Flada Blog

My friend Obsteve has been encouraging me for more than a few weeks to elaborate on my previous post, 5 Reasons Why You Should Homeschool:

Hi Ed, I still believe that this article is misleading, both about teachers and about teaching.Essentially, I feel that 5 different reasons to homeschool could and should be proffered; I do not believe your following reasons stand up to much scrutiny-“children in public schools don’t learn to socialize at least not in a real-world sense”;

“many of the things that are taught in public schools that are simply wrong”;

“This brings me to one of the reasons I want to homeschool which is that frankly I am smarter than 99% of public school teachers”;

“Your child will never be molested, murdered, assaulted at homeschool”;

“We want to instill our values… If we send him away, whose values will he be receiving? Who knows?”

In an otherwise persuasive blog entry these comments, ranging from the misguided to the scaremongering, need to be addressed. It is a month since I have posted my objections on the discussion board; I am hoping the lack of response indicates deep consideration of the issues, rather than heads in the sand.

I will attempt to address these disputes one item at a time while not losing sight of the fact that Obsteve lives in the UK where they may just have a public education system that is that much different from ours (in the United States). Granted, some of my evidence supporting the original post was anecdotal. Since posting, however, I’ve received mountains of anecdotes to support my reasons–and really only one voice of dissent. Of course, anecdotes are not necessarily evidence, but when you have enough of them it should make you pause and question. Clearly something is wrong with our public education system when so many agree with my points.

Socialization

Maybe things are different in the UK than the US. Here, students sit in classrooms for a minimum of seven hours each day. Everyone else in their classroom (with the exception of the teacher) is the same age (plus a year or two for those few who have failed to pass a grade). During recess or lunch breaks, most of the students continue to associate with the same ones with whom they share classes. The interactions that take place between a student and anyone of a significant age difference are always ones where the student is a subservient in the power structure. I reject the notion that my children are or should be subservient.

Are there times when it’s beneficial for my children to do what they’re told without question? Perhaps during emergencies, but those are few and far between. Other than emergencies, they should be encouraged to understand why things are done the way they are. “Because I said so,” is a response stemming from laziness or incompetence. I studied electronics over 20 years ago and to this day I can solve pretty complex electrical problems because I had an instructor who understood that learning the “why’s” of the theories was better than rote memorization.

As a homeschooler, a parent can enroll his children in numerous extracurricular activities where they will have the opportunity to socialize with diverse ages, and cultures; and these interactions will only involve natural power structures that are more likely to work both ways like those found in adult relationships. Furthermore, social status labels such as popular, rejected, neglected, controversial, and average are virtually non-existent outside of the formal school setting.

Things that are taught wrong

In my previous entry, I mentioned the book, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. I failed to give examples from that book, although I did note that in a public school setting someone else always sets the curriculum whereas at home the parents set it.

Since the issues in the book are related to American History, they probably don’t hold much sway in the UK. However, as a former public school student I can witness to the fact that they definitely apply here in the States. Some examples include how our public schools deal with topics like slavery, Christopher Columbus, the civil rights movement, and the American war between the States (Civil War). Almost every textbook available has sections on these topics with opinions stated as facts and every bit of controversy whitewashed out of the text. They simply don’t teach the controversy, instead choosing to present questionable “facts.”

For example, when textbooks talk of slavery it’s always rich southern whites who owned black slaves. There is never mention of white slaves or native slaves. There is seldom mention that there were slaves in every State–both north and south. Who would know from public schools that Christopher Columbus quickly enslaved the natives when he landed at Hispaniola?

I don’t know how things work in the UK, but my guess is that there are segments of English history that are whitewashed in similar fashion. On this matter, though, I hope that I’m wrong.

The saddest thing about whitewashing history is that it becomes a dull, two-dimensional story that bores the hell out of the unfortunate students that have to sit through it. Real history is never dull or boring because it’s filled with three-dimensional humans with all of their strengths and shortcomings. It is filled with drama that makes Hollywood movies seem quite drab. I hated history in school; I love it now.

I am smarter than 99% of public school teachers

Let’s put aside the old saw that says, “those who can’t do, teach.” My comment about being smarter than most teachers was a very small part of the original post on which I didn’t choose to elaborate because I didn’t want to be perceived as being a braggart. Since I’ve been pressed on this, though, I’ll just say this:

• I have an IQ greater than 170
• My college GPA is 3.98 with courses including Liberal Arts, the hard sciences, and advanced math
• I have been a very successful instructor for both the US Navy, and several civilian corporations

That said, I will grant that this item could have been left out of my original post since it is not a reason why “you” should homeschool, but rather a reason why “I” should. However, it was never listed as a reason why “you” should homeschool, but as a minor point under the heading Your curriculum isn’t someone’s agenda.

School murders, rapes, and assaults

Listen, if you plan to murder, rape, or otherwise assault your children then my original post wasn’t intended for you in the first place. By all means, if you are that “parent” then give your children to the government right now, because even a nameless, faceless automaton bureaucrat will do a better job than you will. Then kindly have yourself sterilized and locked up. Thank you.

