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You're completely misunderstanding the motivation for many homeschoolers like myself. I am an atheist and an engineer. My local homeschooling groups have litera
by ef4 13y ago
You're completely misunderstanding the motivation for many homeschoolers like myself. I am an atheist and an engineer. My local homeschooling groups have literally hundreds of families like mine, in which one or both parents have advanced degrees.
We see the writing on the wall.
The public schools -- even the "good" ones -- are hopelessly stuck training children for an economic model that is already dead. Sending your kids to the typical school is actively harming their economic future.
Everything about school is built around the factory model. It is precisely the opposite of how to train someone for success in the 21st century, where the only way to win is to do things for which there are no simple instructions.
I'm going to give my kid a better scientific education than the public schools have ever provided. In fact, I dispute that they have ever really done so. They teach facts that were discovered by science, but they don't actually teach science. If they did, they would soon collapse under the weight of their own contradictions:
"why are we studying this?"
"because it will help you later."
"show me the evidence."
"go to the principal's office."
Science is deeply anti-authoritarian. It doesn't matter who you are, it matters whether you have better evidence and better arguments. School actively opposes that kind of thinking.
- superuser2 13y agoI support homeschoolers like you. I know several kids who are homeschooled under similar philosophies, and they're the smartest people I've ever met. They take AP and college classes early, sometimes even as young teens, and are encouraged to do independent reading and think for themselves. The article in question, though, is about parents who kept their children out of school over religious objections to the curriculum. That, I oppose vehemently.
- ef4 13y agoThen you should oppose Germany's law, because it would take my kid away too. It makes no distinction. It doesn't set an educational standard -- it simply demands obedience.
- superuser2 13y agoThen Germany's law is bad and needs revision to set an educational standard instead of demanding obedience. Parents still don't have a right to isolate their children from information they don't like.
- einhverfr 13y agoPersonally I think, in the US, Yoder v. Wisconsin (holding the Amish had a right to see to education in line with their religion) was one of the greatest decisions of the Supreme Court, right up there with Brown v. Board. In doing so, the court affirmed that the Amish religious way of life is deserving of protection and the state may not use the education system to destroy that, even if that means that children raised in such households will have fewer career opportunities. Our country is pluralistic. That means that we must afford those we disagree with a right to exist as cultural groups. Religion is a deep part of culture and it is closely tied to a way of life.