The old adage states that “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach; and those who can’t teach, teach gym.” I’d like to add a fourth line to that old saw. Those who can’t teach gym become school administrators. It occurred to me that if Darwin’s theory of evolution was true and that a species selectively breeds for the strongest and most desired traits, there would be no more stupid people left in the world. Yet, we regularly see that isn’t true, and we need to look no further than school administrators to see the most egregious examples of less than stellar critical thinking skills. One school administrator strip searched a thirteen-year-old girl on the suspicion of hiding ibuprofen in her underwear. An Eagle Scout was suspended for having a pocket knife in an emergency kit in his car. A Texas school district filed truancy charges against a mother for homeschooling her children in compliance with state law, while at the same time demanding private information from the family that went beyond the requirements of state law. These stories would be funny if they were not so serious.
Last February, I read a story that made me wonder whether or not prospective administrators are required to take EDU 522: The Constitution Doesn’t Apply To You. Allegedly, a school administrator at Harriton High School used images captured on a school issued laptop computer web cam to initiate disciplinary action against a fifteen-year-old boy for improper behavior in his home. You read that correctly: improper behavior in his home. The school district has the ability to secretly capture screen shots at any time on a district issued computer without the knowledge of the user. The district also has the ability to capture images through the web cam imbedded in the computer without the knowledge of the user. If a young student leaves his or her school issued computer on and open while changing their clothes in the privacy of their bedroom, the school just might take their picture!
Who in their right mind thought that this was a good idea? In what world do school administrators believe that they have the right to reach into a private citizen’s home and discipline the citizen? Why would they even want to? It’s not as if school administrators lack for things to do. And if the district wins the lawsuit brought against them by the student’s family, and some judge somewhere decides that this is an acceptable action for government-run schools to take, don’t the administrators realize that a precedent will be set for the government to look into their homes, too? I have to wonder if some school officials have somehow mentally disengaged themselves from participating in US citizenship and the US Constitution to become some sort of world citizen-at-large.
I’d like to say that this case is a slam-dunk for the plaintiff, but I don’t have that much faith in the judicial system. I would have thought that the strip-search case was a certain 9-0 decision by the SCOTUS, but apparently Justice Thomas believes that "judges are not qualified to second-guess the best manner for maintaining quiet and order in the school environment.” His words. That’s frightening.
Tomorrow, I’ll post the follow-up to this school computer case.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Home Spun Comic #396
You can read more Home Spun Comics every Tuesday and Thursday here at The Homeschool Apologist.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Why do I Homeschool?
By Deana
There are many reasons why some parents choose homeschooling instead of enrolling their children in public or private school. I’m not professing homeschool as the only right choice for all children’s education. And, my reasons for homeschooling, although they are many, are probably not the same reasons as the next homeschooling family’s. I recognize that for most families, traditional schooling works best for them, for many different reasons as well.
The majority of my friends and family do not homeschool, and I do not judge them negatively for that choice in any way. In fact, I hope my daughter can always play alongside their children, and that I can continue to enjoy the good relationships that I have with my friends. I’d also like to add that my husband and I both attended public school from Kindergarten through high school, and we both were very successful academically, and really have just a few reasonable complaints about our experiences there.
Since we made the decision to homeschool one year ago, many people have asked me, “Why do you homeschool?” Well, honestly, my reasons vary from day to day, but my husband and I know without a doubt that it’s the right choice for our family. When I first began this blog, I wrote these reasons down as I tried to define my homeschooling philosophy. So, here they are, just some of the reasons why we’ve come to believe that homeschooling is for us (in no particular order):
Friday, October 8, 2010
If All the Other Kids Go to College...
It is my pleasure to introduce you to Cristina, the newest regular contributor here at The Homeschool Apologist. Cristina joins us from her blog, Home Spun Juggling, where “she offers a view of her life in comic strips,” and invites readers “to share her love of learning, laughter and circus arts.” Yes, circus arts! Besides homeschooling her children and drawing comic strips, Cristina is an avid juggler. The subtitle to Cristina’s blog says a lot about her work. “Life is not black and white. I only draw it that way. This is the story of our homeschooling life in comic strips and my thoughts, which often wax philosophical.” Cristina’s comic strips have heart and soul and humor, and we are blessed to be able to share them here at THA.
