I found it (comment #101) over at Pharyngula embedded deep within another pointless debate about homeschooling (note: link fixed). Ready?
Hello again my friends. I am not manipulated by your comments. I have seen several home school boys. I will only say it. They were not healthy. They were disgusting.
When you look at your city and it is dirty, do you only say no? That you will build your own city inside your private land and let others use the sick city? No. You live in the city also. So, you help fix the broken town. Repair common dreams and help your community. Or you are like George Bush.
“No man on an island.”
When you take a child home for school you are a narcissist mold. And at the end, your child may have learned some extra trivia. And he feels unique and superior, but he has broken wings. Nobody can fly like that. OK. Think on it overnight.
Tomorrow I will come back. But. If you are to throw names at me, we will not have excellent dialogue. I will not leave the blog, but I will let you know that we need to keep talking.
I will see you again.
Creepers! Part of me wants to laugh; the other, go hide under the bed!
Busted link
Sounds like the Ladenhosen creep, is it?
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I am ashamed to admit that I read through all 400+ comments on that thread…all the while yelling and screaming at my computer. Skeptifem represented Unschoolers well very early in the thread but for the most part it was unsubstantiated stereotypes and ignorant canards being flung about with total disregard to facts. Two things will guarantee that so called rationalists and thinkers will immediately begin bleating like stupid sheep on Pharyngula: homeschooling and non-Democratic Party politics.
And anyone who might be willing to concede that maybe in some situations homeschooling might be a little okay still are going around saying stupid shit like “certified teacher” parents, surprise home inspections and approved curricula are the only way kids could learn outside of school.
I couldn’t quite figure out if Dog was a Poe.
Daryl,
Broken link is fixed now. Thanks.
JJ,
If it were Greg, wouldn’t he be creepin’ the pro-homeschooling position? Maybe it’s a homeschooler with a odd yet delightful sense of humor. :D
Michelle,
There are 400+? I stopped at #101. You know me, I also have a problem with homeschoolers who “bleat like stupid sheep.” I also wish they (including Skepticon) would spellcheck their comments before pushing the “publish” key – and keep the conspiratorial theories locked up at home in the basement. Though the pretentious, “gifted homeschoolers” woman citing Brian Ray research was deliciously rich in irony (though lost on all but a handful). I could go on, because I’m aggravating that way.. :)
Anybody,
Where’s Nance? Is she okay?
I noticed too but dunno. I’m going with well-deserved week or two off with the family . . .
Thanks for fixed link. Agree with Michelle about Skeptifem and also I particularly liked Mattir, I believe it was (see comment #19) — but I didn’t make it through even the first hundred. It’s all so old and so am I.
Apparently, I’ll have to go in and read more than Skeptifem’s 1st comment (#9) to see what you people are talking about. :)
I just wish homeschoolers would be more intellectually courageous in these conversations; the “research shows…” canard drives me absolutely insane.
We can be honest without being as blunt as, say, Milton Gaither (at Homeschool Research Notes):
If I’m remembering correctly, in one of Ray’s most recent “studies,” participants were not only recruited by HSLDA, but paid with VISA cash cards. And, the tests were written by one of the Christian curriculum companies (Bob Jones maybe) popular with many homeschoolers. You don’t have to be “gifted” to get the picture.
And, why are unschoolers using NHERI “findings” to make their arguments? What Christian homeschoolers (who sign their kids up for standardized testing to prove a point and make some cash) do at the kitchen table is light years away from what unschoolers do – and almost identical to what the State does over at the ps robot factory…
[exhale]
None of this is meant to be taken personally, by the way; it’s just an annoyance of mine.
The ‘scientists” at Pharyngula are about as rationale when it comes to homeschooling as fundies are when it comes to evolution.
I have a hard time telling who’s what over there.
I’m sorry, Michelle. I didn’t mean to attack your comment and be so harsh. I never even got far enough to read about surprise home inspections. Homeschoolers as parolees, then? And, parent certification doesn’t even address the concerns of people who suggest it. I wonder if Glenn Beck’s new “college” awards teaching degrees. I’m pretty sure Pat Robertson’s does.
