Muslims who homeschool

Many people who homeschool do so in order to insulate their children from cultural trends of which they disapprove and which they fear will undermine culturally conservative, and often religious, dogma. This is precisely what these Muslim families are doing. So, Rod, isn't just that you like kids to be immersed in Christianity and don't like them to be immersed in Islam?

The better position is to realize that the United States has a stake in inculcating its children into a common civic culture and thus that all homeschooling is corrosive.

I can't help wondering if there is something more to the story about the girl who was shipped back to Pakistan from ages 12-16. If her parents are so against her receiving more education than them and just intend to marry her off, then why are they sending her to school at age 18. Most states only require school attendance until age 16. Furthermore, why haven't they already married her off. In fact, if they were as intent on holding her back as the article implies it seems that they would have had her married off already, possibly before she even returned from Pakistan.

Overall, it was a somewhat balanced article on homeschooling. I didn't look to see if there were any comments, the combox is usually where all of the uninformed anti-homeschooling people pop out of the woodwork. I love how the one anti-homeschooling Muslim woman in the article now has her son in Catholic school. The article doesn't say whether the school is all-male or co-ed; it just implies that he's there for academic reasons. It obviously doesn't address that not everyone can afford to send their kid to Catholic/private school or that Catholic schools usually have slightly higher standards of discipline and respect for authority than public schools. Also, most Catholic schools usually enforce more modest dress codes and have limits on music and other media being brought in.

Oh, and have you heard about the 1100 public school teachers set to be let go because the California state budget is in a shambles? Why don't we scare all the homeschooling parents in California into thinking they have to send their kids to school unless they have teaching credentials and then fire a whole bunch of credentialed teachers?

It's a tricky subject. On the one hand, I think homeschooling is a great option for a lot of people. I'm considering it myself once my child is a bit older. But, at least in Great Britain, it seems as though some muslim parents are pulling their girls out of school with the ultimate goal of subjecting them to some form of coercive marriage.

From the UK:

" . . . Marilyn Mornington, a district judge and chair of the Domestic Violence Working Group, warned that fears of retribution, and the authorities' failure to understand the problem completely, meant the vast majority of victims were still too scared to come forward for help. In evidence to the home affairs committee, which is investigating the problem, she said: "We need a national strategy to identify the large number of pupils, particularly girls, missing from school registers who have been taken off the register and are said to be home schooled, which leads to these issues. Airport staff and other staff need to be trained to recognise girls who are being taken out of the country.

"We are bringing three girls a week back from Islamabad as victims of forced marriage. We know that is the tip of the iceberg, but that is the failure end. It has to be part of education within the communities and the children themselves."

"Women who have been taken overseas to be married against their will are now being rescued on an almost daily basis. The Government's Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) handled approximately 400 cases last year – 167 of them leading to young Britons being helped back to the UK to escape unwanted partners overseas. And it is not just women who are affected. Home Office figures show that 15 per cent of cases involve men and boys."

The link seems to be messing up the format. Here's the relevant information on the quote: "The Independent" dated Feb. 10, 2008, "A Question of Honour: Police say 17,000 women are victims every year"

The better position is to realize that the United States has a stake in inculcating its children into a common civic culture and thus that all homeschooling is corrosive.

What "common civic culture" would that be? I ask that in all seriousness.

I've never met a home schooled person who wasn't socially inept and had a very limited frame of reference. It's a breeding ground for ignorance and misinformation.

This is another reason I have such a bias against homeschooling -- I would have put it that it was a barrier to adequate socialization, but perhaps as a barrier to assimilation is more like it. We could be duplicating the terrible conditions in Europe by sticking up for the rights of immigrant parents (or other parents) to homeschool.

Homeschooling may have made sense on the prairie among the pioneers when there weren't even one-room schoolhouses available. Nowadays, it seems to be a means of retreating from society. I do understand how appealing it might be, but it seems like another form of "survivalism" to me...

...cause I'm pretty sure, Rod, that you weren't raised in the "homeschooling bubble." And so you are out here engaging with liberals and conservative and people of all stripes, and behaving like someone who knows we are all in this together.

Isn't possible that homeschooling is another force that is loosening the bonds that hold the citizens of our nation together?

Nathan,

I think I know what you mean. When I was growing up the only homeschooled kids I knew were just exactly as you describe. But the world has changed. In recent years I have met many more homeschooled kids, and they were as a rule both better educated and more socially comfortable than their peers. I teach at a good liberal arts college and my kids are homeschooled, so I get to see both the process and the results, and, though there are exceptions, most of the homeschooled kids are quite well prepared for hard work and independent thinking.

As with many things, public education is a great idea. What has changed is the culture.

When we were mostly an agrarian culture, literate meant competent. A master carpenter unable to read more than his name and the clock would be responsible for the training of more carpenters. Farmers conveyed the important details of growing, harvesting and animal husbandry by oral and demonstrated example. Indeed, reading about something was seen as vastly inferior to learning by doing.

