell?

A bad parent is a bad parent no matter what. Doesn't matter if they home school you, send you to a public school, or feed you with a golden spoon. Removing RIGHTS such as teaching your own children is ONLY bad. There is nothing good from it, besides the one case in a million (like everything in life).

If a parent knows best for their children, they do. If they do not, they do not. Public education will not change that 99% of the time.

reply to post by neformore


Underclass:
No I don't have my wires crossed. I wrote it too early in the morning to be thinking straight!

What I meant was that a bad education because of poor homeschooling (as a result of being unmonitored) has the potential to result in arrested development throwing kids into the underclass pool.

Maddie:
What I meant was that if you're inviting a stranger into your home, you want to make sure your kid wont go missing or is being interfered with. There's still a great deal of pedo-paranoia since the maddie incident occurred. I agree that the wages of their stupidity was the loss of their child, but it wouldn't be pleasant to have repeat incidents.

Home Inspection:
Sorry I must have missed the part about the parents not being present. I don't think I'd like a stranger inspecting my house/children without me being there. I don't think such a thing will ever come to fruition either. The least that people will accept is inspection/interview whilst the parent(s) are in another room.

Distractions and Structure:
It is true that children gravitate toward subjects naturally and we must do all that we can to encourage these strengths of course. But not at the possible expense of other subjects (not that I am saying such a thing will happen or is happening).

I do not believe that my government (in the US) is concerned about the well-being of children, and here's why:

Years after my own experience of being taken away from my parents' home for truancy by the Department of Human Services (posted a page or two ago) ended and I was an adult, I tried to draw their attention to something that I thought actually deserved it.

I learned that my cousin (we'll call him Jerry) had a daughter who was living with his mother and sisters, because he could not afford to take care of her himself and her own mother had run off. There were at least 8 people living there.

Jerry's little girl was 8 or 9 years old. I learned that since Jerry's mother and sisters (all very overweight and lazy) made the little girl carry baskets of laundry up a hill to another relative's home regularly. She had to stay there and wait for the laundry to be done, fold it all, and carry it all back down the hill.

I only know this because I witnessed it one day and my mother (who lives nearby) told me that Jerry's daughter does it all the time. The other children who lived with them were not given any chores, they played outside while she did all their laundry. My mother also told me that she had seen Jerry's family being verbally/emotionally abusive to his daughter when my mother saw them at church every week.

The girl's biological mother was black, while Jerry's family is white. It occurred to me that this fact may have something to do with them treating her so differently than the other kids, and that made me uncomfortable.

My mother was concerned as well, but she was afraid to "start drama" with them. I decided to call my old DHS social worker directly and ask her to look into the situation, I believed that if she paid them a visit perhaps they would realize their wrong-doing wouldn't go unnoticed.

The social worker told me quite simply "there is nothing we can do". She refused to even investigate.

Come to think of it, that's not the only time I have heard DHS social workers say that...

When I was 14 and in a group home, I was in my room one night around Christmastime in Pennsylvania (very snowy) and I heard someone crying (not unusual in placement), but I realized it was coming from outside.

Out the window I saw a little boy, wearing no shoes or coat, crying on the sidewalk. I told the woman who worked at the group home and she brought the boy inside. We learned that he had woken up to find that he and his little sister were alone at home.

The woman called another group home employee to come in, so that she could take the boy home. When she did, she found out that his mom had left the kids with a 15-year-old babysitter so she could go to a bar.

When she returned home (intoxicated), the kids were asleep and she thought it was okay to drive the teenage babysitter home. The mother told the group home employee that she thought the kids were safe "because we have a dog".

This outraged the woman who worked at the group home, and when she came back to work she called the emergency DHS social worker to report the incident. She was told by the social worker that nothing could be done, the social worker knew who the boy's mother was, she worked at a hospital, she was a "good person".

The social worker said that if the group home employee had called before bringing the boy into the group home, she would have been instructed to leave him alone and "let one of the neighbors take him home". This further outraged the group home employee, but she could do nothing.

No, I do not trust that DHS operates objectively and without bias. And since I have a history with them myself, I am certainly not going to let them have any interaction with my children whatsoever.

Please, do not try to tell me that the government or all of its employees have the best interests of children at heart.

Originally posted by Elliot
reply to post by Godot

 

Until something bad happens to oneself or ones loved ones it is easy to believe that things are 'not so bad'.

