Teacher Criticisms...(rant)

I am a teacher and would gladly take the pay of a babysitter!

Let's say that I charge $3/hour/kid. I have 27 kids in my class:

$3 x 27 = $81/hour

I am SCHEDULED to work from 8:45 - 4:15 (though I am usually at school before 8 and leave around 5):

$81 x 7 (taking out my lunch - 30 min.) = $567/day

I work 36 weeks per year, and that does account for summer break and other days off:

$567 x 5 days/week = $2835 x 36 weeks/year = $102,060/year

Now, I also have a MA in education, but I won't charge extra for my extra knowledge of how to better serve your children.

I make less than $40,000/year. So, PLEASE let me charge babysitter rates! I would love that!

This argument is only slightly more valid than the Stay-at-home Mom that adds up the salaries of a Chauffeer, Daycare Provider, Chef and Event Planner and argues for the same pay.

You know, Chanstriste, I really do like you, but you just don't get it. THE SYSTEM DOESN'T WORK. If you don't uproot the system, you are PROMOTING DYSFUNCTIONALITY. The system is broken. It's like you're in a hospital but there is no medicine or electricity. You ain't gunna cure anyone that way.

i like you too, veg. and i agree with you - the system doesn't work like it should. i probably get that a lot better than you even, since i've actually worked in it. but it works well enough that roughly 69% of public school seniors ended up in college last year, and that's not too shabby considering the many hurdles that teachers and students alike have to overcome.

i don't agree with you spouting that we should all just abandon ship, which is what you basically seem to be preaching. start a mutiny. sacrifice our jobs for the cause and all that because if we really cared, we would be willing to do so. it sounds like you are a great academic on the subject, but you haven't been on the inside of all this, so your perception is a hill beside this mountain that needs to be moved somehow.

the only actual suggestion you have made is ability grouping, which may or may not work. but teachers can't make those decisions themselves. we get the roster that is handed to us. that's just the nature of the beast.

as for your experiences with one teacher at one school in one community - that's enough to do what you will with your own children, but it's hardly enough to denounce or deny the many good experiences that students and parents have had with their public school systems.

Ability grouping works. Period. I know because I have been a student in an ability grouped school. Ability grouping, however, does not favor any particular group, but treats all equally. That is one of the reasons the Teacher Union hates it. It goes against their liberal political agenda. Ability grouping would take the bright kids and separate them from the non-bright, and that is intollerable for those with a political agenda.

The idea of multi-ability classes is that the bright kids can be used as a role model for the the non-bright. Wonderful. However, I just don't feel like having my kids used as teaching tools. I send them to school with the naive expectation that they will actually learn, and not be utilized. Bright kids have a right to an education too. We realized that, and that is why we pulled our kids out of public school early on, and why we are very happy we did so.

If you want to see the results of public school education look at some of the debates on different boards. (I am not referring to this board, which for the most part is the best debated board on this discussion group. You can actually have an interchange of ideas.) On some boards if you disagree with someone, they immediately call you a "racist," and start swearing at you. They have no knowledge of history. They have know knowledge of how to tell a good study from a bad study. They are frankly stupid people with no real eduation who think they know everything.

Yes, I also think I know everything (! - beat you to it!) but I put my money where my mouth is. I raised my own kids the way I think they should be raised, and so far, at least, it has worked fine. I really have fears for the fate of America when our school system is turning out drones who can't think, who know nothing and who are arrogant. We really need a revolution in eduation.

We get your point - UNIONS ARE THE DEVIL. Unions are everything that is wrong with education. However, we have heterogenous grouping and we have no unions. We also have a lot of really bad things going on (cheating scandal, low performing schools, poor performing teachers). So, it's not just the unions that create these issues. I do agree with you that politics need to stay out of education and we could actually get something done. (I know shocking I agreed with something you said).

Well, yes, ability grouping works to a certain extent, but one of the best ways to learn a subject is to have to teach it to someone else. If a student can teach someone else a subject and that person understands the subject, both students benefit from that situation. Also, how do you put the students in groups, test scores, motivation, IQ......I see all of those as flawed ways to track a student that prevents movement to either a higher or lower group (I've previously posted my experience with ability grouping - in most cases in the past it has been used to keep minorities, both racial and economic, from being placed on a college track).