Industrialization increased the complexity of life. Specialization no longer meant in a skill, but in a subset of the full body of knowledge about that activity. An illiterate could be trained to perform a complex task, but a literate could be trained in the same task faster, cheaper and with greater confidence. Literacy went from being a respected but of limited value skill to a necessity.

That's just a part, to be sure. Another important part is the social atmosphere and influences leading up to and surrounding child labor laws. The creation of the Catholic school system in competition with public schools, and the motivations and reasons for it, also deserve examination.

Dale, I'd like to answer your question, but I also have another question: what does the current culture have to say about the value of literacy? Both questions are equally loaded, as it were.

Susan, we need those answers said out loud, for all to hear. My point is not to defend public ed as it currently works -- my wife has been a public school teacher for 35 years, and agrees that public ed is worse than broken in some ways -- but to get the people to just talk to each other about it. What we usually have is people talking past each other -- as Carol did with you; ranking in the state is not a criterion of quality -- and that is why public ed remains broken: no one wants to own up to it and do the necessary and rational things to fix it.

From your second statement, we seem to agree: our culture values literacy pretty much for its ability to convey entertainment and gossip, and little else*. My wife and her colleagues see themselves in a double bind: they love learning, and their students and the parents** see learning as a waste of time. Couple that with being blamed for all the problems, and seeing their salaries continue to run at about 75% of what they could get in private industry, and do we really have to wonder that the overall quality of teachers is declining?

* "These instructions are impossible to read!!" As ye sow, so shall ye reap...

** Strictly based on local, anecdotal evidence. Any parent taking offense at that statement should, well, learn how to read. ;-D

A primary (all puns intended) point in the parochial school split was the Protestant prayers required by public school students. Catholic parents wanted them changed, and failing to receive any constructive response decided to create their own schools. That's an oversimplification, but it's no less valid as a starting point.

Franklin:

What does the current culture have to say about the value of literacy? Not much good. And I agree with your reflection on public school teachers, having married one.

Dale asked an excellent question:

[not Dale] The better position is to realize that the United States has a stake in inculcating its children into a common civic culture and thus that all homeschooling is corrosive.

[Dale] What "common civic culture" would that be? I ask that in all seriousness.

I was going to wax eloquent (well, pompous) about citizenship and such, perhaps quoting John Adams and others (I'm reading the McCollough biography, highly recommend it), and I realize that the correct answer is very simple: it doesn't exist.

It used to. I could describe the one I grew up in, in the 60s and 70s, but that would say nothing about the present except to describe in part what has been lost.

What should be found, what should be expected of public ed, is the teaching of US history as the definition and description of the American republic and the ideals for which it stands. I submit that this teaching is certainly possible at home, but not likely to be delivered with any sort of consistency, and emphatically not any better than it would be in public ed.

The trouble with homeschooling is that it isolates kids from the realities of peer cruelty

You are falsely assuming that homeschooling means kids are locked in the home for 18 years without any interaction. You can get plenty of social interaction through Little League, Scouting, Church, volunteering, etc. You must not have any kids (nor been one) if you think kids can be cruel only during the school hours.

Alicia, Isn't possible that homeschooling is another force that is loosening the bonds that hold the citizens of our nation together?

Yes. No melting pot, and public schools can't last.

However, homeschooling is a reaction, not a force in itself. The old melting pot was undermined by moral relativism pushed into the broader culture by liberals, and homeschoolers merely voted with their feet after a few decades of yuck factor.

Linker, So, Rod, isn't just that you like kids to be immersed in Christianity and don't like them to be immersed in Islam?

I do find it sort of ironic Rod gets all fussy about Muslims who wish to pass on their culture that is in opposition to modernity, yet he sees no problem when he does the same thing. Modern feminism (raising women just like men who will then have less than replacement number of children) makes even less sense than what the Muslims are doing. And let's also not forget to make a post about all those Amish brutes who won't let their women work in the fields or use birth control so they can have the time to work outside the home...now aren't the Amish the classic example of loosening the bonds that hold the citizens of our nation together? Or it it ok because they are our quaint little brutes?

The better position is to realize that the United States has a stake in inculcating its children into a common civic culture and thus that all homeschooling is corrosive.

You should read this article for a good primer on the future of education in America. Your wish is a pipe dream; the old ways are dead, and liberals have become the new traditionalists crying a river to hang on to a dying past. Public education can no longer serve as the vehicle for passing on the culture, because the cognitive elite are demanding more and bailing out, and the proles will soon follow in the great American tradition of getting ahead. Read it; I promise it's not a RickRoll.

So, Phil, kids should be sent off to school to learn about bullies and raging hormones, so these things don't come as a shock to them in college?

The reality for most home-schooled kids is that they participate in a variety of outside activities and often have many opportunities to learn about the seamier side of peer interaction.