Haha, thankyou but believe me enough bad has happened to myself and my loved one i have been involved in enough badness at school and have gotten into a fight many a time and was bullied quite badly for 2 years until i sorted stuff out for myself and stopped taking it lying down.

Now this is no slight to those who are bullied and do not stand up to their bullys these are just natural consequences of adolescents being bunched together in close proximity some of whom wont have been raised in as peacefull an enviroment as others.

Such as myself, living in poverty in a tower block, parents on drugs. But i got past that, as has my mum.

I guess im just saying we have to accept some things are there and always will be there, knowing that it is up to us to stand up to and resist it.

And it can be that bad yes, but it has always been possible for it to be that bad, thats my point.

I dont dispute the state many schools are in, just the idea that it was somehow better; i have talked to alot of people young and old and it is not. My grandfather was known as the 'cock' of the school because he had beaten everyone there up - his schools pupils where not there principally for education, just because the law forced them to and so their main activity was fighting. It is the same now.

Fight it. I should have been home schooled. Collective education makes all kids one way and one thought, eliminating diversity of imagination. I was lucky enough to not care enough for school. What irony. The one who doesn't care is the smartest and most creative in the class. It's built so that only the drones get to the top.

Originally posted by FlyersFan


As for child abuse ... the greatest number of abuse cases come out of public schools. THAT is a fact.

I have seen the truth of that for myself. I have Asperger syndrome, and very few teachers have any clue what that is. Basically, it is on the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum. In other words, my IQ is well above average (140) and I can learn just fine, but social cues sometimes go right over my head, and I quite often have incredible difficulty verbalizing what is in my head. I can write it just fine, I just have more trouble speaking it. As a result, I was routinely a target for teacher (and principal) screaming fits - complete with the finger in my face and the forceful muscling around that you only see on movies dealing with corrupt or "outmoded" reform schools.

The thing that everyone needs to remember is this: What is a government? A government is a collection of humans with control over the lives of other people who are just as human as they are. All the laws they pass accomplish nothing more than to take control out of the hands of one group of people, and put it into the hands of another. That's it.

IMO the government should have a monthly examiner come to the home of the child...THAT'S IT. None of this other bull

Originally posted by Gorman91
Fight it. I should have been home schooled. Collective education makes all kids one way and one thought, eliminating diversity of imagination. I was lucky enough to not care enough for school. What irony. The one who doesn't care is the smartest and most creative in the class. It's built so that only the drones get to the top.

Quite true, Gorman. My father is still a music teacher. My mother never went to college, but she's smart enough in her own way too. I really wish I had been homeschooled. That is why now I work hard to educate myself. In other words, I'm home-schooling myself, so to speak. We all need to do that, and it's surprisingly easy to do. All you need to do is follow these steps:

1. Turn off the TV

2. Buy a book.

3. Read it. If after you finish it you don't fully understand it, read it again.

4. Buy another book.

5. Repeat steps 1 thru 4 on a constant basis.

Don't just go for the fictional stuff (although you can learn some interesting stuff from those too). Find bookstores that sell college textbooks and buy some. You can even get home-schooling materials from American Opinion publishing - run by the John Birch Society. I know there are other sources for home-schooling materials, I'm just not sure what they are! The point is, turn the TV off (it can't help you) and open a book!! READ! READ! READ!!

reply to post by rentacop1976


yea I know. I kind of read science and magazines a lot. tv has been something I watch just to see how dumb they've gotten so far.

Sometimes I feel like a human in a sea of apemen. It makes me sad and angry that the schooling is so bad.

reply to post by eMachine


The story of "Jerry's" little girl sounds so much like Cinderella, except that she has yet to get a visit from her fairy god-mother. I find it fascinating (the way a train wreck is fascinating) that CPS and/or DHS will ignore stuff like that, but will prevent a married couple from adopting a child if they find out the couple believes strongly in Biblical Christian values. In fact, they ask forthrightly about the parental candidates' religious beliefs - in great detail! They will be instantly denied the right to adopt if they show signs that they resent the questions, or if they protest that we are guaranteed freedom of religion in America. It never ceases to amaze me about how audacious the government gets when dealing with our basic liberties. Don't these petty bureaucrats know? Are they REALLY that brain-dead? Or is that a question that doesn't even need answering?

reply to post by rentacop1976


I couldn't agree more.

I think that even if I did send my children to public school, I would have to spend just as much time every day finding out what they were taught and discussing it with them, helping them research it further, or researching the topics with them that they actually want to know about and did not learn about in school.

