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Showing Original Post only (View all)Salon: Home-schooled and illiterate - for some kids it means isolation with little education [View all]
Thursday, Mar 15, 2012 11:30 AM 04:36:22 GMT-0700
Home-schooled and illiterate
The religious right calls it the "responsible" choice, but for some kids it means isolation with little education
By Kristin Rawls, Alternet
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/15/homeschooled_and_illiterate/
In recent weeks, home schooling has received nationwide attention because of Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorums home-schooling family. Though Santorum paints a rosy picture of home schooling in the United States, and calls attention to the responsibility all parents have to take their childrens education into their own hands, he fails to acknowledge the very real potential for educational neglect among some home-schooling families neglect that has been taking place for decades, and continues to this day.
While the practice of home schooling is new to many people, my own interest in it was sparked nearly 20 years ago. I was a socially awkward adolescent with a chaotic family life, and became close to a conservative Christian home-schooling family that seemed perfect in every way. Through my connection to this family, I was introduced to a whole world of conservative Christian home-schoolers, some of whom we would now consider Quiverfull families: home-schooling conservatives who eschew any form of family planning and choose instead to trust God with matters related to procreation.
Though I fell out of touch with my home-schooled friends as we grew older, a few years ago, I reconnected with a few ex-Quiverfull peers on a new support blog called No Longer Quivering. Poring over their stories, I was shocked to find so many tales of gross educational neglect. I dont merely mean that they had received what I now view as an overly politicized education with huge gaps, for example, in American history, evolution or sexuality. Rather, what disturbed me were the many stories about home-schoolers who were barely literate when they graduated, or whose math and science education had never extended much past middle school.
Take Vyckie Garrison, an ex-Quiverfull mother of seven who, in 2008, enrolled her six school-age children in public school after 18 years of teaching them at home. Garrison, who started the No Longer Quivering blog, says her near-constant pregnancies which tended to result either in miscarriages or life-threatening deliveries took a toll on her body and depleted her energy. She wasnt able to devote enough time and energy to home schooling to ensure a quality education for each child. And she says the lack of regulation in Nebraska, where the family lived, allowed us to get away with some really shoddy home schooling for a lot of years.
Home-schooled and illiterate
The religious right calls it the "responsible" choice, but for some kids it means isolation with little education
By Kristin Rawls, Alternet
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/15/homeschooled_and_illiterate/
In recent weeks, home schooling has received nationwide attention because of Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorums home-schooling family. Though Santorum paints a rosy picture of home schooling in the United States, and calls attention to the responsibility all parents have to take their childrens education into their own hands, he fails to acknowledge the very real potential for educational neglect among some home-schooling families neglect that has been taking place for decades, and continues to this day.
While the practice of home schooling is new to many people, my own interest in it was sparked nearly 20 years ago. I was a socially awkward adolescent with a chaotic family life, and became close to a conservative Christian home-schooling family that seemed perfect in every way. Through my connection to this family, I was introduced to a whole world of conservative Christian home-schoolers, some of whom we would now consider Quiverfull families: home-schooling conservatives who eschew any form of family planning and choose instead to trust God with matters related to procreation.
Though I fell out of touch with my home-schooled friends as we grew older, a few years ago, I reconnected with a few ex-Quiverfull peers on a new support blog called No Longer Quivering. Poring over their stories, I was shocked to find so many tales of gross educational neglect. I dont merely mean that they had received what I now view as an overly politicized education with huge gaps, for example, in American history, evolution or sexuality. Rather, what disturbed me were the many stories about home-schoolers who were barely literate when they graduated, or whose math and science education had never extended much past middle school.
Take Vyckie Garrison, an ex-Quiverfull mother of seven who, in 2008, enrolled her six school-age children in public school after 18 years of teaching them at home. Garrison, who started the No Longer Quivering blog, says her near-constant pregnancies which tended to result either in miscarriages or life-threatening deliveries took a toll on her body and depleted her energy. She wasnt able to devote enough time and energy to home schooling to ensure a quality education for each child. And she says the lack of regulation in Nebraska, where the family lived, allowed us to get away with some really shoddy home schooling for a lot of years.
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Salon: Home-schooled and illiterate - for some kids it means isolation with little education [View all]
Amerigo Vespucci
Mar 2012
OP
My problem is my client is being punished for homeschooling (to the best of her ability).
no_hypocrisy
Mar 2012
#22
This isn't so much a home schooling issue as it is a religious fanaticism issue.
teewrex
Mar 2012
#8
I worry more about the social 'isolation' that so many of the religiously
sinkingfeeling
Mar 2012
#12