The essay originally linked to is gone, and now the link points to something else, so I’m removing the link.

Years later I started with affiliate marketing. I submitted articles; or old essays, in order to place my affiliate site on, and provide backlinks and get my page higher ranked.

So while I appreciate all that constructive cristicism, I promise, these are not my views, and if I wanted to, I could sit down and write to captivate any audience. But for now, rant on and continue to waste your time critiquing it. But please be sure to click the link! Have a great day.

Elizabeth wrote: Are you saying it does not matter where you go to school, home school and public/private are exactly the same?

When it comes to standardized test scores, yes. When it comes to quality of education (a *VERY* different thing), absolutely not.

While I imagine you wouldn’t want to examine data that conflicts with your viewpoint, there are a number of good websites with info on the topic. SENG (http://www.sengifted.org/articles_index.shtml), Deborah Ruf’s site (http://www.educationaloptions.com/)…or of course, you could check out Mensa (their research journal has an entire volume on homeschooling from last year), National Association for Gifted Children (http://www.nagc.org/), Davidson Institute, Hoagies Gifted, what have you.

Many of these organizations are advocating for parents to take their kids out of school if schools refuse to accelerate or accomodate kids precisely because of the emotional damage it does. Putting gifted kids (especially those in the highly, exceptionally, or profoundly gifted categories – no not all gifted kids are the same) into school wastes their time and abilities and makes them angry and depressed because they’re so different (and constantly reminded of it!) from their age-mates.

and about sweeping generalizations your comment below takes the prize:

*”Homeschoolers are not using children to push their agenda”*

That might be true in your group, but it ain’t so nationwide–not even close, even if only considering the simple number of Christian HS’ers.

As for “if I tried to go and critique a native dancer who has respect in her culture, I’d be thrown out of the buildings,” not only is that presumptive that there actually is a quantifiable HS culture ( one with clear cut boundaries–another issue) — we still have to struggle with what is one homschoolers culture over anothers, after all they are all so “unique”–too “unique” to be classified, and too “unique” to have their methodology scrutinized, or criticised, much less looked at in qualitative terms. Not to mention their are thousands of HS enclaves around the country, and some of them are like secretive klaverns …

In the analogy, I imagine it would best be described as the difference between your fusion scene and the local belly culture here: it might be a wonderful idea to talk about respect, but good luck getting a real world dancing gig with that, b/c the local dancers have it all sewn up. All those experts who test out well amongst those who go “lee-lee-leee” every time they move a muscle aren’t so hot in Egypt.

So again, there is not one cohesive ‘culture’ there are many, and the opportunities within those seperate cultures are defined almost arbitrarily, with the consensus of the local scene and those who control it–at the expense of others–especially the novices.

That is to say then, that this arbitrary localized (I have used the word ‘incestuous’ to describe that scene) standard works for those dancers who benefit directly from it, at the expense of perhaps better dancers from outside it, and the important aspect of new methods/movements/ideas.

The gifted thing, well I am not convinced that is all that makes a young kid “angry”. I am sure that other things were going on, but it is a convenient foil to blame the schools for that anger. Maybe he just needed more time with his parents? Or maybe in your model,with your son being gifted ( I always hated that label growing up) he just needed more parental involvement? So, if gifted kids have higher capacity, maybe HS options should have been used for accessory learning–concurrent with public school lessons? That way the purportedly gifted kid can get a double dose of learning–kind of like a second job to fill the mental bank account…

Now that that’s out of the way, assuming that every reason for homeschooling is motivated by cowardice is not “insight”. It’s making huge, sweeping, derogatory generalizations.

Homeschoolers are not using children to push their agenda. They have an agenda, and usually that agenda may have issues surrounding children. Unlike most people, they feel strongly enough about their agenda to act with some consistency in that they actually are willing to follow through and do what they believe rather than assume it will be figured out by someone else.

In my case, my “agenda” was that my son was having a horrible time in school, and I was told by a specialist in gifted assessment to take him out of school because it was making him angry and inhibiting his learning. For someone of his ability, he was seriously underachieving. In the time he was out of school, I was able to get him to the point where he was placing where he should be on assessments. He was able to go back to school and place into advanced classes.

During the time he was out of school, I came across the Mensa homeschooling SIG which has no formal political stance or religious views…because everyone who is part of the group has their own set of beliefs. There’s the whole gamut from the religious based to the unschoolers to the classical training to the eclectic. A lot are stay at home moms (and dads), but some work as well. (There were a couple college professors, and a couple other students like myself.)

The only thing people like this had in common is that their children were gifted and while some chose to homeschool right away, most tried going the “school route” and had problems like my family. The schools are not equipped to deal with kids who learn twice as fast (or considerably more in some cases) as the norm to which schools teach. Those of us with gifted/LD kids were twice a screwed because schools only worry if kids are “below average”, not “below their tested capabilities”. So if you’d like, you can imagine that the agenda for this group was “we want our kids to be able to learn and achieve to their full potential.” Completely pernicious.

I think the cowardly thing is to leave the kids in school and hope someone else will fix the problems. Taking kids out and ensuring that they are getting the best preparation for their future careers (i.e. taking personal responsibility for the lives of your children) is a lot of serious effort and commitment. It’s not something most people will do for their kids.

