Homeschooled Kid Thinks He's a Ninja and Attacks People

[Limewater]

I think, and this is an over generalization, that children are home schooled for one, out of very few reasons:

1) The child is truly gifted, and no gifted schools are available in the immediate area.
2) The parents think their child is gifted, but isn't. The parents think they can give their child a better education than the school system, but they aren't trained to teach = fail.
3) The parents want to include religion in their child's education, but no private schools are available in the immediate area.
4) The parent's are sheltering wackos.

You're right, that is an over generalization.

Here are some more reasons:

5) The child has ADD or ADHD and the parents don't wish to medicate him into sitting still for seven hours every day.
6) The family chooses, for whatever reason, to live in a bad school district and homeschools rather than moving to a better one.
7) The parents are Libertarians or align with some other small-government political ideology and are not crazy about government-run education.
The family has encountered some form of discrimination at public schools.
9) The family, for whatever reason, has to move around a lot and wants to provide their children with a consistent education rather than hopping in and out of school districts.
10) The child has a particular strong interest of some sort, be it writing, dance, electronics, acting, or whatever, and the parents want to encourage that interest and allow the child to pursue it.
11) The family experiences social pressure from other homeschoolers in their social circle.
12) Private schools in the area are too expensive.
13) The parents had a lot of negative experiences during their school years and are attempting to spare that for their children.
14) The parents just really enjoy spending time with their children and don't like the idea of shipping them off every day.
15) Parents are wary of political messages their children will receive in school.
16) Parents like the idea of a more personalized educational experience, rather than the one-size fits all approach of most public schools.

I could go on, but I really doubt anyone is going to read the preceeding wall of text.

But Luke, you're really pretty wrong on your point #2. Specifically this part:

The parents think they can give their child a better education than the school system, but they aren't trained to teach = fail.

For one thing, this is a misrepresentation of how homeschooling generally works. It's not just a one-child classroom with the parent acting as an active teaching standing in front of a chalk board. Parents purchase or borrow professionally-prepared curricula for their children, and generally serve primarily as managers, graders, and tutors for problem areas.

Teachers aren't just trained to teach. They're trained to manage and teach large groups of people simultaneously. A lot of those skills simply aren't necessary in a homeschool environment. While the parents generally don't have the level of teaching education and experience that professional educators have, the task itself is a lot easier.

Luke, you do catering part-time, right? I'm sure you're a great cook, and you probably have a lot of great experience and maybe some training. But I don't need to hire you to cook dinner for my family tonight. I don't have training or a lot of experience, but it's a much easier task.

[Luke]

For one thing, this is a misrepresentation of how homeschooling generally works. It's not just a one-child classroom with the parent acting as an active teaching standing in front of a chalk board. Parents purchase or borrow professionally-prepared curricula for their children, and generally serve primarily as managers, graders, and tutors for problem areas.

Teachers aren't just trained to teach. They're trained to manage and teach large groups of people simultaneously. A lot of those skills simply aren't necessary in a homeschool environment. While the parents generally don't have the level of teaching education and experience that professional educators have, the task itself is a lot easier.

Luke, you do catering part-time, right? I'm sure you're a great cook, and you probably have a lot of great experience and maybe some training. But I don't need to hire you to cook dinner for my family tonight. I don't have training or a lot of experience, but it's a much easier task.

My point was that not only are teachers just trained to teach, but that they are trained to teach, and certified to teach. I understand all the other stuff that comes with teaching, since I'm married to a teacher. These teachers are also managed, and regulated. Not sure how home school teachers are managed, certified, and regulated. I just don't know enough about home schooling to say.

I have no idea what you are talking about in your last paragraph. I used to own a catering company, I did attend the cordon bleu academy of culinary arts, I did the cooking for the business, but I don't know how any of that pertains to home schooling.

[Limewater]

My point was that not only are teachers just trained to teach, but that they are trained to teach, and certified to teach. I understand all the other stuff that comes with teaching, since I'm married to a teacher.

