Kelly @ GC believes that 'conversation' equals education

[aggythenostic]

Relax, fundie ladies! No need to have pesky things like books and lessons! Why, they aren't going with you to the grocery store. They're being edjicated!

http://www.generationcedar.com/main/201 ... l#comments

“Teaching†is going on all the time. Don’t become a slave to a textbook or curriculum; use them as tools, not tyrants. (I have taught 5 children to read by phonics with no formal curriculum.) Bath time, driving time, walking together, day or night–all hours of the day provide opportunities for teaching, especially teaching little ones. As they get older, self-directed study becomes more natural because their appetites for learning have been whetted.

Huh. Really?

Multiple research findings conclude that a “good education†is encapsulated into “being literate, numerate, and having the ability to reasonâ€. This does not require hours of formal instruction, but rather a casual lifestyle that facilitates a constant thirst for knowledge. Good conversation with parents in tune to asking questions and probing their children to think is more than most students get in an average day.

Oh. Okay.

Is there any way to turn this woman in? Or does Alabama not care about her hair-brained ideas about education?

[MamaJunebug]

Well, sure she does. She's the one that would rather have children who grow to be Christian ignoramuses (her definition of "Christian," of course) than educated individuals who question things like faith.

I question faith a lot. I still have it. People like Kelly appear to see faith and thought as mutually exclusive. Poor Kelly-kids.

[doggie]

hopefully they can manage do you want cheese on that? when they apply to mcdee' while praying to god of course.

[snarkykitty]

"The academic advantage is only one reason why we homeschool. Imparting our family’s values and worldviews, tying bonds of fellowship, nurturing relationships, building character–there are a myriad of other reasons that should encourage us to dig our heels in."

I fail to see what kind of academic advantage stems from this type of "homeschooling." Shouldn't it be an indicator to the mother who wrote the email that she might not be able to effectively homeschool and do all the things around the home that she wants/needs to do? There are reasons why there is a public school system, and it's not something borne of the much-feared anti-Christian, Big Government plot to steal your children away from you.

Firstly, it's not the federal government, but the state governments who are responsible for the public school system. The much-bemoaned Jeffersonian school of thought that education should be free from religion doesn't mean that the goal is to de-religionize (is that a word?) children. It was designed to give every child, regardless of personal beliefs, a standard education. Some of the goals of public education included promoting good citizenship (it's no coincidence that most of the Ten Commandments are equivalent to modern secular moral imperatives - we all agree that murder, lying and thievery are bad things) and preventing crime and poverty.

Although I was brought up in a Catholic home and attended Catholic school K-12, I don't believe that religion has any place in public schooling. People like Kelly abhor public education because they believe that it exposes children to conflicting beliefs and influences, and they claim that Christian schools are still too worldly. Is it so difficult for them to provide a strong religious education at home and through their formal structures of faith (church/synagogue/temple/mosque) while providing their children the opportunity to obtain a (ideally) strong, balanced and useful education?

I firmly believe that the homeschooling methods used by the likes of Kelly and the Duggars (which we know because they tell/show us) is detrimental not only to the children, but to those who are/will have to be in contact with the children as adults. Keeping basic information and skills from children only serves to isolate them. At some point, they will be forced out into the world - whether it's for a job, medical care, shopping, etc. - lacking in not only the ability to co-exist with others without judgement or fear, but also the ability to understand basic contexts of society.

You can't control everything in your kid's life forever. That's the problem with children :roll: . They grow up.

Edited to add that I don't think that the public education system in this country is perfect. Far from it. But in many situations, it's much better than the education that people like Kelly and the Duggars provide, because it gives them a chance to not necessarily to compete, but to survive.

[Guest Anonymous]

hopefully they can manage do you want cheese on that? when they apply to mcdee' while praying to god of course.

Doggie, I doubt that these kids can even aspire that high in the real world. I also don't think that any of the fast-food purveyors, McDonald's or otherwise, want to be seen as dumping grounds for society's ineducables.

[doggie]

Doggie, I doubt that these kids can even aspire that high in the real world. I also don't think that any of the fast-food purveyors, McDonald's or otherwise, want to be seen as dumping grounds for society's ineducables.

hate to agree with you but I bet you are right.

[Effie]

Wait... a conversation with Kelly is instructive enough? Kelly is definitely thinking highly of herself. :roll:

[aggythenostic]

Good conversation with parents in tune to asking questions and probing their children to think is more than most students get in an average day.

How the hell does she know this? This is a pretty broad assumption. Because as far as I can tell, kids get BOTH in my world. And they aren't forced to accept nonsense that the bones in the book aren't 80,000 years old!