In a recent blog post, Cristina wrote about a new challenge facing her family. It is a challenge that Linda has faced three times over, I will be facing for the first time this year, and many of you have or will experience in the near future. Read along as she explores what to do
September was busy. And crazy. After all the busy we encountered last year, I was really hoping for something better. This is probably unrealistic of me. As they age, my children have gotten more busy, not less. This September saw a new chapter of growing pains: college.
For those of you with younger children, let me explain. Somewhere around 8th grade, the questions that swirl around your homeschooling begin to change. Instead of "what about socialization?" you hear "is she going to high school?" Once you say you are continuing homeschooling, the question becomes, "What about college?" We live in an age when college preparation can begin with the right daycare center, so I suppose we have been a bit more insulated from this issue than the average parent, but once the question started coming, it was relentless.
The problem was that Marina is highly intelligent and well read. She easily conversed with the adults she met. Everyone she spoke to was impressed by her ability to talk on various subjects. When I first heard the question, I was extremely laid back about the issue--She's only 14! What's the rush? I didn't start college until I was almost 19! She doesn't know what direction she wants to take yet. We wouldn't have the money for it anyway.--It soon became clear that this was only the beginning.
By the time she was 15, the high schoolers we knew had taken up the chant. Marina fielded various questions about whether she was going to college, which colleges she was considering, had she taken the SAT, and "what do you want to study?" I think that last question is what broke her. When you are multi-talented, it is hard to pick one area of focus. She started having moments of anxiety and depression that she hid very well from others, but not from me. Part of the reason I stopped reporting her at 16 was to allow her room to explore. She wasn't going to do this as long as I was filling out quarterlies and having my own little panic attacks every three months. It also didn't help that her two best friends had opted to go to high school. We were running out of homeschooled teens for her to connect with.
Long story short, when we were given the opportunity to attend a homeschooling information meeting at the local college, we took it. Which led to us going through the application process and placement tests. That led to her enrollment this September in an English 101 class. Which, in turn, has led to many tears this September as she worried about finding the class and as she tries to understand the professor's instructions, hyper-focuses on assignments, and worries about the teacher falling behind in her own schedule. Meanwhile, I am kicking myself for allowing us to get swept up in the college craziness. I'm not quite sure how we got here so fast.
Some lessons I've learned along the way...
- I really wish I had encouraged her to start with something she was more interested in, like Italian. Frankly, I should have insisted on this. The English teacher she has is known to be tough. Several students had dropped her class by the third week.
- I am glad we decided to start with only one class. We're in no rush here. She's only 17.
- It would have been better to have her face the placements with less fear. If she could have spent a year--even six months--reviewing algebra and practicing essay writing, I think she would have been much more relaxed for the testing situation.
- I don't regret skipping the SAT.
- The majority of her peers right now are kids right out of high school, so she really isn't the youngest person there.
Some lessons she is learning...
- She needs to learn to write faster for class activities.
- She likes that people she meets on campus don't automatically ask what grade she's in or what school does she go to.
- She isn't the only one to panic over assignments. Just today, the professor had to push a deadline back another week because students were anxious about completing it in time. (In their defense, they would only have had one day to finish this particular assignment.)
- Being a student with a part-time job means she needs to improve her time management.
- Saying no is easier when you blame college assignments.
- The professor's schedule is not written in stone. It's more like guidelines.
You can read more of Cristina's writing at http://jugglingpaynes.blogspot.com/
I know things will settle down eventually. I simply wish I had not allowed the wave of outsiders' opinions to push us here before we were ready. I want my kids to make decisions in a calm and well thought out way, not to please me or anyone else. Apparently, I'm still fighting that urge to please others!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Birds of a Homeschooling Feather
The e-mail appeared to be as innocent as any other from the Christian Homeschoolers Around Leavenworth Kansas (CHALK). It was a reminder for their monthly meeting. Then I noticed that sentence in the middle of the text. It was the sentence that said, “You are not welcome here.” That’s because CHALK “is a homeschool group that meets together once a month for mom's meetings” (emphasis mine). In an email chain between the leader of the group and a prospective member, it was made clear that men are not welcome: neither husbands nor stay-at-home homeschooling dads.