Besides, by college aren't these peer related difficulties supposed to take a back seat to the pursuit of knowledge (or at least the pursuit of the degree that'll bring in the big bucks)?

The real question is whether the state has a right to tell parents, in spite of their religious beliefs -- or perhaps because of them, that those parents must provide a specific curriculum. If a society decides that Muslim parents must teach their daughters reading/math/science/history or whatever, how is this overseen? And what is to prevent the imposition of other curricula on other parents?

sorry about the weird italics in my post above.

SilliconValleySteve: I respect your views, but I'd like to clarify some things: the math required by the GED is high school-level, which is the unnecessary stuff. I'm up to grade eight, which is the stuff required to live a pretty darn good life in the Western part of the world. And I know that when I go to university I'll major in something in the arts--I have no interest in science or math (at least when it comes to seriously studying those subjects).

And when it comes to getting into university, I've heard that results of tests like the SAT (which Canada doesn't have--but don't ask what our equivalent is because I don't know) don't really matter--some homeschoolers submit a portfolio of projects they've done over the past two or so years which is even better because it forces the folks at admissions to really look at what has been submitted instead of thumbing though a bunch of test results.

>>>Ever? The state has no interest in educational outcomes?

I'm willing to make the argument that this is the parent's responsibility.

>>>>In how the kids are being treated?
Posted by: Daniel | March 26, 2008 2:13 PM

That is the proper concern of the State's Child Protective Services and not a direct argument for or against homeschooling.

Annapurna--sorry, didn't realize Canada was the frame of reference.

(But that starts another interesting line of discussion--what is the purpose of a college/university degree? Homeschoolers more than others look skeptically at credentialism. If you don't need math to pursue and enjoy a successful career, but you need math to get the degree . . . ???!)

Franklin - I don't take offense at all, and I think we're pretty much in agreement about this issue. If we all don't have a common understanding of the ideals on which America was founded people begin to believe that there is nothing that binds us together as a nation and we're all out there pretty much to get whatever we can from society with no notion of anything owed.

My point was that I doubt you'd find much disagreement with this amongst homeschoolers. You're more likely to find the thought that "American ideals" aren't worth preserving amongst a certain segment of the public school students.

It was my privilege to homeschool my multiple-gifted younger daughter, as well as my disabled son. (The public schools were like really nice to me because they were afraid I'd send the latter child back to them.) But it was a privilege to homeschool him too, and to learn in that way how bright he really is. (Very bright indeed.)

My older kids are jealous. And I regret the lost opportunity to work with them in this way, very much. (They are now 40 and 38.) But hey, back then, I was working 80 hours a week to support us all, so whatever. (Ya like having had a roof over your heads when you were a small child? Ya like making more money than God now, as you both do? So, shut up.)

Not everyone can manage this financially. Properly viewed, it's a luxury. But a very valuable one, better than Hummers.

Elizabeth Anne -

When I homeschooled, I held both a law degree and a Masters in History. My husband held an MA in English, a law degree and a California teacher's credential. (He was not at all involved in the homeschool curriculum.)

We sacrificed a substantial amount of money income to mount this effort. We don't regret a penny of it.

Susan, you (someone just like you, that is) would have sat on the committee charged with setting the history curriculum. Back in the day (my elementary years were 61-67), we learned quite the balanced set of facts about Native Americans (massacres on both sides, along with the place some of the individuals had, good and bad, in our development as a country). In junior high school we watched the unedited newsreel footage of the liberation of the Nazi death camps. We were (ahem) forced to memorize the Gettysburg Address, not for its own sake, but as a prerequisite for delving into the Civil War era. Reading Michael Shaara's "The Killer Angels" a year ago was like coming home.

Not meaning to seem hypocritical, but I point the finger at some political agendas that have served to kill that since then. My children are 24, 21 and 15. They all went to (did my homework on this) one of the best middle schools in the nation. I was unhappy with the amount of supplementing I had to do; when confronted, their history teachers were apologetic, and reminded me of how their hands are tied. One wondered aloud how much money I'd have to spend on attorneys if I publicly promoted showing those newsreels in a public school nowadays. Gah.

Ross, thank you. My phrasing would be that there are plenty of parents who believe that "American ideals" aren't worth preserving, and the interesting part would be finding out what proportion of them homeschool. I make no prediction, and I guess it to be pretty close to the general proportion.

I'm sure there are many parents who home school and do a fine job of it, but there are a couple things that concern me. It seems that after about grade four or five, most people do not have the breadth of knowledge to effectively give their children a well rounded education. I think I could do a good job of teaching my kids math and science up to college level. I would have a terrible time trying to teach music or literature.

