Smug homeskooler pokes fun at college...

[booksnbeats]

Oh, it's a thing among many of the religious homeschoolers obsessed with "classical education" and Victoriana. They view a quality liberal arts education to be what happens when you sit around in a frilly dress reading "good books" in the drawing room over tea, infused with a healthy amount of Christian worldview and British imperialism. Science? That's what you get by walking around your genteel yard in the exurbs and observing what weeds have grown up around the fence.

You can learn all that stuff on your own, and you don't need any modern liberals to be involved, heavens no. You'll learn directly from the masters, via their books - if it's classical Greek or Roman, great, if it's pre-WW2 British, great, Founding Fathers, even better, but there's no need for any modern claptrap that might make you critical about anything.

...or something like that. If you end up talking funny because you only read old musty books, it's even more of a cachet. Haha, I don't understand modern slang! Aren't I awesome?? :roll:

Careful there...I'm trying to make a living studying those "musty" old books! And I can say that even the "genteel" Victorian canon can have a lot of crazy, politically exciting stuff in it. It's all in how you read it. I'm really curious about what Victorian books the fundies love.

[Joykins]

Oh, it's a thing among many of the religious homeschoolers obsessed with "classical education" and Victoriana. They view a quality liberal arts education to be what happens when you sit around in a frilly dress reading "good books" in the drawing room over tea, infused with a healthy amount of Christian worldview and British imperialism. Science? That's what you get by walking around your genteel yard in the exurbs and observing what weeds have grown up around the fence.

You can learn all that stuff on your own, and you don't need any modern liberals to be involved, heavens no. You'll learn directly from the masters, via their books - if it's classical Greek or Roman, great, if it's pre-WW2 British, great, Founding Fathers, even better, but there's no need for any modern claptrap that might make you critical about anything.

...or something like that. If you end up talking funny because you only read old musty books, it's even more of a cachet. Haha, I don't understand modern slang! Aren't I awesome?? :roll:

Though if she really did ask for college catalogs I wonder if there's some desperate self-convincing going on behind the scenes, myself.

There's at least one school that specializes in Great Books education. Of course, they beef it up with post-Victorian stuff as well, labs, etc. St John's. The one person I knew who went there was scary-smart.

[longskirtlotsakids]

[

Good, she and her kind can stay out of our little liberal utopia. Keep your anti-intellectualism and intolerance, I'll keep State Street, Freak Fest, the farmer's market, and all the self-righteous Prius drivers, thankyouverymuch.

ETA a missing letter ... :roll:

Can you imagine all the ebil messages they would find in our awesome Children's museum?

She can have Vicki McKenna and Scott Walker, though. Hello to a fellow 90 sq miles surrounded by reality-er! *waves*

[Rosa]

Hell, Marx was a Victorian writer. Darwin, too.

[mirele]

I think most of these colleges were offering a token scholarhship in the hopes that you would come and foot the rest of the bill out of pocket. I got the impression that they didn't care about the student, just about their ability to fill the seats and pay the bills.

There is nothing special about getting packages from colleges, if you are breathing, you're eligible.

Reminds me of the half-scholarships I got unsolicited from private law schools in the Northeast in 1985 after taking the LSAT. (I apparently did rather well considering I couldn't afford a fancy prep course and was limited to the cheap Barrons and Arco guides I got at a discount at my job.) I was accepted at every school I applied at...except one, which was my undergrad alma mater. Oh well. But I was surely not tempted to uproot myself from Texas and go to Pace University in Long Island, a place no ancestor had lived since about 1675.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Careful there...I'm trying to make a living studying those "musty" old books! And I can say that even the "genteel" Victorian canon can have a lot of crazy, politically exciting stuff in it. It's all in how you read it. I'm really curious about what Victorian books the fundies love.

I don't mean to slam on the classics - after all, many of them are read in college also.

It's more of an attitude that modern writings or modern thought isn't useful, because it's newfangled and anti-religious and liberal, not to mention "twaddle" - we're fallen, and keep falling with the generations. It's a fetishization of certain writing styles, and being thrilled to death that your kid writes "to-day" and "to-morrow" instead of their modern spellings, because it shows how "countercultural" your family is.

But because these books are out there, who needs to attend a class, with other humans, who might like to have a discussion about things? Who needs to stretch themselves to write a long essay on any of it, or critique the thing as a product of its time? Just read the book, and sincerely narrate back what it says.