I actually know a decent bit about teaching, too. I'm not just making crap up. I come from a family with a lot of teachers myself. My grandmother was a teacher. My dad is a university professor in the College of Education. One uncle is a retired high school History teacher, one is a high school Spanish teacher, one is a preschool teacher, another taught and prepared training materials in the private sector for years and now works in education at the Naval Academy, one aunt is recently retired high school guidance counselor, one (recently) ex-Aunt is high school Math teacher, my brother is currently teaching English to junior high students in Japan, and my wife gets her PhD on Friday and has taught (not TA'ed) college-level Mathematics up through Differential Equations as well as teaching junior high students in a gifted and talented program. I personally have never served as a lead instructor in a class, but I have been a TA several times, and I did participate a program at my current institution intended to improve the quality of instruction in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) disciplines. This included reading the latest "research" in education in those fields. I put "research" in quotation marks because I was not impressed. Perhaps I'm prejudiced, but none of the teachers in my family who have gotten degrees in education considered the stuff they were taught about teaching to have been worth a whole lot. A couple have actually commented that that they teach despite their education.

For what it's worth, I am in grad school right now. I entered it with the intention of becoming a professor myself, because I'm really interested in teaching. However, the two-body problem and the current academic job market have made that career path less of an option for me now.

These teachers are also managed, and regulated. Not sure how home school teachers are managed, certified, and regulated. I just don't know enough about home schooling to say.

It varies from state to state, and I can only speak for Alabama. However, in that state homeschoolers are required to give a very detailed accounting of grades, subjects studied, the amount of time spent on each subject each day, and a few other things I don't remember. Students also have to pass the state high school graduation exam, which is the same one required of public school students.

I have no idea what you are talking about in your last paragraph. I used to own a catering company, I did attend the cordon bleu academy of culinary arts, I did the cooking for the business, but I don't know how any of that pertains to home schooling.

My point was that you have lots of great education and experience in a certain skill-- cooking. I have no real education in cooking beyond looking up recipes and minor experimentation in my own kitchen. You can do a catering job and prepare and serve large groups of people lots of great food. You would do a much better job than I would. That's where your education and experience really helps a lot. However, even without education or a whole lot of experience, I can do a fine job cooking a small meal for my family.

That was meant to be an illustration of something similar to teaching. With your education and experience, you can do a lot of things that I can't, and serve a lot more people simultaneously than I can. However, I can do just fine on a much smaller scale.

In a school, the teacher has to serve huge numbers of students simultaneously. This can be a difficult task. This is what teachers are trained to do. In a one-on-one scenario, the problem is a lot simpler, and a lot of the skills that teachers develop don't really add a lot of value. This is part of the reason why people with no certification or teaching experience can function so successfully in one-on-one tutoring. Teachers don't bring nearly the extra value to a one-on-one situation as they do a classroom environment.

I'm an Electrical Engineer. I can do a lot of things that are worth a whole lot, but I don't really add a lot of value when you're trying to hook up your home stereo system.

[pepharytheworm]

Oh no, we are not getting into a morality discussion based off a homeschooling topic. We've had way too many of these spawn from religion, marriage, emulation, and every other bloody topic we can think of on this site, and I'm not about to let it happen again. Not in a thread that's supposed to be about a bizarre news article concerning a homeschooled kid thinking he's a ninja with a machete.

If you want to debate it, make a thread for it or use one of the multitude of threads that delve into that area that we haven't locked yet for turning into a virtual text-based fist fight. But leave this one alone.

If I see one more, thread locked.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Time to do as promised. We should have been talking about ninjas not school.
This could have been an epic thread but turned sour. And just so everyone knows we are all equal retards no matter where you went to school.

[Limewater]

Time to do as promised. We should have been talking about ninjas not school.
This could have been an epic thread but turned sour. And just so everyone knows we are all equal retards no matter where you went to school.

Huh? I don't see where morality has really been a substantial part of any of the last several posts.

[Luke]

Time to do as promised. We should have been talking about ninjas not school.
This could have been an epic thread but turned sour. And just so everyone knows we are all equal retards no matter where you went to school.

I thought Lime and I were sharing common ground, just explaining our positions. No ill will from me.

[Limewater]

I thought Lime and I were sharing common ground, just explaining our positions. No ill will from me.

Yeah. I guess others may find it obnoxious, but (relatively) adult discussions like this are part of the reason I visit these forums.

Well, that and relationship advice, obviously.