One of my young friends from CleanPlace, Twin4God, made a very thought-provoking post about her experience in her aunt's public school classroom. She's a homeschool student and has had her idea of public schooling turned on its head. Read her post HERE.
I started writing a comment to her post, but it ended up being so long that I decided to go ahead and just blog it over on my own journal. Here's my response:
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Wow, what an insightful post, Twin! I must say that I haven't heard of anyone having such harsh feelings toward public school. I'm really glad that your opinion has started to brighten at least toward the students, if not the schools in general.
I went through public school all the way, and I turned out okay. (Homeschooling was an alien idea when I was growing up.)
After I had my first child, I struggled with the idea of to homeschool or not to homeschool. I knew I could do it intellectually, but that time would be an issue. I sought council from many godly women who had homeschooled their kids.
What it came down to is this: I work from home to make a significant part of our income. It is a HUGE blessing to be able to work at home so I can be with our kids. (Daycare for small children is worse than public school IMHO.) If I were to homeschool, either her schooling would suffer or my work would suffer. Neither of those options was acceptable to me or our family.
Honestly, I believe that we NEED to have our Christian kids in public schools in order to allow them to be a light and encouragement to the unbelieving world.
How else will they be prepared to love those who would stomp on God's name? If they are raised apart from their unbelieving peers, how will they know what to say or how to act when they are "out there"?
As a parent, I can honestly say that though my daughter is in public school, her teacher isn't teaching her the majority of what she learns and knows. My husband and I are her teachers, first and foremost, when it comes to knowledge retention and life skills. School and her teachers are supplements to the foundation that we have put down for her.
My daughter is mixed in with kids from all income levels, nationalities, intellects, and personality types. This is not an environment which I could duplicate if I were to homeschool, and I believe it is vital for a young child to learn how to deal with real people of all kinds.
After all, this world is a big place with an endless variety of people. It's my job as a parent to prepare her for the things the world is going to dish out when she becomes an adult.
By the way, I am NOT knocking homeschooling in any way, shape, or form. I fully believe in homeschooling. However, I don't believe that public school is "bad" or overall inferior to homeschooling either.
Given the opportunity, I probably would homeschool my daughter because I think her potential is a lot higher than where most kindergarteners are. But God put our family in the position we are in for a reason, and I'm not about to knock His plans.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
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I agree with you mostly, Mangy. (I have not read Twin's post, by the way) The only thing with public schools, at least here, is that we have the LAUSD, which is supposed to be (thee?) worst system in the country. While public schooling on a Christian, light-bearing level (i think) would be a positive influence in helping us to learn more how to be in the world, but not of it, there is also the whole issue of actual education.
ReplyDeleteMy godfather is a teacher in LAUSD, and he comes back with lots and lots of not good stories. Sure, he teaches special ed for the kids who just don't WANT to learn, but he'll say about how different teachers there DO try to thwart of the kids' learning and whatnot. (Also, his class has an average of letter grade raising...three grades? I think he said? So he is a good teacher too and knows what he is talking about and whatnot and loves his students)
But if you ARE learning most everything at home, or from your parents anyways, then the social atmosphere of a public school would be good way to learn how to (said this already :oops:) live in the world but not of it.
Yes, it's a gamble, I suppose since you can't always choose your children's teachers. However, I know that I wouldn't be able to give nearly what I should having to work my job AND be a teacher to my kids. A public school teacher will at least be trying their best to earn their own paycheck.
ReplyDeleteSo I guess for us, it comes back to that: which should suffer? Work or school? Neither!
My thoughts turned out to be a little to long for a comment too... :D
ReplyDeleteCheck them out here. http://atwinforgod.blogspot.com/2008/10/world-of-academia.html
As a 13 year grad of public school (not to mention that my degree is also from a public, state-run school), I have to echo your arguements. And I would add that public school also helps prepare students for the challenges of living in the "real" world that tends to be where most of life happens out of school :) Many of the homeschool kids I knew or have met over the years have been ill-equipped to hold jobs and interact on teams because they were isolated by homeschooling. I think there are some answers to this, but that's for another time :)
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