{"id":3511,"date":"2004-08-24T14:09:42","date_gmt":"2004-08-24T14:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/wp\/?p=3511"},"modified":"2004-08-24T14:09:42","modified_gmt":"2004-08-24T14:09:42","slug":"the-textbook-approach-to-home-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/?p=3511","title":{"rendered":"The Textbook Approach to Home Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

Izzy Lyman<\/a> linked to a new website\u2014HomeSchoolerNetwork.com<\/a>\u2014so I thought I\u2019d take a look. The site bills itself as, \u201cpacked with over 5,000 innovative lessons, activities, and inspirational articles to help you in your homeschooling life.\u201d I immediately smelled a trap.<\/p>\n

The site contains suggested curricula for home schooled children of all ages. I checked out the \u201csocial studies\u201d section. Four-year-olds are offered, \u201cReady to color pictures of objects that contribute to pollution with fill in the blank vocabulary words.\u201d There\u2019s an obsession with all things Native Americans, from reservations to canoes to animal-skin clothing. Six year olds are taught to \u201ccreate their own flag.\u201d There\u2019s coloring pages of various black historical figures (but none of white figures.) There\u2019s an article that tells pre-teens, \u201cThe passage of Title IX was supposed to guarantee equality for women in amateur sports, but . . . that has not been realized – either in the amateur or professional sporting worlds.\u201d There\u2019s a lesson plan on \u201cWomen and World War II,\u201d but no lessons on the war itself. And, finally, there\u2019s an article on how \u201cone in four fathers\u201d are forced to care for their preschool-age children while the mothers work, because of a lack of \u201cquality\u201d daycare. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s not in this curriculum? The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and anything resembling political science or an integrated study of history. The \u201cHomeSchooler Network\u201d expects children to grasp history only as a series of unrelated concretes without any conceptual framework\u2014beyond the notion that Native Americans and a handful of black leaders are very important, and not enough women play soccer. <\/p>\n

So who\u2019s behind the \u201cHomeSchooler Network\u201d? Pearson PLC, one of the world\u2019s largest textbook publishers. The Network\u2019s \u201ceducational partners\u201d include the National PTA, the National School Boards Foundation, the National Public School Public Relations Association, and other textbook publishers. <\/p>\n

As I said, I smelled a trap. The same textbook publishers behind the g-schools’ failed approach to “social studies”–I hate that term–are now trying to convince home educators that the same failed approach will work for them. This is almost as bad as cyber charters masquerading as home schools.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: My colleague Tom, who works for a medical publisher, offered these thoughts:<\/p>\n

In defense of book publishers (which I have to do,
\nsince I take their money), they don’t know how to deal with homeschoolers. If they can’t send a sales rep to a campus, they honestly have no clue what to do. Right now, sales reps go to campuses, get feedback from teachers, and give that feedback to acquisition editors, who sign authors who write what those teachers are looking for. Homeschooling parents are so individualized that it’s too costly to cater to each of them. So publishers slap the words “homeschoolers edition” on the cover of the texts homeschooling parents are trying to keep their kids aways from in the first place.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Izzy Lyman linked to a new website\u2014HomeSchoolerNetwork.com\u2014so I thought I\u2019d take a look. The site bills itself as, \u201cpacked with over 5,000 innovative lessons, activities, and inspirational articles to help you in your homeschooling life.\u201d I immediately smelled a trap. The site contains suggested curricula for home schooled children of all ages. I checked out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}