Aelfric says
I am all for the right of a parent to home-school his or her child, but it's a choice to be carefully undertaken. Few parents can bring the intellectual diversity and educational acumen to bear that the panoply of school teachers could (not that all individual teachers are great, but as a group, I think they are great). Also, home-schooled children tend often to be insufficiently socialized. This is not all of them, of course, but I would venture to say a significantly larger number than children who attend schools. Home-school parents often think parentally-supervised socialization time is sufficient to replace the experiences children get at school, but there is a vast difference between social time with one's parents immediately about and the comparative 'independence' of the school system. Again, I don't mean to argue against home-schooling, only to point out some of the issues which should be considered. Thank you.
Jeez this statement is so full of misconceptions I don't know where to begin.
Few parents can bring the intellectual diversity and educational acumen to bear that the panoply of school teachers could .
Why not????? Teachers are human beings just like parents are. What makes public school teachers so 'special' in Aelfric eyes? The majority of homeschool parents not only bring intellectual diversity to their children they teach them to be curious about the world around them, to ask questions and form their own opinions.
Home-school parents often think parentally-supervised socialization time is sufficient to replace the experiences children get at school, but there is a vast difference between social time with one's parents immediately about and the comparative 'independence' of the school system.
Where do non-homeschoolers get the ridiculous notion that homeschoolers are with their parents 24/7? We drop our kids off at soccer ( or whatever recreational sport our children participate in) practice just like public school parents do, they go to scout meetings, Sunday School Classes, and various other activities without their parents in tow, they hang out with their friends (some of whom are public school children) just like public school students do. Why oh why don't these people bother to learn about homeschoolers before making idiotic statements based on false assumptions?
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What makes free play with friends at a homeschool support group park day all that much different than free play with friends at a school recess? With the obvious exception of babies and toddlers, the parent generally isn't "hovering" over the child.
Also, teachers have an average SAT score in the *bottom* third of college graduates, so I'm sorry but I don't think the intellectual acumen of the teaching workforce is all that Aelfric's making it out to be.
Not to mention he had some weird idea that teachers had 'specialized' in whatever subject they taught.
When I was in High School the football coach wound up teaching American History which he knew nothing about. I had Science teachers that were English majors and Math teachers that had majored in special ed. They took whatever teaching positions were available.
My son wound up with a teacher who wanted to teach kindergarten when he was in 5th grade and who didn't have a clue how to do higher Math.
That was one of the reasons we decided to homeschool.
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