You Have to Be Taught to Hate By Mary McCarthy

Help with my persuasive essay against homeschooling?
So for school I have to do a persuasive essay against homeschooling. (I do NOT think homeschooling is a good idea.) … My three arguments for why homeschooling is bad are:
-It isolates children from the real world
-Parents may not be as qualified as regular teachers
-It can be costly

I’m doing a report in which I need to interview an authority who is against homeschooling … I would rather not go from public school to public school looking for a principal who is against (emphasis on against)homeschooling.

What is your opinion of Homeschooling?  Why? Do you have experience or not?  I’m doing a research paper on the subject…Is it good for the children, and how (if at all) does it benefit them?

The above are just three of many actual questions posted on Yahoo Answers, by students who have been assigned to write negative essays about homeschooling, presumably by their teachers.  As if the questions didn’t reveal enough bias, the answers reveal even more troubling attitudes and misconceptions:

I believe that children should not be homeschooled because…
Homeschooling is not a productive program in education…
The Education System should not allow homeschooling because it isolate (sic)children from the real world…

Homeschooling is horrible due to facts like children never interact with others, they will be denied of complete education, and the cost is incredibly high for demanded personal teachers.

Produces socially awkward kids. Isolation from the rest of the world. The kids grow up generally to dependent on their parents and can’t fend for themselves. The education, depending on how it is can be substandard unless their parents are teachers. This case they will not be ready for college or high school at the same age as other kids. Also, their parents bias toward controversial subjects which occur in regular curriculum.

1. Less social interaction
2. Less competition
3. It becomes more difficult when you start your college search.
4. Chance that you may not be educated as well as you would have been with a certified professional.

My question is where did their children learn that homeschooled children are acceptable targets for bullying?

It’s also repetitive, as if the young people have already been taught a specific list of negative traits to write about with regard to homeschooling. If you want to read more simply go to http://answers.yahoo.com/ and search by “essay against homeschooling.”

I believe, although this is the only “evidence” I have, that young people are being taught to hate homeschooling, and by extension, home schooled families. They are being taught that its perfectly permissible, even rewarded with good grades, to make homeschoolers targets for hate speech and writing.

Would teachers assign students to write negative essays about any other minority and get away with it?  Suppose we change “home schooling” to “African American” or “women” or “homosexual” – what parent would permit their child to research and write a persuasive essay against African Americans?

On another list, homeschooling parents are lamenting  the bullying of their children by neighborhood public school children.  My question is where did their children learn that homeschooled children are acceptable targets for bullying?

Children are not born with a propensity to hate; it’s a learned skill and behavior. I think recent essays Grandma Linda has written about bullying are all related to the education children are receiving in the same public schools that are bending over backwards to teach “tolerance.”  Schools would not need to teach tolerance if they had not first taught intolerance, would they?

Other than pointing this out, I have no suggestions for any solution. Except maybe next time the kid next door starts in, ask the parent where their child learned hatred towards others.  If it wasn’t at home…

m-m

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