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Discussion Forums » In The News
Homeschoolers and Abuse
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19 Mar 2010, 02:05
Avonlea@ITW
Post Count: 53
As you may know, darling Kyra Ishaq died at the hands of her parents in the UK soon after they pulled her out of school to educate her at home.

So much has been said about this case, that there’s not much more for me to say about this sad, terrible abuse of parental power. However, I would like to address the larger topic of how these kinds of abuse stories create a stir of anti-homeschooling sentiment.

You and I know that 99.999% of homeschool abuse stories in the media have nothing at all to do with homeschooling. Homeschooling regulations and monitoring will not decrease the number of these cases, nor will they stop crazies from doing crazy things.

Yet, extreme abuse cases are so often used as examples (and sometimes the only examples) of why homeschooling needs to be regulated and homeschoolers all should be monitored by the state. Little do these bloggers and social politicos know that they are being duped by their own brain. Using these extreme cases of abuse as an example of why homeschooling, in general, is a bad thing, does not come from logic reasoning. It comes from emotion, defensive politics, and the desire to take a shortcut to feeling bette


The rest of the article is here.

It's a long article, but it really does bring up some good points. I'm just curious to hear opinions on this. Maybe I'm naive, but I didn't really think very many people were that extreme in their thoughts against homeschooling.
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19 Mar 2010, 02:23
dont.mess.with.momma
Post Count: 25
"you & i" don't know nothin'. don't be stickin your assumptions on me. you sayin' theres been 100,000 homeschool abuse stories in the media?
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19 Mar 2010, 17:29
Mary Magdelene
Post Count: 506
How is 99.999% 99,999?
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19 Mar 2010, 17:30
Mary Magdelene
Post Count: 506
Let me rephrase that....

How is 99.999% equal to 99,999?
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22 Mar 2010, 02:40
dont.mess.with.momma
Post Count: 25
well, er, you know that 99.999% is 99,999 cases out of 100,000, so unless your dividin' abuse cases into 1/100 of a case or somethin', your gonna need there to be at least 100,000 cases for that stat to be true. If not 100,000, then 200,000, or 300,000. which you & i know is a bunch of shit.
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22 Mar 2010, 17:40
Mary Magdelene
Post Count: 506
I really hope you don't expect your argument to be taken seriously.
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19 Mar 2010, 18:46
Avonlea@ITW
Post Count: 53
Are you directing your comment to the writer of the article? I don't believe she posts here.
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22 Mar 2010, 02:54
dont.mess.with.momma
Post Count: 25
your postin' on behalf of her, so you get the comments bout what shit she's talkin.
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19 Mar 2010, 02:28
*Forever Changing*
Post Count: 847
I think there needs to be more regulations on who can and cannot homeschool, you need to be able to actually teach your children something and not just ignorant ranting, actually TEACH them something of value. I do not however think that people should be required to send their kids to public school, if they want to hire a private teacher to homeschool, then that should be allowed to be done.
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19 Mar 2010, 22:02
~RedFraggle~
Post Count: 2651
Exactly! Thank you! And if parents have nothing to hide, why would they be so against regulation? (Unless they're just really paranoid about government control etc etc etc)
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19 Mar 2010, 22:17
*Forever Changing*
Post Count: 847
I have no problem with regulations, in fact I think we need more. I do like that in my state every other grade my children have to take a standardized test to make sure I am teaching them what they need to know.
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19 Mar 2010, 22:28
Mary Magdelene
Post Count: 506
How do you define "able"? I have only one half of a year of college, and yet I am PERFECTLY capable of homeschooling my children. In fact, since being out of school, their standardized testing scores have gone from 25% average (after two and five years in the school system), to 75% average....in just one year. So how would you define "able to teach"? Obviously it doesn't require a college degree to be "able to teach" my children.
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19 Mar 2010, 22:30
*Forever Changing*
Post Count: 847
No where did I say you needed a college education to teach your children, ever. All I am saying is some people are very ignorant. There are people who do not know how many states the USA has, so do I think they should be able to teach their children? Um, no. If you live here and do not know how many states your country has, you shouldnt. I honestly think there needs to be some sort of test system to be able to teach them. You need to know the basics before we can expect you to teach your children the basics.
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19 Mar 2010, 22:32
Mary Magdelene
Post Count: 506
You need to know the basics before we can expect you to teach your children the basics.

Ok, now THAT I can agree with.
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19 Mar 2010, 23:25
~RedFraggle~
Post Count: 2651
But your children are still young. Will they be attending a high school once their required knowledge overtakes that which you can provide? (Apologies if I've asked you this before) I know that there's no way I could now teach the level of maths/chemistry/physics that I learned in high school.
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19 Mar 2010, 23:35
Mary Magdelene
Post Count: 506
My children are still young, and still far enough off from high school that I can't answer that question.

In any case, they will be allowed to decide for themselves how they want to school. We can continue homeschooling, which whether I have the knowledge for that level of education or not there are MULTITUDES of resources available. *I* do not have to be the one educating them (and you will find in most homeschool families, it's not only the parents who do the educating...it's other family members, sometimes friends). I also have a brother and a father who completed college, both VERY good in maths and sciences. They can attend traditional school. They will even have the option of attending a program at the community college called Running Start (in some areas called something else), which allows high school students (typically only grades 11 and 12, but grades 9 and 10 if they can prove skills) to get a jump start on their college education.

