Like I Have Time For This?

Came across this gem of an article on Yahoo tonight:  Texas Debates the Way History Will Be Taught and thought the rest of you might want to give it a glance, if you haven’t seen it yet.

Basically, Texas is embroiled in a bit of an argument about what topics and which prominent people should be included in the public K-12 social studies program. It’s the usual fight: the Left versus the Right. The Left generally wants to make sure that No One Is Excluded at the expense of their religion, race, creed, gender, politics, belief in marsupial afterlife or odd persistence in drinking caffeine-free diet sodas. If you honestly believe in it, whatever it is, they’ll find a way for it to be included in the national curriculum. The Right generally wants everything to be very Christian all the time. Except for Santa. Santa can suck it, as far as they’re concerned. I’m pretty sure you can find that in the Bible somewhere, written in code maybe. So sayeth the Lord and all that.  Or maybe I’m thinking of Nostradamus. Dan Brown? Jerry B. Jenkins? I dunno. Somewhere, at least.

So, it’s really not surprising that the two sides of the Texas school board can’t seem to find a middle-ground on this issue. Nothing new there. And I don’t even live in Texas, so why should I even care, right? And I wouldn’t really, except for this:

The curriculum it chooses will set the guideposts for teaching history and social studies to some 4.8 million K-12 students for 10 years. The standards will be used to develop state tests and by textbook publishers who develop material for the nation based on Texas, one of the largest markets. (emphasis is mine)

So, basically, most of the nation will end up with whatever Texas decides. And frankly, if I weren’t homeschooling already, I’d be watching this one Very Closely, and carefully considering my options. Because if you haven’t read it yet, you really need to read this article: A Textbook Example of What’s Wrong With Education by Tamim Ansary, and see the politics behind how American public school textbooks are written and published. For example:

If you’re creating a new textbook, therefore, you start by scrutinizing “Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills” (TEKS). This document is drawn up by a group of curriculum experts, teachers, and political insiders appointed by the 15 members of the Texas Board of Education, currently five Democrats and ten Republicans, about half of whom have a background in education. TEKS describes what Texas wants and what the entire nation will therefore get.

Texas is truly the tail that wags the dog. There is, however, a tail that wags this mighty tail. Every adoption state allows private citizens to review textbooks and raise objections. Publishers must respond to these objections at open hearings.

In the late ’60s, a Texas couple, Mel and Norma Gabler, figured out how to use their state’s adoption hearings to put pressure on textbook publishers. The Gablers had no academic credentials or teaching background, but they knew what they wanted taught — phonics, sexual abstinence, free enterprise, creationism, and the primacy of Judeo-Christian values — and considered themselves in a battle against a “politically correct degradation of academics.”

Phonics sounds good. So does free enterprise. But the rest of it… not our cuppa, so to speak. And before you all freak out on me for bashing on the Texas fundies, here’s what California likes to do with their textbooks:

Concern in California is normally of the politically correct sort — objections, for example, to such perceived gaffes as using the word Indian instead of “Native American.” To make the list in California, books must be scrupulously stereotype free: No textbook can show African Americans playing sports, Asians using computers, or women taking care of children. Anyone who stays in textbook publishing long enough develops radar for what will and won’t get past the blanding process of both the conservative and liberal watchdogs.

It’s not so bad as the conservative push in Texas, but it’s still over the top for me. The idea of never showing women taking care of children doesn’t sit well with me. There’s such a thing as Too Politically Correct, if you ask me. They’re shooting themselves in the foot at the expense of the children they’re trying to teach. And the result is social paralysis and an uneducated American public.

It’s really an eye-opening experience, revisiting this article. The kind that makes me grateful for even the most difficult day around here, when we’re just slogging through the material in the middle of an endless cold-snap and the holiday break is over and we’re all grousing and grumbling at each other and waiting for spring. Because at least I’ve got the freedom to choose what we study and to present the material in a meaningful way.

Yeah, we homeschool. Thank God.

Education Next is running a pretty decent article on homeschooling, titled: “Homeschooling Goes Mainstream.” The article talks about how homeschooling is growing to include demographics OTHER THAN the denim-jumper wearing, Christian fundamentalist, to include more commonly now, people of diverse ethnic, racial and economic backgrounds. Here’s a brief passage:

…over the last decade families of all kinds have embraced the practice for widely varying reasons: no longer is home schooling exclusive to Christian fundamentalism and the countercultural Left. Along with growing acceptance of home schooling nationally has come increasing diversification of who home schools and of what home schooling actually means.

 It’s a bit long, and somewhat heavy on charts and stats, but well worth the time, if you’ve got it.

Here’s an interesting little article over at the Wall Street Journal’s blog: Why Kids Hate School.

The article is essentially a review of a new book coming out written by a couple of professors at the University of Texas, Arlington, Ben Agger and Beth Ann Shelton. The book is titled, I Hate School: Why American Kids Are Turned Off Learning.

Choice quotes from the article include:

Our schools are failing because they are warehouses and work houses…. They verge on penal colonies where teachers are wardens and students are inmates.

And:

…in an ideal school, “grading and testing would be minimized, and teachers would not be cops and dictators. Schools would have fewer desks and more open space…. Homework would be minimized, as real teaching and dialogue filled the day.”

I’m thinking I might need to get a hold of this book and have a look. Of course, it may not tell me anything that homeschoolers haven’t already been yelling at the top of our lungs for years and years.

But, it’s nice to know that other nonhomeschoolers are finally getting there.

In spite of the many articles and studies either already published or eagerly awaited, attesting to the normal social and academic development of homeschooled children, I still occasionally find myself worrying about the whole damn thing. Like, what if all those studies are utter crap, and this whole thing I’ve gotten myself into is really some sort of weird psychological disorder of mine, in which I simply CANNOT let go of my children. What if it’s that?

Usually, I begin to worry after a few weeks in which we are off schedule and grumpy and things aren’t going as smoothly as I would like.

But then, last week, I sat in a room with a bunch of women of various ages and listened as one of them told a story of how her family had moved to a new town and how the children at her new school treated her. How awful it was. Those children were cruel, she said. And after that, another woman told a story of her own school experiences, and how her peers tormented her for years just because she was tall. And then another woman began to speak. And another. And another. And, God help us, another.

And more than half of these women then told stories of turning to drugs, or developing eating disorders, simply to cope with school.

And then on the news, I saw that 14-year-old boy’s arsenal and listened to his plans for that high school that isn’t so far from where we live right now, and then I saw that there’s a school out there that feels the need to distribute birth control pills to sixth graders, and then I just stopped watching the news for a while, because there’s only so much one can take.

And then, after all that, we managed to have a very good week of schooling at home, and I realized that it’s okay. I’m okay, and the kids are okay, and while I may not be the perfect homeschooler, and my kids may not emerge from their homeschool experience 100% well-adjusted, in the end, they’ll be okay. Whatever hangups they acquire, public school is just not the answer.

And for about 3 days now, I’ve been able to avoid the worry. Maybe it’s because we’ve started our mornings this week snuggling together on the sofa under blankets, giggling with each other and waving to RegularDad as he drives off to work. Maybe it’s because I’m spending more time just reading to the kids and letting them color with the “good” markers while I read stories of the Trojan War and life in ancient Greece.

Or maybe it’s just because when Mom stops worrying, everybody stops worrying.