In another part of the email, I saw mention of their statement of faith. There is a statement of faith that the group asks all members to sign. It isn’t mandatory, but they make it clear that by joining the group you agree to the tenets of the statement. The statement contains standard Christian concepts quoted directly from scripture, and many Christian groups require members to sign them. I was once asked to sign a statement of Christian faith by a practicing lesbian who was also a homeschooling group administrator, a concept that I found both ironic and amusing. No one has ever been able to explain to me how these faith statements fit with James5:12, "Above all, my brothers, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your "Yes" be yes, and your "No," no, or you will be condemned," or Matthew 5:37, “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” Oddly, no one who ever required me to sign a statement of faith ever asked me whether or not I agreed. It has always been a case of sign, or leave.
In the Today Show Online article As home-schooling moves to mainstream, stigma fades, a generally fair article about homeschooling, black homeschooler Angela Jenkins searched for other black homeschoolers with whom she could connect. She “started DFWhomeschoolcafe, a website originally created to connect people of color to home-schooling resources and provide a place for them to share ideas with each other. Her site is one of various sites and support groups for people of color.” The article also listed websites such as the Black Homeschoolers Club, the National Black Home Educators, and Mommy Maestra, “a Latina home-schooling blog.” There are Yahoo! and Google groups, like the CHALK group, for Chinese-Americans, Latinos, Native American, and Muslim homeschoolers.
We read and hear a lot in the media about how politically polarized our nation has become. I think our nation is segregated far beyond political divisions, and the evidence for that segregation has been staring me in the face for decades. I grew up in a city that had a Polish community second only to Warsaw in size and population. There were sections of town that were “Italian,” Czechoslovakian,” and “Black.” Once in awhile we drove to “Chinatown.” I am certain that at one time there was a need for birds of a feather to flock together as successive waves of immigration swept across the country. People tend to be distrustful of change and look for support from a comfortable source: people like themselves. At the same time, I suspect that the great melting pot doesn’t exist, and it doesn’t exist by choice. We may be dumping beef and potatoes and carrots into the stew pot, but no matter how often we stir the beef is hanging out in one third of the pot, the potatoes are piled in the another third, and the carrots are bunched together in the last unclaimed section.
I'm left with more questions than answers. How can Christian homeschoolers spread the word of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross if they only associate with other Christian homeschoolers? Is the "evil one" at work in a homeschooling group when they require a signed statement of faith and actively exclude people from participation, or are the members merely treating other people as they wish to be treated? Why must homeschooling groups be segregated by gender? Don’t fathers of homeschoolers have something to offer to the homeschooling conversation? After all, the dialogue does concern their children. Don’t fathers who stay at home and homeschool need dialogue with other homeschoolers concerning curriculum, lesson plans, resources, and field trips? What don’t I understand about being Latino or Black or Chinese or female that makes mastering algebraic facts different than it is for male Caucasians? Why are caucasians excluded from the category "people of color?" "Caucasian" does not mean "white" any more than "Black" really means "black." Just look at a cross-section of "people of color" and you'll see a wide variation on the theme of brown. Frankly, I'm more of a reddish-pinkish hue than I am white, unless you're looking at my naked legs in the dead of winter. Then you might have a point. Is it possible that homeschooling critics make a valid point about homeschooling when they raise issues concerning homogeny? Where is the diversity in self-segregated homeschooling communities? Or, was Thurgood Marshall wrong? Is separate really equal? Is separate preferred? Is the call for diversity a sham?