The second worry for me is the potential for abuse and indoctrination. Rod cites the case where the Muslim family may be using home schooling to enforce oppressive standards on girls. On Nightline a couple of nights ago there was a story about some Christian home schoolers who were leading tours of a natural history museum. Instead of letting the kids learn from the exhibits, they were basically drilling them in young earth creationism. I cite these two examples because they are fresh in my memory, but the concern applies generally. It could equally apply to survivalists or hippie communes.

There is also the potential for physical and emotional abuse. Schools, whether public or private can provide a sanctuary for abused kids and a place to get help that a home schooled kid may not have.

As I said at the start, I think many home school parents probably do a fine job. But I think that there needs to be standards and oversight in order to protect the kids and ensure that they receive a good education.

Elizabeth Anne--I have an MBA.

Here's the problem, Steve.

Homeschoolers like me take their kids out of the public schools because they think the public school curriculum and/or environment don't make the grade.

So, then you're going to subject homeschooled kids to tests which measure whether these kids "make the grade"? And the standard would be what? That they know and can parrot the Accepted Wisdom about American history (which is very far wide of the truth)?

I'm sorry to focus on history, but it was my major field of study at Stanford and at UC Berkeley. The distortions of American (and other) history leap to my eye because I know what I'm talking about. Can I assume that of course there are no distortions in other fields, that by chance my field is the only one which is inadequately (!) taught by the public schools? And how likely is that?

The rest is, your kid may be abused in the public schools too. Sorry, Beliefnet, that you don't want to allow me to say that. Hope this gets through.

Do I make my point? That allowing Beliefnet or, God forbid, any governmental authority, censorship over what we say (to our kids!) is not a good idea??

My phrasing would be that there are plenty of parents who believe that "American ideals" aren't worth preserving, and the interesting part would be finding out what proportion of them homeschool. I make no prediction, and I guess it to be pretty close to the general proportion.

One of the reasons I posed the question on civic culture to Mr. Linker was that I thought I'd be able to argue that my wife and I are giving our kids a positive grounding in the institutions and history of the American Republic, and the great ideals which formed and sustain it. I can't speak to any homeschoolers than the ones I know, and they are trying to give a similar education.

My concern is that too many of those who are happy to discard those ideals are drafting public school curricula and writing the textbooks. *That's* corrosive and comes with the imprimatur of the state. In fact, I imagine many homeschoolers are reacting against that sort of thing. The HS phenomenon didn't emerge ex nihilo, and there are trends in public education that should be more worrying than a couple million kids escaping those trends.

Dale. Sorry!!

If you think Beliefnet folks are censors, try the public school system.

Hm. Thanks Rod. "Software."

Old joke. The lightbulb burns out. Who to ask? The software person says, "It's hardware." The hardware person says, "It's software."

I'm posting with "astonishing" frequency? I won't bother to tabulate my responses today with the responses of other people on other days, or today for that matter; I will simply observe that when I "tactfully" rephrased my posts, the censors let them through.

"Don't disagree with the Party Line in ways which the computer can recognize."

Let's see if THIS post gets through!

Here's the real deal.

If your kids, for whatever reason, arrive at "adulthood" without the ability to support themselves, for whatever reason, guess who has the ball.

In theory, the kid. In reality, you.

Hey, I've been a Mom for 40 years and one day (so far) and I know what I'm talking about.

You (rightly) want out at some point? So, in self interest if for no other reason, wake up and dig it, be sure your kids get an education which fits them to support themselves.

Are the public schools in this country fitted to do that?

Your mileage may differ.

,Gotcha censors.

Susan, you've posted six times on this thread within the last hour. Nobody else has even bothered. I just counted your overall posting today, and you've put up close to 50 posts in less than 24 hours. No wonder you've had some flagged by the software. Take a break. I pretty much agree with the position you're taking here, but really, you need to stand down and let others respond.

I am astonished at the responses. The article states that the girls are being used as domestic servants in their youth, then married off against their will when older:

"Her family wanted her to clean and cook for her male relatives, and had also worried that other American children would mock both her Muslim religion and her traditional clothes."

"In some cases, home-schooling is used primarily as a way to isolate girls like Miss Bibi, the Pakistani-American here in Lodi."

"As soon as they finish their schooling, the girls are married off, often to cousins brought in from their families’ old villages."

Coercion in the form of social shame (and who knows what else) is applied:

“I do miss my friends,” Miss Bibi said of fellow students with whom she once attended public school. “We would hang out and do fun things, help each other with our homework.”...But being schooled apart does have its benefit, she added. “We don’t want anyone to point a finger at us,” she said, “to say that we are bad.”"

Another girl: "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.”"

Are you all so blinded by your ideology that you don't see that this is not a lifestyle choice, but child abuse and exploitation, and near-enslavement?

Are you all so blinded by your ideology that you don't see that this is not a lifestyle choice, but child abuse and exploitation, and near-enslavement?

As a feminist, I object to this practice.

