Mark and Rheta Wallingford

Hi! I’m new to this group and have been reading your posts over the
last week. My name is Rheta. I have 2 dd Isabel and Viven, 5 yo and 2
½ yo respectively. My wonderful dh of 10 years, Mark, and our 3 cats
(can’t forget them!). We decided to Homeschool from the time I was pg
with Isabel and after reading as much as I could, came across the term
unschooling and started to read up on it. I can’t say I know it all and
I’ve been known to get uptight when a friend’s child begins to do
something I think my dd should know; learning how to back off and
follow her interests has been an experience in itself. A good one
though.

I was posed a question today that I wasn’t sure how to answer and
figured if anyone could help me with this, it would be all of you. The
question (actually statement) was: Years ago the kids in this country
were being raised by farmers and factory workers and all they knew was
working in the fields and their factory jobs. The only thing that
educated them was the public school system. If everyone went back to
homeschooling, how would we keep from becoming a nation of idiots? If
there were no public schools, a lot of kids would be raised by drug
addicts and people who were uneducated themselves and would have no idea
how to be responsible for their own children’s education.

I mentioned that this country was founded and did become a great nation
due to the people who were here hundreds of years ago. Does anyone know
if there were public schools that far back. I’ve read that the public
school system was not in place until just the past 100 years or so. As
I said, I do not know it all. I figure I can research all of this in my
spare time (LOL) or I can ask those of you who already know how to
counter this statement. I feel I should be able to answer this but seem
to have drawn a blank. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Rheta



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[email protected]

I will answer this question carefully. Especially since I hardly ever post.
First, I love unschooling and am so happy to be raising my children this
way. But as an unschooling mom I personally don't feel like I'm the one educating
my children. I didn't teach my son (8) to add, subtract, multipy or how
percentages work. He figured it out on his own. I never sat down to teach him to
read. But he reads most words and sounds out the ones he douesn't know. I don't
teach him about snakes or lizards or the solar system or politicsor history.
He watches television , both educational and not supposed to be educational
programs, movies, goes to museums, and litens and participates in conversations
about various subjects. My daughter (14) has learned much in the same way. They
are responsible for their own education as far as I'm concerned. I went to
public school and I still feel as though most of my learning was on my own.
Second, as much as I love unschooling and am excited to see other people home
with their kids too, it's not for every family and situation. My home was no
place to be during my childhood and I'm so glad I had a place to go. Even if
it was school.

Regina


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pam sorooshian

On Feb 12, 2004, at 9:37 AM, MDMomatHm@... wrote:

> Second, as much as I love unschooling and am excited to see other
> people home
> with their kids too, it's not for every family and situation. My home
> was no
> place to be during my childhood and I'm so glad I had a place to go.
> Even if
> it was school.
>

Hello Regina!

It is always a question in my mind whether we even do a service tfor
some people to even point them torward unschooling. Yesterday I talked
to a mom on the phone who is taking her 13 yo son out of school. He is
failing. I didn't talk about unschooling, just the legalities and how
to get him out. SHE said to me: "I don't think he's a textbook kind of
kid and I wish we could just live our lives and let him learn naturally
as we go along."

I said, very quietly, "You can."

She talked some more about her ideas, not knowing that ANYBODY else had
ever had such ideas. She could have invented unschooling all by
herself. TOO COOL!!!!!

-pam
National Home Education Network
<www.NHEN.org>
Serving the entire homeschooling community since 1999
through information, networking and public relations.

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/12/04 10:47:08 AM, MDMomatHm@... writes:

<< as much as I love unschooling and am excited to see other people home
with their kids too, it's not for every family and situation. My home was no
place to be during my childhood and I'm so glad I had a place to go. Even if
it was school. >>

Amen.
Me too.

Sandra

Dawn Adams

Rheta asks:
I was posed a question today that I wasn't sure how to answer and
figured if anyone could help me with this, it would be all of you. The
question (actually statement) was: Years ago the kids in this country
were being raised by farmers and factory workers and all they knew was
working in the fields and their factory jobs. The only thing that
educated them was the public school system. If everyone went back to
homeschooling, how would we keep from becoming a nation of idiots? If
there were no public schools, a lot of kids would be raised by drug
addicts and people who were uneducated themselves and would have no idea
how to be responsible for their own children's education.
>>>>>

School as we know it is only about 150 years old. I'm no American but I know your country is quite a bit older than that. Ask your friend to do the math. Does he/she reallt think the USA was founded by idiots? Then tell him/her to go read some history. Sorry this is snarky but really, that's an ignorant question based on no knowledge and I'm not sure it deserves a reply. :)

Dawn (in NS)


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queenjane555

--- In [email protected], "Mark and Rheta
Wallingford" <wallingford@m...> wrote:
>If everyone went back to homeschooling, how would we keep from
becoming a nation of idiots?