I'm not a fan of homeschooling of any kind, but I will say that my non-fundie friends use all the resources they can find - like other educated people, libraries, etc. What resources are these kids getting besides a trip to Walmart on Tuesdays? How are they getting modern day skills? Computers are a great example. Your typical school system will now have a computer room so that even small kids can understand how they work. I doubt that Kelly ever gets off hers for a minute, and there certainly aren't resources for all twenty seven of her 'littles' [gag] to learn basic word processing. let alone advanced programs.

The scary part is that the uneducated girls that she's raising will teach THEIR children. I completely disagree with the notion that parents should be the last step in deciding what's right for their children - because they'll live in MY world. So more controls on homeschooling should be MANDATORY.

[Shirley MacLaine]

Doggie, I doubt that these kids can even aspire that high in the real world. I also don't think that any of the fast-food purveyors, McDonald's or otherwise, want to be seen as dumping grounds for society's ineducables.

Well, there's the good Christianos at Chik-fil-A...

[emmyfair]

See, this is what makes me crazy about Kelly's ideas regarding education and religion - if you can't question and try something, you can never truly own it. No wonder fundies are so scared to let their kids into the big bad world, they've been conditioned to replay whatever's around them instead of learning to think for themselves.

Poor kids. :(

[Jewess]

While I don't think conversation is the only way to educate, I don't see why you think it can't educate. Depends I guess the nature of the conversation, and how educated the mom or dad is.

Like when my kids were asking me "Mom, why are birds able to fly, but people aren't", I was able to explain about the weight difference and the structure of a bird's bones that allow it to fly, and then the conversation expanded further to discuss early attempts at making airplanes, and what finally worked, and how today's airplanes work and the physics behind it, etc...

Yea, I definitely think that conversation was educational...

And its but a typical example of our conversations on any given day.

[aggythenostic]

It's not that I think it CAN'T educate. It's the notion that it is all one needs to educate. It's one thing to have conversations in addition to actual education. It's another thing to claim that there is no need for 'book-learning' - Kelly has it all her head! And let's break it down. The woman has eight children, and she runs home businesses, and she's trying to rebuild. At one point is she really having these truly educational conversations with all her children? Personally, I think it's bunk. She has no sweeping knowledge of science or math. She's admitted as much. I would bet that the conversations are something like this:

"Mommy, why do birds fly?"

"They fly because God gave them the wings. What else has wings?"

"Ostrich. But they don't fly..."

"Yes, because God wants Ostriches to stay on the ground. Why don't you draw a picture of an ostrich?"

[maybeizfundie]

While I don't think conversation is the only way to educate, I don't see why you think it can't educate. Depends I guess the nature of the conversation, and how educated the mom or dad is.

Like when my kids were asking me "Mom, why are birds able to fly, but people aren't", I was able to explain about the weight difference and the structure of a bird's bones that allow it to fly, and then the conversation expanded further to discuss early attempts at making airplanes, and what finally worked, and how today's airplanes work and the physics behind it, etc...

Yea, I definitely think that conversation was educational...

And its but a typical example of our conversations on any given day.

Gotta agree with this.

Especially with the littler kids. We definitely do use phonics. But by the time we got to formal phonics, they already knew the basics and more. Blew through K-2nd grade phonics more as review than learning. Not because I did "Your baby can read" or "100 easy lessons", either. We just included letters, and letter sounds and letter puzzles and letter games in our day to day life.

And the 18 months we spent living with my parents, the kids test scores jumped many grade levels in vocabulary, reading comprehension, and word recognition. Because of my dad. It was incredible what they learned from him during those months, and reminded me just what a huge impact informal education can have. I can never compare to my dad, but I'm doing everything I can to continue that sort of education, alongside our formal curriculum.

Kelly did not say textbooks are useless and shouldn't be used. She is of the lifestyle learning mindset. I am too, and I still use formal curriculum (state run cyberschool, even).

[aggythenostic]

Okay, fundie-light ladies. I think you guys are missing the point. Kelly blogs as a way to 'encourage' women who feel overwhelmed to continue to homeschool - even when they don't have the emotional or material resources to do so. What she's saying in her post is that if you don't get to 'lessons' - don't worry! At some point, they'll teach themselves because you've developed their curious minds or what have you. It's clear to me that some women never get around to it at all. I've had friends who were fundie-schooled, and literally didn't have books after they turned ten. They memorized verses. They cleaned the house. I'm sure there are mothers who are fabulous home-schoolers, and their kids have every possible advantage. But it takes an enormous amount of education and patience, and meanwhile these women are pregnant or nursing or trying to keep a house together. So should they be encouraged in this way? No. They should not be.

