Back Again
More thoughts on a lot of the reaction I'm seeing/reading re: LB 1141.
As soon as I read about this bill and what it entailed, I sort of knew what to expect as far as the "debate" and "discussion" went. And let me say from the beginning, this is what I expected to find and sure enough found out--for the most part. To be sure, there are still well-reasoned individuals in this world who do not fit the broad strokes I paint below. And let it be known that such people are a breath of fresh air from the closed garage with a running car that most posts, blogs and comments on the internet have become.
You can expect anti-home-schoolers to assume that religious, anti-evolutionary zeal is the only reason parents choose to home-school. You can further expect them to wail about how socially inept all home-schooled students must be. You can expect them to claim examples of kids they know who have been home-schooled, but don't know how to read.
You can expect home-schoolers to decry the teaching of the theory of evolution. You can expect to hear about guns and drugs and sex in schools, and not wanting kids to be exposed to all that. You can expect a very impassioned defense as if anything which could vaguely be construed as questioning the ability of parents to home-school their kids as a personal attack.
You can expect a deluge of logical fallacy. Take your pick: (circumstantial) ad hominem, appeal to authority, appeal to belief, biased sample, etc. To sum it all up, you can expect large numbers of people to showcase their ability to assume that their positions are well-thought out and well-reasoned, when in fact, very little thinking has actually taken place.
Here I go ranting again. But once again, let me say that there are people who don't fit into the categories I've just spelled out. Those are the people that I'll actually listen to, and heaven forbid, I might even retool my thought process because of them.
I think I wrote last night that this debate is not one that should center on, or even include, the pros and cons of public/private/home education. This should center on the merits, intentions, and consequences of the bill as written. I haven't seen a lot of that, and what I have seen is largely mistaken. There's a lot of typing I can save myself by sticking to the bill at hand and not the secondary issue of education.
Perhaps I can get to that tomorrow. Because it's late and I've got to teach in the morning.
As soon as I read about this bill and what it entailed, I sort of knew what to expect as far as the "debate" and "discussion" went. And let me say from the beginning, this is what I expected to find and sure enough found out--for the most part. To be sure, there are still well-reasoned individuals in this world who do not fit the broad strokes I paint below. And let it be known that such people are a breath of fresh air from the closed garage with a running car that most posts, blogs and comments on the internet have become.
You can expect anti-home-schoolers to assume that religious, anti-evolutionary zeal is the only reason parents choose to home-school. You can further expect them to wail about how socially inept all home-schooled students must be. You can expect them to claim examples of kids they know who have been home-schooled, but don't know how to read.
You can expect home-schoolers to decry the teaching of the theory of evolution. You can expect to hear about guns and drugs and sex in schools, and not wanting kids to be exposed to all that. You can expect a very impassioned defense as if anything which could vaguely be construed as questioning the ability of parents to home-school their kids as a personal attack.
You can expect a deluge of logical fallacy. Take your pick: (circumstantial) ad hominem, appeal to authority, appeal to belief, biased sample, etc. To sum it all up, you can expect large numbers of people to showcase their ability to assume that their positions are well-thought out and well-reasoned, when in fact, very little thinking has actually taken place.
Here I go ranting again. But once again, let me say that there are people who don't fit into the categories I've just spelled out. Those are the people that I'll actually listen to, and heaven forbid, I might even retool my thought process because of them.
I think I wrote last night that this debate is not one that should center on, or even include, the pros and cons of public/private/home education. This should center on the merits, intentions, and consequences of the bill as written. I haven't seen a lot of that, and what I have seen is largely mistaken. There's a lot of typing I can save myself by sticking to the bill at hand and not the secondary issue of education.
Perhaps I can get to that tomorrow. Because it's late and I've got to teach in the morning.
posted by the jake at 7:42 PM
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