Anon, to follow on what Annapurna says, I indicated in my initial post that homeschooling is a good thing, but it can be abused. People who use it to oppress their daughters are plainly abusing it. The answer is not, therefore, to conclude that homeschooling is always and everywhere oppressive. A few years back, in my capacity as a NYPost columnist, I did a piece on bullying, and spoke with a homeschooling mother who removed her son from public school because he was being horribly bullied, and school authorities either would not or could not deal with it effectively. You wouldn't conclude from that anecdote that public school was always oppressive, though clearly it was in that boy's case.

Rod & Annapurna - your liking of homeschooling in general should not lead you to exonerate these parents, much less praise them. Rod, you set a really bad tone by giving them "one and a half cheers" and ignoring the fundamental horror of the situation described.

If homeschoolers ever hope to be more respected by the general population, you should be condemning this - not defending it kneejerkly out of a sense of victimization - and drawing very clear distinctions between this and your own more enlightened practices.

I wonder if the girl who, when asked if she would homeschool her own kids and "stared mutely at the floor" before saying no, got in trouble for saying so - and if so, how much.

I also can't help wondering how many of you who are blithely dismissing all of this as perhaps a slight misapplication of generally good principles would be willing to trade places with the girls, or have your children do so?

I suspect, none.

So what does that tell you?

Let me also point out that various aspects of this situation

-enforced isolation
-systemic vilification of mainstream society and practices
-total disempowerment (e.g., inability to even speak one's truth)
-emotional coercion (shame/love)

are also used by cults, human traffickers, and torturers. these techniques are used to break down *adults,* for goodness sake, and here we're talking about kids.

Along the same lines, I also find this highly interesting:

"Parents who home-school tend to be converts, Mrs. Khan-Mukhtar said. Immigrant parents she has encountered generally oppose the idea, seeing educational opportunities in America as a main reason for coming."

I would be interested in some religious peoples' views on the apparent link between the parents' religious conversion and their eager participation in misogynistic child abuse.

I hope Rod doesn't mind if I step in for a moment to address the issue of posts that get held up in the filters. However, I'm one of the people behind the curtain whose job it is to monitor the blogs so perhaps I can shed some light for Susan and Karen.

First, Rod is right about the amount of spam. Beliefnet is under constant attack by spammers. These attacks come in waves, so it's hard to describe a "typical" day of spam. Today was relatively light. Only about 450 posts were caught by the spam filters for Rod's blog. Last week, numbers were more like 1300--and that's just for Crunchy Con! Without the filters, no one would be able to have a discussion here. Not only would legitimate posts get drowned out by spam, the very nature of the spam would make this a place that no one would want to visit. I'm not easily offended--by anything--yet even I find most of what these spammers are advertising to be truly vile.

Contrary to popular conceptions, no one aside from Rod is reading the posts and editing or deleting them. Believe me, I just don't have that kind of time. My job is simply to monitor the blogs to remove any spam that makes it through the filters and to publish legitimate posts that get held up by the filters. That keeps me busy enough!

If you have a post held up, it is usually because you have included some key word, phrase, or link that is commonly used by spammers. Every once in a while, the filters will give us a clear idea of what the objectionable phrase is. More often, however, it's a complete mystery. To give you some idea of how arbitrary it can be, Susan, today your posts were held up because you innocently included two words, "the watchers," a phrase that has been used by a lot of different spammers. That was the only reason your posts were held up by the filters, not for any opinion you expressed. In fact, there is a very good chance that I will have to go into the junk folder to retrieve this post since I have included that same phrase.

Karen, your problem is a bit different. Although I can't say for certain why your posts are so frequently held up, the most likely reason is because of the username you have selected. Try something other than "Karen" and see if that doesn't help. It's frustrating, I know, but we've had a LOT of spammers in recent months who use common usernames.

To everyone, I sympathize with the frustration the spam filters can often cause. In their defense, they usually do a pretty good job. For instance, today only around 8 legitimate posts were held up out of 450 total that were caught by the filters for Crunchy Con, and most of those 8 were repeats of the same post. Even so, I appreciate how aggravating it can be to have a post held up so long that you miss out on a great conversation.

If you're feeling frustrated, the best thing to do is to email us (community@beliefnetstaff.com). Voicing your grievances here is cathartic, but ultimately inefficient since those of us who monitor the blogs won't see your complaints until we are already monitoring the blogs. Even worse, repeatedly trying to post the same thing only makes the spam filters that much more certain that you are a spammer!

I hope this clears a few things up. And now, back to your original programming.

BeliefnetLion
Beliefnet Community Monitor

Hey, Susan, sorry you had to do the lion's share of the posting on this topic today, since it's one I'd normally be all over. But my husband had a day off work today, so the kids got their schoolwork done around 2 p.m. and we headed out to run a few errands on this very lovely spring Texas day.

