John Oliver discusses homeschooling, its surprising lack of regulation in many states, and, crucially, Darth Vader’s parenting skills.
John Oliver discusses homeschooling, its surprising lack of regulation in many states, and, crucially, Darth Vader’s parenting skills.
Smug patronising 🔔 end
Reply17:20 – Wow, sounds an awful lot like the same pathetic arguments gun nuts make against ANY & ALL gun regulation! 🤔🤨
ReplyThere are some unfortunate inaccurate and misleading issues in this story. Possibly the most glaringly for a NY resident is ” yearly report” 100% false, we need to submit an extensive quarterly report for our home school children. Although it might vary by district.
ReplyDanke from Germany.
ReplyWhile you laugh,the Christian fascism is spreading. When you wake up in the dark ages trying to re-do the Renaissance call me.
ReplyBackward illiterate religious perverts.
Agreed teachers are super heroes who need more money
ReplyMany homeschoolers are also kids who are professional athletes or musicians. Being homeschooled in Florida we did have oversight and had to show curriculum and take standardized tests and talk to a government person and show what we’ve done yearly. I think the that was on the county level though, which may be why there isn’t a statewide law. Among my homeschooled friends were a number of National Merit Scholars; I was reading the Lord of the Rings in elementary school for fun, getting more work done than in public school, and finishing my work every day by noon. In Florida, many people homeschool so the kids can start community college in 10th or 11th grade, since most 9th graders can pass the high school exit exam in most states, so you end up taking the same classes twice. Florida has really good systems for dual enrollment in high school and university, so it works pretty well there.
The HSLDA and many homeschoolers are very paranoid about having their kids taken away because of spanking. What constitutes appropriate corporal punishment is a very touchy issue in conservative circles, and it’s a very common conversation to worry about your kids getting taken away over spanking. I was spanked for direct defiance or hurting my siblings, but I always understood that hitting someone’s face or punching was abuse. Spanking was never spontaneous or in the heat of the moment in our house, so it wasn’t traumatic for me, but I know now that scientific studies have generally shown that spanking is confusing emotionally and not the most effective way to get kids to behave.
As for the books, have you looked at the actual textbooks being used in schools these days? Or the online curriculums? You could certainly find similar or worse excerpts in them. And lots of just errors. I mean, I definitely am not a fan of A Beka or PCC…and there are lots of problematic things in those books…but I can’t think of a single textbook publisher who I think of as “good people without an agenda.” But the books that work, they are popular because they work. Homeschool books are often better designed and do a little more heavy-lifting than in school textbooks, because they are designed for some level of self-study. Saxon Math has become the standard when it comes to math texts, but when I was a kid only homeschoolers were using it. Many of the classroom curricula in schools today literally expect you to learn something from doing it one time, one day. Homeschool books would have made a lot of teachers’ pandemic teaching WAY easier.
As a teacher who will probably homeschool my kids one day, I would want my kids taking yearly standardized tests to measure their progress, but it gets complicated: homeschool co-ops or online homeschool options are the way that many kids with special needs are able to study and thrive. Also, having worked in schools, I’ve seen how many 9th graders have a 3rd grade reading level, and although I strongly disagree with this, the current “best practice” is to put a kid with his age peers rather than sorting kids by ability or level (Which means that for example, Spanish 2 or 8th grade English means nothing because someone can pass Spanish 1 or 7th grade English without having learned anything, and as teachers, our jobs become very complicated.). So to hold homeschoolers to a meaningful standard on a yearly basis would be very difficult without creating a double standard at this point. (Usually you’re required to show what books you went through and what progress was made and look at test scores to see that the kid is progressing.)
As for checks on child welfare, the fact is, rich people who live in the suburbs pretty much never get visits from social workers. In places where stand your ground laws are a thing, I would worry about the social workers. Our schools don’t have a system where individual kids are checked on either other than academically or if a teacher notices something. Now, some things like neglect and abuse can be really obvious sometimes and other times not at all. So what you’re proposing but didn’t propose…if we wanted to make this fair, is having regular checkups required for all kids. Which I think would be amazing…to have even yearly physical and psychological checkups free for everyone. But that is a whole program that could be administered through schools but would need to be created.
Sorry to be cynical, but the real reason states and schools and governments would want to implement these laws would be truancy. Because butts in seats is how school funding in our country is apportioned, so schools hire truancy officers to hunt people down, and to try to get those people in seats at the beginning of the year especially so they can get their funding. This creates a conflict of interests, and gives government workers an incentive to not let people homeschool. From a social work perspective, having worked in the developing world on children’s issues, the US doesn’t have a lot of comprehensive family resource centers. In some countries, the movement for foster care has meant replacing orphanages with feeding centers, places with classes for at-risk families on parenting and income strengthening, and places where kids could get a check up, etc. In the US, our fragmented systems aren’t set up very well for holistic solutions, although the religious agencies like Catholic Charities, Lutheran Family Services, etc (there are also Muslim and Jewish ones) at least work on a lot of different social/family issues and do a lot of the heavy lifting in many areas.
ReplyIsnt dissecting technically biology? wth has scienece to do with it…
ReplyThe States: Land of the Free D…b A…s
ReplyI’m French and two friends of mine (twins) were homeschooled for a few years between their time in public school (I don’t know the reason). I remember one of them explaining to me that there was some sort of yearly evaluation to make sure they were up to date. I didn’t ask more, but now I’m guessing France also has safeguards against child abuse.
ReplyJust an fyi. In this country it is literally legal to wake your kid up, take them to the liquor store to buy a fifth, drink that fifth while “teaching”, while cleaning a handgun given to you by your dad and teaching genesis as fact.
ReplyI think it would be best for the schools to raise the children. And the schools should all be state-ran. No private schools. No charter schools. Public schools only. And parents shouldn’t be told anything about their children’s lives. Especially if they’re transitioning.
Replyschool was the best years of my life
ReplyI knew someone in middle school who was homeschooled and was shocked to learn he actually HAD to learn and was a little culture shocked.
Replythe best part of homeschooling is they don’t get your tax dollars as a voucher for a private school, and mostly religious schools. so much for 1st amendment ….. I think.
ReplyI’m so glad I live in Europe and not USA 😊
ReplyIf I had a child today I’d home school. Public schools are literally trash. They’re more interesting in teaching kids how to give blow jobs than to teach them math and science. We would be better off ending public schools entirely and just move to small private schools that all have to compete against each other and limit class sizes to 15 students. Students who come out of public schools today are illiterate morons, and public schools now just serve to be used as indoctrination centers for left wing activism.
Replymy child is 7 and autistic. homeschooling is becoming an increasing reality for us because the school system is so unaccommodating and the teachers aren’t trained to deal with autism related behaviors. however, they deal with neuro-typical children who threaten to bring a knife to school and stab them while my autistic child refuses to do her work every once in a while. yet my child has a daily behavior report while the knife obsessed neuro-typical child doesn’t.
Replyi don’t understand why this show points out the failures of society while promoting the status quo and the authority of the state. what are they trying to hold onto anymore?
ReplyI was homeschooled my whole life cause the school wanted me on meds in kindergarten. Look at me now im totally fine!
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