Recently my wife and I made a hard decision regarding our children. It was a decision that for many years I had never even considered or had second thoughts about. Since this decision we have received many interesting reactions and some have even been so forward in their opinions that it bordered on bullying us. I thought I would share some of the things that I have learned and why we are very happy about our decisions to take our kids out of the public school system.
First, let me explain my views of the public school system. I have shared in prior blogging posts my affection for some wonderful teachers that I was blessed to have had the privilege to learn from. I have shared some of the differences that I have noticed between the ways schools are run today versus how they were run when I was a boy. Each time I have shared my opinions regarding schools and schooling I have been overwhelmed with the number of opinions and debates that are created. Personally, I like to hear others opinions and I welcome the debates. Some of the debates, however, have helped me recognize something very disturbing and it even frightens me a little. It is something that comes from the very core of what America was established upon. Freedom.
I will explain this later. First I would like to mention that I have asked a dozen people whom I know what their feelings are about what is most important in schooling their children. The answers included “to prepare them for college” or “to understand the basics” and “to get good grades” or “to have good teachers”. All of the answers had something to do with their children learning and being educated. All great answers and I would agree wholeheartedly. The most important aspect of school for my children is for them to learn as much as they can.
I then explained to these same twelve people that I had pulled my son out of school and was going to home-school him via a distance learning program and that I had also pulled my daughter out of high school and had her enrolled into college. These same people who had just agreed with me that schooling was for educating then exploded into opinions surrounding the huge mistake I was making. Their biggest area of concern was “what about their social life”.
The discussions at times became heated and I would just walk away. It’s not worth arguing about. How can anyone be concerned about my children’s social skills? My kids are happy and well adjusted. They have the ability to talk to anyone and they are very comfortable with who they are. In addition, our church provides a plethora of opportunities to socialize.
Regardless of what level my own kids’ social skills are at, the important thing that I take away is this. Why would school be the focus as to gaining social skills? Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand that kids naturally learn to associate with others in the school environment. But what are they learning? When is the last time you walked through a school hallway when classes are out and kids are all over the place? What do you see? What do you hear?
As part of my job I am required to be in schools quite often. I experience the “school” environment all of the time. It’s not the same environment that the schools I attended in the 70’s and 80’s. Girls didn’t dress like that. Kids didn’t talk like that. Kids of the same gender were not holding hands or making out in the halls. Kids did not flip off teachers and other adults. There was still some semblance of respect.
The language is the biggest eye opener. I am shocked at what I hear in a typical middle school. The words and topics I hear aren’t much different than what I would hear when I lived in California and was required to visit some of the projects or the “hood”. You hear things that would make Andrew Dice Clay proud. Every other word is the “F” word and nearly all topics are swirling around sex. Not to mention the amount of bullying that runs rampant in the schools even with all the stop bullying campaigns. I was absolutely floored a couple of days ago when a young woman of about 15 or 16 years old walked by me, in the halls of one of the Meridian, ID high schools, wearing a t-shirt that said "ADMIT IT: You'd Go To Jail For This".
This is the “social” life we are expected to use to teach our kids? Seems to me that we need to rethink what environment our kids are learning their social skills. If that’s how it is in the home too, then I can see why there would be no concern for what kids are experiencing at school.
To me, public school is one of the last places I want my kids to experience from a social aspect. Then there is the classroom aspect. This is where all that “learning” is supposed to be taking place. I also have a lot of concerns in this area.
First, statistics show that the United States has fallen well behind. Once atop all of the rankings, we now find our country mired in mediocrity at best. Currently, according to Pearson, in the “cognitive skills and educ
ational attainment” category, the U.S. ranks 14th. We are well behind the likes of South Korea, Japan, Finland, the UK, Canada and Poland to name a few. In the literacy category, we rank 24th. In Science we fell to 27th. In math we are a disappointing 35th.
How have we fallen so far from the top? The government has increased spending on education tremendously but it continues to produce negative results. They’ve tried different policies like “No Child Left Behind” which was a total failure. I think the premise to make sure that every child made it is good. The implementation and process of the program however, was a complete disaster.
Do you remember watching Little House on the Prairie? Remember the way the children were schooled? All of them met in a single classroom regardless of age or education level. There was no segregation of classes. Why did this all change? Who made that happen? It wasn’t done because of poor education levels because the United States dominated at the top all the way into the 1950’s and 60’s.
Some key factors that I see in the fall of our country in education; First, the federal government. Before the federal government began regulating the public school system all was well. The classroom environment was better. Though we may not understand it, the single classroom worked for a number of reasons. It allowed interaction between older and younger students. Older students often helped the younger students. Younger students had older mentors to look up to.
Second, teachers were also better. Now don’t get me wrong we have some amazing teachers still today, my lovely wife being one of them. What sets the teachers of the past apart from today is the freedoms that they had in teaching. Teachers were not hired by school officials, but rather by the communities in which they were teaching. They were held accountable by the parents and the towns. Discipline was administered by the teachers. Students were held accountable.