We use differentiated instruction within a heterogenous classroom (I believe you previous stated that you have never heard of this idea - but you know I have a reading comprehension problem). The students are placed into "flexible" groups that move based on their current level of knowledge. I think that allowing for movement up or down in an ability group is important. Not every high kid is good at everything and it is a great thing to see a student who is struggling "get" something that the "highly" intellegent student doesn't understand. Traditional tracking doesn't work that way. Once a student is placed on a track, they can't get out of it. I think your experience with one teacher almost 20 years ago does is not enough to condemn an entire practice. There are a lot of bad teachers out there. I actually really like having a group that is not all the same. Sometimes it is difficult because there is too much of a disparity between the top and the bottom, but most of the time it is great.

BTW - I think I figured out that my reading comprehension problem has to do with the way you post. I looked back at several of your posts and sometimes I can't figure out whether it is something that you typed or your response to the comment of another. Sometimes you respond in the quotes box, sometimes you don't. It's a little confusing especially since the threads are so long.

i technically "get summers off," but usually only about 3 weeks, because the rest of my summer is spent on IEPs for new students, researching the newest discoveries in Autism, modifying curriculum from the general education students so my mainstreamed students can have access to materials, preparing my classroom for the students, and applying for grants so I can get new things for my classroom...

summers are technically off, but we do a ton of work to get ready for august!

You wouldn't have to do any of that if they had ability grouping. Have you ever asked yourself why they don't. Well, there really is no good reason. It is a teacher union gimmick to creater more jobs, nothing more.

Spoken like someone who has no clue what they are talking about. I'm sorry this whole "union is a gimmick " thing is getting old. Teachers have an extremely difficult job, it tiring and rewarding at the same time. They take the crap and abuse from parents day in and day out because they love what they do and they take care of your children!

As said above they do have time off during the summer but they spend so much time preparing lesson plans and planning for the new year that it's definitely not 2 months off of partying. Instead of criticizing teachers you should be supporting them!

First of all, they don't, and never have taken care of MY children, because we pulled our son our of public school after 5 weeks, and homeschooled him. My daughter has never been in grade school or high school. I do not want to go through my family history yet again, but suffice it to say that my son is 19 and in his first year of law school, and my daughter, age 16, has earned her associates degree and is going to be a junior in college next fall.

And I don't buy that summers off are used to prepare for school. No more than my weekends are used to prepare for my next week of work. Yeah, all professionals take work home, but not all of them get the summers off.

i work with an insanely different population from most of the teachers on here. with moderate to severely handicapped students (non verbal/autistic/behavior intervention)... my district mainstreams EVERY student, and legally I HAVE to have them reaching IEP goals from general education classrooms... so for my 12 students I have to coordinate with the general ed benchmark binder, find how everything works with my CAPA binder, and manipulate the materials so my students can reach their IEP goals (which are legally binding (activists are frightening)) while mainstreamed for more than 50.9% of the day. Like i said, i take 3 weeks off- party, have fun, travel, do my thing, but after july 4th it gives me 6 weeks to plan for the rest of the year. ability grouping is a thing of the past... FAPE, free and public education, equal access to everything. I am in california, maybe it's different where you are?

Honestly, I don't know any of the acronyms you used, but they sound like a lot of bureaucratic bull crap. Why do they need to mainstream these children who sound like they need individual care rather than being in a classroom where "normal" kids will laugh at them and make fun of them? Do you as a teacher find that mainstreaming is worth anything? If so, why? If not, why not?

Bytheway, it does sound like you have enough work to do to keep your summers full.

IMO, mainstreaming is important for all students. Learning how to work with people who may not be as intellegent as you is an important life skill that cannot be diminished. Students grow up to be adults that have to work with people on all different levels (inlcuding those that have severe disabilities).

I think it's amazing to watch a general education student have positive interactions with a child that has severe disabilities. I think those "normal" kids need to learn some empathy and compassion for others. I have been a teacher for a while now and I have to say that the "abnormal" (if we're using those labels) are some of my favorite students. I have a bigger problem with the "normal" kids that act like idiots.

i technically "get summers off," but usually only about 3 weeks, because the rest of my summer is spent on IEPs for new students, researching the newest discoveries in Autism, modifying curriculum from the general education students so my mainstreamed students can have access to materials, preparing my classroom for the students, and applying for grants so I can get new things for my classroom...

summers are technically off, but we do a ton of work to get ready for august!