Me? A conformist? Harharhar-me heartiest pilates laugh for you…if you only knew.

But I am against adults using their children to push agendas into the public, because if anything, it is cowardly to use children to further agendas–a sure sign of cowardice in parents to address what they percieve to be social wrongs. or failings; likely a sign of unaddressed control issues (parents who faileed as children using children to succeed for them) put on to the most vulnerable.

So about the dance, well, I know that what you describe is of course from your limited experience dancing (belly, right?)–yes you are right, belly dancing cliques can certainly be some of the most catty, snipy, and kind of incestuous amongst the dancers can’t they be? And yes, I agree with your assertion that they are prone to chase people away with their grade school-like sniping;-)

But what I am saying is that I have seen more than one form of dance, and participated at more than one party full of drunken A-rabs, and capitalistic belly dancers looking to strike oil, and on your analogy, I am guessing that you are not Nesrin Topkapi, Samia, or Naima Akef, so be careful when putting it out there.

As Suhair Zaki is quoted as saying of the new dancers imported from other countries ?They will never be up to the Egyptian standards, the Egyptian belly dancers’ standards,They don’t have the lively spirit, they don’t have the sense of humor…”
http://gobellydance.com/ArabicStars.html

Even she has a desire for “standards'” Char, and surprisingly, like yourself, she also wants to keep ‘outsiders’ away.

Unlike belly dancing training, social movements are not entirely done through ‘isolation’, and children are not necessarilty extensions of your own body–other little muscles to manipulate, and there are indeed social consequences for raising screwed up kids.

As for HS, and the Revolutionary Founding Fathers, well, I have yet to meet one homeschooler who fits their profile–if for no other reason than that the Rev. agenda included others. HS isn’t at all revolutionary, if only because it is so full of individual agenda–unless you count the fact that HS’ers, like the founding fathers, also have “agendas”. Those agendas are an interesting bunch indeed.

If you want to know what I think about H, or what my connection to it is, you can peruse some of the other HS blogposts here on Gregs blog until my book comes out.

But I never once said HS is ultimately bad, or morally wrong, or anything like it: instead, I have ROFLMFAO about the cloistered defensiveness of HS’ers who interpret questions as threats, and insight or concern as criticism of them, personally–and that is my main focus–this sort of bunker mentality which is being foisted into our culture by the HS’er, via their human propaganda missiles…er…children.

Sure, the Bush people are scary, but the alternative is what? A bunch of overly pluralistic half wits who didn’t step out of moms bed until they reached the age of majority? Or the polar opposite, the bibble thumpin’ people who believe the earth was created in six days?

Well, anyways, don’t take it personal and all…but I did enjoy your posts about the importance of fathers in childrens lives–especially as it regards the teaching of language. I thought that was perhaps the most unusual post I had ever ever seen on a homeschoolers blog;-)

(First, a nit-picky thing, but please don’t call me Cher. I’m really not keen on nicknames.)

No, some of my earlier comments were not aimed at you but at other responses.

On thing you said was: “The main reason, in my opinion that home schoolers are hard to quantify or to describe qualitatively is because a large number of home schooling parents vehemently resist such thing.”

I think that this will continue to be an issue until every state makes it legal with minimal requirements to annually (or so) evaluate students.

In ND, which is mid-range as far as requirements, I was allows to homeschool without any sort of supervision because I had a BS. My son only had to take national standardized exams every other year which were sent to the local public school HS administrator, but I had them done every year because *I* wanted to see where he was.

In California, despite what the author of the original critique says, there is no way to “homeschool”. The easiest requirement to fill is to have your child enrolled in an R4. Usually a homeschooler sets one up and everyone in the homeschooling group enrolls. However, I saw families who did not go this route and no one bothered to check up on them because, out there, the system is so overloaded that no one has the time to deal with it. (Versus one year here when the test scores didn’t get sent to the right place, and someone was calling me pretty quick to find out what happened.)

Realistically, while some states still make homeschooling illegal or difficult, you’re not going to get many families who are very open about their homeschooling. They’re going to be far more concerned with keeping any curious about homeschooling away because they don’t want someone either trying to take their kids away or throw them in jail (or both). IMO, it benefits society to make it legal while providing some minimal oversight (i.e. just checking to see that the kids are learning sufficiently) because people aren’t going to feel like they need to secret their kids away in order to educate them the way they feel is appropriate.

Real (or rail) EMF: What you’re saying about a virulent strain could be very easily applied to the conditions that led to the American Revolution. You are a conformist, plain and simple. Because you have a problem with it doesn’t mean it’s wrong or weird or illegal. It just means you can’t handle it, and that’s really your problem and no one else’s. No one has to change anything they’re doing, nor should they, because you choose to view something as wierd.

As for your dancing analogy, usually dancers will immerse themselves in the dance and the culture in order to be recognized as an expert…and usually this is of no avail until the dancers have been recognized *within* the culture as being experts. It does very little if someone from a different culture and different type of dance comes in and lambasts someone. All it shows is how ignorant they are, and they’re told to go away and come back when they know something or can add something constructive.