I was at a homeschool conference this weekend. One presenter passionately noted that home schooled students' average standardized test scores are in the 85th percentile, that the scores for homeschooled students whose parents were certified teachers had zero difference from those whose parents were not and on and on and on about how homeschooled children are actually taught how to think. Then he said, "Yet 95% of the professional educators say that homeschooling is the very worst form of education. What's wrong with these people?!?!?" [Outstretched arms, condescending tone of voice... the whole ball of wax]
One dad's sarcastic response was
"They were public schooled."
I wanted to hang my head in shame. Not just for the "us vs. them" mentality. Not just for the arrogance that was displayed. But because somehow these people have forgotten that
they
were
public
schooled
TOO.
And they learned how to think. In fact they think that they think very well, thank you very much.
In another presentation the audience snickered at the movie trailer for An Inconvenient Truth, bemoaned the passing of the days when Saturday morning t.v. actually showed "good cartoons" (huh?) and actually guffawed at the phrase, "Can't we all just get along?"
Sigh. It seems like a legitimate question to me.
Just for the record, I think the Bible is true: "Knowledge puffs up."
Hi, I found your site from the Heart of the Matter Blogroll. We are homeschoolers from the state of Georgia. I enjoyed your article. :)
ReplyDeletehttp://gahome2mom.blogspot.com/
Oh, I am featuring the SpellQuizzer software giveaway on my GAhome2mom blog. Come check it out!
Great thoughts here and I agree with your last statement. *sigh* Yet another thing God needs to work on ME on, too! :) God has brought me far, though, and I do well not to bash those who have children attending public or private schools because God has different places for different families.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of mistrust between state schooling and home schooling parents. It is a shame. But I think the more popular homeschooling is, the more people will understand what it entails, and how and why it works. We just have to give it time, and keep building bridges and a good image for homeschooling in general...I enjoyed reading your posts and was wondering whether you would like to join our new homeschooling website. Regsitration is free, only takes 1 minute, and you can post a link to your blog - I believe our members would find your posts useful and interesting. For that reason, I hope you will take up my offer. The website is
ReplyDeletewww.networkhomeschool.com
Hope to hear from you!
Anna