Keep Your Radicals Free
It seems like much of the ‘liberal’ resistance to homeschooling is based on a sort of authoritarian progressiveness. The resistance is progressive because it is based on the idea that one should improve our existing system by working in it, make progress. It is authoritarian because it demands that everyone be progressive.
When it comes to education, homeschoolers are radicals, not progressives.
The progressive would say something like this: “if I don’t like the way my local school is working, I will join the PTA, work with the teachers, and incrementally make it better. If I abandoned the school I’d be cheating the system, causing regress.”
The radical might say: “If I don’t like the way my local school is working, I’ll take matters into my own hands and teach my kids the way I think they should be taught. My kids will be grown up before the system gets fixed, and other people might not want the same things I do anyway.”
I find both of these sentiments noble as long as they are kept personal. When you start to impose your views on others, it doesn’t matter if it is progressive or radical. It is authoritarian and it stinks.
So homeschoolers reject the establishment. They are radicals, at least when it comes to education. This is true about unschoolers, school-at-homers, fundamentalist christians, atheists — all of them. Some seem more unorthodox than others, but rejecting the establishment is the defining step. After that whatever you do is radical.
Much of the “should we restrict homeschooling” debate looks like a battle between authoritarian progressives and radicals. The progressives have a point: when a radical leaves the system, the system loses all of the time, talent, and passion that person has to make things better. And radicals run high on passion, so this is a big loss.
But the progressive argument goes wrong at its next step. They say that the loss to the system is a loss to society (and of course civil liberties must go out the window whenever society might pay a price for them). I say that the system is not the same thing as society, and that while radicals are bad for systems they are good for society. This is true for radicals in all areas, not just homeschooling. This is true no matter how kooky or backwards or different they may be.
I wish everyone were a radical in some way, living life on their own terms, rejecting what they want to reject and building up what they find valuable. I don’t want authoritarian radicals telling everyone they need to do things a new way, just personal radicals. Imagine how much more interesting life would be if the people around us were all flourishing in their own way.
And I don’t think that radicals are good just because they are interesting. They are leaving the establishment to try their own way. They experiment — at their risk, not yours — with new ways to live life. Maybe they are finding new ways to teach children, or learning how to live without oil. Maybe they are preparing for some future tribulation, trying to live spiritually, or trying to live communally. These people give our society diversity that is deep and true.
These millions of private experiments in living will give rise to successes and failures. The failures will likely move along and try something new. The successes will grow and inspire others, maybe even improve the establishment down the road. The radicals put their own necks on the line, but when they find something that works, we all win.
And real diversity is critical to our society whenever we face a crisis. People who think this is obvious in biological evolution somehow miss the point entirely when it comes to societal evolution. But when we face a crisis, all of those nutty yahoos out there will be affected differently. Some will even thrive. And that will reduce the burden on everyone else. It may be the critical element that determines whether our society survives (if that really means anything).
So don’t try to enslave everyone to the system for the good of the system. The system is for the people, the people are not for the system. Embrace true diversity, live your own life, and keep your radicals free!
Note: This post by Liza Sabater made me think about homeschoolers as radicals. This post at the anti-essentialist conundrum, which I found thanks to opit, made me think about what the words ‘radical’ and ‘progressive’ mean in the first place — it goes into much more depth than I do, I’m just playing games with words here. Finally, Doc and the Country Fair got me to wake up this morning and write.
Hi
Nice post, very interesting. Since I think you’ve implied that I’m a “progressive authoritarian” I need offer a correction. I am not at all opposed to home schooling, not even a little, but I am concerned about certain aspects of any educational system. To me, a degree means something, and is not just a document indicating that you’ve been in a state run (or private) baby sitting service until some certain age. I’m particularly interested in science education, and I feel that our students deserve excellent science teaching, and our society benefits when this happens.
I don’t feel at all that all students should get some high-level (by this I mean, simply, amount of effort) science training in K-12. Some students are interested in and able to deal with more, others less. But, where science is taught, I strongly feel that it should be excellent science education, not the odd, simply wrong, embarrassingly stupid drek that christian fundamentalists often try to push on our children in public schools.
As unusual as this turns out to be, our government and court system agrees with me on this one, and the fight to keep science education intact i public schools is being won by educators and scientists, and being lost by this handful of church-organized groups of yahoos.
To the extent that home schooling allows for really bad science education in some homes, I am concerned. Not authoritarian, but concerned. Do I feel that “these people” … these fundamentalists … do not have a right to teach their children that the earth is 5,000 years old and that “evolution is not true” (their phrase, not mine)? Yes. Does this make me an authoritarian? No. There are all kinds of things one should not be allowed to do to the children, and I feel that teaching fundamentalist pseudoscience is on this list.
Very few people who disagree with me on this will explain why in any sensible or understandable terms other than making two points: 1) Parents always know best and therefore should always be trusted; and 2) Laden simply does not want people to disagree with him, he’s an authoritarian. To both comments, I say: Get real.
Again, nice post.
Cheers,
Greg Laden
Greg Laden
June 15, 2007 at 8:40 am
Greg,
Thanks for the comments and clarification. I should clarify some too: I linked to your post about ‘the bad and the ugly’ to point out some of the subtlety in these arguments. When I read that post, I was ready for a fight. But there are noble intentions behind your arguments. If I’m going to argue about these things, I want to make sure that I don’t attack the good.
We almost see eye-to-eye on these issues, and I would be in trouble if I was holding you up as a good example of an authoritarian. But I still disagree with you about whether parents should have the right to teach their kids pseudoscience. I could ramble on about civil liberties, etc for a while, but the heart of my objection is that I just don’t think it matters as much as many people think. Religion has been steadily losing it’s power to hold back science and I don’t see any threat to that trend. Somehow people do manage to grow up and think for themselves.
If you could convince me that teaching pseudoscience to kids is really a threat, then I may come around…
Rolfe Schmidt
June 15, 2007 at 10:23 am
These then are Greg Laden’s civil standards for discussion: 1) sensible and 2) understandable? Oh, and not labeling each other with disrespectful or disparaging names like “authoritarian?” (yahoo is allowed as a technical term of art, no doubt.)
Then what of homeschooling discussion at his own blog? The following anonymous, libelous and irrational comments targeting me and my minor homeschooling daughter, who has never posted there, are still there in comments to one of his sensible, understandable, non-name-calling homeschool threads:
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[sic]
Sure, what’s wrong with teaching yopung women to be empowered with role models like Lucille Ball, and Laura from Little House? I mean those women are icons!!
Wut, is this posting a missoddgynist look at impowerment?? Are you mocking empowered homeschooling women who have shaken off the chains of patriarchy and public schoolism
Hy-kuna matatta! The lionesses will chase you for that!!!
JJ, why do you label people? Aren’t you that maternally invasive woman with man issues and the vagina obsessed daughter?
I told ya the lionesse would creep out on this one….jj, your saga is covered at the-troll.blogspot.com
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It would be interesting to hear a sensible, understandable explanation of why Professor Laden’s concerns about letting slavering lunatics run free to harm children with their ideas and expressions rise to the level of universal regulatory attention, while my concerns about exactly the same danger do not.
JJ
June 15, 2007 at 11:23 am
JJ:
I know that you have mentioned to me your concern about these comments but I had no idea that you were asking me, or expecting me, to delete them.
Greg Laden
June 15, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Rolfe,
You make wonderful points about the value of diversity. The little voice in the back of my head spoils the good feelings, however, when it reminds me that the people we’re talking about don’t want social diversity that is deep and true. For them, “diversity” is spat like a curse word. (Other curse words include; multi-culturalism, tolerance and science.) And yes, while many are preparing for rapture, spiritual living, and/or community, more are preparing to “take their country back,” “sanctify marriage,” and return all of us to the bad ol’ days.
While religion may be losing to science, it’s not yet reflected in the surveys (linked in Greg’s, Masses Are Asses post, for example.) And some may see the momentum moving in the opposite direction. I haven’t a clue, but I do understand the sense of urgency implied in calls for regulation.
But, wanna see christianism explode in popularity overnight? Then start passing laws saying parents aren’t allowed to teach their kids that “evolution is not true.” Even if the laws – illogically – only applied to parents that homeschool, you’d still be really, really sorry for having tried. These folks live for this kinda stuff, you know.
My 2 cents, anyway.
Lynn
June 15, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Greg:
I had no idea you were going to let these comments stand after I called them to your attention. It never occurred to me you would be able to stomach their hostile, primal (feral?) presence in your supposedly intellectual space.
I don’t believe I asked or expected that you would do anything other than be responsible and use your own best judgment, then or now. We all have our own concerns and our own comment policies. I do infer this is a conscious choice on your part to allow, so I just wouldn’t have been back. But if you now plan to visit homeschool blogs with your “concerns” about OUR irrationality and twisted views, and complain that we are not sensible and civil as you press forward with your regulatory zeal, I choose to alert others to the abuse they and their children may selectively endure there, without your concern, and to the galling hypocrisy I see in it.
Even so — and this is key — I would not propose that you and your blog, your simpatico commenters nor all parents who raise their children into such sick adults who lash out at others in virtual anonymity, should be subject to government regulations meant to enforce my own standards on you.
JJ
June 15, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Well my rules for discussion are that it be sensible and understandable. I probably have more rules, but they don’t come to mind right away. My penalty for transgressions: I won’t waste my time discussing anything with you. I personally found the comments JJ mentioned revolting, I hope we can refrain from anything like that here. If I see comments that I believe have no intellectual merit and are offensive, I will censor them. Publish them somewhere else — I’m no final judge of what is offensive and what is intellectual. But my Mom reads this site guys…
Greg: I fired off my earlier response in a bit of a rush and want to qualify and clarify a few of my statements. First I want to state unambiguously why I don’t lump you with my ‘authoritarians’: you have strong opinions that I often disagree with, but when it is time to talk about specific policy, you are reasonable and seem to understand the challenges. You do not throw around solutions like “compulsory public school for all”. There are plenty of real authoritarians out there. Now you are a good writer and can get under my skin when I feel like I’m being accused of cheating the system or something like that, but that’s my problem. You are free to have any opinions you want. If everyone in the world agreed with me, I would have to dissent.
I also suggested that part of this debate should focus on whether teaching pseudoscience to a fraction of the population is a real threat to our society. I want to qualify this a bit and bring the discussion back to the positive theme of my post. I’d like to see whether the cost to society of some people teaching their kids pseudoscience outweighs the benefits we’d get from completely unencumbered radical experimentation with learning.
This is one framework I’d like to use to discuss potential specific restrictions on homeschooling.
Rolfe Schmidt
June 15, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Lynn-
I have to run, so I may be back with more. You have a good point, and it is a funny problem. If you really value diversity of thought, you must value the thoughts that despise diversity. I say “value”, not “like”. Uniformity and organization have their strengths. People who are organized and unquestioning can do incredible things. Unfortunately sometimes they do incredibly bad things.
And I will reiterate, I despise all authoritarians, radical, progressive, christian, whatever. One of my biggest reasons to fear government regulation of homeschooling is that once you give the state that power, you never know who will wield the power down the road.
I have to think about the trends of “religion versus science” a bit more. You have a good point. And you have a beautiful point about the political consequences of regulation. There’s nothing like perceived persecution to get people to see the light again.
Rolfe Schmidt
June 15, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Agreed! Persecution and martyrdom is the last thing a thoughtful scientist smart enough to study political framing and to understand the potent power of Unreason would want to create for the “other side” (whoever that is) to exploit –
JJ
June 15, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Rolfe:
Thanks for the additional comments.
