Stand/live your rights, or lose them -- homeschooling under attack -- Re: 1. Freedom Makes People Smarter - homeschooling

Zenaan Harkness zen at freedbms.net
Wed Apr 22 00:59:46 PDT 2020


Homeschooling is again under attack.

Consider living your rights boldly, and supporting others who do likewise.

Create your world,


  The Real Reason Why A Harvard Professor Thinks Homeschooling Should Be Banned
  https://www.theorganicprepper.com/harvard-professor-homeschooling-banned/
  https://www.zerohedge.com/political/real-reason-why-harvard-professor-thinks-homeschooling-should-be-banned

      A Harvard University law professor believes that homeschooling is dangerous and should be banned.

      Elizabeth Bartholet, Wasserstein public interest professor of law and faculty director of the Law School’s Child Advocacy Program, wrote a paper recommending a “presumptive ban” on homeschooling children in the United States. Yeah, that United States. The land of the free, home of the brave United States.

      According to Bartholet, homeschooling can prevent children from receiving a meaningful education, leave them open to child abuse, and can socially isolate them. She argues that anybody can homeschool, even parents who are illiterate. She suggests that as many as 90% of homeschool parents educate their kids at home because of conservative Christian beliefs, inculcating them with the beliefs that women are subservient, science isn’t real, and white people are the supreme race.

          These parents are committed to homeschooling largely because they reject mainstream, democratic culture and values and want to ensure that their children adopt their own particular religious and social views. Many belong to fundamentalist religious groups, groups that Michael Rebell describes in his important new book, Flunking Democracy, as believing “that exposing their children to ideas such as secularism, atheism, feminism, and value relativism is inconsistent with the values they espouse and undermines their ability to inculcate in their children their beliefs in the sacred, absolute truth of the Bible.” Many use alternative textbooks that teach creationism instead of evolution. Many seek to create for their children a system of “total socialization” aimed at negating the influence of competing socialization agents. As Dwyer and Peters say in their recent comprehensive book on homeschooling, many religious homeschoolers object in principle to some core goals of public education:

          [T]hey reject the value of independent thinking about values and aims in life, they oppose instruction in scientific methodologies . . . and they want to constrain their daughters’ lives to a single occupation—housewife. To the extent parents in this group do value secular learning, they treat it—even basic literacy—as of little importance compared to unflinching acceptance of religious doctrine and reactionary political views.
          https://arizonalawreview.org/pdf/62-1/62arizlrev1.pdf

      I’m sure that will come as a vast surprise to all my homeschooling friends (particularly the ones who homeschool for secular reasons) who may have missed that part of the curriculum.

      In her 80-page diatribe, Bartholet completely overlooks the lack of practical knowledge imparted by the school system. Our kids leave school knowing all about anal sex and BDSM but not how to do their taxes, make a reservation, navigate using a map, handle credit, or stick to a budget.
      https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-sex-education-california-20190510-story.html

      The real issue is a lack of indoctrination.

      Ironically, the real problem Bartholet has with homeschooling is this:

          Many homeschool because they want to isolate their children from ideas and values central to our democracy.
          https://arizonalawreview.org/homeschooling-parent-rights-absolutism-vs-child-rights-to-education-protection/

      Let me rephrase that. Homeschooled children can’t be indoctrinated five days a week, eight hours a day, by an education system that emphasizes political agendas. (And incidentally, our form of government is a constitutional republic. Shouldn’t someone from Harvard who is worried I might not have the knowledge to educate my child know something as elementary as that?)

      Bartholet defames homeschoolers for wanting to encourage their children toward a particular belief system while touting the belief system that the school system wants to instill. So it’s okay for the public school system to do it, just not for the parents to do it.

      Here are a few of the things that the public school system wants children to believe:

          - Everyday things like the food you eat can be racist.
            https://www.theorganicprepper.com/portland-school-cracks-down-on-racist-pbj-sandwiches-what-about-somali-or-hispanic-students-who-might-not-eat-sandwiches/

          - Cupcakes can be “insensitive.”
            https://www.theorganicprepper.com/michigan-elementary-school-confiscates-insensitive-cupcakes/

          - You need to feel safe at all times.
            https://www.theorganicprepper.com/texas-school-takes-magical-threats-to-childrens-safety-seriously-suspends-boy-over-hobbit-ring-terrorism/

          - Guns are scary.
            https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/17/pop-tart-gun-suspension-upheld-by-maryland-judge/

          - Snitching on your parents is encouraged.
            https://www.theorganicprepper.com/its-all-fun-and-games-as-a-wisconsin-school-gets-kids-to-snitch-on-parents/

          - Only the school understands nutrition.
            https://www.theorganicprepper.com/roast-beef-potatoes-and-carrots-dont-meet-nutrition-guidelines-but-gmos-hfcs-and-trans-fats-do/

      While Bartholet scorns parents who indoctrinate their kids, she praises the school system for doing so. The American education system is wholly responsible for raising a generation of perpetually offended people who think they’re open-minded but who actually are only accepting of those with the same beliefs.