Besides, Kelly's daughter's blog is a fantastic example of her failure as a teacher. The girl is 16, and reasons like a ten year old. Her writing is awful. Sorry, but there should be controls like any other kind of schooling.

[Aislynn]

Okay, fundie-light ladies. I think you guys are missing the point. Kelly blogs as a way to 'encourage' women who feel overwhelmed to continue to homeschool - even when they don't have the emotional or material resources to do so. What she's saying in her post is that if you don't get to 'lessons' - don't worry! At some point, they'll teach themselves because you've developed their curious minds or what have you. It's clear to me that some women never get around to it at all. I've had friends who were fundie-schooled, and literally didn't have books after they turned ten. They memorized verses. They cleaned the house. I'm sure there are mothers who are fabulous home-schoolers, and their kids have every possible advantage. But it takes an enormous amount of education and patience, and meanwhile these women are pregnant or nursing or trying to keep a house together. So should they be encouraged in this way? No. They should not be.

Besides, Kelly's daughter's blog is a fantastic example of her failure as a teacher. The girl is 16, and reasons like a ten year old. Her writing is awful. Sorry, but there should be controls like any other kind of schooling.

This. This x1000.

My mom recited all the same crap that Kelly promotes in this blog post all the time - and had me as "proof." I had post-high-school on all my state tests (until 9th grade and then never took another one because she had quit schooling me and knew I would fail!) and I loved learning (still do) and she had never once traditionally schooled me in anything. It was all conversational and self-motivated. So sure, I did fine. But I had the potential to do very well at school and I regret not going to an actual school every single day of my life. Of seven younger siblings NONE of them have an education to speak of. None of them even know how to write a book report or any of the basic things along that level.

Homeschooling/conversational teaching is all fine and good as a supplement. But neither one makes your kids self-motivated or guarantees a love of learning. Some homeschoolers get lucky with kids like me and think that is proof it works and is all you need or even all you need for a time. It's not.

For the sake of her kids Kelly needs to get a grip.

[Brainsample]

In principle, if the parent is motivated and educated, you can use your daily activities to teach younger children, but it is a great deal of work, all the time. I have a friend who says that I get to take credit for two of her seven kids because of the help I've given them over the years, and on several occasions, I've kept two or three of her kids for weeks at a time when we moved away to a different state. They had relatives that were nearby, and I always planned on having projects for them for my benefit, but we ended up spending the entire time working on their academic needs. One fall because I was so appalled, I made it my mission to teach the 13 year old fractions (which I remember distinctly learning in 3rd grade), and I think that when she was 9 or 10, I taught her how to alphabetize and had her work on my files, CDs, books. I could see how you could easily work certain things into daily life if you WORK at it and plan for this, but only with younger aged kids.

At least Kelly isn't saying that you only need the Bible for a textbook like Kevin Swanson says and then says that he teaches his son algebra in the car between speaking gigs. And then both he and RC Sproul, Jr. say not to worry if your 13 year old cannot read (even if they are free of learning disabilities, etc., though there is little to no talk of screening for disabilities that I ever heard of when I regularly hung out with this set). So just the little that has been posted here does not sound that bad to me, especially not in comparison to the other outright garbage some of these other VF leaders have said, making "Character First" merely "Character Only, with Academics as secondary gain."

I could even see drilling a kid on fractions in the grocery story or having them figure percentages of savings for each item as an assignment when they go to the store with you, or having an older kid keep the budget to learn math skills, but you would have to plan for this, have a system and then enforce it. This is still work. Then you have the issue of boys vs girls, as I don't think that boys would really get into groceries (save to eat them). If you don't buy and follow a curriculum, you've got to do a lot of work and planning all of the time. And again, once a child is about 10 to 12, you've got to have some meat for them to chew on, unless you are a walking encyclopedia.

I have a friend who homeschooled three kids and put the last one in Christian school so she could play volleyball for her jr. and sr. years in high school, and she's been accepted into college already. All of them had excellent scores on SATs (better than I certainly had), and the two oldest who are done with their 4 year degrees at the local state school are both in graduate school now. They all studied Latin and Spanish. They all studied advanced math. Dad was a chemist and mom was an architect who turned SAHM, and dad had a PhD. But they worked at it and worked hard at teaching those kids all the the time.

