When Homeschooling Goes Bad

[Lursa]

Most people also do not realize why mandatory public education was created. It was created to address two of the problems experienced by the industrial revolution.


1) With parents away at work all day in a shop, office, store, factory, etc kids had less supervisor and got up to trouble. School was needed to keep them off the streets in a society that was becoming more urbanized. Then, even school was not enough so they started school sports. They were also needed to instill discipline as parents were not around their kids as much.

2) To get children used to following a strict time schedule to prepare them for the new style of employment. You need to be on time and get in trouble if you are late or do not show. Virtures the new industrial capitalists wanted instilled into workers.


This is why state schools resemble prisons in so many ways. A bell signals when you should be in your seat. Where you stay until the bell rings to signal time to go to another class. At each point attendance is taken to make sure you are present. A bell tells you when you can go for lunch break and again when lunch break is over. You are not allowed to leave until the final bell rings. You must put your hand up to speak and must ask permission to go to the bathroom.

Sources for 1 and 2 please? I can see some socialogical basis for this, but not legislative.

 

[BlackMatters]

I wasn't trying to argue people have some sort of natural or genetic intelligence that far exceeds people of a few centuries or millennia ago. Genetic evolution doesn't happen that quickly. The point was we have progressed in terms of studying, publishing and understanding certain natural processes and phenomena relative to a couple hundred years ago. Look at the medical fields. A few centuries ago we didn't even understand infection, and had actual doctors believing blood-letting was therapeutic.



There is no "artificial age group." The skills and trades of centuries ago are what are increasingly useless, and information is not useless, we just have a lot more advanced specialization and there are a lot of areas where the information goes unused because a different specialization is pursued.



That's quite a positive spin on the way children were treated in centuries past. Children were much more regularly beaten (not spanked to be corrected in the moment of doing something very bad, but literally beaten) with the belief that they would only succeed if taught via corporal punishment. This wasn't actually an honest attempt at teaching youth, it was psychologically troubled adults taking their warped emotions out on children. Traditional social conservatives routinely spin it differently by just contrasting it with the overly sheltering snowflake attitudes you find in some places today. Just because some people are ridiculous little snowflakes doesn't mean the way children were physically abused centuries ago was "a good thing." It's also disingenuous to claim child labor was an honest attempt at teaching skills and trades. It very often was not educational, it was just straight up labor. Grueling, repetitive labor.

In ancient Greece, by law parents could abandon newborns in the woods to die of exposure. If strangers adopted them, they made them into slaves. Pederasty (child rape) was normal back then. As children some were sent away to live in military barracks at rather young ages. In the Middle Ages girls were married off to men at age 12. Ancient Aztecs physically tortured children for misbehaving. Not an honest spanking to correct behavior in the moment. Cactus spines shoved into the skin and held over fires to nearly asphyxiate them. Ancient Incas took the prettiest little 10 year olds away from their families because they were the prettiest and used them as commodities to become married as pre-teens to important men.

In England in the 1600s, Tudor schools whipped asses with birch twigs until bloody. By the 1700s, children as young as 5 were forced to work in coal mines. In the 1800s they were forced to climb into chimneys to clean them (a little carcinogenic, do you think?) In the 1800s, beatings in school remained commonplace, as was humiliation as a form of discipline.

And there is no evidence that any of this treatment of children produces good outcomes, relative to what is more normal today. Today we at least try to enforce high educational attainment expectations, try to offer Advanced Placement course work that will challenge the most talented kids, try to offer remedial programming that will bring the weakest performers up and give them a shot at college eventually. We don't continue to torture children or beat the ever-living **** out of them for minor indiscretions the way we did for centuries (because there's absolutely zero empirical evidence to show it produces better or even good educational, social or psychological outcomes). We don't need to treat children like special little snowflakes who are all winners, but we cannot honestly look back on history and not be disgusted by the way children used to be treated.

You said, "people were much dumber back then." So, yeah, you were.

There most certainly is an "artificial age group." We created it because work and occupations changed. Fewer farmers and tradesmen, more office jobs. I'm not saying there was no reason to create it. I am saying there are consequences that these "childhood development" experts refuse to acknowledge.

And, I'm not arguing that things haven't changed. In fact, I'm saying even though the way we do things/technology/what we prioritize have changed, people have generally stayed the same as far as intellegence.