You wouldn't have to do any of that if they had ability grouping. Have you ever asked yourself why they don't. Well, there really is no good reason. It is a teacher union gimmick to creater more jobs, nothing more.

Spoken like someone who has no clue what they are talking about. I'm sorry this whole "union is a gimmick " thing is getting old. Teachers have an extremely difficult job, it tiring and rewarding at the same time. They take the crap and abuse from parents day in and day out because they love what they do and they take care of your children!

As said above they do have time off during the summer but they spend so much time preparing lesson plans and planning for the new year that it's definitely not 2 months off of partying. Instead of criticizing teachers you should be supporting them!

First of all, they don't, and never have taken care of MY children, because we pulled our son our of public school after 5 weeks, and homeschooled him. My daughter has never been in grade school or high school. I do not want to go through my family history yet again, but suffice it to say that my son is 19 and in his first year of law school, and my daughter, age 16, has earned her associates degree and is going to be a junior in college next fall.

And I don't buy that summers off are used to prepare for school. No more than my weekends are used to prepare for my next week of work. Yeah, all professionals take work home, but not all of them get the summers off.

i work with an insanely different population from most of the teachers on here. with moderate to severely handicapped students (non verbal/autistic/behavior intervention)... my district mainstreams EVERY student, and legally I HAVE to have them reaching IEP goals from general education classrooms... so for my 12 students I have to coordinate with the general ed benchmark binder, find how everything works with my CAPA binder, and manipulate the materials so my students can reach their IEP goals (which are legally binding (activists are frightening)) while mainstreamed for more than 50.9% of the day. Like i said, i take 3 weeks off- party, have fun, travel, do my thing, but after july 4th it gives me 6 weeks to plan for the rest of the year. ability grouping is a thing of the past... FAPE, free and public education, equal access to everything. I am in california, maybe it's different where you are?

Honestly, I don't know any of the acronyms you used, but they sound like a lot of bureaucratic bull crap. Why do they need to mainstream these children who sound like they need individual care rather than being in a classroom where "normal" kids will laugh at them and make fun of them? Do you as a teacher find that mainstreaming is worth anything? If so, why? If not, why not?

Bytheway, it does sound like you have enough work to do to keep your summers full.

IMO, mainstreaming is important for all students. Learning how to work with people who may not be as intellegent as you is an important life skill that cannot be diminished. Students grow up to be adults that have to work with people on all different levels (inlcuding those that have severe disabilities).

I think it's amazing to watch a general education student have positive interactions with a child that has severe disabilities. I think those "normal" kids need to learn some empathy and compassion for others. I have been a teacher for a while now and I have to say that the "abnormal" (if we're using those labels) are some of my favorite students. I have a bigger problem with the "normal" kids that act like idiots.

All well and good, but the purpose of education is supposed to be learning, not social engineering. I think most people, bright and stupid have empathy for disabled kids. Most, I say not all. And I suspect that the brighter the kid is, the more empathy he would have. (Just my feeling, not based on anything.)

My question is, "For brighter than average students, what LEARNING advantages or disadvantages are there from mainstreaming." I am talking about subject matter learning, not empathy.

Bear in mind that in a country where all public schools do mainstreaming, America finished twenty something in the last Third International Math and Science test. Other countries do not do mainstreaming, because they cannot afford to - too wasteful of scarce resources, and even some third world countries beat the pants off of us in math and science.

IMO, mainstreaming is important for all students. Learning how to work with people who may not be as intellegent as you is an important life skill that cannot be diminished. Students grow up to be adults that have to work with people on all different levels (inlcuding those that have severe disabilities).

I think it's amazing to watch a general education student have positive interactions with a child that has severe disabilities. I think those "normal" kids need to learn some empathy and compassion for others. I have been a teacher for a while now and I have to say that the "abnormal" (if we're using those labels) are some of my favorite students. I have a bigger problem with the "normal" kids that act like idiots.

