Going Nucking Futz

It seems the only time I write nowadays is when I am feeling creative, or when I am angry. I haven’t written anything creative lately and this will be no exception. Some troubling personal news set me off yesterday and now I seem to be looking at things with venomous cruelty. This isn’t who I am, so I refrain from using the words that first popped into my head. I’m not waiting for Friday to write my reflections because I feel pretty strongly right now. So on to the matter at hand… Homeschooling.

First of all I want to make it very clear to anyone who might by Chance happen upon this blog that I think homeschooling is a great option for kids to have. We came very close to homeschooling our son and we still might. What I have a problem with, is how the homeschool option was presented to us. “research says …” Now this is a good example of why we should not trust the “research”. The public school system doesn’t deal exclusively with the perfect little angels as most homeschools do. The public school system deals with kids from poor socio-economic backgrounds, children with exceptionalities (remind me to blog on this term later) and children from single parent families. This coupled with government testing will obviously skew the results. Having someone up there smuggly making claims that homeschool children are better than public schooled children (I know she did not use those exact words, but t certainly came across that way and I am certain she thinks it) very much irritated me. Yes, I was in a mood anyway, but there I was anyway, sitting there, arms crossed listening intently for the next lump of propaganda. Let’s face it, the reason that homeschooling is successful it because of circumstance. The children born into a family that has the financial means and opportunity, the parental keenerage (that’s a word) whereby the child gets an education that is simply not possible for the public school system to give. I’m not criticizing the parents for doing this, it’s just that, you know deep down these are the same parents who read their children shakespeare while still in the womb. We must realize that these children are more the exception than the norm.

As for the social aspect. “Research shows …” OK, lets face it, research shows what every you want it to show. But anyways, the socialization of the homeschoolers is not the same as the socialization in school. You won’t find “Billy (the snake) Johnsen” in violin lessons. You won’t see any kid pushing extacy in the homeschool reading club. Yeah, arn’t dem home sckoolers missin out? Of course it’s good they are not exposed to that and it’s a shame that public school kids are. But the socialization (how we cope in a social environment) is not the same. They are, no doubt, sheltered children in many respects.

Now to more personal matters. I am so totally afraid that homeschooling is going to over take traditional schools and that we will all be out of a job… NOT!!! I don’t think any of us are afraid of that happening and I think it was humorous she brought it up. Thanks for making me smile. It did however reinforce my thought that many homeshool parents are kinda out of touch. Damn I am so mean tonight. I can’t help but think of what Amanda said about blogging. If people read this, whoa, I’m in trouble. Thank god I’m so boring people will have stopped reading this after the first few sentences. Umm, so where was I?Anyways, it was interesting to hear that there were other opportunities for teachers other than the traditional schools.

I think I have ranted enough. But in closing, I just want to reiterate that I agree and support our homeschooling programs. I guess I just wasn’t in the mood to hear about today.