Against my better judgement...
2/8/2019 at 10:29 AM
GetRec'd said "Oh, I thought that they created a discussion on eBrandon looking for feedback. My mistake.
This goes for the others that quoted my reply as well.
1. Canada (as I said) ranks near the top in the world in terms of public education systems. Where Manitoba ranks within that elite system, you can argue against for the rest of your life as far as I'm concerned.
2. I'm not posting how I want to raise my kids in an eBrandon discussion looking for feedback. So cool it.
3. If you're qualified to teach your kids, have a ball. But if you can't accept that you may be doing them a disservice.
4. If your reason is faith-based, which a person could reasonably suspect, I can only offer this advice.... Dinosaurs are real, and the world is much older than you think it is.
I wish you and your kids well, but if you can't manage to for a coherent plea on eBrandon, and then get massively triggered when you're faced with some negative feedback, maybe you should reassess your value as an educator. Learning is about debate and being open to ideas and criticism, not clutching your pearls and hiding away in your safe space with unchallenged ideas (that would be indoctrination).
Anyways, God bless, hope you and your kids have limitless success in life!! "
I feel like I should address some of the (somewhat legitimate) concerns you have brought up. I think there is a lot of misconceptions surrounding homescooling I would like to clear up.
1. While Canada does have a resonably good public education system, it is far from perfect. Many children do not thrive in that environment for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to behavioural issues, learning disabilities or learning giftedness, social problems stemming from bullying, or physical limitations that make schooling difficult.
Additionally, in our culture we equate "schooling" with "education" when they are not necessarily the same thing. A careful examination of the history of mandatory schooling using the Prussian model (which we more or less use), and the effects of the Manitoba School Question, which continue to resonate into the present, suggest that schooling as we utilitze it now actually has education as it's secondary effect. I could write quite a length on this topic, but suffice to say, while education may occur within the system we need to be aware of the role that system actually plays in the formation of our society when we start touting it's effectiveness.
2. I think the poster was looking for feedback on a particular aspect of her parenting: however you provided non-contructive feedback on her parenting, education and intelligence in general based on a very small writing sample on a social media. In a world where we're supposed to non-judgemental, that was unfortunately high judgemental. As a homeschooler, it's frankly annoying to be judged like that because I see far more serious grammatical transgressions in supposedly professional publications on a daily basis. I saw three spelling and/or grammatical mistakes in a professionally-written newspaper article just yesterday.
3. As I previously stated, the education level of the parent has been demonstrated to be less of an influencing factor on their success than one would initially believe. The most critical factor in successfully homeschooling is the willingness of the parent to facilitate their own child's learning. You also have to keep in mind that homeschooling isn't the same as school at home - the process can and is quite different than a public school setting. I can and do "farm out" some of my teaching on subjects that either I know I'm not terribly proficient at or am ill-equiped to teach. I have also learned a lot from teaching my kids because I'm learning alongside them in some subjects.
4. You would be surprised how many non-religious people homeschool, or how many religious people homeschool for non-religious reasons. I fall into the latter category (we are practicing Catholics). There are both very good Catholic and Christian schools in this city, and yet I choose to homeschool. Clearly, my reasons are not entirely faith-based.
In this city, there is a growing trend for homeschoolers to in fact be secular parents who have pulled their kids from public school because the public school has stopped meeting their needs. It's that simple and that complex. Some only homeschool for a time and then return to public school, while others become passionate about home education and elect to complete their child's education themselves.
Finally, I have to admit I had to chuckle at your last paragraph about clutching pearls. I would suspect that you have probably not met many homeschooled individuals yet, or perhaps you have and not realized it. I have had the opportunity to meet quite a few adults who were homeschooled, as well as teenagers at the end of their homeschool careers. They are almost invariably more mature, more articulate, more knowledgable and excel at critical thinking vs. their public schooled peers. I think that is the goal most homeschooling parents have for their children, and one of the primary motivating factors for a lot of families.
Thank-you for reading to the end. Have a lovely day all of you. I must go now, we're lating starting school for the day!!