I guess for me, how i would answer would depend on the type of
conversation i wanted to have. If it was a friend or casual
acquientance (ack, sp?), i wouldnt take on the whole public school
system. I'd simply say that this is what works for us, seems to be
meeting my child's needs, and we didnt have the greatest experience
in school. Sometimes people think that we are attacking their choice
to send their kid to school, by making this choice for ourselves.

I usually ask people how much they actually remember from their own
schooling, and how much of it is really useful to their current life.
I am lucky enough to be surrounded by people who had less than
wonderful school careers, who can't imagine why anyone would defend
school, so this doesnt come up much. And for the people in my life
(like seamus' paternal grandmother who is a history professor)who
don't want to understand, i don't waste alot of effort on convincing
them.

Katherine

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/12/2004 12:22:06 PM Eastern Standard Time,
wallingford@... writes:
<<Years ago the kids in this country
were being raised by farmers and factory workers and all they knew was
working in the fields and their factory jobs. The only thing that
educated them was the public school system. If everyone went back to
homeschooling, how would we keep from becoming a nation of idiots? If
there were no public schools, a lot of kids would be raised by drug
addicts and people who were uneducated themselves and would have no idea
how to be responsible for their own children" "s education.>>


There are many ways people can learn without the direct instruction of their
parents. I think that is a lot of what unschooling is about. The internet is
available to everybody at most public libraries...not just the wealthy or
well-educated. So are videos, DVD's, books, and CD's.

As far as "drug addicts and people who are uneducated", their children are
the ones who I often see receiving the worst end of a public education--poor
schools, poor teachers who care about class management more than anything else,
no respect at school and little at home. I tend to think that some of these
kids would be better off at home. At least their parents and siblings would get
to know them. At least they would be less likely to feel like failures. If
their parents felt the freedom of being responsible for their own children, I
think it would be good for the whole family.

--Jacqueline


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Danielle Conger

>If everyone went back to homeschooling, how would we keep from
becoming a nation of idiots?
--------------------------------------------------------

Honestly, tell this guy to go learn some American history beginning with Abraham Lincoln, who came from the humblest of farmer roots, taught himself everything he knew from math and reading to law and went on to become one of the greatest American presidents. He was not only responsible for holding the nation together and the 13th amendment, he represents the turning point from antebellum to modern America. He was not homeschooled; he was unschooled.

--danielle

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[email protected]

In a message dated 2/12/2004 6:35:30 PM Eastern Standard Time,
queenjane555@... writes:
Sometimes people think that we are attacking their choice
to send their kid to school, by making this choice for ourselves. <<<<<<


Ahhhh...... that would be ME!

~Kelly, attacking evangelist


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[email protected]

In a message dated 2/12/2004 7:16:15 PM Eastern Standard Time,
ivorygrace7@... writes:
As far as "drug addicts and people who are uneducated", their children are
the ones who I often see receiving the worst end of a public education--poor
schools, poor teachers who care about class management more than anything
else,
no respect at school and little at home. I tend to think that some of these
kids would be better off at home. At least their parents and siblings would
get
to know them. At least they would be less likely to feel like failures. If
their parents felt the freedom of being responsible for their own children, I
think it would be good for the whole family.<<<<


I'm not so sure about that! Neither situation is good, but at least at
school, the child may find *someone* who cares. He may go to visit a classmate who
has a "normal" homelife and see that there is "something better out there" than
what he sees at home or with relatives.

Drug addicts think of getting their next fix, NOT what the child's passion
is.

The "uneducated" think that school is the *best* chance the child has to get
out of the hell-hole THEY're in (and they must have landed there because they
didn't graduate or listen in school ). They believe what they were taught in
school.

~Kelly


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Dawn Adams

>If everyone went back to homeschooling, how would we keep from
becoming a nation of idiots?
>>>>

I just thought, that tidbit about...Was it Andrew Jackson?...being taught to read by his wife would be a nice poke. The question is dumb to begin with and assumes people need school to be 'smart'.

Dawn (in NS)


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Fetteroll

on 2/12/04 10:27 AM, Mark and Rheta Wallingford at wallingford@...
wrote:

> Years ago the kids in this country
> were being raised by farmers and factory workers and all they knew was
> working in the fields and their factory jobs. The only thing that
> educated them was the public school system.

What those people back then had was *way* less access to information and
next to no free time to use information that wasn't directly related to
keeping them alive (or saving their souls.) When someone has to spend 12
hours a day laboring in order to provide the barest essentials, there's no
money or time left for anything else, including learning.