No one I know of thinks it's a good idea to let Muslim parents home school as a way of abusing their daughters--but it's not the home school that's the problem. Other Muslim parents may send their daughters to private religious schools or even to public schools and still manage to abuse them--the idea that every public school teacher is able, or even qualified, to recognize the often subtle signs of the kind of emotional abuse we're talking about here, or will be able in our multicultural environment to draw attention to these signs in a way that won't put the school district at risk of a lawsuit, is pretty naive.

The fact of the matter is that already in our society we allow and expect the government to interfere in the private lives of families to an unprecedented degree. Usually, the premise for doing so is to prevent abuse--but this would only make sense if the public schools were, in fact, doing a bang-up job of preventing all abuse among the children in their care. Not only are they not able to do this (it's not really their job) but also it's quite possible that for every case of abuse discovered by someone in the schools, another instance of abuse happens in those schools--everything from violent bullying to sexual assault to the molestation of students by teachers and coaches, a problem which is growing, by the way, and is likely to continue to increase.

So if we're really going to stop child abuse, the answer isn't to regulate home schools and home schoolers. The only answer is to mandate regular and routine as well as surprise home visits and inspections of children, which will include separating the children from their parents, subjecting both the children and their parents to sessions of interrogation, and conducting full and invasive physical exams. In this way you'll catch the abuse not only of home schooled kids, but also of kids too young to be in school yet and of kids in public schools whose teachers haven't noticed yet that they're being abused.

Then, to make it impossible for any abuse to take place, we can mandate that cameras be installed in every room of every home where a child lives. Social workers can observe how parents and children interact, and intervene quickly with remedial education should a parent display signs of frustration.

Don't want to do all this? Why not? Don't you want to stop child abuse?

Don't get me wrong. My point in detailing the above isn't to laugh at concerns about child abuse, which are unfortunately all too well-founded in our day and age. But unless we're going to strip away all privacy from every family in America, we're not going to eradicate child abuse.

Home schooled children generally are just like public school children in that they are being raised by parents who love them and who have their best interests at heart. State regulation usually ends up being antagonistic toward the family in the way that poster Steve (unintentionally) is being, by assuming that home schooling parents are just looking to neglect their children's well-being. Just about all of the home school parents I've ever known are EXTREMELY concerned about their children's well-being, to the point that they're willing to give up a second income and huge amounts of time and planning just to provide for their children something that they see as being at least a little bit better than what the public school down the road is able to offer.

Do some home schoolers fail to provide a decent education? Probably--but then, so do some public schools, and I've yet to hear very many people suggest regulating public education out of existence as a remedy. Many home schoolers excel in college and beyond, and many find education at home to be a blessed relief from what they were experiencing in "regular" school.

I was like that. I never attended a public school; my parents worked their fingers to the bone to send us to Catholic schools, and then one day realized that as the education we were receiving became exponentially more expensive, the quality was going down, not up. The uniquely Catholic worldview was gone, too--we were using all the same books and materials as the public schools were using, and taking all the same standardized tests.

When my parents decided to home school us, it didn't take long for me to realize that I loved home schooling. We were living in Washington State at the time, and one of my first home schooling memories is of the twin delights of listening to Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" as I read "Silas Marner," my first-ever encounter with George Eliot. The soft, meditative Seattle rain trickled like the bereft Marner's tears down the panes of glass in front of my desk, but an occasional shaft of late winter sunshine would pool like Eppie's gold curls on the pages before me. No bell would call me away from Godfrey Cass's fears, and no sudden hallway din would drown the swelling music. For the first time in my life I caught some glimpse of the pleasure of scholarship.

Home schooling may not be like that for every home schooled child. But if it is like that for at least some, if not many, of them, we'd be foolish to destroy it.

2) The school system serves as our de facto check on vaccination provision. How do we provide this w/o schools? Our schools also required physicals. Do we just assume homeschoolers require no external discipline and do these things on their own? Does #1 apply?

I tried pretty carefully in my post to not imply that I think a "vast majority" of homeschoolers are doing anything bad in any manner. Neither do I believe that all homeschoolers are perfect. I am a physician. People sometimes miss vaccinations because they move, forget, parents get sick or die. Some people just dont have much in the way of internal discipline and need external forces to get them to act.

If you believe that the state has no interest in this matter then please say so. If your state has some way to meet this challenge let me know.

I also think math and science are weak at many public schools. We supplement my sons education heavily in this area. TBH, he mostly teaches himself and we guide and buy him books. He explains the details of string theory to me now. My point in this area is not to be critical but to ask a question. I have made an observation that most of the people I have seen post on homeschooling have a humanities background, as you are also. Much science starts with an observation followed by research on that observation. It may be possible that kids are not at all influenced by the educational background of the one doing the homeschooling. Maybe there is a paradoxical effect and even more kids choose the sciences just to "rebel". Maybe my observation is wrong and there is not an over representation in the humanities. I just dont know so I ask.