It will be their choice. If they choose to continue homeschooling, I am knowledgeable enough that I know where to go for the assistance needed to get them the skills they need without holding them back for future education. Even if that means homeschooling part-time and sending them to a traditional school for those subjects which I am not as skilled in.
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20 Mar 2010, 00:00
~RedFraggle~
Post Count: 2651
That sounds reasonably sensible to me.
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20 Mar 2010, 00:24
*Forever Changing*
Post Count: 847
I will continue to home school until they tell me they want to go to school OR once they get to high school, there is a online school here, that gives parents the lesson plans for different things. Honestly I never took Chemistry or Physics in high school, I will be taking them in my Community College though, I am not worried about that, it is something that can be recreated at home with enough research.
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19 Mar 2010, 02:30
Chris
Post Count: 1938
So wait, what happened? She started being home schooled, and THEN started being abused? What were the circumstances surrounding the abuse? Did the actual home schooling have anything to do with it? I'm so confused...
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19 Mar 2010, 22:05
~RedFraggle~
Post Count: 2651
She attended school but her parents were starving and abusing her. She was caught stealing food from another child at school because she was so hungry and the school became aware something was up. So they removed her from school and said she was being home schooled. Social services went to the house once, and didn't even SEE her... then again and they didn't get beyond the front door. They should have enquired further, but they didn't. She starved to death. She was 7.
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19 Mar 2010, 22:01
~RedFraggle~
Post Count: 2651
I'm not sure if you found this story after the comment I left on Christina's diary... but if you'd read my comment you'd have seen that I in no way think that this story should be used as an example that homeschooling is a bad thing. All I said was that it's an example of why homeschooling needs to be regulated and the authorities need to be checking on these children, because if they ARE being abused (which is incredibly rare) it is unlikely to be picked up if the child does not attend school.

Of course most homeschooling parents have their child's best interests at heart, but a small number don't, a small number are not equipped to educate their child, and a smaller number still will be harming their child, hidden away from the rest of the world. To ensure that doesn't happen there has to be some sort of regulation. I disagree that regulation won't prevent these things happening. Why wouldn't they? That's perfectly logical. If hiding the child away didn't make it easier to abuse them, such parents wouldn't remove their child from school in the first place. If someone had been properly checking up on Kyra at home she'd have almost certainly have been removed from the parents before it got to the stage where she died.

But I see no reason why it should be used as an anti-homeschooling argument.
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19 Mar 2010, 22:25
Mary Magdelene
Post Count: 506
The problem with this idea, and I have personally seen it in districts that have stricter homeschooling rules, is the "law" gets interpreted differently by different people. And what doesn't seem like a problem to one person will seem like a problem to another person.

If I let someone in my house just to check up on my children, and they have very distinct ideas on what is right and what isn't, and they see that I do not have meat or animal products in my house because we are vegan (just as an example), they could turn around and suggest that I am not feeding my children properly (it HAS happened, so don't say it won't) and either attempt to force me to bring that stuff into my home and feed it to my children, or take my children away because I refuse to. EVEN if the pediatrician says that my children are perfectly healthy and not deficient in anything.

It's one thing to regulate homeschool to make sure the child is learning like they are supposed to be. But when you start wanting homeschool to be regulated in the manner you suggest, it opens up a whole other can of worms. Yes, it's very sad what happened to this child, but it's not about regulating homeschool in this manner. Even if they were to specify only "at risk" children were to be checked on, how do you define what an "at risk" child is? Some might consider my children "at risk" because of our diet.

There are far too many angles to consider when coming up with a law that regulates homeschooling so this sort of thing doesn't happen. And even if they did, the parents who are harming their children while homeschooling them would still find a way to hide their child away from the authorities. It's not that difficult to do if that's what you want to do.
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19 Mar 2010, 23:30
~RedFraggle~
Post Count: 2651
Defining an 'at risk' child is very difficult if no-one outside of the family has had contact with that child. Hence why I think ALL children who are not attending school need to be followed up.

No-one should be able to take your children away because you're vegan. That is ridiculous. But it's a seperate problem. Removing a child from a home when there is no evidence of actual harm (over feeding your children to the point they are morbidly obese would be a different matter) should not happen under appropriate regulations (clearly laid out recommendations which do not allow individual people to act of their own accord in such matters). That is not an argument for not trying to ensure that other children, who are CLEARLY being harmed or disadvantaged, are identified.

I mean you could use the same argument to say "the police shouldn't investigate people because they might be innocent". :P
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19 Mar 2010, 23:35
Avonlea@ITW
Post Count: 53
No, this had nothing to do with your comment. I did read it, but wasn't thinking of it when I posted this. I just posted it when I found it spontaneously.

Thanks for your comment; I may or may not always agree with you, but you always present your arguments logically and fairly without name calling, and I do appreciate that. Not many bloopers are capable of that. :)
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20 Mar 2010, 01:44
Avonlea@ITW
Post Count: 53
After answering your question, I started to have some doubts. I just went back to Christina's diary to look for the comment you were talking about. I found it (I'm guessing you're talking about the long one?), and it was a new one to me; I hadn't read it before.

So when I answered you earlier, I was thinking about something I'd read somewhere else, not your comment.
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