[freeschools]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

First off, I don't agree with how these people are being treated, but...



I believe in qualifications and training.

These Mennonites don't believe in going to the colleges and universities that "qualify", for several reasons but basically they ressent the godless curriculum, the pedagogic being taught and plainly the unnecessarily long studies to simply become a primary school teacher: it is simply getting ridiculous (450 hours of pyschopedagogics). Are children getting better, learning better today than 50 years ago for it? Pieces of paper do not make teachers who care and lead by example.

And I've had some amount of experience with "home schooled" children. Children with parents that believed they were plenty qualified to homeschool their own kids but it turned out they were not qualified at all.

Possible, I know quite a few public school children who are pretty ignorant.

Il est comment ton français, mon petit coco?

Whoops! Some of these kids knew their bible pretty good, but I'll be damned if they could actually read it.

Trop gros, pas crédible.

You exaggerate, this makes you less credible.

I have never seen a Christian child who knows his Bible and cannot read it. Unless you mean by "read" how to critique it, deconstructively take it apart, so as to be a good faithful atheist?

Have you ever taught a perfectly intelligent 10 year-old how to read the word "cat"? It sucks.

All my children are homeschooled, read by 6 and all are taught to read in at least 3 languages. My big one takes 5 languages (French, English, German, Spanish and Latin) and speaks Low-German with his mother and the other ones are following in his footsteps. He got excellent grades independently corrected by State officials in France during last year (120 assignments) and he will pass his brevet (end of middle school certificate) this year at a private French school in Montreal (2 day session) and I believe he will do very well (we have already gone through some mock exams, yes, we can even read the answers to the mock exams although we are not "certified" by the god State).

http://pouruneecolelibre.blogspot.com/

(enough fighting simplistic prejudices for today)


Ah, have you read The Case Against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen by Dr Robert Epstein ?

(We are getting away from government enforced curricula here but some people need to see their dogma challenged here).

Espstein believes high school is a result of the Industrial Revolution (factories to massively educate children) and that many of the problems associated to teenagers are actually caused by the way they are educated (by the laws and infrastructures that force them to be educated a certain way: in particular long schooling, all the time, in high schools).

High schools may actually infantilize teenagers. Governments should step BACK and not rule more and more in this domain!

A quote:
"Our educational institutions today are cursed by at least four fatal legacies of the Industrial Revolution—ideas that may have been helpful a century ago but have no place in today’s world.
In today’s fast-paced world, education needs to be spread out over a lifetime, and the main thing we need to teach our young people is to love the process of learning.
First, although cars can be assembled on demand, it’s absurd to teach people when they’re not ready to learn. As the brilliant German educator Kurt Hahn (the founder of Outward Bound) said, teaching people who are aren’t ready is like “pouring and pouring into a jug and never looking to see whether the lid is off.”

Second, although mass education was exciting in the era that invented mass production, it does a great disservice to the vast majority of students. People have radically different learning styles and abilities, and effective learning—learning that benefits all students—is necessarily individualized and self-paced. This is the elephant in the classroom from which no teacher can hide.

Third, although it’s efficient to cram all apparently essential knowledge into the first two decades of life, the main thing we teach most students with this approach is to hate school. In today’s fast-paced world, education needs to be spread out over a lifetime, and the main thing we need to teach our young people is to love the process of learning.

Finally, whereas that first compulsory-education law in Massachusetts was competency-based, the system that grew in its wake requires all young people to attend school, no matter what they know. Even worse, the system provides no incentives for students to master material quickly, and few or no meaningful options for young people who do leave school.
"

More freedom not ever more government involvement , not more laws, not more programs to be scrupulously followed for all otherwise "standards are not being met".

(I hope my time is not wasted here)