What’s wrong with this picture?
A recent newspaper article on our local library mentioned the popularity of its after-school tutoring program and cited the example of a woman tutoring a third-grader who was learning about clocks and money.
This didn’t strike me as particularly noteworthy until I read the tutor’s comment that sometimes “parents stay downstairs and read while their children are being tutored.”
I certainly approve of parents reading at the library, but for crying out loud! Any literate parent could teach a 9-year-old child about clocks and money with a $3.00 workbook from Wal-Mart! Why on earth is a tutor needed for that? For that matter, they could skip the workbook altogether and use a real clock and a few trips to the grocery store.
This is an excellent example of how professional educators have brainwashed our society into dependence on their “expertise.” Most people just assume that they are not capable of “teaching” their children anything that is typically taught in school. How much they—and their children—are missing out on!
Mary Jo Tate
My mother in law argued that I wouldn’t be able to teach my first child to read (who was 10 months at the time). She argued that only an “expert” who is trained can do that and I would be a complete failure at it. It went right along with her other arguments on why we were crazy for planning to homeschool our child. Well, that child was reading by the age of 4 and in a second grade reading book by the age of 5, he read it to his Grandpa just to prove it. Since that time I have co-authored and created a math program that has sold world wide and is used in Public School classrooms across the United States. Am I an “expert’? No!! Just a homeschool mom who discovered a teaching gem as a result of hsing my children. BTW, my mother in law doesn’t argue with me anymore about hsing. LOL
Jennie von Eggers
http://www.TimesTales.com
http://www.CreativeHomeschooling.com
I totally agree with you! When I decided to homeschool (it had been a looong time coming, but finally made official), certain family members found it necessary to let me know how i was “ruining their (the kids’) lives”, I must “not want them to go to college and be successful”, and “what makes you think you are better than someone who is trained to teach”.They went on to tell me that “it would be different if I had been to college for a teaching degree, had a Master’s in education, taught for a while then decided to homeschool” my children. I guess those 10 years as a nurse meant nothing, I mean that’s only people’s lives and health and stuff–nothing BIG like education.
Good golly, I taught them to read BEFORE kindergarten, tie their shoes at 3, did hours of homework with them, and so forth.
I can’t wait to see the critics faces 5 years from now. Wonder what they’ll have to say then?
Thanks for posting this. Sorry for hijacking and rambling on!
I only have a 4 yo, so I don’t really know….but shouldn’t they know about money and clocks before the third grade???? That seems like something you learn in kdg or first grade.
Miss Bingley would probably say that we home educators seem “to shew an abominable sort of conceited indpendence,” I’m sure. Lots and lots of Miss Bingleys in the world, aren’t there?