Public Schools

[Timothy C. May]

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. 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.
>
>I understand that many parents that homeschool belong to organizations
>that provide for meetings twice a week in which the children so educated
>in a certain area get together.  Homeschooling does not have to stand in
>the way of a normal socialization process.

Also--and I mean this point completely seriously!--many parents are not
altogether convinced that the "public school socialization" is all that
beneficial. Do kids really _need_ to learn to wear gang colors, smoke to be
cool, get pregnant at age 14, and so on?

An awful lot of accomplished persons grew up in isolated areas, on small
farms, and were educated in very small classrooms (or at home).

I think the "social skills" Snow talks about above are actually the _worst_
part of public schools in fin-de-Siecle America. If I had a kid, I wouldn't
want him or her in the local public schools.

(And my area is more remote than over in San Jose--San Francisco, which is
even worse. And LA is even worse.)

--Tim May

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