First, let me say that the post you link to above was (as I think you understand, but this is for the onlookers) an attempt on my part to articulate the negative views that I think a lot of anti-home schoolers have. I do think some of those issues are real, others are imagined, and indeed, some conflict with each other (some of this comes out in the comments on that post).
Although there has been a lot of discussion about potential abuse (sexual, physical, etc.) in the home school environment, and that could be important, my main concern and interest is something different.
Simply put, a High School diploma has meaning, like a college degree or a higher degree has meaning. That meaning has to, well, mean something! There are a lot of ways to approach content and method in K-12 (lumping a lot of things together there) and I’ve never proposed that there is a single way to do this. But there are some bad things one can do. One can teach that the holocaust did not happen and the Jews are in a conspiracy to rule the world. One can teach that the best available science tells us that certain races are inferior to others. And so on.
For me to take a degree seriously, I would prefer some assurance that it is not bogus. The above examples would contribute to the bogification of any degree at any level. Creationism as well.
I don’t thing that creationism and religious fundamentalism are small issues at all. I admit that this may be in part because I am an evolutionary biologist and an educator. But I do think this is not just my bias: Good science education is important for that K-12 diploma.
Greg Laden
June 15, 2007 at 9:30 pm
The stronger argument is that good science education is TOO important for that K-12 diploma.
Both Church and State school rather than educate, because they seldom challenge non-thinking. Indeed they fear thinking and depend upon schooling without actual education that might threaten the status quo in any discipline or field of endeavor. They transmit the Circumscribed Word, define it, drill it, test it, remediate it, punish the smallest lapse in living by it and keep eternal cum folders to follow one’s progress toward that stamp of approval on Judgment Day. The diplomas and certificates and titles they issue represent satisfactory schooling, not an education at all, much less a good education. Church and State share the same institutional self-interest, fed by the same false god: schooling. So it is that Church and State emphasize rules and standards and definitions, backed by accountability to “something larger than oneself” through surrendering one’s will to the collective, be it congregation or class.
Their combined effectiveness at this is nearly universal. Some few of us do eventually manage to become both schooled and educated but it’s rare and difficult, and even the educated mind needs eternal viligance from its schooled parts, against silly “form over substance” assertions for example: “this official school form has to have meaning” rather than “curious children ARE meaning.”
JJ
June 16, 2007 at 5:54 am
JJ:
You must have gone to a really crappy school.
Greg Laden
June 16, 2007 at 7:34 am
Greg: The “potential abuse” arguments are thorny, so I’ll gladly put those off for a later discussion and focus on your main concern. I share JJ’s view of science education on most schools and homeschools. Science and pseudoscience are taught as a litany of “facts” in which we should have faith because critical thinking is “beyond the scope of this course”.
I don’t like kids being taught to have faith in science when science is all about questioning. They aren’t learning science, they are learning to be gullible. This mass misunderstanding of science warms me to Feyerabend’s arguments.
But this is tangential to your real point. You want a degree to mean something, to indicate that a certain standard has been met. This is very difficult, but a reasonable desire. I say it is difficult because I don’t even trust a Ph.D. without analyzing their work. And those degrees are issued a bit more frugally than high school diplomas.
Why do you need the degree to mean something? To allow university admissions to proceed more efficiently? I have no qualms with a university setting its standards. I expect that my degreeless kids will have a tougher time than their peers convincing universities to admit them.
I do think it would be foolish for a university to categorically rule out acceptance of all homeschooled kids. This artificially reduces their pool of potential talent and funnels some good candidates to competing schools. But if a school wants to do that, I won’t try to stop them (unless they ask me). The economics of the situation make me feel comfortable that homeschool banning won’t be universal. Even if all universities refused to accept homeschooled kids, I’m comfortable that my children will have the education they need to succeed in life without a degree.
I get edgy when I’m faced with government mandated requirements. If a university sets its requirements, my kids are free to choose whether they want to meet them. Yes, I will even let my kids go to school if they ask.
Rolfe Schmidt
June 16, 2007 at 7:46 am
Greg:
Funny, a few of us were just thinking the same thing abut your years of home learning.
Most of us didn’t go to Harvard and Stanford of course, but that finding comes from the education profession itself rather than any personal school scars I may have suffered in more typical schooling, and it has been applied generally to all classroom “truth reception” in any subject. ( Is Columbia U. up to your standard of “good” education?)
JJ
June 16, 2007 at 8:16 am
Rolfe: I want the degrees to mean something because I would prefer to avoid the collapse of civilization as we know it.
JJ: I did not go to Stanford. Never even visited there.
Greg Laden
June 16, 2007 at 8:32 am
[...] me also mention that there is some mild to severe Greg Laden bashing going on here, on “Home Schooled.” You might as well go over there and get your digs in! If you like [...]
Experiencing Technical Difficulties at Greg Laden
June 16, 2007 at 8:34 am
You know Rob Reich the infamous Stanford homeschool critic IRL though, right? (and we’ve heard a lot from Kimbery Yuracko lately too, also well-schooledi n the Reich-Stanford “right answer” about what’s wrong with home education) — I believe you blogged something about how you and Rob entertained yourselves fun jerking a fellow academic’s chain on a regular basis, just for sport in between all that serious, sensible Harvard critical thinking for understanding?
JJ
June 16, 2007 at 8:44 am
Rolfe, the point-size for your comments is microscopic! We might all be grateful that my think-typing isn’t even worse . . .unfortunately what I don’t see is what you get!
JJ
June 16, 2007 at 9:06 am
Greg:
For the persecution magic to work in your favor, you’ll need something better than this perfectly rational, civil conversation to call “bashing” –
Mandy Patinkin, The Princess Bride:
(in Spanish-accented English) I do not think that word means what you think it means.
JJ
June 16, 2007 at 9:46 am
JJ:
Reich had an office down the hall from me. He was an assistant professor and I was an administrative assistant. I would probably not remember him had he not become SOL. He surely does not remember me.
He and I did not “entertain ourselves.” My major concern with “critical thinking” in that context was how many sandwiches to order for the seminar. I was at the time a graduate student in another unit at the same university.
So, your pretty much extending this into the realm of things that never happened and things that I never said.
But I do totally agree with you on the point size! I don’t know what browser you are using, but if you are using Firefox you can click “Ctrl-+” and make the letters grow.
Greg Laden
June 16, 2007 at 9:48 am
Really? Are you serious? Suppose you succeed in forcing my child to learn about evolution in school. How will you legislate what my family discusses around the dinner table (or any other time)? How will you keep me from teaching her about creationism or from telling her that evolution is not true (yes, my words)? Or is it only home schoolers whom you wish to prevent from teaching their children about creationism?
I cannot imagine living in a country where the government tells my neighbor that he has to teach his children that all of my beliefs are correct. And I certainly don’t want it the other way around.
Although it would be nice if everyone agreed with me about everything
All parents are “home schoolers” to some degree. We all teach our kids. Parents, we are fooling ourselves if we think that we are not responsible for our childrens’ educations, whether they attend public school, church school, private school, or home school. If the government begins to regulate what MUST be taught in home schools, or worse, what CANNOT be taught, then the step from there to censorship seems a very small one, indeed.
Alane Tentoni
June 16, 2007 at 10:00 am
I’ll play with the presentation later when the kids are asleep. Sorry about that, I just took a canned wordpress theme.
I’ll interpret the “bashing” comment as a way to draw people in to read something you found interesting.
Re: degrees meaning something, I think it is a pretty bold claim that meaningful degrees are needed to prevent the collapse of civilization. I understand the sentiment, but I’m far from convinced. So convince me. Here are some of the points to address:
The first thing to clarify is what is a “meaningful degree”? Is this measured by standardized tests? Should we get the NCLB guys on the case? I believe there can be such a thing as a meaningful degree — a sign that the holder has learned to think — but I don’t think standardized tests capture that. From other discussions, I think you agree with me on this point. Correct me if I’m wrong. If standardized tests won’t do it, what will?
As I hinted before, I find most degrees meaningless. Maybe if I happen to know someone’s advisor I’ll give them some credit before taking a closer look. Otherwise I just listen to what people have to say and judge them based on that. I think civilization can get by just fine this way. Academics do a pretty good job of sorting themselves out, even though they all have “good degrees”.
Could you spell out exactly where the threat to civilization comes from? Is it from the meaningless degrees or is it from the “wrong” things people did learn? I think that theocracy is a real threat to civilization, and theocracy is a possible long-term consequence of systematic miseducation. If that is the threat, how do we handle it?
I’m not expecting final answers or being rhetorical, I’m genuinely wondering.
Rolfe Schmidt
June 16, 2007 at 10:27 am
BTW, I’m going to be out all day (I’m on vacation), so my apologies if comments don’t get moderated quickly or if I don’t respond right away.
Rolfe Schmidt
June 16, 2007 at 10:29 am
AH! You have confused Rob Reiches. Homeschool’s critic-in-chief is an assistant professor of political philosophy or some such at Stanford, makes his living theorizing about things he knows nothing about and definitely is no scientist or politician. We were taught years ago when all this started, that the SOL Reich is pronounced Rike and the hs critic Reich is Reesh.
Not that pronunciation is much help in a written medium . . .
You really should read that other Reich’s body of “regulate homeschooling” work, to understand us better in these conversations if nothing else. I hear all your concerns about diversity and fundamentalist homeschoolers and the public interest, through my experience of extended debate with him and others over his excruciatingly esoteric (and only vaguely relevant) arguments about the State’s obligation to protect children from “ethical servility.”
Don’t you remember what you wrote about the other Reich, though? Seriously — (I’m almost over the troll-creep thing now even without your explanation, rectification or regrets) It seemed quite plainly to be a face-slapping, button-pushing challenge to COD, and by extension to conservatives and homeschoolers generally, but now you confuse me by saying that wasn’t even how you actually said it, much less how you meant it . . .
That sounds to me like this Reich jerking a conservative research professor’s chain at Harvard’s school of government, getting him all upset with arguments he didn’t really believe or mean, and enjoying it. And it sounds like you knowing him from those days and admiring the chain jerking, and now doing it to COD because his politics are not yours, and enjoying it.
Maybe there is virtue in having gone far enough with this bolloxed up communicationto discover that despite our multiple and terminal degrees, we don’t understand anything the other says!
p.s. thanks for that Firefox tip, I feel younger already!
JJ
June 16, 2007 at 10:31 am
Rolfe said:
“I think that theocracy is a real threat to civilization, and theocracy is a possible long-term consequence of systematic miseducation. If that is the threat, how do we handle it?”
JJ says:
No Kidding!
. . .A problem worthy of the gathered braintrust and then some.
JJ
June 16, 2007 at 10:58 am
Alane: What makes you think I want to regulate what you say around the dinner table?
If I hire a certified plumber or go to an M.D. or bring my car in to get an oil change, I have a right as a member of society to understand that there are certain expectations. A person calling him/herself a plumber, an oil change guy, or a physician should pretty much be that. A HS degree in this country means something about breadth and depth of knowledge. Teaching astrology instead of physics and creationism instead of evolution is utterly unacceptable in the classroom. Why would that standard not apply to home schooling as well? Are you telling us that he point of home schooling is to avoid some level of quality?
Greg Laden
June 16, 2007 at 11:05 am
Rolfe: Yes, you let the cat out of the bag. It was a loss leader. But now everyone knows. Oh well, the important thing is to get them in the door, then they will find the content irresistible.
Rolfe: Degrees have meaning, and it varies, and I’m not going to try to convince you of it. Other than the totally bogus variety, PhD’s and College degrees have a fairly consistent meaning adjusted for discipline. Very few people think they have no meaning. A lot of work goes into this and, no amount of cynicism will obviate that effort and its results. I can have a conversation with anyone in a field with which I’m familiar and knowing they have a BA in it orients me to their area of knowledge. I’ve found no exceptions to that. Same with a PhD.