So there's a meme that says well, you don't need to worry about not going to college as a girl, because surely you realize that the greatest minds of previous generations all learned at home, on their own, they were... autodidacts! And so you shouldn't worry about missing out on anything by foregoing school to stay at home with children, because you don't need it anyway. You can do at least as well, if not better, on your own, and you won't have anyone making you "feel bad" about anything in those books, or perhaps suggesting that imperialism wasn't all that great all the time, or that history is more complicated than a single adventurous narrative written by the people at the top.

I suppose I'm mostly just taking out some annoyance with other blogs I've read, in this thread, and overstepped - never mind me :)

[lilwriter85]

This girl is dumb to think that getting mail which she requested from colleges is impressive. I also knew someone who sort of had a work study job like VodouDoll mentioned. This guy was a friend of my ex-boyfriend who had a job in the recruitment office and part of his job was contacting parents or high school students who had requested to be contacted by phone.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Hell, Marx was a Victorian writer. Darwin, too.

Very true... not that they appear on the lists of "good books" on most of the religious homeschooling blogs, though!

[marmalade]

So why is she taking the ACT in the first place if all she's going to get with her daddy's Yale education is a stint with College Minus, or its equivalent.

Last time I checked, those programs took high school kids, so I don't think her ACT score(s) would be a factor in whatever type of higher "education" she is going to receive. As long as her daddy forks out the cash, the institution will give her the "education" she wants.

[bananacat]

This girl is probably jealous and wants to go to college, deep down inside. Just like people who say cruel things about rich people or thin people. Jealous.

That's not really true. I've been both thin and fat, and in this society it kinda sucks either way. But I do often feel sorry for thin women who are obsessed with their weight. For a lot of thin women, there's so much more more to lose if they gain weight and it can take over their entire lives. I feel bad for fat women too who feel bad about their weight, but at least they can occasionally say "Ah, fuck it" and enjoy some cake or pizza once in awhile.

It's a complex issue and not every insult or criticism is based on jealousy. Same deal with rich people. Some of them really are incompetent or jackasses, just as some poor people are.

[bananacat]

I wonder if she's getting a lot of junk mail from diploma mills and not realizing it. I mean, I get tons of credit card offers but that doesn't mean I'm super speshul snowflake. I bet a lot of her college mail is pretty similar to that.

[PBrooke]

Eh, I wouldn't go so far as to say it must all be diploma mills - sending out all this crap is a standard practice that almost all colleges do, from the little leagues to the big ones, from music schools to MIT to state schools.

[AnnoDomini]

Reading when she says 'it's nice to be wanted' my heart hurt a little. Because I know how that feels. I want to be wantd, really wantd, by people who know me and don't have to love me.

[pomology]

I love when people blather on about something they know absolutely nothing about. It never fails to amuse me.

"Instead of offering challenge, college offers compromise: you come a take a re-run of high school English comp and listen to a few lectures and pass a few tests and we’ll give you a shiny diploma and the (almost) guarantee of a great job."

Uh, yeah, that's not how college works, sweetheart. I got go one of those heathen liberal schools that would probably give you a full on heart attack (if modern art gave you ulcers) and whatever they are, my college classes are not a re-run of my high school classes.

ETA:

Smug Homeschooler said, "But that is exactly the opposite of what the liberal arts cultivates. People and life is not primarily career-oriented: it’s all about one’s interaction with the truth, with understanding, with tending to body, soul and spirit—without necessarily neglecting the importance of earning daily bread."

I do not understand. If she is so in favor of a liberal arts education, why the fuck does she hate colleges so much? Again, my college experience is not what she thinks, because it is exactly what she wants colleges to be. My college education is not and has never been and never will be about obtaining a career. I am terrified that when I graduate at the end of this year I will not be able to find an adequately paying job, but that does not make me regret my education one bit. My major (history) is something that could easily be seen as "pointless" especially because I don't want to teach, but I picked it as my major, not because I know how it is going to help me, but because it is what I want to study and learn about. She might have little regard for small liberal arts schools because the are all heathen-y or whatever, but (unbeknownst to her) they are exactly what she wants.

[dawbs]

even on the most basic level, there's the "hey, meets our criteria, we should recruit because recruits = $$$

After my ASVAB tests, I got calls up the wazoo from military folks. They didn't *care* about me, perse, they cared about their bottom line--as well they should.

[JesusFightClub]

UM WHAT

For a start, most people are deluged by glossy brochures, letters and the like when they sign up for it! It's not cause they love you and think you are the next Nobel Prize winner, it's called marketing!

