Top home-school texts dismiss Darwin

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I believe that was intended humorously, as the bolded statement is the logical outcome of all humanity descending from one DNA sequence, with a mildly-altered sequence for the first clone (changing the Y chromosome to an X, to get a female), and disallowing favorable mutation (as required by Biblical Creationism, which states that all species were created in their current genetic template in one singular event, some 6000 years ago, and all evidence to the contrary only exists because God is such a merry prankster).

I believe Bishop Ussher pegged Creation as being at nightfall preceding October 23, 4004 BC (by the Julian calendar). (Checking Wikipedia - they agree with me...)

What a crappy time for the world to begin. That's right before the cold winds start blowing in the northern hemisphere. Assuming the world was round at that time.

By the way, I found this filthy bullsh*t this morning: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/us/po ... as.html?hp

Aha. Makes more sense.

Oh, Don McLeroy the dentist. I've heard of him before.

I do not consider the idea that "they won't" when it certainly CAN be done as a good enough reason to deny families all possible choices. We have a wonderful elementary school that is highly special needs friendly, and yet the IEP team ended up agreeing with one of the families that the best option for their unique child was going to be homeschooling. One thing no public school system can get rid of is the fact that there are other kids. LOTS of them. For some children, that is a deal breaker on being able to learn.

And, no, not everyone has the option to move. I advise it all the time, but I know it isn't always an option.

Just because some people make wrong choices does not mean that having choices is wrong. There are better ways to reduce the incidence of misguidance.

I know quite a few homeschooling families and most of them are doing a wonderful job, and are in it for solid reasons. Yes, I know one family that I think should not be homeschooling, as well. But when I put it all on the weighted scale with the costs and benefits of all options, I leave it as it is. Every other option creates more negative results than we've got right now with the one family making a bad choice.

Trust me, I believe in freedom of choice more than most other people you'll ever meet. I'm even against vehicle registration (although I'm pro-driver-licensing). I believe a zero-tolerance crime policy will far more than offset any supposed increases in crime due to things like cars being less identifiable. Authorities rely far too much on control and not enough on doing their job seriously. In fact I think it's possible to reduce crime in the United States by as much as 90% while giving people *more* choices. The issue - it would require a sea change in thinking.

However, I don't believe teaching is a job that should be performed by someone who did not spend years at university earning a degree and gaining classroom experience. Teaching is a professional career, just as "automotive technician", "computer programmer", and "civil engineer" are. I am willing to work on my car sometimes, but if it's a big job, I turn to a professional. The issue I have is only partly with poor decisions made by Christian fundamentalist morons. It has more to do with your lack of a degree in education, psychology, or another appropriate field. If you do happen to have such a degree, get yourself certified as a teacher and then I have no problem with you teaching your kid at home.

I think most kids with AS are starving more for social skills than for knowledge, and it is actually a good thing to immerse them with their peers.

Last edited by MyFutureSelfnMe on 11 Mar 2010, 3:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There is no 'Humor' in the Word of God! I have read the Bible and there is not a single one liner in it.

Creation, just as it is written, is the sole fundemental foundation of the Jewish and Christian Religions!

When, "The sons of God looked upon the daughters of man,and found they were fair' they did not stop there. God's sons bred with this Creation, which is why God our Father started the human line, he seems to have had no daughters. We are the children of God, direct decendants!

There is only one DNA, that of God, Eturnal, Unchanging, for Eturnity.

Every word is true, the Bible cannot be changed.

This truth is the foundation of all religion.

The true gifts of a good teacher are in (a) classroom management and (b) the ability to inspire interest. There is no magic pedology to teaching reading, writing and mathematics to one unique child; most of the professional instruction teachers get relates to teaching these subjects to kids of multiple levels, how to deal with special needs kids in a mainstream classroom, keeping order, and the like. A parent doesn't need (a) and might naturally be just as good or better when it comes to (b). I truly admire my kid's teachers, and know I couldn't do the job in the classroom that they do, but that is an issue of group leadership, and not professional knowledge. High School can be another matter, where academics delve deep into areas we've all quickly forgotten in our adult lives, but I would have no problem teaching my children, as a technical matter, on anything they have done in school so far (and often have when they admit to having tuned out a lesson). And I say that knowing I don't want to teach my kids at home and don't think I'd be good at it - for all sorts of intangible reasons that have nothing to do with training.

A dear friend is currently getting her teaching credentials at one of the top universities and has told us point blank that what they teach is a joke. She says it all tends to fall into "already know" or "useless." She is a natural with kids, a natural at multi-tasking, and a born teacher. She will be wonderful, I have not a shade of doubt. But can teaching college actually teach one to teach if they don't have the gift? She would tell you, "no." As would my mother, who trained as a teacher and quite after her first week.

An interesting read on the subject is in this week's Newsweek.