For all of the other parents who won’t assault, murder, or rape their children; the odds of it happening at public schools, to or from public schools, or at public school sponsored events is greater by huge magnitudes.

Here are a few links:

MSN news search for Teacher Rapes
Google news search for Teacher Rapes
Google news search for School Assault

There are plenty more where those came from, but that should keep anyone busy for awhile.

Values

First, when I talk about values I’m not talking about religion; although that is a legitimate reason to keep your children out of American public schools. As an agnostic, I don’t personally care one way or the other about religious indoctrination (or lack thereof). But I do care about ethics and morality, and public schools are detrimental to those things. First, an axiom of morality is that it is not right to steal. Yet public schools couldn’t even exist if the government didn’t first steal assets from citizens to operate the schools. Second, peer influences in schools often undermine the teaching of ethics and morality–not that public schools bother to even try to teach such things. The first ethics class I ever had was post-secondary. Morality isn’t mentioned throughout primary or secondary public education. It wasn’t until I took college philosophy classes and human development classes that I’d been exposed to the topic of morality in a classroom setting.

Disagreements

Despite my difference of opinions from those of Obsteve, I appreciate his candor and the time he has taken to critique my posts. This has encouraged me to reflect even more deeply on the topic.

All readers are encouraged to discuss their own stories or to critique mine.

From the Wikipedia entry on surrender:

Surrender is when soldiers, nations or other combatants stop fighting and become prisoners of war, either as individuals or when ordered to by their officers. A white flag is often used to surrender, as is the gesture of raising one’s hands empty and open above one’s head.

Surrender may be conditional, if the surrendering party promises to submit only if after the victor makes certain promises. Otherwise it is unconditional surrender; the victor makes no promises of treatment other than those provided by international law. Normally a belligerent will only agree to surrender unconditionally if completely incapable of continuing hostilities.

…

Entire nations can also surrender in an attempt to end a war or military conflict. This is done through the signing of an armistice or peace treaty.

This article is in reply to all of the neo-conservatives who attempt to castigate Rep. Ron Paul for his stance on the Iraq conflict. As most readers already know, Rep. Ron Paul is running for the Presidency as a Republican. In opposition to every other Republican in the race, Paul has taken the principled stance that we should remove our troops from Iraq immediately. His position is supported by those of such greats as Thomas Paine, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe.

In Washington’s farewell address he said:

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to domestic nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

In his treatise, Common Sense, Paine established many of the non-interventionist policies that would become the keystones of the American body politic for many years. His arguments are as germane today as they were when he wrote them and are the foundations of conservatism, yet there is only one Republican in all of Congress that still holds to them. This proves that neo-conservatives are not conservative at all–unless the only principles of conservatism are that the government should tell individuals who they can love, what they can consume, and who they can trade with. If you don’t accept their premise, then there’s only one candidate who is worthy of filling the shoes once worn by Washington and Jefferson.

When confronted with the logic of non-interventionism, neo-conservatives fall back on one argument. It may come in several forms, but it always comes down to this: we must fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here. Yet this ignores the “terrorists” own statements that the only reason they attack us is because of our history of entangling alliances that has resulted in the starvation, sickness, and death of so many of their compatriots.

But the brunt of neocon confusion comes in the form of their misuse of the word “surrender.” Watching the Republican candidates’ debates, I quickly lose count of the number of times I hear the word in reference to leaving Iraq. Well, it is not surrender to leave someone else’s country. It is not surrender to stop supporting regimes that want nothing better than to fight and kill each other.

As a matter of fact, we won the war in Iraq way back when GW Bush flew onto the USS Lincoln and announced that the mission was accomplished. We had ousted Saddam, the purported reason for going there in the first place. Instead of doing the smart thing, announcing our win and establishing reasonable terms for our withdrawal, Mr. Bush instead decided that some nation building was in order. That became our new objective–to establish a pro-Western regime in the region. Although some still claim that we are there to fight a war on terror, fighting against tactics is never going to accomplish much.

Because we didn’t have a Constitutional Declaration of War with a stated objective, President Bush has managed to turn a win that was as quick and easy as all of the cheerleaders said it would be into a complete disaster. Guess who voted against giving the President carte blanche to enter Iraq without a goal or exit strategy? If you said “Ron Paul” you win. Guess who submitted a bill to declare war with a stated objective? Again, that would be Ron Paul. Henry Hyde called Dr. Paul’s Constitutionally-based arguments “anachronistic.”

One thing that surrenders throughout history have in common is an armistice or peace treaty, usually these involved the losers giving up concessions to the winners. Pulling out of Iraq immediately would involve neither an armistice nor a peace treaty. Pulling out of Iraq immediately is not “surrender.”

I have installed the DoFollow plugin from Semiologic. I really wasn’t aware that there was a nofollow automatically placed on notes or I would have done this sooner. Thank you to everyone who has noted in the past despite this oversight. You will now get the links you deserve.