So, I might as well teach them at home, take them to community events, volunteer with charity organizations, go to nursing homes to talk to the elderly and learn about their experience of our history, go to public presentations at local colleges, and they will still have time to play with friends because we can do all that while other kids are stuck in a room together listening to a teacher.

Actually, I dropped out of school when I was finally released from government custody. I did not graduate from highschool, which "disqualifies" me from being a home educator according to state regulations. Luckily, my husband went to college. I have educated myself by reading and I intend to continue learning with my kids.

(If being a highschool drop-out further decreases my credibility in the eyes of a few in this thread, so be it. None of my clients have inquired about my education and every one of them has been satisfied with my work.)

reply to post by DrumJunkie


Drum, you have made some excellent points. In regards to home-schooling vs. public schooling, I have always favored an approach similar to that of the Amish. In other words, I would favor a little of both. Let the kids take a few select classes at a public school for some subjects (or at some private educational facility), while allowing the parents (or to some extent, even some nice neighbors) to handle other subjects.

My reference to the Amish is quite deliberate. While I don't agree with their refusal to use modern technology, I have to admit that many of their methods are effective, and that in an overall sense, they are probably the most content of any of us in the world. The kids in Amish communities are either home-schooled or taught as a group in something similar to a one-room schoolhouse. They learn how to make their own clothing, grow their own food, build their own houses, read (especially the Bible), take care of animals, take care of themselves, and how to take care of each other. The ultimate result: their lives are fulfilling in their own way. The people in those communities are healthy, they have what they need, and there is so little crime or violence in those communities that you almost never hear about it. Because of their strong Biblical values - which they learned from childhood - they don't abuse their children, and they don't attack or steal from each other. Overall, I'd rather live in an Amish farm house than in some shack in the Projects. At least in an Amish farm house, I don't have to worry about getting shot for no reason!

Originally posted by rentacop1976

My reference to the Amish is quite deliberate. While I don't agree with their refusal to use modern technology, I have to admit that many of their methods are effective, and that in an overall sense, they are probably the most content of any of us in the world.

Indeed, I envy their sense of community and that they are so self-sufficient. Don't forget that their children are usually bi-lingual also, speaking English as well as some dialect of German, I believe.

As a teenager, I was ashamed to learn that there's a touch of Pennsylvania Dutch (as my grandmother called it) in my genealogy from my father's father's side of the family, but I've come to respect their culture and their way of life, as well as having it as part of my own family's heritage!

I wonder how (if at all) home education regulations affect them.

Originally posted by Mark2009
Hello,

I hate to say it but I agree with the Government on this one. Homeschooling for the minority will be great but only for the ones who are truly gifted. It's easy to say you were home schooled and interacted with society, but what about the kids who live in the middle of nowhere or who have stricter parents? They'll miss playing for school sports teams, school social events etc.

A lot of the parents who do it are the ones who are fearful for their kids in the school environment so it's their decision then slowly brainwash the children in to thinking that is what they want.

School is a vital part off life where you learn so much more than education where you get to meet people from different culture's and gain a wide variety of friends.

I don't mind the gov't setting standards for home schooling, but I'd like to leave it at that.

I'll just say I went to public school and I honestly believe I would have been better off home-schooled. I was socially awkward. I didn't get the "participation" points that other kids got because I was too shy to say anything in class. The few times that I had to I was completely mortified. I wasn't always that way - being in that environment MADE me that way. I never really felt like I fit in. I wasn't bullied, but for the most part no one went out of their way to even acknowledge my existence. I eventually got to a point where is said 'f-it' and did enough work to just get through. A 'C' average when I graduated. The problem is my educational attitude didn't change when I got to college and I didn't finish. At times I honestly felt like I was making an effort to get good grades, but looking back I think I could have done a lot better with the attitude I have now.

I have no problem learning anything that I take interest in. I was a computer geek by 5 - playing games on the Commodore 64 and messing with BASIC by the time I was 7 or so. Built my own PC at 12. At 15/16 I started messing with Linux back before the world knew what it was and that experience prepared me VERY well for my current occupation.

In 8th grade I started learning French on my own and that gave me a great start when I took the class in high school. I started teaching myself Japanese when I got to college.

