From: Mike McNally <m5@tivoli.com>
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 23:48:40 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Public Schools
In-Reply-To: <ae6b72ee07021004c91c@[207.167.93.63]>
Message-ID: <324677FF.3A48@tivoli.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Timothy C. May wrote:
> 
> At 4:31 AM 9/23/96, Lucky Green wrote:
> >On Sun, 22 Sep 1996, snow wrote:
> >> I would agree that parents can do as good or better at _most_ 
> >> subjects thru about the 3rd or 4th grade, and I do agree that 
> >> most of todays schools are shit, however there is one area--
> >> social skills--that homeschooling simply can't compete. 

Proponents of mass public education love to trot that one out, probably
because it sounds good and appeals to common sense.  However, I
sincerely
doubt it's true in any way.  For example, I'd like to see some actual
comparison of the social skills (and, umm, how do you measure that 
anyway?  I don't remember taking any social skills tests in school to
make sure I was acquiring that valuable stuff) of public school victims
and homeschooled people.  If it's such a problem, where are all those
social freaks who got that way due to homeschooling?

Before the Industrial Revolution, homeschooling was of course quite
common.  Many "public schools" were simply cheap boarding houses for
lower-middle class children (see Nicholas Nickelby for a colorful
example).  Those with the means hired tutors.

> >> Children need to learn how to interact with one another in groups 
> >> larger than a family unit. I don't think that homeschooling can
> >> accomplish this nearly as well as the public (or private) schools 
> >> could.

Please note that homeschooling does not imply that parents isolate their
children from contact with the world until they're at voting age.  Also,
note that the public elementary schools I attended seemed hell-bent on
*preventing* any sort of interaction with a group of peers.  I don't
recall being encouraged to do much but shut up and perform the
uninspired
textbook assignments I was given.


______c_________________________________________________________________
Mike M Nally * IBM % Tivoli * Austin TX  * How quickly we forget that
mailto:m5@tivoli.com mailto:m101@io.com  * "deer processing" and "data
http://www.io.com/~m101/                 * processing" are different!