In another part of the email, I saw mention of their statement of faith. There is a statement of faith that the group asks all members to sign. It isn’t mandatory, but they make it clear that by joining the group you agree to the tenets of the statement. The statement contains standard Christian concepts quoted directly from scripture, and many Christian groups require members to sign them. I was once asked to sign a statement of Christian faith by a practicing lesbian who was also a homeschooling group administrator, a concept that I found both ironic and amusing. No one has ever been able to explain to me how these faith statements fit with James5:12, "Above all, my brothers, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your "Yes" be yes, and your "No," no, or you will be condemned," or Matthew 5:37, “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” Oddly, no one who ever required me to sign a statement of faith ever asked me whether or not I agreed. It has always been a case of sign, or leave.
In the Today Show Online article As home-schooling moves to mainstream, stigma fades, a generally fair article about homeschooling, black homeschooler Angela Jenkins searched for other black homeschoolers with whom she could connect. She “started DFWhomeschoolcafe, a website originally created to connect people of color to home-schooling resources and provide a place for them to share ideas with each other. Her site is one of various sites and support groups for people of color.” The article also listed websites such as the Black Homeschoolers Club, the National Black Home Educators, and Mommy Maestra, “a Latina home-schooling blog.” There are Yahoo! and Google groups, like the CHALK group, for Chinese-Americans, Latinos, Native American, and Muslim homeschoolers.
We read and hear a lot in the media about how politically polarized our nation has become. I think our nation is segregated far beyond political divisions, and the evidence for that segregation has been staring me in the face for decades. I grew up in a city that had a Polish community second only to Warsaw in size and population. There were sections of town that were “Italian,” Czechoslovakian,” and “Black.” Once in awhile we drove to “Chinatown.” I am certain that at one time there was a need for birds of a feather to flock together as successive waves of immigration swept across the country. People tend to be distrustful of change and look for support from a comfortable source: people like themselves. At the same time, I suspect that the great melting pot doesn’t exist, and it doesn’t exist by choice. We may be dumping beef and potatoes and carrots into the stew pot, but no matter how often we stir the beef is hanging out in one third of the pot, the potatoes are piled in the another third, and the carrots are bunched together in the last unclaimed section.
I'm left with more questions than answers. How can Christian homeschoolers spread the word of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross if they only associate with other Christian homeschoolers? Is the "evil one" at work in a homeschooling group when they require a signed statement of faith and actively exclude people from participation, or are the members merely treating other people as they wish to be treated? Why must homeschooling groups be segregated by gender? Don’t fathers of homeschoolers have something to offer to the homeschooling conversation? After all, the dialogue does concern their children. Don’t fathers who stay at home and homeschool need dialogue with other homeschoolers concerning curriculum, lesson plans, resources, and field trips? What don’t I understand about being Latino or Black or Chinese or female that makes mastering algebraic facts different than it is for male Caucasians? Why are caucasians excluded from the category "people of color?" "Caucasian" does not mean "white" any more than "Black" really means "black." Just look at a cross-section of "people of color" and you'll see a wide variation on the theme of brown. Frankly, I'm more of a reddish-pinkish hue than I am white, unless you're looking at my naked legs in the dead of winter. Then you might have a point. Is it possible that homeschooling critics make a valid point about homeschooling when they raise issues concerning homogeny? Where is the diversity in self-segregated homeschooling communities? Or, was Thurgood Marshall wrong? Is separate really equal? Is separate preferred? Is the call for diversity a sham?
Sunday, October 3, 2010
A New Feature: Schooling in the News
People regularly feed me news articles concerning both homeschooling and public school education. Friends, relatives, and readers email links to news articles concerning teachers, students, classroom trends, policy trends, and disciplinary issues, as well as casual mentions of homeschooling. You name it and I’ve received it. Usually these emails contain a note such as the subject line on a recent email from my wife: They Just Feed You This Stuff for Your Blog. I am grateful for all of the help that I have received. Don't stop sending those links!