I am a tax professional by training and practice, and I am very very good at what I do. But I make no bones about the fact that most people are quite capable of becoming experts on their own tax situation if they wish to. My professional training covers a world of different situations and what to do with them; most people only have a few in their lives, and are unlikely to ever encounter the nuances I am trained to sort out. It is similar when you look at teaching one or two children instead of 20 or 30: what you need to know is smaller, and easier for a non-professional to acquire.

There are definitely advantages to being in a group setting with shared goals and an exchange of ideas. That advantage keeps me pretty firmly tied to the local school system. But that is a personal thing; I also loved having a part-time nanny when my kids were small, and the broadening of ideas that brought us, a concept that many people are highly critical of, feeling that I was letting someone else raise my kids. All these things really do vary by child and family.

I think that it is very closed minded to not inform students, homeschooled or not, of other possible theories pertaining to any aspect of science. It's almost like propoganda in some aspects. To tell kids what to do and what not to do, as well as what to believe, clear to teenage years or adulthood is a huge mistake (even as a Christian myself). This is what makes people rely so much on their parents or on authority figures to not contest the truth and to not have any identity of their own. If the child wants to be Christian, they will choose to be Christian, or whichever religion that their parents are. I think it should be a matter of choosing rather than a matter of shoving things down kids' throats. I think this also goes for sex education. They say that in completely abstinence-free sex education that the kids often have more problems. Sooner or later, the kids will discover their natural drive for sex, but then if they choose to have sex they have no way to protect themselves from STDs or unwanted pregnancies. Shielding kids from the real world may protect them from some things for a time, but eventually they have to enter that real world and face things like an adult.

Hopefully this picture shows you how ridiculous that is:



If it's close-minded to only teach the theories (refer to my earlier post to see what a theory actually is) that have evidence, well, I guess I'm close-minded.

This made me smile by reminding me of something old Popper said.
If a system which makes people happy is called "tyranny", and a system which makes people miserable is called "democracy", he would support the one called "tyranny" over the one called "democracy", regardless of the names.

Exactly. Insisting on empirical evidence is so damned bigoted.

ruveyn

I, for one, did not say that they should only teach only theories based solely upon having evidence. What I was saying was that to omit a theory altogether is to ignore a different take on the question at hand, especially a very popular issue like evolution. This equips kids to be thinking adults later in life, with many theories to many different questions. This is not to say that adults should not guide kids into what to think about certain issues. If a kid wants to see what happens if they put a key into an electrical socket, then it would probably be considered wrong for a parent observing the situation to not stop it. What about advertisements that claim that they could solve serious problems when you buy that magic pill or that magic wonder? It's important for kids to know that there are consequences to actions and that there are two (or more) sides to every story. What I was getting at in my previous post was that parents or other role models in kids' lives should guide them into making decisions, depending on the scenario, but kids should also be able to learn to make decisions on their own, based on past experience and what other people may say about the topic (like most textbooks, for example). The goal is to make kids more open minded about what others may think while at the same time providing some protection from some aspects of the world. Because our parents won't be around to tell us not to put a key into the electrical socket, or to not listen to every infomercial on TV, then it is probably a good idea for kids to be able to think about things on our own. This can also be applied to other situations like choosing whether to believe a theory (or a hypothesis). One usually leans toward the theory that is most supported by evidence. Because some questions cannot be scientifically tested (like Creationism, for instance), it requires a leap of faith to believe it (like it takes a leap of faith to believe another hypothesis, without any evidence to support it). You could teach kids what faith is, but you can't make kids have faith in something. They will believe what you tell them at the time, and have faith in what you're saying, but they will be the ones eventually to choose whether or not they believe in something. They have to choose that on their own, much like religion (or not) later in life. In other words, parents should act as temporary filters and models for some aspects of the world, but they should also present kids with other aspects and other strategies that may be available. In my opinion (I don't know about anyone else), but I think it would be wrong to leave my future kids ill-equipped to face the world on their own.

I do think it could be fun to dedicate a session or two to old hypotheses and how they were successively outperformed by newer ideas.

That study is very useful. It is not only necessary to understand when we think theories are right, it is also necessary to understand how wrong theories were falsified.

ruveyn

Have these schools EVER considered not teaching either of them at all?

Schools have already got a crowded curriculum as it is. If people are on the fence about this then it's better left for college when people can decide for themselves where they wanna side on this issue.

Creationism isn't a theory at all, in scientific terms. It's just some stuff. The only perceived merit it holds is based on the relatively large number of people who subscribe to it, which is no merit at all. I'm an open minded person, and I don't think it holds enough water to justify any discussion whatsoever in a science class. If I were a school administrator I wouldn't think of canning a teacher for discussing it, I will leave that decision to the professional educator who sits behind the podium.

There are so many things in the world that are not currently understood and there is plenty of time to present genuine opposing theories regarding those, without having to resort to fake opposing theories. It's impossible to even debate creationism vs. evolution because there is no empirical evidence supporting creationism. I absolutely think teaching kids to think critically and debate is important, this is just not a helpful area for it.