JJ, as far as Mattir goes, I could swear that there’s someone that I read occasionally who refers to their children as “Spawn.” I wonder if it’s the same person.
Funny, she mentions “religion’s weirdly privileged place in American society,” the same week that we’re slogging through reactions to the Prop 8 ruling. Mattir is right that the powerful memes are taught everywhere. The recent poll about large numbers of Americans who believe that Obama isn’t an American citizen comes to mind.
As far as the conventions go, I’m more concerned about the presence of Michael Farris, than Ken Ham. Or David Barton, pushing his “American is a Christian Nation” meme. Somebody said that Arizona conventions are more inclusive and open to influence (which Michelle would know better than I) but, here in California, “there’s nothing you can do to change the agenda – they have their club and you, as a secular homeschooler, aren’t a member” (Mattir). Though the thought of protesting a convention sounds like fun.
No biggie Lynn. :) Conspiracy theories about public school… I think some people will read John Taylor Gatto (president of the anti-public school conspiracy theorists, for those that don’t know :P ) and dismiss everything he says because he takes it pretty far sometimes…I, on the other hand, take what he says that isn’t deliberately propagandistic and add it to the shit I’ve seen and heard and lean towards the conspiracy theorists. :P But my mind isn’t so open that my brain falls out…like many of the birthers, etc.
The thing that drives me most nuts about the people who keep insisting that parents should be certified teachers and kids should take standardized tests is they understand nothing about how teachers are trained, what they actually teach and the fact that kids are routinely “taught to the test” in public school. They tend to be degreed people that measure the success of themselves and others by the degree someone has attained. There is a very real reason why so many teachers homeschool their own children and there is such a low new teacher retention rate.
As for Arizona, I don’t really know much about the conventions. Never been to one in my 12 years of homeschooling. Christians are definitely the majority, even down here in hippie Tucson. I’ve thought about going to one of the ones that is Unschoolish since I like Sandra Dodd but I’d rather go to the small, cozy one she holds in NM where you don’t have to sit in a crowd and watch her lecture…you get to sit next to her and chat her up.
Thanks, Michelle. I was looking over comments last night and, after re-reading my own, thought, “God, I sound like such a bitch.” :) When my husband does projects around the house I always tease him, “Remember, measure twice, cut once”; maybe there’s a corollary for blogging: “Draft twice, publish once.” ;)
Yes, I agree that the reasoned approach to JTG is best. When I was a newbie ditto-head homeschooler, I loved him (not to mention citing “the studies’), so I should really practice a little restraint in my rants.
I get the impression that, among homeschoolers, “Christians are definitely the majority” everywhere. :) (It’s probably why I still get emails from secular hs’ers wanting to fan me with palm fronds for publishing my website (no more than a linkfarm really), Antsavvy.)
Somewhere, at some point, some of us were playing around with sayings to print on t-shirts for homeschoolers. A variation of my favorite is: Most homeschoolers aren’t Christian Dominionists, but most Christian Dominionists homeschool. So, while the “America is a Christian Nation meme” is everywhere, if you’re serious about grooming your children to take back the land for Christ, you’re probably homeschooling. And you’re being supported every step of the way by a large, well-organized, well-connected, well-funded network of like-minded people… while leaders of homeschoolers I consider my ideological peers go on tv news magazine shows to promote the view that education should be about “having fun” every day, swinging in the “blue hammock” and not bothering to learn math. I’m not saying that we should be grooming culture warriors, too – only that the contrast makes me uneasy – and maybe even a tad combative. :)
Pulled from a hs resource site just minutes ago:
“if you’re serious about grooming your children to take back the land for Christ, you’re probably homeschooling.”
…and using programs like this one.
Children schooled in secular “factories” are receiving “conveyor belt” educations and predestined by Providence to be governed by classically trained Christian thinkers who will restore honor and liberty to America…
[...] and Lynn, Meg and Beta are homeschooler moms who also sort of parent schooled kids. And sooner or later many [...]