One of the initial goals that I had when I started this blog was to spur debate within the notes or the discussion board. Although there hasn’t been much participation in the discussion board, my article 5 Reasons Why You Should Homeschool, has led to considerable discussion and emails. Almost all of these responses have been encouraging with people agreeing with at least some of my points. One notable point of dissent from contributor Obsteve was left on the discussion board and later copied unedited to the blog here. Some of obsteve’s arguments have been answered by other noters, but I still owe him responses as promised. I intend to get to those soon, but this entry is actually about a different reason to homeshool that wasn’t included in my original article.

The forgotten reason is actually the primary reason why I make this choice: as a libertarian individualist, I find socialism in any form to be undesirable and even immoral. Although I’m aware of some of the flaws with pure Objectivism (namely, it is not pragmatic), Ayn Rand nailed that one with her strict anti-socialist views. The desert island test of morality comes in handy when considering public schools.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the desert island test, but in a nutshell it means that when you have to consider whether you have specific rights, you should consider similar circumstances for an individual on an island. Individuals don’t gain additional rights when they join a group other than the ability to form voluntary agreements and associations. But anything that isn’t voluntary would violate the rights of other individuals in the newly formed society, therefore such actions can’t be rights.

But how does this apply to public schools? Let’s consider an island with one family with children and one childless couple. Does the family have a right to force the autonomous couple to contribute to the education of their children? Most rational people will agree that they do not have such a right. Additionally, the childless couple does not have the right to force the other family to let the couple dictate how the family’s children should be educated. Does adding another family with children change the underlying principle of rights? Again, most rational people will agree that it does not.

So the question is: at what number of families does it become moral to force the childless couples to pay for the education of the families’ children? At what number does society gain the right to force families to start allowing the society to educate their children? Is 100 the magic number? 1000? 1,000,000?

Of course it can be argued that without public education, some children will fall by the wayside. Some will not have the opportunity for education at all. It could also be argued that uneducated children may be more likely to grow up to be unproductive or outright criminals, putting strain on society and the individuals that compose it. The answer to that is volunteerism. More than a few individuals will voluntarily contribute to the cost of building and maintaining charitable schools. Quite a few schools have been built in countries in Africa, as well as Laos, Cambodia, and other countries–all with voluntary contributions. Interestingly, the contributors don’t even have any fear of the children in those villages growing up to become criminals in their own backyards. One should conclude that they contribute simply because it makes them feel good about themselves. That’s the way that voluntary charity works–unlike the forced charity that we find in all social welfare programs, where the individuals often come to resent the implied violence that would result if were to choose to abstain.

In all fairness, I attended public schools. So should I be grateful for the education they provided? I contend that most of my education didn’t come from the public schools I attended but from parents who educated during the evenings and summers. So, no, I am not grateful because frankly the time I wasted there would have been much better filled with more of the homeschooling that I did receive on weekends and evenings.

Just the same, who should pay for the public education that I received? Well, actually, my father already paid for it in the form of property taxes and other taxes. But who paid for his education? His father. For that matter, if you go back a few more generations you end up finding people who paid taxes for their children’s educations who didn’t receive any public education of their own when they were children. More important than any of that is the fact that the educations (at least since my childhood) aren’t worth the money that is spent on them. If I were to go to a restaurant and receive poor service and rotten food, not only would I not be obligated to pay; but I definitely wouldn’t give them more money so that they could use it to attempt to improve their service and menu.

So socialism is the primary reason I choose to homeschool. If you are like me, then this alone is reason enough to keep your children at home. My other five reasons are simply icing on the cake.

I just StumbledUpon a blog entry that I had to share with my readers.

How to Walk Through Steel-Reinforced Walls and Achieve other Similarly Impossible Feats is one of the my favorite entries I’ve ever accidentally found through StumbleUpon. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of other great blog entries that I’ve enjoyed and would call my favorites (like almost all of Steve Olson’s or Wendy Piersall’s entries), it’s just that I didn’t Stumbleupon them.

In the linked entry, Dan writes about a conversation with a child who was trying to walk through a wall ala Harry Potter. He gives several points of advice to child. Walking through walls is, of course, a metaphor for accomplishing any difficult task. Or is it? Sure, currently we don’t have the technology to walk through walls, but I couldn’t help but think of the car that drove through walls thanks to its Oscillation Overthruster in the film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai.

Anyway, the point of the entry is that if you have some natural talent, make a strong commitment to succeed, and don’t give up, ultimately you’ll be able to build an Oscillation Overthruster or something similar, and walk through a wall.

I’ve often lamented that there are so many naysayers that try to prevent you from achievement pretty much from the first day you open your eyes and take your first breath. What fantasy occupation did you want to have and how many times did you hear that “you’d better have a backup plan”? How many times have you heard the saying, “don’t quit your day job”. Dan calls these people Dude Yamaha’s, and has another entry to explain why.

The only point I question is his first, which states: make sure you are born to walk through walls. This gets to the whole nature vs. nurture debate, and I contend that many people have accomplished things that they may not have been “born to accomplish.” However, this is a simple difference of opinion and certainly doesn’t detract from an outstanding writing.