I have always loved school and am glad that I have always been around other kids. I am not sure how I feel about this court ruling, but I wonder if the judge asked the kids.
I like the questions that Nate asks. My only other addition is to ask if the judge would make a parent stop sending kids to an evolution-hating school run by fundamentalists.
Home-Schooling
Recently, a judge in Raleigh, N.C. ordered three kids who were being home-schooled to attend public school instead. The issue arose in a divorce proceeding where the father wanted the kids to go to public school, and the mother wanted to continue home-schooling her children. I have not had the opportunity to read the case itself, but if you’re interested in reading more, click here.
Apparently the problem was that the kids were receiving a creationist focused education when it came to science. However, the kids were also testing two years above their grade level. So that begs the question, why were they forced to go to public school? I don’t believe in creationism, but it does seem to me that no matter what they are learning, if they are testing two years above their grade level, then home-schooling seems to be working out.
My greater concern, though, is: when is it okay to home-school? The lesson here is that if a judge disagrees with the curriculum, then he can order the kids to public school. Not enough math? Too much math? Not enough structure? Not reading the right books? Cases like these can be slippery slopes.
What do you think? Did the judge make the right decision? Is it okay for parents to home-school their children?
from Nate at The Young Writers Blog: The Only Writing Blog For Young Writers And Everyone Else
March 15, 2009 at 9:21 pm
I do not agree with this judge’s decision. As long as the person doing the homeschooling abides by their states laws regarding homeschooling, a judge should not be able to ban it simply because of the curriculum being used. Now if the law specifies that they must use a certain curriculum, then the judge has the right to make such an order.
March 15, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Children may be part of a family, but they are also part of a greater society. When they are adults they will moved fully into that society, and they will need the knowledge and skills to be able to function in that society.
On one hand, society has over-riding interest to ensure that kids are not abused in a family. On the other, a family has a right to bring up their kids as they see fit. These two ideals rarely clash. But home schooling is in that grey area in between. It would be abusive not to teach children how to read, or do enough math so as to not be able, for example, to balance a check book or do a household budget.
That’s clear.
Basic science is also something all future citizens need to get by in life, and evolution is one of those facts. Evolution is seen in dangerous bacteria that can get antibiotic resistant. The same with crop insects that get immune to pesticides. Children also need to know that climate change is very serious, and that the earth is way more than 6000 years old.
For much of its evolutionary history this planet was just a lifeless rock. The life-support systems of nature are very fragile actually, and extinction of all its life has almost happened several times. Each time just a few organisms survived to start evolution all over again.
Today people are causing the latest mass extinction event through climate change and 1/2 of all types of life will be dead by the year 2100 unless we do something about it now.
Society cannot afford to allow its children to grow up ignorant and misinformed when the entire future of the planet is at stake.
Besides, the price of being Christian is NOT stupidity when it comes to the understanding the Bible.
Many Church theologians realized that the Bible contained great truths that could only be recognized as allegory. Saint Origen of Alexandria, for example, said only the simple-minded read the bible literally. Likewise, Saint Maximos Confessor in the 7th Century realized that the creation stories said that days and nights passed even before God created the Sun, moon and stars!
And so Maximos realized that a ‘day of creation’ must mean an entire aeon of time for God. For this reason he said that the entire history from Adam to Jesus happened on the 7th Day of Creation according to God’s time, and that the dawn of the 8th Day began with the resurrection on Easter morning. This day (this age) will end when He returns.
This is how allegory works. The Bible is not science. It is something infinitely better. And if read as allegory, science is no threat to faith.
Christians today should rediscover what Christianity actually means by way of allegorical interpretation, AND study their science books too.
God is not looking for a few good idiots to bring into heaven … use your mind for Christ’s sake !!
(pun intended)
July 2, 2009 at 6:44 am
check this out…
this is mine…