The problem I see is that kids who are just as 'abnormal', but at the other end of the scale, are being forgotten about in an attempt to treat everyone 'equally'. For the seriously intelligent child, the typical 'mainstream' class is an agony of boredom and frustration. I agree that empathy and 'getting on with others who are different' are important, but I'm not convinced that this laudable intention should be allowed, consistently, to trump teaching kids at the appropriate level for them, regardless of their age or 'peer group'. Nor can I support the use of more able students as personal tutors, within a mainstream class, for kids who are struggling. Yes, teaching something means you understand it well, but how utterly unfair to the intellectually-gifted child to hold him or her back in this way from progressing at the rate that is possible for his or her brain. There is also a great risk inherent in exposing both children involved to the frustration and demoralisation of trying to teach something to a 'peer' whose intellectual gifts are no match for one's own, or the humiliation of realising that your classmate is so far ahead of you that you are unlikely ever to catch up.

Please forgive my use of inverted commas instead of quotation marks - my keyboard is missing the number 2 key!

It's a contentious opinion, but in the UK, I think the most damaging thing that has been done to education in the last century is the abolition of grammar schools - academically-selective, state-funded schools, from which many working- and lower-middle-class children made their way to University, often as the first in their family to complete High School, let alone attend an institution of higher learning. The current lumping-together of gifted, average and behind-the-pace intellects in schools serves no-one well.

i just saw on another post the mention of teachers 'snivelling' for more money when they are not getting results. this kind of thing burns just burns me up.

i can't stand it when people who have never stuck a toe in the education field go on about how teachers are lazy, get paid for nothing in the summer, and are only babysitting anyways, so how hard can it really be?

then you have the people who want to run education like a business, and if you don't get the results, you don't get the pay. if education was a business, teachers could fire and hire the students based on their performance. but no. we don't get that option.

we teach *everyone*, no matter what. even if they only show up to school once a week. even if their parents cuss us out on the phone and tell us that *their* child is *our* problem when they are at school. even if a student consistently refuses to lift a finger because they just do not care. and we are still held accountable for a student's testing scores even if they were expelled from school for 150 days out of 180.

there are always going to be teachers who drop the ball and don't do their part, but the majority of us never give up on those students who have already given up on themselves. we keep hoping that one day they might open their book, write something down and learn something.

boo to people that criticize the general educator populace without ever having taught. if you haven't stood in front of a class of 20 to 30 students and taught, you really have no idea.

Sorry, this is a sociatal problem We have become too lazy to work in unison to educate our children. When this country began, most children knew more than a high school student by the time they were 5.

We expect too little of our children. Our teachers are at the mercy of their admistrators, who by the way make a butt load of cash. I would become dissolustioned also if I worked for them and the unions!

If you are truly a great teacher, I salute you. If your just some whinny gripper who feels their paycheck is being threatened, go find a real job.

Oh, by the way, I take one furluogh a month and just had my pay and benefits cut 5%!

Okay but the reality is very simple:

Children must learn discipline from somewhere

Teachers are not nannies.

There are other agencies that are supposed to take care of these types of problems (social service agencies)

Disruptive kids destroy the classroom not only for themselves, but also for everyone else. It ain't fair.

yes, yes, yes!

it isn't fair, but in practice, there is not a whole lot to be done about this, and there *should* be. i have a great example. one of my husband's classes is a fairly good group of students, save for three girls. they are disrespectful to other students and my husband, they scream at random intervals just to get the class going, they do not complete their work, they cheat, they throw things across the room, they start eating doritos and soda in the middle of class.

are these girls stupid? no. do they know the rules? yes. does my husband write them up anytime they deserve it? yes. he and their other teachers, too. one of them recevied 15 detention forms in *one* day. are their parents contacted? yes. do they care? no.

why are these girls still there? it burns me up that they have not been sent to an alternative school or suspended for the year by now. the others in this class would benefit from them leaving, but the way the system is currently, it would be unfair for these three girls if they aren't offered their education. and that is just bacwards.

in this, i agree with you wholeheartedly. there needs to be an alternative place for massively disruptive students to go. that is certainly not fair to the others.

one of the girls' mother is a hair dresser, and she came into the school one day to tell my husband not to call her f*ckin number again because she had more important things to be doing than worrying about school. is this abuse? can this be measured in some way? i think measuring the damage that some parents do to their children is probably just as ellusive as measuring the adequacy of a teacher.