Masters degrees are all over the place. For me to calibrate to a person with an MA I have to know where they got it, exactly which MA they got, then I have to know about that particular program. There is a need … and a corresponding effort afoot … to get some handle on this.
The fact (and it is a fact, really) that a BA in a particular field means something, a PhD in a particular field means something, but that Masters degrees are all over the place tells us something. We know why this situation exists, there is a structure, a process, and so on.
High school degrees may be very much like masters degrees. I see a huge amount of variation across high schools, and I’m pretty sure much more variation when you thrown in home schooling.
Actually, according to any home schoolers, adding in the home schoolers reduces variation. But I’m pretty sure that this is because home schoolers refuse to be organized in any way, it would seem, and thus the rhetoric, oft repeated, is relatively meaningless (the rhetoric about the facts and figures, not the philosophy … that is more clear, reflecting by the way a greater degree of organization among home schoolers).
It won’t really be the collapse of civilization. It will simply be the removal of the United States as a factor in civilization. Maybe that’s a good thing, I don’t know.
Greg Laden
June 16, 2007 at 11:14 am
JJ:
You are correct. This is a different Rob Reich. Both political theory, both liberals. But not the same guy. That is very funny.
But no, you still have mis characterized what I said and you’ve also extended the facts to fit your expectations.
Thanks for the tip about the Stanford Rob Reich home schooler critic. I will eventually get around to reading his material, and use it in my ruthless attack on … how did you put it … conservative fundamentalist home schoolers, or whatever…
On the troll creeping, I’m not sure what you want. I delete and/or ban only very very rarely. The troll of whom you speak, as far as I can tell, made one post on my site. He may have a pseudonym who has posted a small number of posts but not recently.
If I deleted all the comments I disagree with on my site, I’d probably break my delete key.
My site, my policy. I have no remorse. If someone treats you badly, I think that is wrong and I may even feel bad about that, but I’m not the cops, and if I were the cops, I would not want me, the cops, to be deleting stuff from the internet.
This all comes down to the Patriot Act, which, in my opinion….
[REMAINDER OF COMMENT DELETED DUE TO SECTION 4.223.A OF THE PATRIOT ACT]
Greg Laden
June 16, 2007 at 11:23 am
Greg:
I’m not the cops either. I feel badly about miseducation but there’s so much of it, everywhere, what can you do?
And if I were the cops (oh, wait, I kinda WAS — then if I still were the cops officially regulating kids’ thoughts and ideas and standardizing their knowledge work to government specifications) then I would quit all over again.
JJ
June 16, 2007 at 12:01 pm
JJ:
I agree that standardizing knowledge is a dangerous place to go. But accepting the teaching of smoke and mirrors as adequate in the basic areas is unacceptable. Also, “what can you do” is not an acceptable answer! What if (fill in this blank with any of several tens of thousands of names of brave and brilliant pioneers of research, education, engineering, etc. etc.) said that?
Greg Laden
June 16, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Greg:
It’s no less futile than breaking your delete key on garbage discourse. I get your frustration, you get mine. And I get that we both want things from, and for, others that we can’t control or regulate into reality.
So now what?
I don’t think a single brilliant pioneer ever regulated himself into standardized success — did s/he? But there’s a thought. How DID they all do it?
JJ
June 16, 2007 at 12:46 pm
What kind of learning experiences and habits of mind do in fact inoculate youngsters against sophistry and propoganda, and stimulate them to pursue excellence in at least one academic discipline?
If we can identify the best candidates then maybe we can take the next step of figuring out how to create them?
Other than by force I mean, which we already know doesn’t do the job. . .
JJ
June 16, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Propaganda. Duh —
I was neither schooled nor educated in typing skills!
JJ
June 16, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Greg, I came over here from your site to see what was going on, but I find some of the people disagreeing with you have good points. Especially when it come to encouraging independent thinking. I would make a couple of points.
“And I don’t think that radicals are good just because they are interesting. They are leaving the establishment to try their own way. They experiment — at their risk, not yours”
The answer to that is it is not their risk, it is their kids’ risk and their kids have no choice. So then the question becomes to what extent does society have a vested interest in the education of the next generation?
Let me offer you a truly horrifying scenario:
Fundamentalist religious home schooling that brings up little monsters to strap suicide belts around themselves and blow up people in the name of an imagined god.
Don’t get me wrong I am for the idea of homeschooling being legal, but should there not be some regulation of content?
And Greg if that was my site I would probably remove those aweful comments about JJ.
Sailor
June 16, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Greg: Re: Alane’s comment, I believe she was referring to this statement of yours
This could use some clarification to avoid any future misunderstanding. Is this your opinion of the current law of the land? Is it a general moral principle?
Regarding the degrees, I’ll concede your point that they have meaning, I was thinking too much about the small number of exceptions. I don’t believe degrees guarantee competence. But they are a good indicator.
I still want to hear more about how meaningless high school degrees lead to the irrelevance of the U.S. in civilization. Again, my question is whether the problem is the meaninglessness of the degree or people being taught the “wrong” things? Or is it something else? And once the problem is identified, how does it do in civilization?
Sailor: yours is an excellent retort to my “feel good” post. I need to think more about rights of children vs. parents. I fear your suicide bombers as much as you do, and clearly this is not the sort of radicalism I embrace. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen, and I think the issue goes far beyond homeschooling and deserves discussion.
I have to run, more later.
Rolfe Schmidt
June 16, 2007 at 4:58 pm
I’d love to see this discussion:
Rolfe Schmidt
June 16, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Well, I’m pretty sure that scientific inquiry will be high on the list when we finish but let’s not just start and end there without first considering, say, what the best Harvard mind in cognitive psychology (not politics or physics) has to say about that — one of my professional heroes, Dr. Howard Gardner :
JJ
June 16, 2007 at 6:22 pm
And Daniel Pink in his book, “A Whole New Mind: Moving from the information age to the conceptual age” says the most successful mental modes for the 21st century will be more right-brained, and better integrated with the the linear, lawyerly, fact and data-based, math-science emphasis we so prized during my lifetime . . . here are the six essential skills he highlights in the book, which I’ve read twice and am holding as I type (awkward!):
Story
Design
Symphony
Empathy
Play
Meaning
It’s AND, not INSTEAD OF — still a big shift though, and Gardner’s earlier book, The Disciplined Mind, supports the same shift. That’s a school-education book, in which he lays out an entire public school curriculum integrating three vast human themes — truth, beauty, and goodness.
And Greg will be gratified (I hope) to hear that the example he uses of truth is (ta-da!) evolution.
One rather “radical” (that’s for you, Rolfe) connection I made about that is, that we’ll need different kinds of politician minds too, to make it so:
JJ
June 16, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Sorry to ramble on, but I realized that Gardner has made a speciality of studying extraordinary leaders and how they got that way, what made them so. I thought it would fit with “I don’t think a single brilliant pioneer ever regulated himself into standardized success — did s/he? But there’s a thought. How DID they all do it?”
So if you guys at some point want me to pull those books out too and synthesize some ideas, \say the word They’re here SOMEwhere, and I remember the power of integrating your identity as a person with the “story” you tell the public, was a big part of whether your leadership would click. Timing was important too, something no one really can control if they are honestly who they are no matter what. The public may be ready for yur stories and self, or not. It’s not so much a judgment on your absolute worth or the worth of your ideas, whether you are popular and electable — it’s also just timing.
JJ
June 16, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Rolfe:
I’ve been out today, too. On my way home I passed one of the private Christian schools in our area and thought about the conversation going on over here (about allowing the teaching of creationism). It dawned on me that nobody does Creation Science and Christian Nationalism better than private Christian schools. This particular school uses Abeka, easily one of the most dogmatic Christian curriculum companies. (Geeez, even as a Christian, I wouldn’t touch their stuff with a 10-foot pole.) I say we regulate them. What do you think?
Lynn
June 16, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Greg: A HS degree in this country means something about breadth and depth of knowledge.
Me: Bwwaaaa-hahahahah. . . come on . . . tell me another. . .
***
Greg: It won’t really be the collapse of civilization. It will simply be the removal of the United States as a factor in civilization. Maybe that’s a good thing, I don’t know.
Me: Because it is not possible to be a factor in civilization without public schools as we know them? Or at least a new improved version of the same old same old? Doesn’t sound like progress to me. Or even progressive.
***
Rolfe: When it comes to education, homeschoolers are radicals, not progressives.
Me: I’ve been called worse.
***Sailor: The answer to that is it is not their risk, it is their kids’ risk and their kids have no choice. So then the question becomes to what extent does society have a vested interest in the education of the next generation?
Me: The question is should society have a controlling interest.
Nance
NanceConfer
June 16, 2007 at 8:58 pm
JJ: Calling for censorship on Gregs blog? That sounds alitle AUTHORITARIAN, doesn’t it?
Also, as someone noted in that same post you reference, the saga of your inflammatory labelling of a poster at your site is covered at his site( hazmatix?). AND if you notice, in that follow up, you are not less than libelous yourself. I became interested awhile ago, because I have been following Mr. Ladens apt and timely critique of the hidden nature of, and the often sadly abusive nature of some who pump crap into kids heads in the disguise of parenting via homneschool.
it is my belief that their are some, possibly you, in the h/s community that deliberately teach a kind of “earth goddess” religion to your girls, in spite of, and as a diatomical equal but opposite to, any whacko fundies out there. From what I saw on your own blog, your daughter was obsessing over her virginity in the way that you have encouraged her to, and positing that men who obsess over their daughters virginity are perverts, and that somehow, your encouragement of this is different than those fathers your daughter wrote about.
Did I get that right?
The post on your blog if I recall was rewmoved, as I recall in your own sort of authoritarian censorship directive.
Simply put, fundie pro virginity whackos are the same to me as earth goddess virginity obsessives. Is that too difficult for you to understand?
cmf
June 17, 2007 at 1:09 am
That question has been clearly answered by the constitution and the courts.
If the State — society as cop — has a controlling interest, we don’t call it choice (much less America.)
The child is not the mere creature of the State and the neither is the woman, nor the process through which women become moms to children. Once born, their nature and nurture may be “of” interest but it is not YOUR interest to control with the cops and the courts.
So-called school “choice” isn’t choice; it’s state-controlled institutionalization pretty much like orphanages without beds (yet.) State control has been found justifiable for the indigent and mentally compromised from self-care, duly charged or convicted prisoners and duly enlisted military, but that’s about it.
Not for fellow citizens just because we think they should do things our way.
JJ
June 17, 2007 at 5:19 am
Not just spouting libertarian rhetoric here — Nance and I often find ourselves a minority of two feminist moms caught between ideologues demanding THEIR unfettered choice with the same breath they protect their own.
The failure to resolve both child-making and child-breaking controls within one integrated theory is the fatal flaw that undermines all choice politics imo, both liberal and conservative. Sometimes I get whiplash from how fast the sides jump in and out of each other’s claims to the moral high ground, to write the law that saves the kids and country.
JJ
June 17, 2007 at 5:48 am
“Nance: The question is should society have a controlling interest?:”
Well, yes it probably should, just how much is the point of discussion. For example if you are Xtian scientist and deny your child proper health care for some life-threatening condition the state can come in and mandate proper medical care. Do you find this unreasonable, or do you think the child should be left to die for the ignorance of the parents?