Today I have the pleasure of announcing two new features on The Homeschool Apologist. There are new pages titled “Homeschooling in the News” and “Public Schools in the News.” You can find their links on the page bar directly underneath the title banner. “Homeschooling in the News” is a listing of current news articles concerning homeschooling that are appearing online across the United States. “Public Schools in the News” is the public school counterpart. I cannot write about each and every school related news article that I locate, or that is sent to me. So, I created an online clearing house for all school-related news stories. It’s a Drudge Report for the homeschooling community. Each day I will update the list with links to online articles. If you are interested, the stories are there for you to read.
Today I have the pleasure of announcing two new features on The Homeschool Apologist. There are new pages titled “Homeschooling in the News” and “Public Schools in the News.” You can find their links on the page bar directly underneath the title banner. “Homeschooling in the News” is a listing of current news articles concerning homeschooling that are appearing online across the United States. “Public Schools in the News” is the public school counterpart. I cannot write about each and every school related news article that I locate, or that is sent to me. So, I created an online clearing house for all school-related news stories. It’s a Drudge Report for the homeschooling community. Each day I will update the list with links to online articles. If you are interested, the stories are there for you to read.
I hope you find the information both useful and enjoyable.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Coming Soon to a Community Near You
The website lifesitenews.com reported last Tuesday that the Maine Human Rights Commission decided that it is discriminatory to force a “transgendered” boy to use a boy’s restroom in Maine’s public schools. The Maine Human Rights Commission has been studying the concept of “biology-based bathrooms,” believing that rather than giving a child access to a bathroom segregated by standard definitions of “male” and “female” based on the body parts with which a child born, a child should be allowed to use either a boy’s or a girl’s bathroom based on the gender that they perceive themselves to be.
The entire story is as follows:
Tuesday September 28, 2010
School Must Allow ‘Transgender’ 6th Grader to Use Girls’ Bathroom: Maine Human Rights Panel
By Kathleen Gilbert
AUGUSTA, Maine, September 28, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Maine Human Rights Commission (HRC) has ruled that a middle school unlawfully discriminated against a "transgender" sixth-grade boy by disallowing the child from entering a girls' bathroom and instead assigning him his own separate bathroom.
The matter concerned Orono Middle School's treatment of a child whose parents have insisted has a right to use a girl's bathroom, despite being biologically male, because of his chosen gender identity.
“In choosing to disallow [him] to use the girls’ bathroom facilities, the school was implicitly isolating and alienating her (sic) from other students,” the parents wrote, according to local reports. “We determined that we needed to modify our actions to do the best we could to ensure [our child’s] safety.”
The panel also ruled against Asa Adams Elementary School in Orono last year, when the same parents issued a similar complaint over the school's conduct while their child was in the fifth grade, in the 2007-08 school year.
The school contended that officials had adequately accommodated the child, by educating staff and students on the situation, giving the child his own bathroom and locker room, and even arranging frequent meetings with his parents. “For the most part, she (sic) appeared to be happy and involved in the school community,” officials wrote.
The parents also alleged that the school subjected the boy to a hostile environment due to harassment from other students, a claim rejected by the HRC panel. He has since been removed from the school district.
In a September 20 meeting, the panel announced they would wait until the election of a new state governor before issuing guidelines on how schools ought to accommodate "transgender" students.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Maine Human Rights Commission Debates ‘Biology-based Bathrooms’ http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/mar/10030307.html
I strongly believe that it is neither healthy nor appropriate to integrate bathrooms in public schools. It is a recipe for disaster. Putting aside all arguments for or against the legitimacy of “transgendered” as a state of being, the potential for abuse in integrating public restrooms in a school is enormous. If this catches on, there will be a significant increase in sexual harassment and sexual assaults in public schools. Any claims by transgendered people that their needs are legitimate will be grossly overshadowed by the damage done by people who misuse or abuse a claim of a transgendered status in order to gain access to a bathroom for someone of the opposite sex. I would prefer schools have individual bathrooms rather than larger, multi-person bathrooms if the needs of transgendered people must be met.
Stories such as this one are appearing with more frequency. They’ve surfaced in Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York. I will not allow my children to attend an institution where they have to expose themselves to members of the opposite sex while changing in a locker room or toileting. It simply isn’t going to happen.
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