(There's an interesting statistic that says something like a single issue of
the New York Times has more information in it than was available in printed
form in the 1700s.)

The wealthy were well educated without public schools. Some went to private
schools, certainly, but tutors were common. But whatever the choice of
learning, the important part is that given the freedom not to educatate
their kids, parents *choose* to make sure their kids had access to learning.

Many more people in the US have access to the leisure time to help their
kids learn. And you can't turn around without tripping over information. The
farmers and factory workers of ages past had none of that.

> If everyone went back to
> homeschooling, how would we keep from becoming a nation of idiots? If
> there were no public schools, a lot of kids would be raised by drug
> addicts and people who were uneducated themselves and would have no idea
> how to be responsible for their own children’s education.

Homeschooling isn't and won't be a requirement forced on people who don't
want to do it so the question is ridiculous. It's a choice for those who
*do* want to do it.

The point of homeschooling isn't to replace public schools. The point is to
provide another option to choose from.

Joyce

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/13/2004 6:10:15 AM Central Standard Time,
fetteroll@... writes:


> When someone has to spend 12
> hours a day laboring in order to provide the barest essentials, there's no
> money or time left for anything else, including learning.
>

And IMHO those people were far from stupid. How many of us today would simply
perish if we were thrown into similar circumstances because we have no clue
how to survive on our own?

It may sound silly but I remember reading the "Little House" books and being
amazed at smart those people were.
Laura


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[email protected]

<< >If everyone went back to homeschooling, how would we keep from
becoming a nation of idiots? >>

We weren't a nation of idiots before we had schools.
And now that we have schools, they produce a small amount of "product" with a
HUGE human slag heap of people who would have thought they were real and
whole if school hadn't told them different.

But a child in a farmhouse or city apartment in 1830 who had maybe a Bible in
the house for input, maybe one trip to church a week, who learned from
stories and songs (MAYBE) is no comparison to a kid in 2004 who has the internet,
hundreds of books and magazines (and unlimited numbers more all around in
libraries, thrift stores, book stores, garage sales), radio, TV, recorded media out
the wazoo needing only a turntable, cassette player or CD player to access.
No comparison whatsoever.

Oh! We have Bibles, too. Searchable bibles, whatever translation you want.
With commentary. It's like a seminary any time of the day or night, for
those who are interested. And illustrated? Not counting videos and movies of
Bible stories, and cartoons and musicals, we can access tons of paintings
online, book of Kells close-up detail, archeological bits, photographed in color.
Those 1830 Bibles might have had two illustrations, a map of Palestine and
then the eastern Mediterranean, and some line drawings of shekkels and the ark
of the convenant (which we can see in Raiders of the Lost Ark <bwg>).

Now what was the question?

Sandra

arcarpenter2003

--- In [email protected], ivorygrace7@a... wrote:
<<<As far as "drug addicts and people who are uneducated", their
children are
the ones who I often see receiving the worst end of a public
education--poor
schools, poor teachers who care about class management more than
anything else,
no respect at school and little at home. I tend to think that some of
these
kids would be better off at home. At least their parents and siblings
would get

to know them. At least they would be less likely to feel like
failures. If
their parents felt the freedom of being responsible for their own
children, I
think it would be good for the whole family.>>>

In _Teach Your Own_ there's a reference to a family who wrote into
GWS. Both parents were addicted to drugs, but they decided to
homeschool because their son was getting a double whammy at school.
Their decision to homeschool made them clean up their lives and kick
their habits. Of course, that's because it was *their* decision and
their committment. But I'm guessing they might not be the only ones
who have had a situation like this.

Peace,
Amy

PS -- are my messages still being labeled as spam if I post on the
website? I'm trying to go No Mail again. Thanks!

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/13/2004 3:15:08 PM Eastern Standard Time,
arcarpenter@... writes:
<<Both parents were addicted to drugs, but they decided to
homeschool because their son was getting a double whammy at school.
Their decision to homeschool made them clean up their lives and kick
their habits. Of course, that's because it was *their* decision and
their committment. But I'm guessing they might not be the only ones
who have had a situation like this.>>


This is exactly the type of situation I was referring to <g>. I realize that
unschooling might not be the best choice for every family, but so many
families don't even realize that this is an option. I'm tired of parents telling me
that I'm *lucky* that I have such great kids. It's not luck! The same
parents will then go and holler at their own kids because they're not doing good in
school. The parents don't blame the school; they blame the kids. Many
parents that I know really think that they got *bad* kids. Their belief is that
school is there so that their kids can have a better life, and if their child
isn't doing well in school then he or she must have something wrong with him.


--Jacqueline


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