I've had a good decade to grow and learn on my own. I'm not dumb, never was. I consider myself to be at least somewhat intelligent. Public school, save for a few classes, never interested me or didn't teach in a way that was compatible with the way I like to learn - hands-on. I am nearly incapable of learning through reading from a book or copying notes. I need far more involvement than that. I need a context in which to place the information.

Nowadays I am interested in history, politics, world events, etc. I catch myself actually recognizing names of world leaders being thrown around in the news. I feel like I've become far more aware of what's happening in the world and it's partially thanks to ATS. =)

I want to home-school my kids because I KNOW I can do better than the public system. You might ask how I think I, as a C student, feel qualified to teach my kids...

www.crazyontap.com...

I had a teacher that taught science classes for multiple grade levels. This is a typical day in one of those classes:

sit down, get out your note book. make sure your pen has plenty of ink in it. lights go out. projector turns on. transparency page is placed on there. GO! you have about 30 seconds to transcribe the entire page into your notebook. after the 30 seconds another page will be displayed while the WHOLE CLASS lets out a WTF groan because NO ONE got it all. rinse and repeat until the bell rings.

In order to finish the pages I ended up writing only the 1st letter of every word and I BARELY finished at that. My end result was something useless though. I would argue it was no more useless than the others that only got 1/4 or 1/2 page transcribed. Why did I even bother? Because I would have gotten in trouble for not doing anything. I barely got D's in those classes even though I actually had a predisposed interest in science. I got a B average in the next year's science class.

So there you have it. You always hear about the home-schoolers being socially inept and unprepared for the world, but that's EXACTLY what public school did for me.

[edit on 16-6-2009 by an0maly33]

Oh yeah, and my main beef with public education is that they teach NOTHING about the real world. They may try to indirectly - History to help understand present events, Math for balancing your checkbook and figuring out how far your creditors want to bend you over for using their money, English for understanding the terms of contracts... I'd like to see them teach finance classes - What's the difference between APR and IRA? What's health/life insurance and why do I want it?

[edit on 16-6-2009 by an0maly33]

Originally posted by manbird12000
...What he means by "My children belong to me" is that the ONLY authoritative power over his children that is higher than his is GOD.

..... and for some people...even HE isn't above.

He may not own them but they DO belong to him before ANYTHING else under God.

And what he means by "the line has been drawn" is that his life IS his child. A Father has NOTHING to loose when his future blood is threatened.
And that is a DEADLY person to deal with on a level of horror most people won't expect.

Trust me, I'm sharpening my Hatchet just thinking about it..

Note: substitute "Hatchet" with any other item that wreaks death and destruction when used.

Only a kid or non parent would say what you just said.

Perfect. I forget the author, but I heard a quote awhile back that went something like "Having children is like letting your heart go out into the world on its own." I think it's just a nicer way to sum up what was said above. I never joke about killing people, I have never threatened anyone...but if you put my kids in a threatening situation you will be met with blind rage. That said, I'm not sure if forcing my kids to go to public school calls for said rage. I would just need to be more diligent at home to compensate.

I homeschool my child. We do have home visits and have done for two years. This legislation will however give the education officers the right to come into your own home and question your child without a parent present.
Police, Customs Officers and the like have to have warrants in order to enter our homes. Why should LA employees have this right?

After my own experience of home visits with the local education dept and the wording of some of the questions put to my child regarding his learning, I am deeply concerned by the fact they can question him on his own.

Example .. I follow the Rudolph Steiner home school method... children read later, write later but commit to memory many stories , songs , numerical rhymes in a bardic manner.

This was not that well recieved until my son of age 7 explained the Fibonacci and spirals on his pine cones, explained whom leonardo da vinci was and then showed his models in lego based on some of leonardos work.


In a class of 30 + children how many get their voices listened to every day. Do they get a cuddle..
Fearful schools banning staff from touching children

Rising numbers of schools and nurseries are banning staff from touching children because they fear accusations of assault or abuse, according to research in a new book out next month

my child is alive and well and not devoured by me... but heavens not to come crashing into my home under the pretext that parents whom homeschool are abusers.


Regarding that old nut social interaction...many children whom are home educated have a very busy time..most parents meet many times a week and set up many groups and classes. The difference is..your child can have a cuddle as and when..and can also be guided on how to be a kind and true human.

The State is presuming ownership over our children; to know better than we do how to bring them up and how to educate them. The right for a parent to choose to educate their child through school or otherwise is enshrined in law. The State also presumes to be ‘protecting children’s rights, as though parents are trying to erode those rights.