:explode: Had that conversation many times - why do keep calling this effing number? He/she is your probem from 7:15 - 3:15

You know, Chanstriste, I really do like you, but you just don't get it. THE SYSTEM DOESN'T WORK. If you don't uproot the system, you are PROMOTING DYSFUNCTIONALITY. The system is broken. It's like you're in a hospital but there is no medicine or electricity. You ain't gunna cure anyone that way.

i like you too, veg. and i agree with you - the system doesn't work like it should. i probably get that a lot better than you even, since i've actually worked in it. but it works well enough that roughly 69% of public school seniors ended up in college last year, and that's not too shabby considering the many hurdles that teachers and students alike have to overcome.

i don't agree with you spouting that we should all just abandon ship, which is what you basically seem to be preaching. start a mutiny. sacrifice our jobs for the cause and all that because if we really cared, we would be willing to do so. it sounds like you are a great academic on the subject, but you haven't been on the inside of all this, so your perception is a hill beside this mountain that needs to be moved somehow.

the only actual suggestion you have made is ability grouping, which may or may not work. but teachers can't make those decisions themselves. we get the roster that is handed to us. that's just the nature of the beast.

as for your experiences with one teacher at one school in one community - that's enough to do what you will with your own children, but it's hardly enough to denounce or deny the many good experiences that students and parents have had with their public school systems.

Ability grouping works. Period. I know because I have been a student in an ability grouped school. Ability grouping, however, does not favor any particular group, but treats all equally. That is one of the reasons the Teacher Union hates it. It goes against their liberal political agenda. Ability grouping would take the bright kids and separate them from the non-bright, and that is intollerable for those with a political agenda.

The idea of multi-ability classes is that the bright kids can be used as a role model for the the non-bright. Wonderful. However, I just don't feel like having my kids used as teaching tools. I send them to school with the naive expectation that they will actually learn, and not be utilized. Bright kids have a right to an education too. We realized that, and that is why we pulled our kids out of public school early on, and why we are very happy we did so.

If you want to see the results of public school education look at some of the debates on different boards. (I am not referring to this board, which for the most part is the best debated board on this discussion group. You can actually have an interchange of ideas.) On some boards if you disagree with someone, they immediately call you a "racist," and start swearing at you. They have no knowledge of history. They have know knowledge of how to tell a good study from a bad study. They are frankly stupid people with no real eduation who think they know everything.

Yes, I also think I know everything (! - beat you to it!) but I put my money where my mouth is. I raised my own kids the way I think they should be raised, and so far, at least, it has worked fine. I really have fears for the fate of America when our school system is turning out drones who can't think, who know nothing and who are arrogant. We really need a revolution in eduation.

We get your point - UNIONS ARE THE DEVIL. Unions are everything that is wrong with education. However, we have heterogenous grouping and we have no unions. We also have a lot of really bad things going on (cheating scandal, low performing schools, poor performing teachers). So, it's not just the unions that create these issues. I do agree with you that politics need to stay out of education and we could actually get something done. (I know shocking I agreed with something you said).

Well, yes, ability grouping works to a certain extent, but one of the best ways to learn a subject is to have to teach it to someone else.

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I agree. But a better way is to do original research in the subject. Certainly, there are kids in high school capable of doing original research.
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If a student can teach someone else a subject and that person understands the subject, both students benefit from that situation. Also, how do you put the students in groups, test scores, motivation, IQ......I see all of those as flawed ways to track a student that prevents movement to either a higher or lower group (I've previously posted my experience with ability grouping - in most cases in the past it has been used to keep minorities, both racial and economic, from being placed on a college track).

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Okay, my way of doing this would be to suggest to each student where they belong, based upon, say IQ tests and recommenations. However, I would give the student the final choice as to which track he ends up in. Also, I would require, for example, an A average (3.6 or better) to remain in the top track, a B averagre (3.2 or better) to remain in the normal college track, and other tracks would not have grade requirements.

Anyone who did not maintain the required average for two semesters running, would automatically revert to the next lowest track. Anyone from a lower track who, taking similar courses got the grades of the next higher track would be "promoted" if he wished to be.
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We use differentiated instruction within a heterogenous classroom (I believe you previous stated that you have never heard of this idea - but you know I have a reading comprehension problem).

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You understdood me just fine.
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The students are placed into "flexible" groups that move based on their current level of knowledge. I think that allowing for movement up or down in an ability group is important.

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I agree.
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Not every high kid is good at everything and it is a great thing to see a student who is struggling "get" something that the "highly" intellegent student doesn't understand. Traditional tracking doesn't work that way. Once a student is placed on a track, they can't get out of it.