      They’re creating a generation of worker bees, of dependent people who’d never dream of revolting against the status quo shown as ideal by Hollywood and the mainstream media. They’re creating adults who don’t know how to handle conflict, who don’t know how to deal with defeat, and who are regularly fearful of imaginary threats. People who are afraid of a tripod or a pop-tart chewed into the shape of a gun certainly aren’t going to be leading the next revolution.

      Schools create a culture of fear.

      ..
      It’s even worse when you get to college.

      ..
      Homeschool is just better for some kids.

      ..
      Thank goodness for the HSLDA.





On Sat, Jan 12, 2019 at 02:36:42PM +1100, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 03, 2018 at 04:39:03AM -0300, Juan wrote:
> > On Fri, 2 Nov 2018 16:48:08 -0400
> > Steve Kinney <admin at pilobilus.net> wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > On 11/1/18 5:17 PM, juan wrote:
> > > > On Thu, 1 Nov 2018 22:42:17 +1100
> > > > Zenaan Harkness <zen at freedbms.net> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > >> Stating the obvious dept, using for those stucked in the oblivious
> > > >> dept.
> > > > 
> > > >> 6 Reasons to Start Homeschooling ASAP
> > > >> https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-31/6-reasons-start-homeschooling-asap
> > > >>
> > > > 
> > > > 	yeah you can teach the children about the virtues of trump and putin and how amazing white supremacists are. Even more important, you can mentally rape them with your christiano fascist propaganda from the craddle. 
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > vs. point out to them where the curriculum veers off into popular
> > > misconceptions and/or propaganda messaging, and provide access to
> > > supplemental information where and as indicated.
> > > 
> > > "Brick and mortar" school teaches three lessons of great importance:
> > > 
> > > 1)  Show up on time every day whether you want to or not.
> > > 
> > > 2)  Do your assigned tasks as directed whether you want to or not.
> > > 
> > > 3)  The people in charge always have all the final answers.
> > 
> > 	
> > 	Indeed. Govt schools teach 1) obedience 2) obedience and 3) obedience.
> > 
> > 	Just in case, I didn't mean to badmouth homeschooling, at least not if compared to govt schooling. Rather I was commenting on Zen's contradiction of promoting things like homeschooling on one hand and  highly anti libertarian garbage on the other. 
> > 
> > 	Government indoctrination camps or 'schools'  are no doubt an unmitigated disaster and arguably the consequences  and damage caused by massive indoctrination during the 20th century are still playing out. 
> > 
> > 	That said, 'schooling' by asshole parents is as bad as government schooling and government schooling is just an extension and 'standarization' of patenal 'authority'. 
> > 
> > 	 
> > 
> > 
> > > More recently, drugging noncompliant students has joined the mix of
> > > strategies 
> > 
> > 	That's where Huxley got his idea for soma? Oh wait. 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > "But what about socialization?"  What indeed - see above for the kind of
> > > socialization public schools provide.  It took 40 years to build a
> > > climate of fear sufficient to support literally outlawing normal,
> > > organic socialization, i.e. letting your kids run around with the
> > > neighbor kids.  
> > 
> > 	Yep. 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > As a result, public school and broadcast media get the
> > > final say as formative social influences on the peer relationships of
> > > tomorrow's adult consumers - except where parents remove public school
> > > from the mix and work to replace it with "real world" social development
> > > opportunities.
> > > 
> > > Recommended reading, any and everything by this guy:
> > > 
> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto
> > > 
> > > :o)
> 
> +1 for Gatto.
> 
> 
> 
> Germany layin' down the law over families - "illegal" to home school
> and European Court of "Human Rights" agrees with German state:
> 
> European Court Rules Children Are The Property of
> the State, Homeschooling is Absolutely Haram
> https://dailystormer.name/european-court-rules-children-are-the-property-of-the-state-homeschooling-is-absolutely-haram/
> 


More information about the cypherpunks mailing list