You have ZERO evidence or statistics that would show children, in general and as a rule, were treated worse in the past than they are today. None.

 

[BlackMatters]

Sources for 1 and 2 please? I can see some socialogical basis for this, but not legislative.

I learned this in university, I did not copy it from some site. I could dig up the term paper I wrote on it and get the sources (which were not websites) but what is the point really?

 

[Lursa]

I learned this in university, I did not copy it from some site. I could dig up the term paper I wrote on it and get the sources (which were not websites) but what is the point really?

Well if it's used to support the creation of law, I'd be interested in it on that basis.

 

[Neomalthusian]

You said, "people were much dumber back then." So, yeah, you were.

On how to treat children, they were, which I clarified.

There most certainly is an "artificial age group." We created it because work and occupations changed. Fewer farmers and tradesmen, more office jobs. I'm not saying there was no reason to create it. I am saying there are consequences that these "childhood development" experts refuse to acknowledge.

There are consequences of creating an artificial age group that "childhood development experts" refuse to acknowledge. That is a strange statement.

And, I'm not arguing that things haven't changed. In fact, I'm saying even though the way we do things/technology/what we prioritize have changed, people have generally stayed the same as far as intellegence.

Okay, I'll agree there, but the way children were commonly treated long ago was objectively awful and has improved dramatically.

You have ZERO evidence or statistics that would show children, in general and as a rule, were treated worse in the past than they are today. None.

So you're playing dumb to the way children were normally treated in the past relative to today. That's your angle on this? To balk and demand statistics?

It may surprise you to know that we didn't gather reliable statistical data spanning centuries on how many children were whipped and forced to labor long hours and in dangerous conditions during the periods of time when children were treated like farm animals. It wasn't even considered abuse back then. It was considered "teach'num God's way!" a lot of times. If people didn't care enough about the welfare of children to not treat them this way in the first place, then they surely didn't care enough to spend their time gathering data about their own child abuse so that fast forwarding several centuries I could provide some sort of irrefutable proof to you that children were mistreated in the distant past. We don't need that to read our history books and know that children were treated horrifically. We know they were. The lack of a database doesn't mean it's an unknown mystery how badly children were mistreated in the past.

 

[BlackMatters]

Wierd, i started working on a farm around age 8. Didnt know it was considered tourture. Got my butt whipped too, as my children still do. Guess im teachenum Gods way, as if that's a bad thing.

 

[Neomalthusian]

Wierd, i started working on a farm around age 8. Didnt know it was considered tourture. Got my butt whipped too, as my children still do. Guess im teachenum Gods way, as if that's a bad thing.

You didn’t grow up in the 1800s, much less the 1700s, or 1200s. It often was a bad thing. When people’s beliefs about life and the world are based in myth, they can come up with myth-based justifications for virtually any abhorrent behavior. Not that they necessarily will, but it’s easier. The family thus thread was started about was reportedly (by grandma) “deeply religious.”

But I was not speaking in universal absolutes, if course not every kid who did farm chores was traumatically abused, but the longer back in history we look, the more normal it typically was that children would be subject to inhumane treatment with pathetically little regard for their actual biological, social, emotional, and educational needs. Not everything about them good ole’ days was awful, by any means, but it wasn’t ideal by any means either. A lot of sick and twisted stuff went on back then too and we’ve made a lot of positive progress in a lot of areas.

 

[BlackMatters]

You didn’t grow up in the 1800s, much less the 1700s, or 1200s. It often was a bad thing. When people’s beliefs about life and the world are based in myth, they can come up with myth-based justifications for virtually any abhorrent behavior. Not that they necessarily will, but it’s easier. The family thus thread was started about was reportedly (by grandma) “deeply religious.”

But I was not speaking in universal absolutes, if course not every kid who did farm chores was traumatically abused, but the longer back in history we look, the more normal it typically was that children would be subject to inhumane treatment with pathetically little regard for their actual biological, social, emotional, and educational needs. Not everything about them good ole’ days was awful, by any means, but it wasn’t ideal by any means either. A lot of sick and twisted stuff went on back then too and we’ve made a lot of positive progress in a lot of areas.

I dont think anyone is refuting your last paragraph, but rather your indication that government ran public education is the cause.

 

[Neomalthusian]

I dont think anyone is refuting your last paragraph, but rather your indication that government ran public education is the cause.