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That is not how my tracking worked. For example, English was offered at sevaral different levels. Only the top level was invitation only, but if you got the grades in the next lower level, you got the invitation.
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I think your experience with one teacher almost 20 years ago does is not enough to condemn an entire practice. There are a lot of bad teachers out there. I actually really like having a group that is not all the same. Sometimes it is difficult because there is too much of a disparity between the top and the bottom, but most of the time it is great.

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If an efficiency expert were to look at this sysetem, what would he say?
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BTW - I think I figured out that my reading comprehension problem has to do with the way you post. I looked back at several of your posts and sometimes I can't figure out whether it is something that you typed or your response to the comment of another. Sometimes you respond in the quotes box, sometimes you don't. It's a little confusing especially since the threads are so long.

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Mea Culpa. Mea Maxima Culpa. I am not terribly adept at computer stuff. Most times I really don't know how to get the result I want, and I am too lazy to try and figure it out. When my son or daughter are around, I ask them, but when they are not I flounder.
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I'm glad your tracking allowed for movement. Our tracking system did not because if you did not get the college level English freshman year you had to take it sophomore year to 'move' up.

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I may have given you the wrong impression. Mobility was really effectively limited to 9th and 10th grade. After that you were either too deep into the subject or had missed too much. Reverting to a lower track would, however, have been easy.
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So it effectively prevented movement because you couldn't take 5 full year English classes in four years). I also disagree with the idea of grouping based on IQ (unless you are talking about truly gifted - which is a small segment of the population).

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Okay, this is an area where I probably disagree with you profoundly. My own children are in the upper range of bright normal (Bright Normal I./Q. on Stanford Binet between 116 and 130). They absolutely benefited by entering college at ages 10 and 12 respectively. Admittedly, at first they took "remedial" math and English courses, along with French and art, not terribly demanding courses at the beginning, but once they got used to college level work, they thrived. They finished Community College (my daughter is still waiting for her degree) at ages 16 and 17. In the roughly five years they attended Community College, they earned over 75 transfer credits, which means they effectively skipped the first two years of 4-year university and then some. Remember they never went to grade school or high school. (Other than my son's five weeks in first grade.)

I don't know what you consider "gifted." I would consider 131 to 145 mildly gifted, and 146 to 160 profoundly gifted. If you are considering special classes only for the profoundly gifted, that is not good enough. In my experience, from 116 on up, kids can benefit from accelerated instruction. Admittedly the capability of a 116 cannot match a 160 in a subject like math, but in other subjects, they can keep up. It is a real mistake to consider kids from bright normal on up not worthy of a gifted program.
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You will still have trouble reaching the truly gifted in that system because there are so few children that actually fall into that category that economics would preclude having that class. (I think my AP Physics and AP Calculus classes in high school had 3 students in it and by the time my brother was a senior (4 yrs later) it was gone.

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Economics are a red herring. With abilty grouping you would save money and be able to service all at the level of their ability.
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Not to mention you would have trouble finding teachers to teach that program because it is a challenge to constantly be intellectually challenged by a student in K-12. A lot of adults don't like it when kids come up with ideas that don't fit neatly into what they were expecting the project to be.

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That is for darn sure. But a lot of adults also love it. I really enjoyed teaching Latin, for example. I had some very bright kids, and they made it a pleasure.
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You are right about an efficiency expert, however, even within ability grouping you still have varying levels and a good teacher would break those groups down even further so that the kids would get instruction on exactly what they need. It's not really all that different than having a heterogenus group because you still have to recognize that no two kids are exactly the same.

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Oh, I think it is a very big difference.
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It will all still start with large group instruction and then break down into smaller learning groups. I don't think it's any easier/harder to do it with varying levels. My background is in elementary/middle school, but I think that high school kids would also benefit from that idea. Everyone learns better in small environments where you can get 1 on 1 attention. This is one of the reasons why kids who are truly homeschooled are so much further along than their peers in public schools (I think your family is an example of this, but there are some people who claim to homeschool their children and they are out at the mall everyday or never actually do some of the basic school things like learn to read or add).

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There are different homeschooling models. Ours was "The Well-Trained Mind" classical model. You are referring to unschoolers, which I have seen a lot of. Some unschooling works out very well, and some is a horrible disaster. A self motivated creative person who has subject matter interest will do extremely well at unschooling.
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Veg - Just for my curiosity, why did you children go to a community college instead of continuing with homeschooling and heading to a 4 year program at an age/academically appropriate time?