Then I have my other friend who had seven kids whose 13 year old had pathetic math skills, and their writing and spelling was atrocious. I know a homeschooling big wig who bragged about how advanced her kids were and how homeschooled kids were better in every subject on the planet because of how they're educated, but neither of them could even get into LPN school because of poor math skills. I think that if you don't do the work and you don't have a whole lot of training yourself, your kids aren't going to fare as well. Less than 10% of the kids that I know who were homeschooled went on to college, representing the minority. But math skills and advanced skills were not a big priority. It was all about character and safety and staying away from the wrong crowd. These were exchanged for academics, when the early homeschooling movement was driven by producing kids that were educated far better than those in public school. Those days are largely gone, I fear, for most Christians who are currently being homeschooled.

How would we even get good statistics on this kind of thing anyway? Is NHERI going to admit that the larger percentage of homeschooled kids are not educated any better than kids who were educated in public school? It probably follows the 80/20 rule like everything else. 20% of homeschooled kids do well and would have done well, regardless of environment. But how well do the remaining 80% fare? How would we know? Do homeschooling groups or do curriculum producers keep stats on SAT scores or job success or placement? And what if you switched between curricula as many people do?

[Effie]

The girl is 16, and reasons like a ten year old.

She is 17, turning 18 in March next year. :(

[Paisy]

As a former teacher I agree with some of the principles Kelly puts forth, but I have a hard time reconciling it with their lifestyle. For example I firmly believe that once you've created curiosity in a child, half the battle has been won. However I don't see how that can be accomplished or effective when at the same time that child is taught not to question. Questioning is an important part of inquiry learning, which is what she seems to be advocating. It's a wonderful way to teach but it's got to be done right!

Plus she lost me at phonics. :|

[Brainsample]

There's also the issue of the unique strengths of each student. Some do well in classroom. Some do well with self-motivated programs. But even in Christian school where I attended high school, we had some kids that just did not do well because they were not self-motivated. We used Accelerated Christian Education which consisted of twelve workbooks for each subject per year (with series of tests for each workbook). To earn a credit for that grade, you had to do at least twelve booklets with a minimum acceptable score, or you repeated the booklet until you passed. It was good for slow kids or kids with gaps in learning that transferred in, because the placement tests would require you to go back and fill in your deficiencies, then you progressed wherever you fell out based on your proficiency. If you did twelve booklets a year, you received credit. Some slower kids would never have graduated in public school, and some really smart kids just took the GED to finish and be done with it if they were not up to grade level.

But we had kids that only wanted to do one subject. We had kids that were not motivated and wouldn't do their work. If new kids transferred in (discipline problem kids, for example), and they did not keep up or adapt well to the self-motivated system, the school pressed the parents to motivate the kids and would recommend seeking a different system if it seemed like the kid was not keeping up or adapting.

I think that different personalities do well at homeschooling, and other personalities would do better in classroom settings. What troubles me is the militant rejection of things like community college which I always recommended to parents who didn't know what to do with their high school aged kids who wanted to pursue science. Several of my friends chose to send their kids to the local CC to augment math and science, but I know that this is frowned upon in the VF set because it is seen as a government school that is subsidized by tax money and the community. Would Kelly or Kevin Swanson send their kids to CC to beef up their child's academics in a subject if they were not proficient at a certain point? I doubt it.

[emmiedahl]

From personal experience, my children entered the public school system years ahead of their peers after homeschooling.

I don't think that homeschooling is the only way, or private school, or public school. I have done all three.

In my opinion, my children's education is my responsibility regardless of where they are learning. I need to make sure they know all of the things required to be a successful adult. I mean, I am lucky that they have decent schools, but I approach the schools as a partner.

The thing about these fundies is that if their children are getting a sorry-ass education at home, they likely would get the same at public school. Let's say they were forced to go to school. Kelly is not going to be the mom who checks the backpack for homework and offers supplemental learning opportunities. She is not going to be the mom who says, I'll do your chores because you need to work on that science project. Education is not a priority in that house.

The single greatest indicator of a child's academic success is parent involvement. My 2nd grader reads at a 7th grade level; there are illiterate children in his class who are still learning basic phonics even though they are otherwise bright children, and then everything in between.

I'm glad she talks to them (like all parents don't talk to their kids) but I think she is academically failing them with her goddamn attitude that school is just not that important.

[Paisy]

From personal experience, my children entered the public school system years ahead of their peers after homeschooling.

I don't think that homeschooling is the only way, or private school, or public school. I have done all three.

In my opinion, my children's education is my responsibility regardless of where they are learning. I need to make sure they know all of the things required to be a successful adult. I mean, I am lucky that they have decent schools, but I approach the schools as a partner.

The thing about these fundies is that if their children are getting a sorry-ass education at home, they likely would get the same at public school. Let's say they were forced to go to school. Kelly is not going to be the mom who checks the backpack for homework and offers supplemental learning opportunities. She is not going to be the mom who says, I'll do your chores because you need to work on that science project. Education is not a priority in that house.

