Tag Archives: School

Commentary

Homeschooling and vertical socialization

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Here’s a post on homeschooling from Caffeinated Thoughts. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

When people ask about socialization they are usually wondering about “horizontal socialization.”  How much time are your kids interacting with children of their own age.  It is like some think that we cage our kids up and never let them be around other children.

If you wonder about this type of socialization, let me ask you a question…

If you stick a 6th grade boy with a bunch of 6th graders what is he going to learn to become?  Who will he be best equipped to interact with?

He will learn to be a “better 6th grader.”  He’ll be comfortable interacting with kids his own age.  How does that prepare him for life?  When else in life will he ever be faced with the same type of homogeneous age groupings?

Never.

You see my kids are socialized – “vertical socialization.”  My wife and I are the primary influencers, not their peer group.  Does anybody want to dispute that as not being a good thing?  You see my kids, and other homeschoolers don’t mold to the groupthink that says, “adults in general and parents in particular aren’t cool to talk to.”

Most homeschoolers naturally can carry on conversations with adults and are comfortable doing so.  I’ve gotten positive feedback from numerous adults about how my kids interact with them (as well as their behavior).  I’ve noticed that with other homeschooled children as well, you can easily carry on a conversation with them.  Why?

Because they are spending a lot of time with parents, other adults, older children, and younger children.  They are rarely in social settings where it is entirely kids of their own age.  I think this is a good thing, that’s life!  The homogenous age groupings you see in schools (which usually gets reinforced in church) isn’t real life, and does little to prepare a kid for the real world.

I wish that somehow parents were able to opt out of the public school system and get a voucher so that parents could use that money to purchase whatever education they think is a appropriate for their children, including homeschooling. I think that getting kids into the habit of interacting with adults is a good thing.

News

Sex-education video prompts mother to transfer out 7-year old daughter

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Story (and pictures) from UK Daily Mail. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

A mother has taken her seven-year-old daughter out of school after she was made to watch a cartoon showing a couple chasing each other around a bed and having sex.

Seven and eight-year-old pupils watched the controversial Channel 4 sex education DVD, Living and Growing, at their village primary school.

A voice-over on the DVD describes the sex as ‘exciting’.

Mrs Bullivant said: ‘The cartoon was very graphic. My daughter was frightened and children have unfortunately been copying what they have seen. Parents should have been given the decision of whether the video should have been shown or not.

I think that the cause of this push for sex education is feminism. Feminists want women to learn to desire commitment-free sex, (c.f. – the sexual revolution), because they think that women should be identical to men. That is also why feminists support taxpayer-funded contraception and abortion – which reduces the costs and risks of premarital sex. Single-payer health care is also great for lowering the costs of risky sexual behavior by passing them on to taxpayers.

And there are other lessons to be learned from this story for left-of-center “Christians” who think that teachers have the best interests of the children at heart.

  • Sex education causes young people to have sex earlier, to get pregnant out-of-wedlock and to abort innocent children
  • Having your children or your neighbor’s children engage in sex before they are married is not pleasing to Jesus
  • The more money is taxed away for public schools, the less each family has for homeschooling and private schools
  • Even if YOU can afford homeschooling or private education, your neighbors can’t, and their behaviors drive up social costs
  • The goal of teacher unions is to outlaw school choice, so that this indoctrination of children becomes unavoidable

You can read about the results of the Labour Party’s aggressive push for sex education for young children here: Most children of British mothers born out of wedlock – UK Telegraph.

Here’s an editorial in the UK Daily Mail that agrees with me that sex education is causing the teen pregnancy epidemic. (H/T Betsy at RuthBlog)

News

State legislatures aim to pass bills to guarantee academic freedom

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Story here from Evolution News.

Excerpt:

The recent front page New York Times article on academic freedom legislation offers a stark reminder that the intelligentsia is very worried about the prospect of teachers gaining academic freedom, as a bill presently in the Kentucky legislature would allow, “to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner, including but not limited to the study of evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.”

From 2008-2009, 12 academic freedom bills were submitted into state legislatures, including Florida, Alabama (2), South Carolina (2), Missouri (2), Michigan, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Iowa, and New Mexico. Now in 2010, there are 3 bills already, including bills in Kentucky, Missouri, and Mississippi.

Here are a couple of examples:

The Kentucky bill encourages teachers to “promote critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories being studied.”

The Missouri bill allows teachers “to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of the theory of biological and hypotheses of chemical evolution.”

Details on the language used in each bill is provided in the post.