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Because there were certain subjects we could NOT teach them such as Chemistry. Also, part of their education was to acclimatize to college. So community college was a segway into the system.
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My experience with community college tends to be that the rigor of the classes are not has high as they would be at a traditional 4 year school.

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Like any generalization that is partly true and partly false. I took a calculus course for fun, and I can tell you it was just as hard as a calculus course at Penn. If I were going to generalize, I would say that easy subjects in Community College or a four year school tend to be easy and hard subjects tend to be hard.
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Do they feel like they were held back by the level of their classmates?

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Not at all. Community Colleges take all comers, so there were a lot of kids there who didn't belong in college. However, the attritian rate was very high. In my calculus class, for example, only about 30% finished, and most of those, like myself had had college calculus before.
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Did you children have any social issues with being in college that young?

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No. There were about 40 kids roughly their age there, also homeschoolers. This is a really big trend in our area.
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I'm not judging I just wanted to know. I hear about this happening but have never had a conversation with someone who actually had children go to college so young.

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With regard to that issue, my daughter actually finished all her credits needed to graduate when she was 15. We don't want a 15 or 16 year old living in a college dorm, so we continued her at Community College. Her birthday is in August, so she will be just 17 when she enters her University, the same age as some incoming freshmen. My son, like my daughter entered as a junior, but even so, since he qualified for their honors program, he spent his first year in the Freshman Honors Dorms. It was a seamless transition.
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As far as being gifted, I discussed this a little bit before. There is a difference between being bright and being gifted. I think that kids that are bright benefit from advanced classes, but I'm not sure that gifted (131 and above) benefit from being in classes with the bright children as much as bright children would benefit being with them. So, if the purpose of ability grouping is to give everyone what they need academically, I think that the bright children would not be in classes with the truly gifted (just as you wouldn't put a child with an IQ score of 80 in a class with a kid that scored between 90 - 110).

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I agree if you have enough gifted to make a class. If not, that is the second best choice for everyone.
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Do you think that homeschooling should have some kind of regulations?

NEVER! No! Under no circumstances. There are no government controls in Connecticut. We don't have to report to them and we don't even have to tell them we are homeschooling. Every now and then some feisty superintendent tries to get the legislature to pass some stupid law putting us under their control. The last time that happened we packed the legislative office building with thousands of homeschooling families. There wasn't even enough room for everyone to fit into the hearing room. We closed down the legislative server with thousands of emails, and we closed down their phone system. We had endless testimony to present, hundreds of people, until they finally cried "uncle." The Chair of the Education Committee announced he was going to withdraw the bill and made the comment, 'From what I have heard, the public schools ought to be reporting to them, not vice versa."

Do you think that homeschooling should have some kind of regulations?

NEVER! No! Under no circumstances. There are no government controls in Connecticut. We don't have to report to them and we don't even have to tell them we are homeschooling. Every now and then some feisty superintendent tries to get the legislature to pass some stupid law putting us under their control. The last time that happened we packed the legislative office building with thousands of homeschooling families. There wasn't even enough room for everyone to fit into the hearing room. We closed down the legislative server with thousands of emails, and we closed down their phone system. We had endless testimony to present, hundreds of people, until they finally cried "uncle." The Chair of the Education Committee announced he was going to withdraw the bill and made the comment, 'From what I have heard, the public schools ought to be reporting to them, not vice versa."

I guess I don't necessarily think that the homeschooling population should have to report to the public schools, but it seems like there needs to be some kind of accountability for homeschooling parents. I know that the vast majority of homeschooling parents do exactly what needs to be done and their children are more advanced than their public/private school peers. But, what about situations where the parents are not doing what needs to be done. To me government control is to deal with the people who are not doing what they should be. Should there not be a standard that all students regardless of how they are educated should have to meet? How do we measure that standard without some kind of regulations?


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And the government is going to know better than the parent what we SHOULD be doing? I doubt it. I am against government in any form telling us what to do. Fortunately, the Connecticut Constitution was written hundreds of years before the Department of Education at either the Federal or state level existed. It was written at a time when everyone homeschooled. It is decidedly NON-INTERVENTION and that is just the way we like it.

