Hey, look, it's the back of that Steve guy's head! And Jason and Chris. For some reason, candid shots just weren't working out for me. Anyway, yesterday I saw a couple things in the news that made me go "WHA??" The first one wasn't on the news. It was about this learning program for homeschooling online. That's cool, I support homeschooling, and I know it's possible to learn with an online program, but THEN they said it's supported by public funding. WHA?? It's this K12 thing. I don't remember voting for this. I'm not okay with public education in general, so I dunno why this bothers me more. And I can see how it might be a necessary evil for, oh, say Miley. I mean, there she was, traveling the country for months and months, so how could she do regular school. But did she need public schooling? I mean, um, couldn't she just PAY FOR IT herself?? That's just an example - I don't really know what kind of education she had. But, really, I just don't know why I'm paying people to develop these online programs, then paying for the materials to be sent to someone's house... Why am I so bitter about homeschooling to begin with. Maybe I wish I'd had it? Maybe. But not really. I don't remember what the other news item was. I reckon I've said enough for today anyhow.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Hey, look, it's the back of that Steve guy's head! And Jason and Chris. For some reason, candid shots just weren't working out for me. Anyway, yesterday I saw a couple things in the news that made me go "WHA??" The first one wasn't on the news. It was about this learning program for homeschooling online. That's cool, I support homeschooling, and I know it's possible to learn with an online program, but THEN they said it's supported by public funding. WHA?? It's this K12 thing. I don't remember voting for this. I'm not okay with public education in general, so I dunno why this bothers me more. And I can see how it might be a necessary evil for, oh, say Miley. I mean, there she was, traveling the country for months and months, so how could she do regular school. But did she need public schooling? I mean, um, couldn't she just PAY FOR IT herself?? That's just an example - I don't really know what kind of education she had. But, really, I just don't know why I'm paying people to develop these online programs, then paying for the materials to be sent to someone's house... Why am I so bitter about homeschooling to begin with. Maybe I wish I'd had it? Maybe. But not really. I don't remember what the other news item was. I reckon I've said enough for today anyhow.
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3 comments:
I wasn't aware that there were any publicly funded homeschooling programs out there. From my point of view, I don't think I'll be homeschooling my kids, but if public school isn't cutting it for whatever reason, I can't afford private, so homeschooling would be the thing. And since curriculum and materials could get very expensive, very quickly, I like the idea of a "public" homeschool. Also, could this help when kids are out of school for disease treatment, like cancer, or have other extenuating circumstances that make traditional schooling difficult or impossible?
My daughter works for one of these public-school-homeschooling outfits called Texas Virtual Academy. It is a charter school out of Houston, but serves most of Texas. They use the K12 curriculum (which is a commercial online curriculum that can be purchased by anyone). The motivation of the families to do this type of homeschooling is sometime religious, but sometimes it is for things like they live so far out in the country they have to ride the bus for an hour each way. Or health reasons, or bullying reasons, or even ice skaters training for the Olympics. She sees her students in person only at field trips or in-person TAKS testing, but she spends a lot of time on the phone with them or interacting via internet technology.
I'm sure it does have some very valid applications. I was just turned very much against public and homeschooling in my formative years, and it's hard now to let logic win. No, public school is still not logical. I can't grasp that one. And I know I'm not the only person who would put an employment application in the discard pile if it said "online degree". But I'm sure times will change soon enough. I'm just not sure if I'll change along with 'em.
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