Hell, if it comes to that, when we got career counselling at my school they asked me if I'd considered sitting the exam for Oxford or Cambridge. I walked out of the room glowing. For a few minutes I was a speshul snowflake. I was a straight A student and so I was dead proud. Then my best pal who had been behind me in the queue came out with face similarly glowing. She was a C student in Drama but in everything else she was getting Ds and Es. "Do you know what they asked me...?" ;)

Reason for this...the school wanted to say "We put up lots and lots of students for Oxbridge exams every year, look how great we are". Didn't matter if you were any good or likely to pass as stats don't lie amirite? The soft soap she got from the various colleges wasn't because they wanted her particularly.

( Incidentally my best pal at the time is now a very successful private school teacher and I am a permanently broke Trot living in a commune. Draw your own conclusions ;) )

IOW, though she's obviously intelligent, she's still very naive. Your parents are deeply involved in you as a person, your studies and your understanding. Your college sees you as an economic unit. She doesn't seem to have grasped this (it was funny to me that she was surprised she didn't get a mailshot tailored to her...)

Also, if she thinks a university degree is the equivalent of high school English she is in for a BIG shock. If she ever decides to condescend to let one of the heathen instruct her, that is.

[LIzzieB]

The smug - it burns! Hopefully, it's just a product of being 17 or 18 and knowing everything.

Someone has run back to her comments and anonymously told her that we are talking about her here on FJ.

[Austin]

I love the tattletales! :D

[Guest Anonymous]

I wonder if her parents are refusing to let her go to ANY college, and her denigrating of college is a form of sour grapes. "Well, it's just as well that I can't go, because I wouldn't get anything out of it."

[QueenMother]

This girl's really been laying out a rant about college this past week. From her know-it-all attitudes about modern art to her daily tossing out of "propaganda" from prestigious schools, this girl is a piece of work.

bighouseinthelittlewoodsblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/u-and-modern-university.html

bighouseinthelittlewoodsblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/college-crash.html

bighouseinthelittlewoodsblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/unsocialized-homeschoolers-gazette.html

My favorite lines:

"Somewhere along the way, I think I got a UW-Madison letter. (I lose track. All that stands out is the college who has the orange being unpeeled, the University of Chicago, St. Norbert's and Yale - that was an exciting day.) My daddy graduated there; we still get their alumni publications which I try to read over lunch break before my dad tosses them into the recycling with a deprecating, "Such a liberal college." Worldview training at its best."

Why is she getting all these letters? How do they know about her? Why do they care?

Homeschooled? So unless she or her parents are notifying universities about her she would not be getting into letters.

I bet she gets a lot of traffic to her blog from people searching for Laura Ingles Wilder sites. She's not stupid in that regard.

(She would find me a cruel mother for sending all my children to univerity :)

[Joykins]

College is largely what you make of it, or at least that is my experience in a large public college. If you want to party all the time, it is that until you flunk out. If you want career prep, you can get it. If you want a liberal arts education, you can get it. If you want an educational challenge, you can get it. If you want to redo high school level stuff, sit in easy-A classes for 4 years and graduate with a piece of paper, you can do that too.

When I was younger I thought college, liberal arts education, I wouldn't concentrate on career but on expanding my mind. Now that I am older I would like to go back and get some coursework in the field I FELL INTO (software development--I was an English major) under my belt, because I lack paper qualifications to move to other companies/be promoted very high where I am now. It's not that I never took a compsci course but who uses Pascal in this millennium?

[MonkeyMomma]

Can you imagine all the ebil messages they would find in our awesome Children's museum?

She can have Vicki McKenna and Scott Walker, though. Hello to a fellow 90 sq miles surrounded by reality-er! *waves*

*waves back*

Huzzah! Yes, she may have them, and I'll even throw in the Fitzgeralds for good measure. :)

[sugaree]

She replied to that message, and noted in that reply that she now plans to go to college. A real one too! Good for her!

She writes very well, but I hate to see that sort of thing coming from a young person. I'm trying not to sound ageist, but there's just no way she could come up with those sort of philosophies on her own at this point. She just doesn't have the life experience; she hasn't had the chance to really observe college or how it changes people's lives. So all this stuff about college she's just parroting from other people, and that's where the smug comes in.

[SunnyAndrsn]

She just brought back memories of a really great weekend my freshman year of college. I was visiting a friend at UW-Madison.

Oh he memories!

[VodouDoll]

She replied to that message, and noted in that reply that she now plans to go to college. A real one too! Good for her!

Really? That's excellent! From her entry about how much she values liberal arts education, I hope her parents support her in going to that kind of school, instead of pressuring her to go to a Bible college or something.