Education is particularly an area where the Government has no clue. I don't know what state you are in, but in Connecticut we have something called the Mastery Tests, and even the teachers hate it. They are used to create non-thinking drones. Everybody should know exactly the same things in every subject at the same point in their lives. Hogwash! We don't homeschool because we want uniformity and equal competence with everyone else. Do you know what homeschoolers call "No Child Left Behind?" We call it, "No Child Gets Ahead." We are not interested in bringing the government school model into our homes. Even homeschoolers who use a school-like model with specific one size fits all lesson plans are not really referred to as home schoolers, but rather, School at Homers.

WE DO NOT WANT OR NEED ANYONE TELLING US WHAT TO DO.

Yes, some people will make mistakes, but are you telling me that all the kids in government schools are all success stories? I will compare our success rate to the government schools any day. As was said in the meeting at the legislature, which I talked about before, the conclusion of the Chair of the Education Committee said, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

When the public schools start doing better than us, then maybe they can give us advice, but not before then.
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I mean look at your family situation. You realized that you were not qualified to teach certain subjects (like chemistry), so you enrolled your children in the community college. Some parents would not do that.

As an educator, I know when I'm outside my element. I would never attempt to teach chemistry or some of the higher level math classes because I'm not qualified to do so. I don't need the government to tell me that, but there are some people who don't get that and need to be slapped upside the head so to speak.

I've had homeschooled kids in my classroom, and most of them are really far ahead of their peers (awesome). However, there are always a few that are way behind. In many cases, it seems like these kids have run amok for 3 - 5 years and then they get dropped into the public schools. These kids are ususally 2-3 grade levels behind.

i just saw on another post the mention of teachers 'snivelling' for more money when they are not getting results. this kind of thing burns just burns me up.

i can't stand it when people who have never stuck a toe in the education field go on about how teachers are lazy, get paid for nothing in the summer, and are only babysitting anyways, so how hard can it really be?

then you have the people who want to run education like a business, and if you don't get the results, you don't get the pay. if education was a business, teachers could fire and hire the students based on their performance. but no. we don't get that option.

we teach *everyone*, no matter what. even if they only show up to school once a week. even if their parents cuss us out on the phone and tell us that *their* child is *our* problem when they are at school. even if a student consistently refuses to lift a finger because they just do not care. and we are still held accountable for a student's testing scores even if they were expelled from school for 150 days out of 180.

there are always going to be teachers who drop the ball and don't do their part, but the majority of us never give up on those students who have already given up on themselves. we keep hoping that one day they might open their book, write something down and learn something.

boo to people that criticize the general educator populace without ever having taught. if you haven't stood in front of a class of 20 to 30 students and taught, you really have no idea.

Teachers don't get paid nearly enough, period. The U.S. particularly is very screwed up in that aspect. Professional football players get paid too much, while the teachers of our future leaders, future scientists, future doctors, future TEACHERS, get paid next to nothing. Somethin ain't right. :P

I'm not talking about "making mistakes". I'm talking about the people who choose to keep their children out of school and then teach them nothing. How do you protect those children? Their parents are supposed to do that, but what should be done when parents fail to do that? You don't think there should be any accountability?

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We do not want any government interference in homeschooling. Period. What about that don't you understand?
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I don't think the school systems do it in the right way. I think that every child should create a portfolio of things they know how to do and that should be the measure of whether they have a deeper understanding. I think kids should have to do something like defending a thesis to move on to the next grade. My ideas will never take off because it costs to much. Testing is easy. I don't believe in testing I never have. But I would think that homeschooling parents who are doing what they need to do wouldn't be afraid to share that information. I don't agree with having to ask permission/do what you're told to do, but I think that if it is so successful you would want to share it.

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We will share it, but not with the government. And I don't know if you understand that we do not want the government especially telling us what we NEED to do. We don't want their advice. We don't want their money. We don't want them. I think I can safely say I speak for 99% of home schoolers.
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I get that you don't want government interference. I understand that you don't want to government telling you what you NEED to do. I'm not suggesting that you should. I'm not talking about the government control of anything. I just wonder how you protect children who have parents who fail to do what is necessary. I'm just wondering if you are a self-regulating community. If you see parents having difficulty, do you as a homeschooling community offer help? Or is it simply, if you choose to do this - you're on your own?