The single greatest indicator of a child's academic success is parent involvement. My 2nd grader reads at a 7th grade level; there are illiterate children in his class who are still learning basic phonics even though they are otherwise bright children, and then everything in between.

I'm glad she talks to them (like all parents don't talk to their kids) but I think she is academically failing them with her goddamn attitude that school is just not that important.

Bless you. If only more of my parents had been just like you, teaching would have been a whole lot easier!

[Brainsample]

[quote="Paisy"

Plus she lost me at phonics.

[Paisy]

And at what age do you completely master phonics? By age seven at the extreme, unless you had a child with learning disabilities where homeschooling might be really ideal? I learned much geometry while helping in the field with my dad who was a surveyor, whenever he did work on the side, and he was an excellent (and gentle) teacher. We would come home and talk about what he was doing -- about the theory that he applied in the field that day and how the instruments that he used worked. I was fascinated, not that I remember much of it anymore.... But Kelly is talking about phonics. When she starts talking about geometry, I might be impressed.

That's very true. The biggest issue I have with solely phonics based reading programs is that they don't address the more important fundamentals of reading - like understanding, active questioning, and metacognition. Again with the questioning thing...

[Brainsample]

From personal experience, my children entered the public school system years ahead of their peers after homeschooling.

I don't think that homeschooling is the only way, or private school, or public school. I have done all three.

In my opinion, my children's education is my responsibility regardless of where they are learning. I need to make sure they know all of the things required to be a successful adult. I mean, I am lucky that they have decent schools, but I approach the schools as a partner.

The thing about these fundies is that if their children are getting a sorry-ass education at home, they likely would get the same at public school. Let's say they were forced to go to school. Kelly is not going to be the mom who checks the backpack for homework and offers supplemental learning opportunities. She is not going to be the mom who says, I'll do your chores because you need to work on that science project. Education is not a priority in that house.

The single greatest indicator of a child's academic success is parent involvement. My 2nd grader reads at a 7th grade level; there are illiterate children in his class who are still learning basic phonics even though they are otherwise bright children, and then everything in between.

I'm glad she talks to them (like all parents don't talk to their kids) but I think she is academically failing them with her goddamn attitude that school is just not that important.

This is great to see -- that you do what works for your child and your family, depending on needs and your resources.

I'm just troubled by the homeschooling at all costs, no matter what the needs or the aptitudes of your child, as if it is a religious sacrament. And resources that families have can change, too. Kids change. Their needs can change. They may exceed your training and be better served in a different setting.

Again, the homeschooling movement was originally focused on academic excellence that was superior to a public school education because of the personal attention that the parent gave to the child. It was a touted as a better way to learn, especially for younger kids. But it only took about ten years for most of that expectation of academic excellence that was supposed to be superior to the public school option to disintegrate. It is sad to see.

[Brainsample]

The biggest issue I have with solely phonics based reading programs is that they don't address the more important fundamentals of reading - like understanding, active questioning, and metacognition. Again with the questioning thing...

One of the coolest moments I had with my dad was going with him to find a property line, but the landmarks and navigation points were obscured by another home. He took a reading off the corner of the house and used trianguation to calculate where the point would be and then verified it lat. It was a monumental moment in problem solving and is burned into my brain. What if you do if you don't have ideal and sufficient information? We collected as much secondary information to form an hypothesis to arrive at a reasonably certain estimate within a certain standard of error. Because we didn't have the ideal, we had to search for additional info from a source that we would have not needed, going to another site and property line marker to verify. It was huge for me, and I've thought about that day so many times. Once, we went out and took a reading off a star because there were no landmarks that were reliable. That was also a fascinating process that opened up a whole line of inquiry and creativity for me that helped me to be a better problem solver in my own field and really throughout my academic training to get to that point.

There was also that element of knowing truth through mathematics and being able to qualify it objectively. How do you know truth? That's epistemology there, though I wouldn't learn that for many years.

There were also the days when my dad made a rare mistake. Someone poured concrete based on his work, and the work was flawed, and it became a real life monument to his error. It put a real respect for accuracy and the importance of it because of how disappointed my father was in himself for the error. He also modeled accountability for it, too. (I don't think that the VF crowd does much of that kind of thing concerning their work. If something doesn't work, someone else didn't follow their paradigm properly.)

ETA: My dad didn't have to explain any of that stuff to me, either. I wanted to understand because I was curious about the nature of the world and why things were done in the way that they were. At the time that many of these things took place and the best explanations were offered, I was a public school kid.