Steve

Steve,

As you point out, many people miss vaccinations for many reasons. I guess I don't think the phenomenon is more/less common for homeschoolers than for others -- except to the extent that homeschoolers tend to be more, rather than less, concerned with the details of their children's upbringing.

With regard to producing scientists and mathematicians, I would say that homeschooling by a "humanities" parent has little or no impact. At least in our case, the "outside" world my kids see is that of their father, a physician/scientist. So science is real for them, whereas courts (my field was law) are imaginary. But homeschooling has distinct advantages for training scientists and mathematicians. Because it is self-paced, it is more challenging and less boring. Basic concepts are mastered thoroughly, and kids who are ready can race ahead... like my sixth grader doing algebra. We skipped second grade math (consolidation) altogether with both the younger kids. In the sciences, the situation is even better. We do more hands-on work at a younger age, which keeps kids interested (and mom, too -- who wishes she had learned more earlier!) For example, my second grader just made a "light-up" hat, learning about switches and circuits in a very practical and unforgettable way. Whether or not my background is in the humanities, science is a favorite subject around here. Furthermore, the kids have the opportunity to follow an interest (research an observation) in ways they couldn't at school. "I don't know, but let's find out" is the refrain. And we have the opportunity to take more than the one-two field trips per annum which are the rule in the schools around here... including field trips to science museums.

But -- one final thought -- most elementary school teachers are also not scientists and mathematicians. The pay differential is too great. In middle and high school, there is more specialization, but these are also ages when homeschoolers tend to become contractors for educational services beyond their own capabilities. So my son is taking a computer tutorial with one other kid from a man whose day job is debugging computers for the military. And he'll take high school science at the high school and at local colleges.

Hope this helps to give you a more complete picture of why homeschooling by a humanities mom makes for more interest in science and math.

Anon:

My post earlier was eaten by the software so let's try again.

I'm not in any way saying that using homeschooling as a form of abuse is okay--it's not. Furthermore, I hate it when stories like that pop up in the news and then everyone seems to think that that's what homeschooling is, which it isn't.

So let me just say this clearly: I condemn situations like the one in the article with my whole heart and soul.

Another case in point, this time as sympathy for parents:

My mother was just about to have me tested, when at the age of 2 I was still babbling (quite happily). At that point in time, she was shocked to observe that my "first word" was a complete sentence. This, btw, makes me neither special nor precocious. It is a clear example that parents rightly look to cultural norms as comparison points in keeping track of their children, and a child who is otherwise healthy can scare the bejeezus out of a parent, as I did to my mother.

Steve, I don't want to turn this thread into a discussion of vaccination--Rod has occasionally posted on that topic, and may do so again. But in your and Scotch Meg's reasons for people missing vaccines I can't help but notice that you've left out a small but not insignificant subset of parents who don't vaccinate or don't fully because they are convinced that vaccines do harm disproportionately to the good they may do.

Given the rate of public school students whose parents take religious or philosophical exemptions to vaccines I'd say that homeschoolers probably show similar rates of non-vaccination; that is, despite the routine identification of homsechoolers with non-vaccinators and/or alternative medicine users the two groups are distinct, and merely overlap each other in the same way that public schoolers and non-vaccinators and/or alternative medicine users overlap.

In addition to this group, you've also not mentioned those parents who don't use vaccines (or certain vaccines) because they are medically contraindicated for their children. Our society likes to pretend that these children don't exist, but I personally know someone whose son's severe reaction to the DPT shot (the pertussis component, it was assumed) caused her doctor to tell her that no further doses of this vaccine should ever be given to this child, due to the risk of brain swelling, permanent brain damage, or death. There are many children who can't take various vaccines for reasons of medical fragility, and any child who is allergic to eggs can't have the MMR shot, for just a couple of examples.

Interestingly, because the public school system has become responsible for "enforcing" vaccine policy, the latter group of children and their parents have to deal with unnecessary harassment. In some states they must re-submit a medical certificate, signed by the doctor, every single year that "proves" that their child's medical condition which makes vaccination dangerous to that child has not changed! It's no wonder that among this set of parents many, indeed, have turned to homeschooling to avoid the incessant questioning they face for being "different;" in this respect they are quite like the parents of other special-needs children who give up on the public school system when that system demonstrates an inability to work with their child's individual needs.

As Franklin points out, the "one-size-fits-all" structure of public education can be its greatest weakness.

Steve, I just read your post immediately above, and would like to ask you to reconsider your objective question.

You're taking an if-then approach that constructs the question this way: if more humanities types are teaching at home, then will the maths and sciences suffer and career choices be limited?

However, there are a few prefaces to your question:

1. *Are* more humanities types homeschooling? In fact, how many math/science oriented parents are there altogether, and do homeschoolers show a similar proportion of humanities-type parents as the general population or are they actually biased in the direction of the humanities? In other words, if in the general society including all school types only 30% of parents, say, were heavily strong in the math/science disciplines, then it would be reasonable to expect that only 30% of homeschooling parents would be math/sciences parents, too.

