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Re: homeschooling-public school teachers are scapegoats
Posted by Ellen on 7/16/05
Wow, you really got the experience of a public school teacher
right...I am one and everything you said was right on the
money...most of our teachers are creative and work very
hard...but the distractions for the kids are many....still I
don't blame anyone who chooses to homeschool at all..it could
be a good decision for many kids... On 7/13/05, carr wrote:
> Having worked several years in a large public high
> school(though not as a teacher), my impression of the
> problems of public education is that they have little to do
> with teachers. Most teachers I met were gifted, creative
> individuals and I would have loved to have been in their
> classes years ago when I was a teenager. They are doing
> their best to teach a population that has many distractions.
> Also, in today's litigious society, teachers are relatively
> powerless to combat disruptions in their classrooms and
> personal accountability for student behavior is an
> increasingly rare thing. Rather, the teachers become the
> scapegoat for anything and everything negative that happens
> in their classrooms. They often have little administrative
> or parental back-up for decisions that would benefit their
> teaching environment. This must be very disheartening for
> teachers and burnout and poor morale seems to be on the
> rise, probably much worse in some schools than others.
> That said, I have chosen to homeschool my children for at
> least part of their education.(And I am one of those people
> who used to think homeschooling was a very wierd thing
> before I had my own kids). This has been an agonizing
> decision that required months of thought, prayer and
> research. Am I nervous that I am not a teacher? Yes, I
> certainly am. However, though I may not have a teaching
> certificate and all that it requires, I do feel confident
> that I know my what makes my child tick, what her passions
> are, what scares and intimidates her, what motivates her
> etc. better than any other person out there. I feel this
> knowledge plus a desperate love for my child and the fact
> that there is a one on one ratio of teaching will help us
> succeed.
> I think that when homeschooling fails, it is because this
> decision was taken too lightly or perhaps as a defensive,
> reactionary move and as a way of "punishing" the school
> system. Homeschooling is a huge committment that requires
> lots of planning and forethought and should never be done on
> impulse.
> I don't really understand all the hostility on these
> posts. I am sure there are homeschoolers out there who are
> not doing a stellar job of educating their kids, just as
> there are kids in a less than satisfactory public school
> environment. There is no perfect teaching environment and
> there are pluses and minuses to every way of teaching. To
> choose an educational environment for one's child is a very
> personal decision that considers many factors. There are as
> many children thriving in public schools as there are
> exemplary homeschoolers.
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