One and a half cheers for American Muslim homeschooling families. Excerpt from today's Times story:
About 40 percent of the Pakistani and other Southeast Asian girls of high school age who are enrolled in the district here [Lodi, CA] are home-schooled, though broader statistics on the number of Muslim children being home-schooled, and how well they do academically, are elusive. Even estimates on the number of all American children being taught at home swing broadly, from one million to two million.No matter what the faith, parents who make the choice are often inspired by a belief that public schools are havens for social ills like drugs and that they can do better with their children at home.
“I don’t want the behavior,” said Aya Ismael, a Muslim mother home-schooling four children near San Jose. “Little girls are walking around dressing like hoochies, cursing and swearing and showing disrespect toward their elders. In Islam we believe in respect and dignity and honor.”
[snip]
“There is a tendency to make home-schoolers look like antisocial fanatics who don’t want their kids in the system,” said Nabila Hanson, who argues that most home-schoolers, like herself, make an extra effort to find their children opportunities for sports, music or field trips with other people.
Sounds great to me. So why not three cheers? Because the story goes on to say that homeschooling is being used by at least some of these immigrant Muslim families not to provide their children with a better education, but rather as a way to enforce oppressive old-world standards on girls -- basically, to keep them uneducated and subservient, as girls are back in the old country:
Mrs. Asghar, the Stockton woman who argues against home schooling, takes exception to the idea of removing girls from school to preserve family honor, calling it a barrier to assimilation.“People who think like this are stuck in a time capsule,” she said. “When kids know more than their parents, the parents lose control. I think that is a fear in all of us.”
Aishah Bashir, now an 18-year-old Independent School student, was sent back to Pakistan when she was 12 and stayed till she was 16. She had no education there.
Asked about home schooling, she said it was the best choice. But she admitted that the choice was not hers and, asked if she would home-school her own daughter, stared mutely at the floor. Finally she said quietly: “When I have a daughter, I want her to learn more than me. I want her to be more educated.”
Homeschooling is fantastic, but no panacea. Like any good thing, it can be abused.
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Franklin, M_David...is barking up the wrong tree
Thx for the lookout! Always nice to know when I'm looking up the wrong tree :-).
Karen, Again, I'm not talking about what you DO with the education. I'm talking about access to it.
Access to education? Stop making me laugh! My belly hurts. Access to BOOKS and dinner table conversation, that's all my children need to blow away public schooled kids. A poor girl has more damage to her educational "access" from having a TV at home, for goodness sakes.
It is, again, that population who seems to be viewing that a future as a 'wife and mother' will render higher education unnecessary. Not me.
My view: any student who gets a "higher" education using a public school remains wildly and woefully undereducated. But so what? As a guy who is hyper-educated by the world's standards, I don't see the point of your beloved curriculum. Yet I do see very, very big problems with girls being painfully undereducated about raising families, as 9 out of 10 are today. And it's hard to miss these problems in our culture today, even, as I said, from the cheap seats.
Heck, given this is in a thread about homeschooling, who's going to BE homeschooling those children, yes, including the boys, in most households?
For what it's worth, I do the all the "academic" homeschooling in my family.
The crux of where we differ: you take the American individualist view, where children are raw individuals, and hence every woman should be encouraged to be a feminist to better seek the individual career choice (and cash) needed for the good life.
I take the family view, where children are the highest calling. Where feminism is an ugly, selfish (and dying) breed, made up of people who damage themselves, their family, and finally the whole culture. To my mind, any girl not pumped full of propaganda and an IQ above room temperature will always reject feminism...and choose life.
But that is what makes America so great: freedom to raise our families how we want. You think I am providing a disservice to my daughters, I think you are to yours. We shall see the results soon enough. In the meantime, it's probably a sin, but I do enjoy putting my daughters head-to-head academically on tests against girls raised as feminists. Just for fun. Like shooting fish in a barrel.
M_David, please sit down, clean your glasses/contacts, take a slow, deep breath and pay attention. Karen's point (with which I agree), is this.
Take the control you have and exercise over your children's education. Replace you with a religious devotee who believes from God that a woman's only possible occupation in life is childbearing and rearing, and go about isolating her from any other topic or subject matter.
Until you get it that neither Karen nor I actually dispute the facts you present (except, for me, that feminism has nothing to do with the point at hand), but the factual situation I just attempted to describe, would you mind taking a pruning cutter with you? The trees you are eyeing could use a good trimming. :-)
Oh, as you encourage, admire and honor your wife as the childbearing, nurturing and home-providing mate you desire, ask her what she would do if you removed all books and magazines from the house and forbade her from bringing any more in without your expressed permission. Her answer will, I predict, provide you with proof that it is not about feminism.
Thanks, Franklin. I'll let you handle it, since apparently my very participation seems to generate that sort of over the top dramatizing.
I'm talking about the access a very specific segment of homeschoolers are permitting their female children. Not you, not every homeschooler. THOSE homeschoolers.
Secondly, I didn't say the subjects they WERE being taught were less than valuable, anymore than I said being a wife and mother wasn't valuable. Being a husband and father are too. Indeed, I think it is valuable enough, and important enough, and challenging enough that a wife and mother needs every bit as much, and likely more, of information and education they can get. It is BECAUSE I think it involves more than canning and sewing and cooking that I think this.
And not one word of this was addressed to you, or to your daughters. Though I do note what you think of mine.
Of course, I never assumed you were one of the homeschoolers mentioned (and you were never noted as among them) who didn't see fit to let their female children have access to any subjects outside a narrow range of domestic training.
I will start by saying that I am sure there are parents who effectively home school their children.
There are several posts giving anecdotal evidence of success with home schooling. My information is also anecdotal however not quite as positive.
I have been working in the social service field for 20 years (in Canada). In that time I have had dealings with various families who homeschooled their children. None of these parents were qualified to effectively educate their children and the children were not provided with adequate instruction nor social interaction. The evidence that I have seen is that fathers chose this mode of education in an effort to maintain control and/or isolate their children and spouses, in some cases to the point of abuse.
to Elizabeth Anne, regarding levels of education - I have a BA in psychology & an MSC (Minister of Spiritual Counseling.)The latter has an interfaith focus.
I enjoyed getting my education, but it was not necessary to my home schooling my youngster. A home schooling parent needs a basic literacy, access to a good library (Internet comes in 2nd IMO), & most of all a true enthusiasm for his/her child's interests. Child-directed study never grows old. The parent has to keep hopping though to integrate all of the necessary subjects. For example, during a year long passion for Lewis & Clark, I set up math problems in miles covered, & in supplies purchased. (159 lbs of flour @ 23 cents, etc.)Art included clay pots, sewing moccasins, painting 'hides.'
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