2. Does attendance at a public school *increase* the number of math/science people in any significant way? Or, if the number of people in general society who are very strong in the disciplines of math and science remained at our hypothetical 30% over generations despite the method of schooling, is it possible that the method of education used will not, by itself *produce* greater numbers of students who are both drawn to and capable of proficiency in the maths and sciences?

3. Even if #2 is answered inconclusively, can we compare the methods of instruction used to teach math and/or science in the public schools with the methods used by homeschoolers and show definitively that one set of methods is likely to produce inferior students? I can show some anecdotal evidence (which I understand is weak, but it's the only evidence I have) which suggests that some students who do well in science in school will continue to do well at home, while other students who struggle with it in school may continue to struggle at home; but I can also show instances where the latter type of student benefited from one-on-on instruction and the more "hands-on" approach of the home school in teaching science.

4. It has been my observation that home schooling parents often seek outside help in the fields of math and science, especially as their children approach junior high school or high school. If we assume that the parents likely to do this are the ones biased in favor of the humanities, we have to consider whether they would be equally quick to seek paid outside help for their children if their children were a) attending public school and b) receiving C averages in science. Some of them might consider a "C" average a reason to seek and pay for outside help, but others might be inclined to assume their children's struggles with the field were no different from their own, and that therefore the "C" grade is acceptable. So in the long run, are their children more or less likely to receive a better math/science education at home?

Erin- Yup. I think (hope) I put that into my very first post. It may just be that science geeks dont post on blogs much since that's my point of reference plus the people I know who homeschool. Do you know any couples where it was the one who ad the "hard science" background who stayed home as the primary teacher? Maybe its just unrealistic on my part to expect that what has really formed as a grassroots movement to generate rigorous data.

Steve

Actually, yes, Steve (in re: your 2:02 post); I know a homeschooling mom who was still a physician at the time she began homeschooling, and another homeschooling family where the mother was a molecular biologist; these are off the top of my head, but if I thought about it I could probably think of quite a few more!

Erin- Was just using the vaccination thing as an example and didnt really mean to harp on it. Wife and I were talking about the recent measles/mumps outbreaks so guess was a little more at the front of the brain.

Steve

Steve, sure, so long as you compare that percentage with the percentage of public school students who majored in math and science, and the percentage of private school students who majored in math and science. Only if one group had a statistically significantly lower percentage would you be able to draw any conclusions.

In addition, I'd make one modest correction: how many of each group *graduated* from college with a Bachelor of Science in a math or science field (that is, received at least an undergraduate degree)? This way you'd avoid getting a false impression from a) those students who sign up for a math/science course of study but fail to complete it and b) those students who don't declare a major until well in to their college career.

(Do you get the feeling that I'm way too analytical for my English degree?) :)

Erin- Yup. My minimal typing skills sometimes lead me to shorten my entries but that is what I would really like. Given some of my gasbaggy entries thats probably a good thing. I assumed a control group just didnt say so.

The other thing I note just from reading posts and from people I know is that it seems most people combine some time in traditional schooling with HS. My gut feeling is that a combination of the two would give best results. If we could further break down those who had exclusive HS from those who had a combo we could examine that hypo also.

Steve

Susan:

Thanks! And I've been called much, much worse than "Dave," I assure you.

It isn't being raised to be a wife and mother. It is being raised so that the only option is to be a wife and mother. And it is the people who do so who seem to think that they are brain dead, since it seems the curriculum is specifically not including advanced academic studies, but purely domestic skills.

No different than if teaching a boy to be, and only be, a farmer would be a disservice, and not because there's something wrong with being a farmer, or even for non-farmers to know something about the skills involved.

Nice laughter there.

Yet, in a small town public school, my son managed to take both Calc and Trig. There were AP classes in everything from English to Math, and Science.

By 'advanced studies', btw, I mean any study that is A. Academic (as opposed to trade, technical, etc) and B. Doesn't necessarily have a direct practical application in the home.

Under those terms, Algebra is an 'advanced academic study' and, with the group they are talking about, one the girls (and only the girls) are NOT getting.

And last I checked, the Amish do have trades. Smithing, carpentry, etc. There's more than one career path even for THEIR boys.

Karen, just a suggestion by way of a personal example: replace "smart" with "well educated".

My siblings and I all tested gifted or better, yet we all knew we could barely hold a candle to our mother, a lifelong housewife whose last academic exposure was at the age of 16*, and whose guidance to us throughout our schoolings made us better students, and with better benefit of our education.

*Not wanting (or needing) to get into too much detail for her story, but I should disclose that her European schooling would have qualified her today for at least an associate's degree.

Your points are well taken, Karen; my other motivation was to (gently) point out to M_David that he is barking up the wrong tree. ;-)

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.

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.