JJ
“So-called school “choice” isn’t choice; it’s state-controlled institutionalization pretty much like orphanages without beds”
This may be true in some countries, but as a visitor my observation is that in America it is often not the state but the local town that runs its school. They are run by a school board elected by the inhabitants, so it is a very deomocratic process. There are of course limits, even if the school board wants to, they annot bring religion into a public school because of your constitution.
Sailor
June 17, 2007 at 6:10 am
Sailor:
What you describe is the idealized version of what once was, when a few frontier families would pool their money and hire a schoolmarm and pay her with food and board in their homes. Everybody understood she would teach the three Rs and defer to their authority and values (those local families would in fact police the TEACHER’s values by explicit contract, forbidding marriage, dating and even dancing at town functions!)
Those days are long gone.
JJ
June 17, 2007 at 6:19 am
cmf: JJ is not telling Greg what to do. She is offended, she is letting him know, and she suggested a few pretty obvious remedies. One remedy included censorship (which Greg has the right to do). Another remedy was that Greg could simply acknowledge that the remarks were inappropriate. Let them stand but point to their idiocy.
Also, I do believe that everyone is free to edit their own web site without being “authoritarian”. If you like her posts so much, you can always save them when you see them.
I don’t know any of the history you are referring to, and really I have more interesting things to think about. And I will repeat my warning above because we are taking a step away from civilized here.
So you think there is more than one kind of whacko. I think there are millions of kinds of whackos. It gets interesting when you ask: Are all of these whackos bad for society? How? Could they be good too? To the extent that they are causing the end of civilization, what can we do to control it? What are the costs and benefits of that control?
I respectfully ask that we move debate about JJ’s comments elsewhere so we can focus on some of the interesting and outstanding questions in play here. I’m asking, not telling. Of course if you believe I’ve oversimplified your points, feel free to speak up about it.
Rolfe Schmidt
June 17, 2007 at 6:47 am
Rolfe:
This “cmf” post above, sock puppet or no, is the same name used on the post from greg’s that you found the most revolting. This is not the hazmat signature greg defends as only making one post; this is a regular name at his site and apparently he has taken up the cause of following us around and smearing us.
I object. I hope you do too.
JJ
June 17, 2007 at 6:55 am
Sorry – we crossposted. Thanks.
JJ
June 17, 2007 at 6:56 am
Please introduce yourself with your real name and relevant affiliations to the group of responsible parents and educators here, “cmf.”
Why? Because taking potshots at young girls and moms standing in the sunlight from dark and nasty corners is pretty much what such debate is meant to oppose, not create.
JJ
June 17, 2007 at 7:13 am
I just read through the comments again and want to emphasize some of the questions and threads I find most interesting.
First of all, the threats of religious fundamentalism come up repeatedly. Here are a few of the outstanding questions:
Lynn:
Sailor:
I think we all agree that the scenario Sailor brought up is horrifying. These are important issues that dwarf homeschooling. If we entirely eliminated homeschooling, we would still need to manage this threat. So I believe that this should be discussed outside the context of homeschooling.
*******
There is also a more positive thread starting about what learning should be. Greg made an important point:
And JJ asked
and followed it up with a series of ideas. Personally, I wish Philosophy were taught more widely. High school students can handle Plato and more. Well, my kids will get an earful of it.
*******
Sailor asked a critical question in response to my celebration of risk-taking radicals in the post (yes, he was actually talking about the post
)
This was modified to ask whether society had a controlling interest. What if the society is Nazi Germany? They found it critical to outlaw homeschooling, it was in their interest. I guess we may need to draw lines between ’society’ and ’state’, but sometimes I do think that even society can be ‘wrong’.
I don’t want to blow that question off, but I think there is a deeper and more fascinating question in Sailor’s comment: what rights do kids have? Do they have a right to a ‘liberal’ education? Do they have the right to learn what they find interesting? Do they have the right to be fed? Do they have a right to be fed steak every day? One thing I’ll give Rob Reich credit for is that he is taking on this tough question. So keep pushing the point Sailor, there is a lot to clear up.
Rolfe Schmidt
June 17, 2007 at 7:23 am
Nice job putting the ball/s back in play.
And regardless of what we think is right, what social outcomes have been observed when different answers have actually been applied?
JJ
June 17, 2007 at 7:40 am
Sailor: I have to say I agree with JJ and am pretty cynical about how accountable school boards feel to parents. They are elected, but in practice they have to be pretty awful to actually face any consequences. There is another problem: parents want very different things from schools. In my part of the country, it seems most parents don’t want evolution. Is that OK?
Also, I happen to feel that an ‘unschooling’ or ‘child-led learning’ approach is the best way to respect a child’s rights and freedoms. (I’m not saying this is what others should do, this is mypersonal decision.) But this is exactly the approach that most regulations would restrict the most. If you make everyone take a test on biological evolution, or electrodynamics, or whatever, the fundamentalist christian homeschoolers will pass the test without much trouble. You can only test knowledge of statements, not belief. But you won’t have won.
Rolfe Schmidt
June 17, 2007 at 7:41 am
I will be out for the rest of the day. Nothing against you all, but I’d rather hang out with the kids. Again, my apologies for any slow moderation and responses. Happy Father’s Day to all of you Dads!
Rolfe Schmidt
June 17, 2007 at 8:17 am
Rolfe
I liked your “what if society was Nazi Germany.” That one has set me thinking.
I have known one kid who had no education and no home schooling, he turned out to be a very pleasant man. To some degree his curiosity helped him educate himself enough to get along, but I am not sure it was easy for him as if he had had a more conventional upbringing.
We all live as part of society; few of us, if any could go out into the woods, without a lot of gear, leaving it all behind and survive. In most fields there are probably no absolutely individual accomplishments, everything is based on what has gone before; our pool of knowledge as a race. As time goes on this gets more global, it is not just our neighbors and village that is important, it is events all over. So the one thing we can really do to equip a child is education; to teach him how to access and evaluate that human pool of knowledge and how to communicate.
Society itself will deteriorate if the upcoming generation is poorly educated, so to that extent everyone in society has a vested interest in all the kids. We recognize this by making sure they all get educated one way or another, and those that don’t have kids generally have to help pay for the education of those that do.
I have never had kids and am way to old now. But when I was much younger add dreaming, home-education is certainly something I thought about, probably because I really hated school. But it seems to me that having some sort of standard to which kids must be educated is not a bad idea. Along with the usual subjects I would love to see “philosophy of knowledge” and “critical thinking” be an essential part of our education.
Sailor
June 17, 2007 at 8:35 am
Sailor — me too!
(Along with the usual subjects I would love to see “philosophy of knowledge” and “critical thinking” be an essential part of our education.)
Rolfe:
So true — what parents and taxpayers want and need from “education” has always been in conflict and always will be, not only between groups but even within each person’s mind and heart. Naturally we want it all!
“Why Education Is So Difficult and Contentious”
We all want liberty AND safety, for example. We want children to play AND work, be happy AND healthy, natural AND well-socialized, cautious AND confident, competitive AND cooperative. We care about ourselves AND others. Excellence and equity, diversity and standards, thinking AND feeling, and on and on.
To eat our cake and still have it, fresh every day in every flavor for everyone, from someone else’s regulated bakery and without making any of us fat?
The trouble is that these “ANDS” we want and expect come into direct conflict, so the strategy of just balancing to some golden mean between them where we can all get enough of what we want, simply isn’t available.
Come to think of it, if we could thoroughly impart just one life lesson, one essential understanding to all kids that would make the world a better place, maybe that’s the one? — That the only absolute right answer in matters of human concern, is that there is no one right answer in matters of human concern.
No matter how smart School certifies we are for pretending otherwise . . .
JJ
June 17, 2007 at 8:46 am
The NYT Sunday Magazine today does a neat riff on this theme of conflicting human values so important to us that we (the people) idealize and then demand them simultaneously in all public policy, getting what we deserve for our own irrationality:
For a whole news grab bag on blurring boundaries as critical thinking and excellent education, here’s a collection I was keeping at the NHEN forums:
“What’s in a Name? — Not Clarity!”
JJ
June 17, 2007 at 9:17 am
[...] We Were Saying Censorship Is a Bad Thing. . . 17 06 2007 as champion of public education Greg Laden and his anonymous, pissy blog-puppets continue grumbling that homeschoolers generally — JJ especially — are censor-happy [...]
So We Were Saying Censorship Is a Bad Thing. . . « Cocking A Snook!
June 17, 2007 at 9:56 am
Simply put, fundie pro virginity whackos are the same to me as earth goddess virginity obsessives. Is that too difficult for you to understand?
***
I think we all understand it, cmf. You are not comfortable with women. Why not talk about football or something that you actually know something about.
Nance
NanceConfer
June 17, 2007 at 10:25 am
“Nance: The question is should society have a controlling interest?:”
Well, yes it probably should, just how much is the point of discussion. For example if you are Xtian scientist and deny your child proper health care for some life-threatening condition the state can come in and mandate proper medical care. Do you find this unreasonable, or do you think the child should be left to die for the ignorance of the parents?
***
Sailor, “how much” is indeed the question.
Your fringe-element example does not lead inexorably to the idea that all children should be taught a certain curriculum or, the same thing in the end, be forced to sit for standardized tests.
I am as pro-science an atheist as you will find but I will not submit my children to standardization in the hope of “saving” other children from being taught inane ideas about creation.
The vast majority of Americans hold some sort of ridiculous belief in a higher power and attended public school so I do not see that NCLB or any of its parts is working to improve our country’s ability to deal with reality.
Since that is the only suggestion I have seen here or anywhere (test ‘em — to reassure somebody or other who thinks they should be in charge) I will continue unschooling my children and resisting any effort to deprive them of their right to learn in freedom from standardization.
Others may do as they like with their kids — trotting them off to the school bus bright and early. Most people do and, if that is the answer to anything, it should start kicking in any minute now.
My hope is that when my children are some day serving on a jury, they, not having had the “benefit” of churching or schooling, will be able to rely on and trust in their own judgement without resorting to prayer, unlike the jurors in this case — http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/06/13/the-jury-is-out/#comments .
I have no reason to think these jurors didn’t attend public schools, complete with standardized curriculum and tests.
Nance
NanceConfer
June 17, 2007 at 10:39 am
Nance:
Others may do as they like with their kids — trotting them off to the school bus bright and early. Most people do and, if that is the answer to anything, it should start kicking in any minute now. . .
Brava!
JJ
June 17, 2007 at 10:42 am
Well all am probably out of here since I am not a homeschooler and don’t have kids. But I have enjoyed the discussion and would like to leave a little information you may already have. As I have gotten older I have become more interested in learning. I came accross a series of courses put out by the teaching company http://www.teach12.com I have taken three of their courses (one on the biological bais of behavor, one on language, one on the origens of life and now I am doing one on biology). The quality of the courses is outstanding – better than anything I enjoyed in college. They also seem very reasonably priced when discounted. They are really both excellent and a lot of fun. I think they could be a great aid to home schooling.
Sailor
June 17, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Of course it could be. And I’m sure some hsers use it. We use all sorts of resources.
The difference is that our children are “interested in learning” too and get to select from these and many other courses that are “both excellent and a lot of fun.” Or information that is not set up as a course.
Good luck and continued enjoyment on your own homeschooling journey!
Nance
NanceConfer
June 17, 2007 at 4:43 pm
It was nice talking with you Sailor. I wish you’d stick around, because education really is a society-wide discussion, certainly not just for adults without children or families not using the public schools for whatever reason. One thing I think all can agree on — education for the next generation does matter to us all.
JJ
JJ
June 17, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Rolfe: “I respectfully ask that we move debate about JJ’s comments elsewhere so we can focus on some of the interesting and outstanding questions in play here.”
