Not all home school advocates are doing it for religious reasons-some just can’t afford to send their child to a private school that emphasizes learning and does not put up with all the nonsense that the public schools have to deal with. It also helps that home school parents are engaged in their child’s education rather than just shipping them off to the big box. The education system in this country is highly dysfunctional for many reasons including some incompetent/uncaring teachers, disengaged parents, and little hellions who have never been taught how to behave (and never will). Our pharmaceutical industry also plays a role-as a Pediatric ICU nurse, I have encountered kids as young as 5 years old on attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder medications prescribed at the request of the parents because their child was interfering with the parents ability to do their own thing. Kids that used to be exuberant and mischievous are now diagnosed as having a psych issue and loaded up with enough meds to tranquilize an elephant. A two year old who says “no” too many times is now labeled as having Oppositional-Defiant Disorder or BiPolar and placed on medications. No one seems willing to identify a potential cause of Attention Deficit on a major culprit, the use of non-stop television, computer games, etc. as a cause for the short attention spans. Couple that with the fact that we do not allow kids to be kids anymore-my peers did not go to preschool, most did not go to kindergarten and didn’t learn the alphabet until first grade where a single teacher taught 30+ kids the basics without teaching assistants, computers, and other “must haves” and we performed well.
Not all home school advocates are doing it for religious reasons-some just can’t afford to send their child to a private school that emphasizes learning and does not put up with all the nonsense that the public schools have to deal with. It also helps that home school parents are engaged in their child’s education rather than just shipping them off to the big box. The education system in this country is highly dysfunctional for many reasons including some incompetent/uncaring teachers, disengaged parents, and little hellions who have never been taught how to behave (and never will). Our pharmaceutical industry also plays a role-as a Pediatric ICU nurse, I have encountered kids as young as 5 years old on attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder medications prescribed at the request of the parents because their child was interfering with the parents ability to do their own thing. Kids that used to be exuberant and mischievous are now diagnosed as having a psych issue and loaded up with enough meds to tranquilize an elephant. A two year old who says “no” too many times is now labeled as having Oppositional-Defiant Disorder or BiPolar and placed on medications. No one seems willing to identify a potential cause of Attention Deficit on a major culprit, the use of non-stop television, computer games, etc. as a cause for the short attention spans. Couple that with the fact that we do not allow kids to be kids anymore-my peers did not go to preschool, most did not go to kindergarten and didn’t learn the alphabet until first grade where a single teacher taught 30+ kids the basics without teaching assistants, computers, and other “must haves” and we performed well.