Today’s teachers are in a completely different environment. The bad ones are not held accountable and therefor do not care for the students or the progress or lack thereof. The good teachers are shackled by so many regulations and programs that they cannot show what they are capable of. They cannot truly adjust their direction based on the real needs of their students, individually or as a whole. The no child left behind program sounded great. But it put all the focus on the lower level students and kept the students who were already at the level or above, held back in their learning.
The government did finally recognize this error and so is now implementing “Common Core”. I don’t really want to get to deep into this as I feel there is good and bad in this program as well. The good comes from the higher standard that students are required to achieve now. The bad comes from some of the content being taught or the lack thereof. But that is another debate. All in all, I do not see this making a major improvement in our country’s overall performance because history has shown that the federal government doesn’t have the ability to do so. And it will cost the taxpayers more billions of dollars to experience more failure.
I mentioned earlier that there was something that frightened me. Well, the one factor that I haven’t mentioned yet that has the biggest impact on the failure of our education system is the reason that we made the change with our own children. We are the factor. The parents of students have the biggest impact. The scary thing in public schools is how the school has slowly become a “day care” center instead of a “learning” center.
So many parents fail to take part in the learning progress of their children once they have dropped them off for their first day of 1st grade. Most parents never attend the parent teachers’ conferences. Most parents never discipline their child for bad grades or missing assignments. Most parents do not even know what their children are being taught. Most parents do not get involved in the voting process for the local school boards. Most parents do not even know who sits on the board.
These same parents try to hold the teachers accountable for everything. They send scathing emails to teachers or call them and berate them or call the principal and complain. As if the teachers have the time and ability to sit with each individual child and make sure they are doing their work and understand the work.
Combining students that aren't held accountable with parents who are not involved and the results should be expected. Most of the successful students in today’s schools have parents that know what is going on, have a relationship with the student and the teacher, and hold their children accountable for their actions.
So what is my fear and what does it have to do with freedom?
I fear that the government has taken too much control in our school system and the regulations take away our freedom to choose what is being taught and how.
I fear that the social life that our children are exposed to takes away my freedom to protect them. My children are not allowed into a rated “R” movie yet they experience beyond rated “R” in the very schools that we are sending them to.
I fear that the majority of people do not get involved with their kids and it is going to affect their freedoms later in life. Education is vital to keeping our country free. It helps us control our government rather than the other way around. It helps us stay atop innovation which creates dreamers and jobs and wealth. It helps us understand our history and what made us great as a nation. It keeps us from making the same mistakes again.
I am choosing to be involved in my children’s’ education. I am choosing to show them other social skills. I am choosing to teach them respect for others and the importance of education. I am choosing to monitor the content of the learning. I am choosing to make sure they are learning at an acceptable pace. I am choosing to invest in their well-being.
Once my children have achieved what the “public schools” consider completion of high school education then I will choose to place them in higher education or help them enter into work programs. If this happens when they are 18, great. If it happens when they are 15 or 16, super.
At the end of the day, we all agree that school is for learning. It’s not really for social skill building. So if you take this into account, perhaps you will be more understanding of our decision. This was not an easy decision. I didn’t think there was a better way. I didn’t think we had the resources to make it happen. It’s been some sacrifice, but it has been worth it.
Just like it was worth it for the parents or Thomas Edison, Asel Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Alexander Graham Bell, Pearl S. Buck, Robert Frost, Blake Griffin, Taylor Swift, Tim Tebow, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Ray Kroc, Colonel Harland Sanders, Dave Thomas, and 14 other men who became President of the United States, just to name a few.
It is not the path for everyone and I would never fault anyone for leaving their kids in the public school system. My wife teaches in public school. Regardless of where you choose to educate your children, I would hope that you would, as a parent, be as involved as much as possible. It will make all the difference in the success of your child. The more success they have under your tutelage will provide them with more freedom later. Freedom to become whatever and whomever they desire to become. Great leaders, doctors, lawyers, scientists, teachers, etc. Most importantly great parents to raise the next generation of greatness.
I stood and began to wave my bright orange hat hoping that my Dad would see my signal. I was in a position that kept me from sight of the deer. Mark continued to watch the deer and it began to walk past my Dad's position and closer to where Michael was stationed. At about that time another deer came out of the same treeline. This was a smaller doe. The doe followed the buck for about a hundred yards and then they stopped and cautiously began eating the dry grass and brush.
Our excitement was short lived however as it was now time to clean the animals and haul them back to the vehicle. Dad, Michael and I gutted the deer and then we quartered the buck. Michael and Dad each carried a shoulder and Robert and Mark each carried a hind quarter. The doe was kept whole. We took the back legs and cut a hole in them right around the knee area. Then we took the front legs and threaded them through the holes of the rear legs. This allowed me to stick my arms through the legs and carry the doe like a backpack. The head was draped onto my shoulder. They younger boys took turns caring the head of the buck.