Yeah, I agree. Of course, civility is always a good idea. It is just that this jj person trolls different blogs and cries wolf every time she is called on this one point of contention: that she is part of the fringes of the opposite reaction to an equal and equally lunatic action–that of patriarchy.At Gregs blog she is always flaming posters who disagree with her, and even once accsed me of being someone who she apparently deplores,and where I first encountered her ilk.Please note: it wasn’t me who brought the history to you, ok?
So, yeah, I will respect your blog, no problem, but please note that she used your space to cry about a Georgi Porgi peeing in her little cauldron, and defame me, and all of that before I woke up today, apparently with your blessing Rolfe.;-( So I just came to my own defense, that’s all. She sure likes to start it, as you can see demonstrated here.
Rolfe, if and when you choose to take the jj saga elsewhere, I will gladly follow your posts, and your rules, there, and this will be my only poist on the matter. But please note that it is her, not I who is holding her daughter in front of her as a sock puppet or a shield to deflect criticism,or some other object that has had the misfortune of being in her mauling hands, and note that she proceeds to take potshots at me, and she did that FIRST, here on your blog.I wasn’t even here then, remember.
Rolfe, I am pretty much a one trick pony on the homeschooling topic, and that is I believe a variety of people use it to shield the eyes of the public at large from various forms of abuse that they perpetrate on their kids. I have posted extensively about that on Gregs blog.
As for whackoes everywhere, well, here in this little divided corner of going nowhere productive fast–that place ful of name callers and blackballers like jj, we have primarily a left and a right, and in the debates that preceded the modern homeschool movement, we had the religious zealouts on one side ( patriarchal teachings and religions of “christ”) and on the other we had the so called ‘feminists’ ( anti patriarchy pagans Gaians, Wiccans, etc.): So it really isn’t an issue here of whacoes everywhere, but two clear sets of dogmas, with her representing one extreme.THe other extreme has been represented elsewhere.
I became interested in your blog, through a post at Gregs, where it he merely noted that there was interesting discussion here at your blog about homeschooling, and only then noticed this vapid manhater jj using my moniker in her shadow boxing with perceived patriarchy, and watched now as she again uses her daughter as a foil, rather than treats her as a person of her own right rather than a marrionette touting mothers virtues.
So I will not waste either of our time, and hopefully you will let her know her character assasination is equally unwelcome here at your blog, ok?
I would love to comment more, but am short of time but please do take this debate elsewhere indeed, and equally caution her to leave her crusade against fathers littering your blog and using my moniker. I hope you can refrain from treating her and her inflamatory posts as somehow different than my response to them.
With that, I will weigh out of this for now, and familiarize myself with you and your blog efforts, which look quite responsible and well thought out.
Now, jj, in response to your request for my documentation: I am sorry, I didn’t think this intellectual border crossing required that, but then again, you are a representative of the matriarchal authoritarian state mechanism right? Hmmm…. let me see…..my manual instructs me at this point to tell you: how controlling and presumptuous those in power can be, and how they certainly use their various degrees of official letters to misuse the idea of freedom. Its almost like you are from the good ol’ boys Ivy League club or something…a real patriarch indeed. Ain’t I a woman?
cmf
June 17, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Rolfe, are you going to allow this one sided sniping? Please read up and note that again, here, some dolt is creating an unhappy, unproductive conversational climate. A man coveting idiot with a large….no, a huge ‘agenda’ is taking unwarranted pot shots at a virtual stranger.
RE: Nance Confer: I don’t even know you and you sound like an idiot in your dig at me. Nance, Don’t you have some little girls head to shrink or eat or something? We all know how you feel about little girls.
cmf
June 17, 2007 at 11:26 pm
[...] Rolfe, of Home Schooled (that’s original), comments on whether homeschoolers are progressive or radical in Keep Your Radicals Free. [...]
The 7th Country Fair Is Open! | The Country Fair
June 18, 2007 at 2:56 am
Doc/Country Fair: I know, the blog name is pretty lame. I thought I was going to be writing about Math — not homeschooling — when I started this. Well, for now I’d rather stick with something not-at-all-clever than any of the half-clever ideas I’ve had. Not-at-all-clever suits me better.
Thanks for putting together the country fair!
cmf: The sniping doesn’t seem one-sided. I’ve let all comments stand. I found the comments JJ initially complained about offensive enough that it turned me off of reading Greg’s site. I find a large part of your comments here offensive, and will give you some patriarchal advice: if you want people to listen to your good ideas, don’t hide them in a slough of nastiness. I will not read through old bitter comment histories because I have many more interesting things to do with my time.
Regarding your one-trick-pony, that does have some substance behind it. Let me ask a few questions: What fraction of homeschoolers are you accusing of abuse? How does that incidence rate compare with the non-homeschool population? Where do you get your evidence? This is the sort of discussion I’d like to see.
Sailor: Thank you for all of your input. You made me think, and I still don’t have satisfactory answers for the questions you raised. Educating the next generation is something we should all be thinking about, and I believe this goes far beyond homeschooling. We need to figure out how to make all schools — public, private, and home — as effective as possible. We need to watch out for militant religion everywhere. We need to take care not to throw away our liberty forever to chase down our fear of the day. The homeschooling debate just happens to bring up some of these bigger issues.
Rolfe Schmidt
June 18, 2007 at 5:54 am
Morning all, here’s a sip of fresh-sqeezed (but sour) juice to open your eyes –
Imagine the online people and places you most want to protect your children from. Now imagine that the government required you to hand your kids over anyway, to be exposed to those people and places for several hours each day unsupervised by you or anyone else, behind closed doors. For all that horror to be poured into your child’s head.
Now imagine it wasn’t just online but real, physical custody being taken from you, and you were being assured by the government that it was best, because the State’s interest was in protecting your own children from YOU.
This is not imaginary. It’s real and it’s right here in this conversation.
Standardized test scores and degrees — however satisfying to an academician like Greg or a theorist like Rob Reich — can mask mental illness, giving the official stamp of approval to unstable or even dangerous minds. I once read a journalist-author’s account of a genius Mensa member who systematically poisoned his neighbors ( I forget his name, but the name of the book was “Poisoned Minds.”)
Aren’t institutional orphanages, churches, campuses and classrooms actually more likely to prompt, harbor and exacerbate mental problems, than to protect innocent students from such insatbility of mind (either developing it themselves or falling victim as collateral damage?)
Classmates, teachers, coaches, roomates, graduate assistants, professors, janitors and security guards, priests and other authority figures — what a lot of potential risks compared to parent-protected learning environments.
JJ
June 18, 2007 at 6:02 am
Rolfe:
Creating shared context for pursuing shared purpose is essential to this kind of learning by conversation. As many Thinking Parents have done, I’ve learned that it cannot be created when even one determined “participant” would rather tear up the playing field than play.
I ask again whether this “cmf” signature will identity himself or herself with his or her real name and relevant affiliations, including the other online signatures under which he or she is posting about homeschooling and education.
JJ
June 18, 2007 at 6:26 am
Sailor: Let me offer you a truly horrifying scenario:
Fundamentalist religious home schooling that brings up little monsters to strap suicide belts around themselves and blow up people in the name of an imagined god.
Yes, let’s hope that never happens anywhere. That would only be possible if the state either encouraged it or simply allowed, in a totally unregulated fashion, anyone to do anything they ever wanted. So of course, it would never happen on this planet.
Nance: You are committing the very common error of assumption that I see so often in home schooling jingoist. At what point did I say that public school as we know them are required for anything? I favor the total reworking of the public school system. Are you in support of keeping public schools as they are?
JJ: I agree with you completely. CMF needs to be more accountable for who he is, what he stands for, what is alias may be. Ideally there would be some way to associate meaning rather than uncertainty with the moniker “CMF’ (or “JJ” or “Greg” or whatever). In my case you can click on my name and get my site, and there is more info about me than most people want to know. When I click on “JJ” I get to your site, and if I hit “about” I don’t get very much, but on your home page you have a few symbols telling me something about yourself. So “JJ” has some meaning … libertarian pro home school pro science/evolution.
Truthfully, on the web, we are all taking our chances. CMF does not have to uncloak himself, and when I look at his comments on my site I see that quite a few of them contain points of real interest. I’m glad he posts widely on my site. I don’t care that it is impossible to tell more about him by clicking on “CMF.” I have the option of making that work differently, with more restrictive registration but I don’t want to burden my readers and posters with unnecessary regulation and electronic “paperwork,” much like I would prefer to not burden home schoolers with unnecessary regulation and paperwork.
But, when something important happens where I feel the need to get together a few people to have a conversation … at any one point in time I’m involved in a number of these conversations … that is different. For instance, right now a famous movie producer, three well known scientists, and a major author and I hare having an off-line conversation about something fairly important that in the future may have real impact on science education. We got this conversation together because we are all visible credentialed entities on the internet. People who are anonymous, either fully (CMF) or partly (JJ) choose this anonymity and can’t really be part of this kind of conversation. There is no problem with this at all, it is entirely a matter of personal choice.
Greg Laden
June 18, 2007 at 8:21 am
Nance: You are committing the very common error of assumption that I see so often in home schooling jingoist. At what point did I say that public school as we know them are required for anything? I favor the total reworking of the public school system. Are you in support of keeping public schools as they are?
********
You are in favor of reworking the public school system but want to impose standardized curriculum/testing on homeschoolers? Or is that what you mean by “reworking?”
One person with some good ideas on the reworking of the ps system — http://home.cfl.rr.com/marion/mbrady.html
Information on child abuse and homeschoolers — http://www.nhen.org/LegInfo/default.asp?id=420.
Nance
Nance Confer
June 18, 2007 at 8:43 am
Again, it’s as if the words have completely different meanings — we apparently lack common context for “choice” and “education” and “responsibility” and now “anonymity” and “truthfully.” Oh and important too.,
Gee, you’ve got a famous movie producer and a major author together with you and your partners, really? That DOES sound important to the future of science education! (Can we touch the hem of your garment?) It sounds like popular books and movies though — not public school-like, unless — oh! I forgot until this minute, maybe it’s for that very profitable charter school you plan to set up in some rich neighborhood, so the parents will fight to get into your program and our taxpayer bucks can support you in the style to which you intend to become accustomed?
Sure, that makes sense, first build up a “science educator” blog getting plenty of traffic, and then some snazzy product with a Hollywood sales pitch appealing to highly motivated parents who demand the best for their own kids (homeschoolers) maybe even trawl for a homeschool parent endorsement or two? –and/or some effective way to discredit home education as not comparable to the elite get-into-Harvard science education you and your moguls will be peddling.
Truthfully, you say? Truthfully, what’s exploitation among strangers and some educational pandering for such an important scheme?
And truthfully, aren’t you worried this last comment of yours will hurt your bankable persona as an important researcher able to impact the future of all science education? It seems like the Great GREG LADEN, or maybe even an ordinary human in pajamas without your singular credentials and intellect, could Google JJ Ross, Ed.D. and learn more in an idle 30 seconds than you did with all your famous, well-known, visible, major public powers.
Let’s see — ok, I just tried it. Here’s the first page, every one of them visible and credentialed on the Internet, and authentically me. Look, my first post at Greg’s even came up, in which I am who I really am, offering research links and original perpective — met by a male-juvenile wall of at least three and probably five anonymous foaming-at-the-mouth personae who attack and disparage me personally as stalkers do, fixated and irrational. That kind of plot might drive up traffic and make a hot Hollywood movie but I wouldn’t call it scientific inquiry, into education or anything else. No, that’s just pandering to low-brow entertainment like profitable books and movies do . . . hmm, maybe this IS starting to make sense.