Never said or suggested anything about homeschooling inherently causing maltreatment, but of those who are inclined to mistreat their kids, homeschooling can provide cover by reducing public exposure.

 

[BlackMatters]

Never said or suggested anything about homeschooling inherently causing maltreatment, but of those who are inclined to mistreat their kids, homeschooling can provide cover by reducing public exposure.

Hate to say it, but if a parent is going to be abusive, the school system of choice isn't going to change that. I get what you're saying that home schooling can provide further cover up, but going to a public school won't stop it.

 

[BlackMatters]

Neomalthusian - Whats your take of home schooling vs public education,

If you had to vote for one, wich would it be and why? Whats the down side to home schooling vs pub schooling?

 

[Neomalthusian]

Hate to say it, but if a parent is going to be abusive, the school system of choice isn't going to change that. I get what you're saying that home schooling can provide further cover up, but going to a public school won't stop it.

I agree.

Neomalthusian - Whats your take of home schooling vs public education,

If you had to vote for one, wich would it be and why? Whats the down side to home schooling vs pub schooling?

Depends on the parents and the school district. Some parents are unqualified and ill-equipped whereas the school system is well-run, well-funded, competitive and robust with its programming. Other times it's the school district that is under-performing, underfunded, small, lacks gifted and remedial programming, and have bitter, complacent, entitled tenured teachers constantly warring with administration and the school board.

My wife and I have skill sets that we believe are more valuable as wage earners and/or entrepreneurs such that we should be able to afford ourselves a decent quality of life in a top ranking school district, and some of those school districts we're considering would probably do a better job offering robust education than we would as homeschoolers.

 

[BlackMatters]

I agree.



Depends on the parents and the school district. Some parents are unqualified and ill-equipped whereas the school system is well-run, well-funded, competitive and robust with its programming. Other times it's the school district that is under-performing, underfunded, small, lacks gifted and remedial programming, and have bitter, complacent, entitled tenured teachers constantly warring with administration and the school board.

My wife and I have skill sets that we believe are more valuable as wage earners and/or entrepreneurs such that we should be able to afford ourselves a decent quality of life in a top ranking school district, and some of those school districts we're considering would probably do a better job offering robust education than we would as homeschoolers.

I really haven't found many districts that the public school is "well-run, well-funded". Some are better than others, but none are really good.

this also may be a first. You agreed about the abusive parents probably doing so regardless of school choice, then didn't add anything after you agreed. Wow.

 

[jdog]

I've never been a fan of giving parents total control of their kids. I have been a major fan of parents being forced to send their kids to public schools where certain minimum standards of humanity are required of parents or someone will call the cops.

Here's why.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crim...e/ar-AAuQZhC?ocid=spartandhp#image=AAuKPJw|12

So by your line of reasoning we should abolish all public education due to rapist teachers... that is what you are saying right?

 

[Fishking]

I've never been a fan of giving parents total control of their kids. I have been a major fan of parents being forced to send their kids to public schools where certain minimum standards of humanity are required of parents or someone will call the cops.

Here's why.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crim...e/ar-AAuQZhC?ocid=spartandhp#image=AAuKPJw|12

Btw...it appears as if they were able to register their house as an actual school and the father was the principle so this wasn't actually homeschooling.

 

[calamity]

Btw...it appears as if they were able to register their house as an actual school and the father was the principle so this wasn't actually homeschooling.

Thanks for making my point.

 

[Barnacle]

Btw...it appears as if they were able to register their house as an actual school and the father was the principle so this wasn't actually homeschooling.

That is one of the options for homeschooling in most states, I believe. You are not registering the house as a school, you are registering a "private school" which is limited to your children only.
And yes, it was actually homeschooling.

 

[Vetplus40]

Trump lies. News at 11:00.................lol

 

[Barnacle]

Trump lies. News at 11:00.................lol

Are you on the wrong thread?!?

 

[eohrnberger]

I've never been a fan of giving parents total control of their kids. I have been a major fan of parents being forced to send their kids to public schools where certain minimum standards of humanity are required of parents or someone will call the cops.

Here's why.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crim...e/ar-AAuQZhC?ocid=spartandhp#image=AAuKPJw|12

Don't know if anyone mentioned it before, but I think this is more an example of mentally ill parents rather than an example of home schooling 'going bad'.

Heard reported that the older boy did attend some college and scored a good GPA.