Utterly Meaningless

It’s Back-to-the-Institution season, which means open season on homeschooling… Still it’s irritating when a mindless rant like that gets prominent print space. Thanks for the heads up, Daryl.

Helen
homeed...orial/

Their solicited response format is 25-words-or-less, Laura told me, so I wrote one in that sized box, just to see if I could.

“Unschooling the Public in 25 Words or Less”

And then like Daryl, I said a whole lot more, about teacher unions and media bias and the difference between schooling and real education . . . gotta love blogging! 🙂

Are there really people who argue that public schooling gives more freedom to kids than homeschooling? I mean, REALLY?

Have they been to a public school lately? Most kids can’t sit where they want (even at lunch), wear what they want, go to the bathroom when they need to, or learn about things they’re actually interested in. Their free speech is severely limited (thanks to a Supreme Court decision just this past session – the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case). They can’t leave when they want, even to pursue work or an apprenticeship.

Well, maybe they have more freedom if you’re using Rudy Giuliani’s definition of ‘freedom’.

Otherwise it just seems like the only freedom that author cares about is the Freedom To Not Respect Or Learn From One’s Parents.

Why do they assume that home educated kids are tied to their parents more then public educated students are?

When Lord Epa went to Boy Scout Camp he had a wonderful time. On the other hand his public school friend was miserable. He had never been anywhere overnight without his parents, and spent the entire week begging to call his Mom to come get him. And no I wasn’t there the camp leader begged me to take the kid home when I came up for parents day Friday (all the kids came home Saturday). The camp leaders all told me how impressed they were with how independent Lord Epa is, and how homesick his friend was. They were surprised because Lord Epa had never been camping before and his friend had been camping numerous time (with his Dad).

They were also impressed that Lord Epa ate whatever the cafeteria served without complaining unlike the majority of campers who attended public school.

Hell, as a homeschooler of multiple children, I’ve tried my best to turn them into automatons who will do their math and clean their rooms without constant nagging from me–yard work would be easier, too. It hasn’t worked. If any homeschoolers have successfully managed to create children who obey without question, please throw a few tips my way.

This hidebound traditionalist newspaper icon actually is the namesake for the “Al Neuharth Free Spirit” scholarship! Can you believe it?

I earned a top-five journalism college degree (without government or corporate sponsorship) and I know journalism as a profession believes this fanciful fiction, that free spirits are who they are and what they stand for. But it is not true and it’s not in the public interest for the MSM to believe a lie.

Maybe we who really ARE free spirits should suggest that this newspaper founder lend his family’s wealth to the cause of truly free-spirited scholarship, meaning independent learning and thinking outside all government and corporate control??

I once suggested in the NHEN legislative forums that as big defenders of freedom of information and the public’s right to know what the government would rather they not know, journalists should be big allies of home education and other private education alternatives, and that we HS advocates would be smart to cast the issues that way for them, so they would really get it at a gut level.

If anything proves the relative value of that strategy, today’s sad example of UnThinking from Neuharth does . . .

Well done, Laura.

As always! 🙂

Nance

Don’t you love people who talk when they don’t know what they’re talking about?

Gotta getta grip, get a life, get a clue…
“They are tied to their mother’s apron strings or father’s bootstraps.
Not letting kids try out their own wings after we’ve provided the right roots will disadvantage them later in life.”

Apron strings and bootstraps? Mix metaphors much?