Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 7, 1992 TAG: 9202070383
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRED C. JONES III
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
PUBLIC SCHOOLS HAVE PROBLEMS MORE PROFOUND THAN GUNS OR DRUGS
MARGIE Fisher's column (Feb. 2) held little fact and much conjecture. It contained classic examples of the myths perpetuated by the uninformed about home schooling.She even created some new ones. For instance, I was unaware that by home educating my children, I was sentencing them to a lifetime of poverty.
Other such myths include:
Home schoolers are religious zealots shielding their children from outside influences and giving them a skewed view of the world.
Formal training is required to effectively teach.
Teaching is required for learning to occur.
The proper way to socialize children is to group approximately 20 together, based solely on age, for seven hours daily.
Now let's talk reality.
My nephew in Florida hates to read. He will tell you that is because his teacher has each student read before the class, and then the students vote on how each individual does.
I have a niece in Tennessee in the second grade. She brought home a list of 250 words, along with a note to her parents that if she did not memorize the spelling of those words, she would have to "repeat" the year.
My brother was dubbed "Dick Backwards" by his first-grade teacher. Dyslexia was not recognized then, but failure was.
The nickname and the failure followed him all through his formal schooling until he was able to enlist in the Navy at 18. He eventually became the youngest person ever to be a master diver in the Navy. He will tell you that was in spite of the public schools rather than because of them.
Ms. Fisher implied that any home schooler who achieves "success" (her quotation marks) would have to be a genius to succeed in such an environment. My own daughter must fall into that category.
By the end of "second grade" she did not read a word. In the eight months since then, she has read "The Call of the Wild," "Oliver Twist," "Tom Sawyer," "Huckleberry Finn," at least 50 volumes in each of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series, and many others. She reads eight or more hours each day if she has the material. I can count on one hand the number of hours my wife and I spent teaching Ali to read.
I don't believe Ali is a genius. She is a child whose natural curiosity was allowed to blossom. She was not pushed to read before she was ready.
When she was ready, she learned at a dizzying rate and learned well. This method of learning is so different from school that many of us prefer to call it home education or even unschooling.
I respect the call for legislation requiring home-educating parents to be idyllic teachers. With that in mind, isn't it infinitely more urgent that a law be passed requiring our public schools to be staffed only by idyllic teachers?
There could be home-schooling failures (though I have heard of none). But as Ms. Fisher pointed out, our public schools have problems, and they are more profound than guns and drugs. It is a mistake to suggest home education should not be allowed as an alternative to public schooling. I invite her to find out more about this subject, lest she be accused of having the same restricted education she claims home educators provide.
I will close with the following quote:
"It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty." - Albert Einstein
Fred C. Jones III, a former veterinarian, farms in Pilot.