JJ Ross | culturekitchen
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I assume you do NOT mean mandating the gifted students to participate ! JJ Ross, Ed.D. http://www.CultureKitchen.com/jj_ross/blog “Ask MisEducation” at: …
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JJ
June 18, 2007 at 9:55 am
Greg said:
Um, this does happen on the planet today. And I don’t think you can really blame the freewheeling libertarians for it. This sort of thing is a response to helplessness in the face of persecution as far as I can tell.
Can we drop the CMF stuff please? We were having a fairly intelligent discussion and it is getting poisoned. I’m tempted to get much harsher on my moderation thanks all of this. I don’t want people to come to my site if they just want to rubberneck a car wreck. You can do that on your sites if you want. If you want to know who I am, use my contact form to email me and I’ll send you a CV. Or google me and you’ll see a taste of my unremarkable academic past.
We still have some interesting things to discuss. For Greg I still have my primary question: how will meaningless degrees lead to the collapse of civilization?
I’d also like to bring Alane’s earlier comment up again. I confirmed that she was responding to this statement of yours Greg:
She is a schoolteacher and a Christian — certainly a welcome and diverse voice in this conversation — and I think she has a point that this was a pretty bold statement. Do you want to clarify it? Is this a legal or ethical judgment? How does this not control what she can say to her kids at the dinner table?
There are still some good balls in play here, I tried to summarize a few of them in a post above. Let’s keep trying to get some answers.
Rolfe Schmidt
June 18, 2007 at 10:15 am
It looks to me, from reading at her blog/link, that Alane is a public high school math teacher.
Any problems keeping your religious beliefs out of math class?
Nance
NanceConfer
June 18, 2007 at 11:00 am
Rolfe, I really enjoyed your post. Many of the comments, not so much. Too bad a few people have to spoil a good discussion by bringing nasty comments and rude remarks into it.
Christine
June 18, 2007 at 11:35 am
Thanks Christine! I guess we aren’t really discussing the post so much now are we?
Nance: I’m pretty sure Alane will do just fine keeping her religious beliefs out of her of her math class. And from all I can tell reading through her posts, she is a very thoughtful teacher. Her students are lucky.
I think hers is an interesting voice in this discussion because we’re all going back and forth about public schools and religion, and she actually teaches in a school and has religion. I’m pretty sure that she represents the vox populi better than many of us do, and that is a voice worth hearing every now and then. But I understand why she may not want to be part of this discussion. Still, I don’t want to let her question slip.
Rolfe Schmidt
June 18, 2007 at 12:16 pm
I liked seeing that Alane’s favorite author of all time is one of mine too — CS Lewis. Power of story, layers of meaning, allegory and metaphor, fact and fiction and belief and relationships all rolled up into who we are and how we think and feel.
I infer that this means she look for the DEEP magic, underneath all the fine print, form and function! That’s what I would bet elevates her teaching beyond drill and kill.
Hey, maybe soon we can morph from this free radical post into human networking systems theory for Thinking Parents (which I think connects to everything else we ever talk about) — off the top of my head, Nance and I know three visible credentialed entities from the Internet we might persuade to resume that conversation? Better yet, they are deep-magic thinkers.
One of whom is a math professor mom, Alane, who meanwhile has unschooled with three daughters to near-magical family life for all . . .
JJ
June 18, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Speaking of deep thinking and deep magic:
JJ
June 18, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Nance:You are in favor of reworking the public school system but want to impose standardized curriculum/testing on homeschoolers? Or is that what you mean by “reworking?”
Yes and no. There are not simple answers (beyon a vague yes and no) to these questions. Do you want me to put in a comment on this site everything I think about the public school system? I’d rather be a bit more thoughtful and systematic. I have not chosen to write about that topic yet. I am involved in the process in a number of ways, of course.
( I do have something on my blog in about 21 hours from now on the recent PAS report on CMMP and its relation to K-12 education in general)
Thanks for the links. The first one does not seem to work and I’ve seen the second one.
Greg Laden
June 18, 2007 at 12:36 pm
JJ, nice quote. And I’m interested in your suggestion of morphing this discussion into something at NHEN. I worry that we’d miss out on great questions from people like Sailor and Greg, but others would feel more welcome. How could we do that?
Rolfe Schmidt
June 18, 2007 at 12:45 pm
JJ:
I think I’ve had about enough of your ranting. You are way, way over the top. In all seriousness, I don’t see how someone can have this sort of reaction without also being in need of help in some way. I’m not trying to be insulting. I’m just suggesting that you consider the possibility.
Rolfe: Yes, this is too off topic for me. I’d like to continue the discussion but somewhere else, some time else. And please, consider the possibility that one’s definition of a troll may well be linked not to how much crap they give the other commenters, but how much one disagrees or agrees with their philosophy.
My preference is to not ban anyone from my site, and I would never ask you do do the same under any circumstances (I think generally it is a bad idea, but I can see why someone would want to do it). But from my perspective, as someone who has until now enjoyed discussion things on your blog and enjoyed reading your perspective, I can tell you that if you gave me the choice to have you ban CMF vs JJ, my answer would be “Neither!” But then if you held a gun to my head, and said “OK, padner, pick one or it’s curtains…” I’d pick JJ in a second.
JJ: My advice to you … stop screeching and the troll will stop tickling you.
Greg Laden
June 18, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Hi Rolfe : )
Just wanted to let you know that the comment about not allowing the teaching of creationism jumped out at me, too. I responded to it twice myself.
But, we touched on interesting elements of the debate, I think.
1.Creationism/ “Teaching the controversy” in public schools.
2.Creationism/”Anti-Darwinism” taught in private Christian schools.
3.The fundamentalist backlash that would follow perceived persecution.
4.Surveys showing majorities (of ps-educated) rejecting evolution.
5.Does prohibition apply to private schools, non-hs homes, churches?
6.Private rights vs. public interest.
7.”Do degrees matter?”
8. Sacrificing for the good of the “system.”
Great post! Have a great day!
Lynn
June 18, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Hi Nance:
No, I have no problems there. I am very sensitive to the fact that I am teaching other people’s children. Those parents may or may not hold beliefs similar to mine, but it is not my place to promote my beliefs or denigrate anyone else’s beliefs inside the classroom. I don’t want anyone in a public school to teach my child about their brand of Christianity or any other religion, nor do I want anyone to teach her what they like or dislike about my religion / denomination. Therefore, I would not dare to cross that line myself, especially since I am in a position of authority in the classroom. It wouldn’t be fair to student or parent, and it would not be a particularly wise use of my class time, since there are no religion questions on the math portion of the ACT, for which I am supposed to be helping them prepare.
Alane Tentoni
June 18, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Sorry, a short PS, lest onlookers think I’m a liar. JJ … if I click on your name, it goes to a site with a somewhat pornographic sounding name, and if I then click on “about” I get this:
This is an example of a WordPress page. I could edit this to put information about myself or my site so readers know where I am coming from. Or I could not. It remains to be seen.
But a little bit about me:
I read. No, really, like, a lot (as clearly evidenced by the verbosity of that last sentence).
That’s why I never stop talking for long, and why this whole blog is chock full of random literary references.
I was recently shown an Anime series called FLCL, and my host was shocked that I knew what was going to happen before it happened (FLCL is really strange).
Let me reiterate: I read. I understand the concept of foreshadowing. When characters spend a huge hunk of time referencing mysterious fires occuring all over town, and one of the primary characters suddenly starts praying to an angel of fire, I think it only reasonable to assume that she’s been lighting the fires.
This is not Jasper Fford. It is not Philip Pullman. It is not Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams. I’m not going to get to the end of the story and smack my head and exclaim, “Why of course! The clues were there all along but they were so subtle I missed them!” Things like that, I’m pretty much going to get on the first try. Although I apparently also missed some rather obvious hints, like a character turning into a robot. (”When did that happen?” “In that scene where he said, ‘you’ve turned into a robot!’” “Oh. I don’t know how I missed that.”)
Point is, I read.
This is not to say that I don’t know who you are, though I admit I’m a little confused about the relationships amongs JJ, Nance, COD, DOC and a few others. Sometimes I think you are all one person with multiple … no, not likely, I guess…. Anyway, that’s what your About pages says, and yes, I could google you, but it is not really appropriate for you to ask me to do your job for you.
Cheers, and adieu,
Greg
Greg Laden
June 18, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Rolfe:
Oh I wasn’t clear, I didn’t mean move it, just pick it up again.
Maybe in another post here, or several that connect here and at Snook and elsewhere. I can start this around the end of June if you want, which would give folks some time to see else is interested and to read up and ponder?
Daryl recently said he was, when the last irrationality before this broke out — something about the Gardasil vaccine then, I think.
JJ
June 18, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Nance opened the wordpress blog we share — I learned wordpress with that moniker and then gave the blog to my exceedingly literary (then 16-year-old) college honor student. (Can you tell? And she did it all without school! I’m very proud!) so now they are Snook and Snook Too. We are open about all that and promote posts back and forth.
The expression “cocking a snook” has a fine British history, totally non-pornographic.
JJ
June 18, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Hi Lynn -
Thanks for that breakdown of the discussion. It really makes it clear that this isn’t a “homeschooling” debate. The issues are much larger.
I also like your angle on degrees (developed more on your blog). I’ve conceded that degrees tend to mean something. But you ask whether they matter. To me non-professional degrees don’t matter much beyond a first meeting with someone. I care much more about what a person says or does than I care what hoops they’ve jumped through. Yes, I want an M.D.or P.A. for health care because it means they are likely well trained, not because it means that they think. Then I am using them sort of like a machine, not interacting with them as a person.
Rolfe Schmidt
June 18, 2007 at 1:37 pm
JJ: understood, and I think that is a good idea.
Rolfe Schmidt
June 18, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Rolfe wrote:
“I also like your angle on degrees . . .”
This must be a clever and multi-layered math pun. I can recognize that angles and degrees are both mathematical expressions but can’t quite finish the point (another math term!) for myself.
So, a little help from you math folk?
JJ
June 18, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Nance: I’m pretty sure Alane will do just fine keeping her religious beliefs out of her of her math class.
***
Rolfe, I’m pretty sure of that too. What I want to hear direct from the horse’s mouth is how she does it. And/or how that relates, if at all, to her teaching her own children that evolution is not true. Her children, I believe, attend ps. Does she see science class there eroding what she is trying to instill in her children? Etc.
I hope, Alane, that you do add more of your voice here and just ignore any creepiness.
My assumption at this point is that Alane’s children are like the vast majority of American children and will go through the ps system with their religion-based ideas intact. That science in ps does not erode or override what the kids are taught at home and at Sunday school.
IOW, the success of any plan to impose evolution on hsers, as opposed to letting the idea evolve into society (get it?!
), and do away with creationism should be able to be demonstrated with the majority of kids already involved in that experiment — at public school.
And I propose that if the ps experiment doesn’t achieve the goal desired by those who want to impose the restrictions, what is the point? Why disrupt the lives of all homeschoolers if they don’t even have a way to do what they want to do?
I’d love to hear Alane’s input on all that.
Nance
NanceConfer
June 18, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Nance:You are in favor of reworking the public school system but want to impose standardized curriculum/testing on homeschoolers? Or is that what you mean by “reworking?”
Greg: Yes and no. There are not simple answers (beyon a vague yes and no) to these questions. Do you want me to put in a comment on this site everything I think about the public school system? I’d rather be a bit more thoughtful and systematic. I have not chosen to write about that topic yet. I am involved in the process in a number of ways, of course.
