I CLEARLY remember seeing this - starkly - in the last two public schools I taught in - and not just from teachers, but from (of all things) secretaries (I suppose because they're such experts in child development...?) It made me sad, but also very quietly appalled (quietly because I had to go there to work each day). You wanna hear something REALLY sad? I made a snarky remark about secretaries being experts in child development, but as I went through my teaching career (which I left a decade ago), I found fewer and fewer teachers (and administrators) who understood what pedgogy is. Then, last month, a friend of mine who's in college earning an education degree told me she "came across" the term and had to go look it up on her own. Apparently, they're not even bothering to teach future teachers what it is that they will be doing...
I know there are homeschooling failures. I personally know one and am frustrated by the mom who is setting her children up to fail. I can be a little sensitve about it because, I do have one with a learning disability. She looks and acts "normal" so others have a hard time believing that she struggles with school. Now this lady has had no one-on-one interaction with my children, so there is no way she knows what they are capable of doing. She's just going with her gut reaction of homeschooling. And it has nothing to do with church.
It is unfortunate that some people who "homeschool" really do nothing to help their kids learn. That being said, I am not against unschooling (for some it works), as long as the kid is motivated to learn. I don't unschool, but we are very relaxed. I think the very fact that we are relaxed actually helps my son learn. Anyway, I am going off on a tangent--the bottom line is this: there is a misconception that learning takes place in school and only school-- when learning takes place all the time.
I'm not against unschooling, either, and I hope my post didn't come across that way. There are many ways to learn!
When people mention charter programs or public school in order for me to be "accountable", I ask them if they need the government to hold them accountable for being a good parent. Any good parent will hold themselves accountable because they want what is best for their child.
I often wonder what my sons Kindergarten teacher thinks of us. We told her towards the end of the year that we were going to be HS'ing this year during a parent/teacher conference. For the record, it was a routine conference, my son was not in trouble, and had not been a "problem child." Nor did we have any issues with his Kindergarten teacher. In fact, we loved her! I worry that she took our decision to homeschool as a personal affront ~ I really hope not, though. She is a nationally award winning teacher, and like I said, she was wonderful! But, like my husband said, "We won't have a Mrs. M****** every year."
My DH and I went to a church one time that told us we were not allowed to participate in a Sunday School discussion because we were not members. We were shocked to be so dismissed as that. Certainly NOT a way to make us want to come back!
Our dd's 1st grade teacher DID take it completely personally, even though I told her (and the principal) repeatedly that our decision wasn't based on her, but was entirely based on how our dd was doing there. I got dd's intervention meeting notes about 2 weeks AFTER I pulled dd out. I didn't feel badly anymore after that :?
