Love-Hate Mail
Gettin' schooled on home-schooling
Apparently Alex DeLarge and Jeff Woods are unaware that their
ignorance is showing (Love/Hate Mail, May 14). First, to respond to Mr.
DeLarge, home-school parents are not trying to replace the public
school experience at home. I was home-schooled in the late 1970s and
excelled in college. I have been home-schooling my own family since
1993. I have had inside knowledge of the home-school movement and
in-depth knowledge of thousands of home-schooling families. There are
two reasons most of us choose to home-school: to provide a superior
education and to socialize our children in the real world.
No, Mr. DeLarge, home-schoolers do not "freak out" when they go to college. Most home-schoolers attend college and the faculty at those universities rave about how they are much more mature, better prepared academically, better able to work independently and much better than public school graduates, both academically and socially. Maybe that is why highly selective Ivy League colleges like Harvard University who admit only 10 percent of applicants actively pursue home-schoolers.
Home-schooled children are not hiding from the real world—they are already living in it. What is the "real world?" It consists of homes, families, neighborhoods, community groups and organizations, and workplaces populated by people from birth to over age 100. Public schools are age-segregated children's prisons, costly ghettos where children learn to raise their hands and get in line. They mainly teach how to run with the herd like unthinking cattle and try to get along with people born in the same year. It was only when age-segregated schools became compulsory that kids in the country formed a stupid, silly, immature youth culture rather than eagerly trying to learn how to be an adult. Once in the real world, public schoolers turn quite often in college to alcohol and drugs.
Home-schooled kids are in no way isolated. They study by day, but then they enjoy playing with friends, doing volunteer activities, scouting, playing team sports, studying music and playing in ensembles, going on field trips with other home-schoolers in the support group, entering academic competitions, drama and theater, starting their own small businesses, and more. They have more free time for activities than public school kids.
As for academics, research of achievement testing shows that the average public school student scores at the 50th percentile, while the average home-schooler scores at the 88th percentile (on a 99 scale). So why, Mr. Woods, would any government office anywhere want to settle for an inferior public school graduate when they could get a superior home-school graduate? From the level of education shown in this state's government, I'd say it must be completely full of public school graduates.
For the "wiseacre" (I prefer the term "ignorant idiot") Mr. Woods quoted, let me tell him exactly what we teach in our home school: math up to calculus, astronomy, geology, chemistry, physics, geography, world and American history, literature, physical and cultural anthropology, economics, psychology and sociology, all to a first-year college level. We also learn advanced art history, music appreciation, drama/theater studies, screenwriting, drawing/painting, logic, violin, French, German, Italian and Latin. We begin college studies at age 13 with the expectation of earning enough college credits through CLEP, GRE and other college-level tests to earn a fully accredited bachelor's degree by age 18—then it is on to master's degree work. Many home-schoolers do this. Eating at the public trough might be good enough for Mr. DeLarge's and Mr. Woods' children, but I and the other home-schooling parents do not let our children Dumpster-dive for a free, generally worthless and inferior public school education. Instead, we provide a feast.
Just for the record, our family is not waiting for the end of the world. We are college-educated atheists, left-wing liberal Democrats, supporters of Barack Obama, strongly pro-choice, and we champion gay rights, including gay marriage, though my husband and I are one of those white, married couples you seem to hate.
Home-school kids in Tennessee should forget working for the government in this backward, redneck state. Go to Harvard, where you are welcome!
Terri Lynn Merritts
Nashville
Dueling definitions
I'm in awe of Jordan H. (Love/Hate Mail, May 14). He has clearly
defined himself as the king (or queen) of liberal opinion in Nashville.
Throwing in the "Yikes!" was genius. W.F. Buckley must be spinning! I
would agree it's hard to say what America stands for anymore as the
idea of standing for anything seems to be somehow wrong. If Mr. H felt
"financially, emotionally and socially" raped that we spent money
defeating the people responsible for an attack on this country, wait
till he gets the bill for the 1.8 TRILLION deficit in the first year of
this administration and 1.3 TRILLION next year. (This first year is
more than Bush spent in seven years.) The flip comment about Mr.
Zizza's last two paychecks was ridiculous. What got us in this is that
the average American is overleveraged buying assets that bore no
connection to reality. We have seen bubbles in the last 30 years in
gold, silver, oil, Beanie Babies, tech stocks and now real estate. What
is happening is this administration is doing the same thing on a bigger
scale. The bills will come due in a couple years. YIKES!
Greg Grafelman
Comments (2)
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I and the other home-schooling parents do not let our children Dumpster-dive for a free, generally worthless and inferior public school education. Dumpster-dive? Wow. To think I agreed with the first half of your letter. Keep patting yourself on the back and looking down on those that, gasp, cannot stay home to school their children. Not everyone is as fortunate as you, but that certainly does not make them less a parent or their children less mature or intelligent.
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