( I do have something on my blog in about 21 hours from now on the recent PAS report on CMMP and its relation to K-12 education in general)
Thanks for the links. The first one does not seem to work and I’ve seen the second one.
**************
Greg, go ahead and Google Marion Brady. It won’t hurt.
And you’ve seen the NHEN writeup on abuse. Great. It is the definitive word on the subject. Did it answer your questions?
And, yes, “yes and no” is, at best, a vague answer. It is also annoying and surprising considering you seem to feel free to suggest imposing life-changing restrictions on all homeschoolers, regulating us more like public schoolers, and yet have no concise answer to a direct inquiry about how you think ps should be reformed.
Why not continue working on the PAS report, then get K-12 ps all straightened out, start turning out students from ps who accept only evolution and then come on over to homeschoolers and tell us how you did it.
At that point, maybe you’ll have something more sensible and informative than “yes or no.”
Nance
NanceConfer
June 18, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Rolfe, re: ” Let me ask a few questions: What fraction of homeschoolers are you accusing of abuse? How does that incidence rate compare with the non-homeschool population? Where do you get your evidence? This is the sort of discussion I’d like to see.”
Yeah, Rolfe, h/s proponents are always keen to point to the comparison between homeschool and non hs/s abuse incidence–good luck gathering that data, with the inherent secrecy and instant denial mechanisms of many (most) homeschoolers.On Gregs blog I once gave an analogy that was like this. Imagine that the child is born and that it is raised apart from society. Then imagine that its definitions of all things including abuse are given to them ( or in most cases not given to them) by the abuser. Then imagine that if the child were confronted by the social forces that are created to protect it, it had the idea that those forces are the ‘enemy’ or some other alien,( in the case of jj, you can see in the piece of contention that the ‘enemy’ is clearly men who teach their daughters to value their virginity) and that the child knew that if the alien was able to disrupt its home life, all would be lost.
Fractions? I suspect more like slices of, big pieces of, and large numbes of, but the definitions that exist today of abuse are ill equipped to spot 1) brainwashing 2) abuse perpetrated on young girls by women 3) the vertically integrated nature of abuse that children who are forced into the homeschool environment by people with agendas suffer, and lack a dialogue about.
Now, who can that child turn to? There is only one person, or set of people to turn to, and that is the abuser, and those the abuser shares that child with: the very same people who provided the child its definitional structures, and its sense of right and wrong. Those people who CODified the childs entire awarenes of life in terms of harm versus good, in a very localized, and highly controlled dialectic.
Whereas I respect your desire to keep this discussion off of this post, I disrespect your willingness to keep one of your ears planted in the bullshit that some are spewing here while chastising me. To address your feeling that my post, the very post that your named concern troll jj has brought to your attention, and how vile it was, it seems you are developing a double standard, or at very least, you ate her troll bait on your own blog. The particular comment, again, was in reference to a post where a young woman is hyper fixated on virginity, but in reverse. As I am sure you know, fixation by adolescents on their sexuality can be normal to some degree( note grain of salt in my cheek), or abnormal, and a sign of abuse. However, the very definition of that abuse can be guided and/ or manipulated by the abuser.
So before anyones knees start jerking around like a crappy doing the crappy flop,dockside –this is a special Minnesota collloquial phrase just for Greg;-)
— I am not accusing anyone of abuse, but calling for not only definitional overhaul, and oversight, but at the very very least, one, just one homeschooler, who actually acknowledges this possible connection: authoritarian parenting style where parent is only and final authority, and its existence withinn the homeschool environment, unchecked, and undocumented, because h/s’ers deny it exists.
, and this with a caveat: that you actually show one iota of concern for this possibility, rather than lump sum, dismissing it or instantaneously throwing up the comparison between p/s’ers.
Without a lengthy discussion of ethnographies from around the world that cause us to snigger at other tribes tribal sexual/social norms
( again, not for this post), American radicalism and gender/sex practices, or the nature of feminist philosophy and its ‘revolutionary’ take on sexuality, I can only say that the abuse issue is no doubt impossible to document in many homeschool environments, primarily because as you know, every homeschool is so “unique,” and thus of course, outside the view, and the discussion of abuse.
As an amateur anthropologist I have watched thirty some homescholed environments over a twenty year period, who run the full gamut between whacko fundies and whacko lefties, and have noted that some twenty or so percent are in excellent form, and some eighty percent are in some strange evolution between bizarre beliefs and equally bizarre practices, bizarre being assessed by the cultural ‘norms’ of American society. In other words, many of the practices I have observed smack of abusive dynamics ( fundies believe in spanking kids, and ritualize the ’spanking’ in the name of Jesus, and lefties ritualize sexuality and the teaching of sexual value and virtue in ways that smack of abuse), and it is that to which I am speaking. Many other dynamics are in play in these households, but too many to go into here.
Simply, again, I was called here by some woman who is not only full of herself ( read that very self effacing post above about credentials) , and this is some ‘poison’ spin off that realy doesn’t belong in this particular post of yours. I was called thereafter by this other woman Nance Confer, and together they are the sum equal of pomposity gone wild here at your blog.
Oh, and YES I choose anonymity, because I realize that the internet is an information collection resource, and the world we live in could easily slip towards the jj/ nance form of authoritarian control that finds free speech abhorrent, and new ideas objects of oppression. I could feasibly be punished for my thoughts, once collected by these vipers who label you first and then use you as their own personal boogeyMEN, dragging you through conversations on other boards, and invoking you as token idiot, lest they be seen first for who they are( see above : full of self) .
Imagine if I were unmasked as a silent observer of these people? What value would I then have as an observer, what access would I have if my opinions of these so-called schoolers were known ? Moreover, as I watch many of these so-called h/s kids come of age (some are teen mothers with multiple births, some are drug addicts, some are counter clerks, some are starting college), what value would it be for them to know that I was watching the sham that is called homeschooling, with the eyes I have seen it through?
Now please before anyones knees start apoplectically yanking to and fro, note that I am not speaking about you, or anyone necessarily , so don’t personalize it ok kids?
cmf
June 18, 2007 at 6:06 pm
oh and P.S.
for all of the belly aching that goes on amongst h/s’ers about government control ( sounds a bit like ye ol’ Posse Comitatus), they sure do unanimously agree with the government righties that censorship in the form of ‘moderation’ is a good idea. Imagine that.
cmf
June 18, 2007 at 6:14 pm
CMF: so you are doing research on humans without any IRB or consent process? Interesting… Is Greg in the loop here? Any plans to publish? I guess I’d stay anonymous too.
None of us are suggesting your site should be censored or that there should be any legal censorship of people like you. I leave your comments here simply because they look foolish, I don’t need to do much talking.
I don’t want your respect. You are on ignore.
And it sounds like Greg is out? Anyone else want to take up the slack and try to answer some of those questions? If not I may have a go…
Rolfe Schmidt
June 18, 2007 at 6:31 pm
IRolfe:
f you need a public school explanation or sensibility, I certainly have the background and longterm friendships for it. What was the question again?
(What’s been puzzling me is how poorly it’s been argued by these supposed champions. I can do MUCh better than that if you want!)
JJ
June 18, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Has anybody ever seen Greg and CMF in the same room, or in different bodies, or is this like a clark kent-superman thing?
JJ
June 18, 2007 at 6:57 pm
JJ: I’d be interested to hear you argue the case. I’d like a discussion that gets past round 1 without going on an irrelevant tangent.
Well I’m out for tonight. The kids need to eat and get to bed and it’s not happening until I get there…
Rolfe Schmidt
June 18, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Rolfe asked a very interesting question (which I would quote if I knew how): “Do [children] have a right to a ‘liberal’ education?”
I would like to know what he means by the term “liberal education”. Is it the traditional meaning (i.e. studying the liberal arts) or does it have a political connotation? The Robert Reiches and Kimberly Yurackos of the world clearly intend the latter…
Crimson Wife
June 19, 2007 at 12:09 am
“Is Greg in the loop here? Any plans to publish?”
Rolfe: That sounds a little paranoid. Imagine a world where I had to absorb feminist agenda first, be sanctioned as a champiuon seconf=d, and then, and only then, welcomed into their worldview? Yikes sayeth I;-) No progress there. They didn’t do that after all….
But don’t at all blame Greg for my tireless lament of your cherished h/s secrecy or my take on you guys as “free radicals with substitution”. I really only ended up here because of those aforementioned matriarchal gynecological invaders.
Didn’t mean to bore you, but now thast you mention it *yawn* I see what you mean….time for another blog–this one has grown a bit , um, incestuous;-)
cmf
June 19, 2007 at 2:20 am
p.s. do you really think IRB would be required of a writer , an dauthor and a teller of tales? I mean, so muckh history is really oral ethnographies, and quasi anecdotal evidence collection–like the whole feminist movement, before it became codified as law and social policy. Like the Nazi’s anecdotals as well. I really don’t need guidance, just good stories;-)
Again, back to the basic problem of definitions: “research involving human subjects to ensure that their welfare and rights are protected as mandated by federal regulations,” is a bogus bunch of statutory academic rhetorical agenda laden crap that evades objective insight. What;s the point there when it comes to h/s’ers? They are so full of obfuscation and evasion tactics that even objective purview is obliterated. So why follow academic rules if the subjects are not only aware of academic rules, but willingly flaunt them as well?
And, I note, you did not address the model of verticallly integrated abuse that I proposed is extent in the h/s community.
Blather is thine as well, if and until you provide your own data.
cmf
June 19, 2007 at 2:30 am
p.s.s. awaiting moderation? You are indeed one of them. Moderate away. It seems I have hit a very raw and bleeding nerve with you;-)
Better yet, censor my posts, or continue in your little loop of incestuous quasi academic conversation. I didn’t ask to be here, on your blog, but rather was called here by someone who not only found what I have to say, in the very least challenging, but in the very most censorable. That should tell you s/th about how very right I am;-)
cmf
June 19, 2007 at 2:35 am
psss .
“My site” Please explain? I have no site that I am aware of.
cmf
June 19, 2007 at 2:38 am
pssss.
Rolfe, I withdraw my respect indeed, but at least provide an e-mail where yopu can be reached? Most of what I posted I would have preferred to send to you personally, but could not find your contact info because of blog design flaw: your personal details are not highlighted.
I have at several points said what Greg said as well, and you have done 0 to cure the problem.
“I’d like to continue the discussion but somewhere else, some time else. And please, consider the possibility that one’s definition of a troll may well be linked not to how much crap they give the other commenters, but how much one disagrees or agrees with their philosophy.”
So moderation of my copmments, but not moderating those wjo invoked them, not only smacks of disingenuous intent, but also kind of proves my points.
cmf
June 19, 2007 at 3:12 am
CMF: thanks for pointing out the design flaw, it should be better now. I guess you said that more clearly than Greg did. Maybe Greg said it clearly, but I was getting pretty bored of his last comments too, so I have to say I just skimmed them to see if he had any substance relevant to the discussion. It got me to stop ignoring for a little while. But you’re on thin ice.
I started moderating because I the tone is much nastier than I care for. And the discussion isn’t really about much I find interesting. It’s not my problem that you don’t have a site. of your own. You could have set one up and put up several lengthy entries in the time you’ve spent here. By being a clear and thoughtful writer, you can become ‘credentialed’ in my book even if I don’t know your name or you don’t have a degree. My credentials here are just my arguments and writing.
I see no evidence that child abuse is a homeschooling problem. A sloppily explained model and unverifiable anecdotes don’t even start to convince. Have I looked carefully at the issue? No. Have others looked carefully at the issue? Yes, and from different sides. Nothing I’ve seen from you has convinced me that you are looking at the problem seriously and carefully. You’re a one trick pony, and I think you need to practice that trick. That is why I have taken Greg seriously, but not you. He knows what an argument is. Just my opinion, maybe someone else can show me what I’m missing.
If you want to convince me that you are serious you need to lose your personal vendettas and start using careful arguments. If you want to take away my freedom, you need to give me the evidence that my behavior a threat, I don’t need to give it to you.
I listen to JJ because she has given me a lot of good and interesting information, both in this discussion and in other places. Do I agree with her on all points? Most certainly not. Same story with Greg.
Rolfe Schmidt
June 19, 2007 at 7:04 am
CW: That is a good point. The meaning of words changes,and ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ are two very slippery terms. I get the impression that some people like to use a “good” or “uncontroversial” meaning of the word “liberal” when making their case, then give you the switch when it is time to implement. I only use those words to poke fun at people, I ignore them when other people use them.
I have no idea what a liberal education is. But I have some idea when someone is educated and what sorts of thinks I think my kids will learn.
It’s funny, with all of the hoopla over making homeschoolers study evolution, I still find plenty of people who studied it, have degrees, and seem uneducated to me. And I find plenty of people who believe in the young earth, are degreeless, and have perfectly reasonable thoughts and good arguments on a wide range of issues. So I don’t think that making all of our kids take a standardized test on evolutionary biology or anything else on the “liberal” education checklist is going to do squat.
Rolfe Schmidt
June 19, 2007 at 7:20 am
To take up Rolfe’s challenge by arguing the authoritarian public-regulation side, I went to the top and started over. His well-argued and really insightful essay (but I’m not Rolfe’s puppet!) concludes with:
An evolutionary biologist made the first comment in rebuttal. From that frame of reference and expertise, a serious and authoritative (rather than authoritarian) effort at engaging Rolfe’s point could have focused on biology.
For example:
We the people all ARE the system, one interconnected body like the human body, say, run for the overall well-being of the whole by all sorts of executive controls, armed with various defense systems, etc. No cell can go haywire without arousing the antibody army to fight and kill it, for the good of the group.
Each stem cells starts out with unlimited potential and isn’t that marvelous and interesting, but very early on, most options must be shut off so every cell become what the body needs it to be, and nothing more or less. Every cell in the body is dependent on all the other cells performing its specifically assigned functions and if any cell gets out of hand, it is dangerous to all so it must be treated as sick, perhaps expelled by the body’s natural processes to relieve the rest of the body, or even surgically sacrificed, cut out under elaborate external procedures designed to save the rest of the body, not to save the trouble-makers.
Each nascent human being in the body politic starts life the same way, with unlimited potential and proud parents who marvel at every gurgle and coo, but early on, that baby must shut off most potential and become a specialized cell in the economic and cultural body of the State (or society, congregation, tribe, village, race or sex, profession etc)
Should any human “cell” exceed its own set growth pattern, or reproduce other cells or start itching uncontrollably, even benignly, much less cluster with a bunch of other abnormal cells, the body politic MUST treat, expel or surgically remove it. Even normal cells (individual humans) live and die without remark or concern as part of the system of life; only the collective well-being is of note.
JJ
June 19, 2007 at 7:39 am
Of course “free radicals” cleverly fits right in to this body politic argument. (Rolfe surely intended this, right?)
Free radicals have been authoritatively demonstrated to be the major underlying Threat to the health and well-being of the Body, the root cause of degeneration.
What are free radicals but odd, unpaired cells roaming around the body converting other cells and causing trouble for everybody, instead of following the factory blueprint and staying where they are assigned, doing their assigned job?
How does the Body fight free radicals for its own survival? With an army of antioxidants that a Body’s well-educated executive control center will understand is necessary in order to perpetuate its existence, and therefore will build up and keep strong. Although science has discovered that antioxidant armies to fight free radicals may themsleves be harmful to the body, on balance to date, science as a body of knowledge itself, values antioxidant regulators as the preferred risk to unmolested and truly “free” radicals.
How’m I doin’ so far?
JJ
June 19, 2007 at 8:05 am
Interesting JJ. You exposed an underlying assumption of mine, one I still can’t put my finger on yet. But my argument is based on the premise that the welfare of individuals is our main ethical concern.
You point out that this is not justified. The “individual” is not well defined, we are all systems. By limiting ourselves to individualistic ethics and systems, we limit our future evolution. We cannot become like ants, who appear to think and function as a group far beyond the capabilities of any one member. We cannot evolve into some sort of even more tightly coupled “super-organism”.
I want to approach this argument at two levels: philosophical and political. Philosophically we need to ask whether there is any guideline for ethics once we throw out “welfare of individuals”. Evolution does not mean progress, so limiting our evolutionary options does not necessarily mean limiting our progress. I realize that this undermines part of the argument in my post too, I will need to think about it.
At the political level, we need to accept the fact that a large portion of our population believes that individuals are created in the image of God. Many others respect that idea even if they don’t believe it. So any arguments based on discarding “welfare of the individual” as a principle of ethics will be political non-starters. Sort of like Greg’s “You don’t have the right to teach your kids that the Earth is 5000 years old.”
Yes, you caught a few of my puns so far. You may have realized that I like to play games with words, so read carefully!
Rolfe Schmidt
June 19, 2007 at 9:14 am
BTW, I fixed the Marion Brady link in Nance’s comment above. There was an extra period inside the anchor. Pretty amazing I figured that out, eh? Here it is if you don’t want to hunt: http://home.cfl.rr.com/marion/mbrady.html
Rolfe Schmidt
June 19, 2007 at 10:25 am
Ah but to hold up the side I’m arguing, I’d argue that faith like science, proves MY point, against the individual having any importance other than serving the Body.
Like the biological body, the Church is one body too — quite literally in Christianity for example — and for all the biblical words about numbering every hair on every head or noting every sparrow that falls, in practice the church body or congregation is most definitely NOT about the individual rather than the group. Responsive readings, mortification of the flesh to achieve Oneness of spirit, the very word “communion” and so on. Surrender, sacrifice, giving up your own life to gain eternal life in spiritual union with the universe, and so on.
JJ
June 19, 2007 at 10:50 am
In my devil’s advocate reasoning, then, Church and State are two rival “bodies” perceiving each as “other” and literally separate, one the perfect union and the other foreign or alien, of little concern (separation of church and state, natural versus divine, ) so that each of these two bodies claims dominion over all individuals as rightfully part of its own system.
Smething like that. Thus individual cells are just trying to do everything as they are instructed by each body in turn, fire the programs as ordered, render unto caesar and unto god to each his own –
JJ
June 19, 2007 at 11:15 am
To Crimson Wife and Rolfe, re: meaning of a “liberal education” –
A credentialed, highly visible blogging Penn State professor named Michael Berube (with accent marks my keyboard isn’t set to make) wrote a very well- reasoned book last year, exploring what we really mean by “liberal education.”
I bought his book and I buy most of his thinking; also I’d say he’s thought it through much more clearly than most public school defenders and apologists.
“What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts: Classroom POlitics and ‘Bias’ in Higher Education” by Michael Beube, Norton, 2006.
Here’s a sort of debate on this issue between David Horowitz and Berube back in 2002.
JJ
June 19, 2007 at 11:31 am
Also about “liberal education” was (science professor and veteran homeschool mom) Doc’s post “Education Gaps” about home-educated kids who can research and think for themselves even when she doesn’t agree with what they choose to research or think about!
So — is that an individualized, private and liberal education at home that could ALSO meaningfully be characterized as conservative and faith-based?
JJ
June 19, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Great quote from Doc.
Now, about our systems. I’ll accept your analysis of the competing systems of church and state. It makes me want to go off on a tangent about the difference between spiritual and organizational religion. But I will back off from using religion in my argument.
I believe that any argument that rejects the value of the individual is a political non-starter in this country. As different as many of us are, there is a culture of individuality here that cuts across many different groups. You can’t tell people “do what I say because you don’t matter, the system matters”. It will never fly.
Cells are not individuals because they have evolved absolute dependence on their system. Ants may not be individuals. But I don’t believe that we have evolved a dependence on our governments yet. I think we’ll evolve a dependence on our economies and systems of production first (which is a little scary). But if the government tells me I must sacrifice my welfare for the good of the government system, I am free to laugh and walk away.
How can you make that sort of argument politically acceptable to the voters? Unless it improves individual welfare, individuals will abandon it. So the system must value individual welfare if it wants to grow. So the less dependent the members are, the more the system value the welfare of individuals.
I think you argument has merit, but my conclusion is different from yours. If the state (or schools or whatever) is a “super-organism” with members who do not depend on the state for survival, then the state must value the welfare of individuals for its own good! This saves us from the philosophical questions of ethics without individuals. Pure greed on the part of the system causes it to respect individual rights. Any other behavior will weaken the system.
But watch out if you are dependent…
Rolfe Schmidt
June 19, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Goodness gracious…. sorry to barge in on the intellectual debate. I just wanted to voice agreement with the original post. Personally, I know I’m not cut out to be a ‘progressive’. I simply don’t have the patience or tact for it, and would typically end up making matters worse. But I’m quite good at being a radical, and I agree that simply existing as a visible alternative to the system is also a contribution.
Penny
June 19, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Hey Rolfe: “if you want people to listen to your good ideas, don’t hide them in a slough of nastiness,”
Maybe your own advice, once digested, will produce enough antioxidants to sustain readership at your blog.
But thanks for chastising my response to nasty comments left by others, and left here first by them, without nary a comment warning them. You at least are true to your thesis of keeping the “radicals free.”
Re: “If you want to convince me that you are serious you need to lose your personal vendettas,” So, I am not here to convince you of anything Rolfe, because you are like all home and un schoolers: you believe abuse doesn’t exist because you and they agree to not discuss it.
I gotta go now and read a non cancer causing blog where healthy unbiased education, free speech, and health consciousness are the order of the day; a blog where humans are rational radicals and the information presented therein is well rounded, and more extensive than the one book schoolhouse of homeschool blogs– http://www.gregladen.com
But maybe your other poster can dance for you, and show you how to turn that pony trick. I put my real writing elsewhere;-)
cmf
June 19, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Okay to the political analysis as far as it goes, but “authority” — especially scientific authority — has an awful lot of power in institutional education settings specifically, even over veru indpendent and well-educated liberal university students and faculty. Look at the original Milgram shock experiments that were set up as learning and memory tests but really were to see how far we’d go hurting another person if the authority of the institutional requires it of us.
Even though the individuals involved on both sides (teacher and learner, supposedly) were in great distress, the impersonl scientific authority intoned “It is necessary that the experiment continue.” And so it did.
JJ
June 19, 2007 at 8:19 pm
What I meant to argue in conclusion then, was that being “free” to laugh and walk away means being psychologically prepared (inoculated) to buck authority. And individuals in actual demonstrations have behaved more like cells taking innate instruction or operating according to their executive center programming — unfortunately.
JJ
June 19, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Thanks Penny, I was forgetting what this post was about
JJ: yes, I guess it depends on the authority figure who delivers the message. Someone like Greg would cause uproar in the voters and a revival of fundamentalism, as Lynn pointed out. But our permawar has gotten us to surrender our rights pretty easily lately. So it is politically possible. Hmm.
But I still want to know, are there any ethics if we throw out welfare of individuals as a core value? What do we value then? How can we say that any law is good or bad without knowing our values?
You hit a nerve with me on the authority of science. Look for a new post in the next couple of days.
But I need to rest. I’ll be traveling all day tomorrow, so sorry for any slow moderation.
Rolfe Schmidt
June 19, 2007 at 9:12 pm
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Hi all!
Very interesting information! Thanks!
G’night
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