Talk:Homeschooling

Archive 1 (20th March 2008)

Snipping George Bernard Shaw and Mark Twain

I'm removing

• George Bernard Shaw
• Mark Twain

Both men had complex opinions that varied during the course of their lives, but calling them "Christian" is a stretch. My reasons for excluding Shaw are given above. As for Mark Twain, he did write a sympathetic book about Joan of Arc. However, his writings are replete with sarcastic and dismissive remarks about organized religion. He refused to let "Letters from the Earth" be published until after his death. In Mark Twain's Letters, we read:

From a gentleman in Buffalo Clemens one day received a letter inclosing an incompleted list of the world's "One Hundred Greatest Men," men who had exerted "the largest visible influence on the life and activities of the race." The writer asked that Mark Twain examine the list and suggest names, adding "would you include Jesus, as the founder of Christianity, in the list?" To the list of statesmen Clemens added the name of Thomas Paine; to the list of inventors, Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. The question he answered in detail.

Twain's answer was that if the compiler of the list added Jesus, he should also add Satan: "From A.D. 350 to A.D. 1850 these gentlemen exercised a vaster influence over a fifth part of the human race than was exercised over that fraction of the race by all other influences combined. Ninety-nine hundredths of this influence proceeded from Satan, the remaining fraction of it from Jesus."

Twain has been labelled "deist," "agnostic," and "atheist." Gary Sloan suggests (Mark Twain's Covert War with his Maker) that he believed in a malignant God, and says "Viewing Satan as a heroic rebel against the real Archfiend, Twain came to identify with the fallen cherub and often used him as a mouthpiece." Perhaps his views were so complex that he was all of these things and a Christian at the same time, but he was certainly not a Christian as the term is ordinarily meant. Dpbsmith 20:03, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

But if they were homeschooled, shouldn't they be in the "other" section of the list? Human 18:21, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

Sure. That section didn't exist when I removed them; it was a single list of Christians. Dpbsmith 20:32, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

Doing. Human 21:25, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

The part on Mark Twain doesn't even discuss him being homeschooled, only him completing five grades of school. Also the majority of the people on the list were born before state sponsored public schooling. Rellik 22:56, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

You're in the wrong place if you want to censor information from the page.--Aschlafly 23:09, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

Marx, Himmler, Oscar Wilde...

I would love to see a good, non-ideological reason as to why these names were eliminated from the list. AliceBG 20:08, 13 March 2008 (EDT)

Why is a non-ideological reason necessary? DanH 20:10, 13 March 2008 (EDT)

Because if they were only deleted for ideological reasons that is an admission that the article is intentionally misleading. --Merriweather 20:13, 13 March 2008 (EDT)

Well, this is an encyclopedia article about homeschooling, right? And a section of that article is dedicated to listing prominent persons who were homeschooled in one way or another, right? And a noted political/economic theorist, an important figure in the Nazi regime, and a great Irish writer all fit both parts of the prominent/homeschooled criteria for that list, so there is no reason to take them off the list...unless including them on the list somehow makes homeschooling look bad; in that case the removal is strictly ideological....which brings into question the intellectual honesty and integrity of the article, and thus the project writ large. AliceBG 20:16, 13 March 2008 (EDT)

I undid the ideological deletion as it runs counter to Conservapedia's ethos of censorship of facts see Conservapedia:How_Conservapedia_Differs_from_Wikipedia, Item 9 - "Wikipedia editors who are far more liberal than the American public frequently censor factual information. Conservapedia does not censor any facts that comport with the basic rules." Brixham 14:44, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

DanH, so if you won't provide a non-ideological reason can you tell me why you blatantly go against the Conservapedia differences with Wikipedia? I always thought you seemed a reasonable guy. Brixham 15:19, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

The removal was no less ideological than the inclusion of the names. I mean, Himmler? DanH 19:24, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

Touché :) 10px Fox (talk|contribs) 19:28, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

If they are to be put in, I would at the very least ask for a citation. DanH 19:26, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

Where are the citations that Karl Marx was homeschooled? I'll look further for them, but haven't found any yet.--Aschlafly 22:56, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

Problems with this page

I think there are some major problems with this article; not in terms of the content being wildly inaccurate but rather being rather narrow in its focus. If you look at the opening line, it defines homeschool as "a movement consisting of 1-2 million students in the United States". That's problematic because for a start, because homeschooling is not a "movement" (at best, it's a subsection of the conservative movement) and it's definitely not isolated to the United States.

Furthermore, I think you're striving a little too hard to give homeschooling as much credit as possible. Don't get me wrong - I have nothing against homeschooling. But at no stage in the article have you clearly and accurately defined what homeschooling is, because as I noted, the opening definition is extremely flawed. Consequently, when you get to someone like Charles Dickens, I reckon you're drawing a bit of a long bow. To take the Dickens example: as a history teacher, I feel that we should be quite clear that Charles Dickens was never formally homeschooled in the manner that the article implies and the fact that he didn't receive an education for much of his childhood had nothing to do with such things as "a different, often better, education environment with different, often better, opportunities" or "freedom from liberal and/or atheistic bias and culture in schools". To simplify things as much as possible, he ceased to have a formal education because his father was imprisoned for financial reasons. And I can tell you that his mother was no great believer in Dickens getting an education: she was the one that forced Dickens to work in a factory. In short, there is no evidence whatsoever that Dickens received any active home education. Dickens is just one example of the wider problem with the entire article, in that you suffer from a poor definition which consequently makes many of the names that you list as "arguably homeschooled" look silly. Even under a solid definition of homeschooling, I don't think people such as Dickens qualify. PeterS 05:36, 19 March 2008 (EDT)

PeterS, you may be an expert in history, but your logic does not follow. The entry does not care why someone was homeschooled in listing who was homeschooled.--Aschlafly 21:55, 19 March 2008 (EDT)

I think PeterS has a valid point, at least in his first line. As he points out, the article describes homeschooling as "a movement consisting of 1-2 million students in the United States". So for starters, how many on the list were homeschooled in the United States? Clearly, however, homeschooling is not confined to the U.S., so it's the definition rather than the list that should be changed (as far as my argument goes so far).

I don't agree with him that it's not a movement; I think that's probably an apt term. But that raises the next problem with the list. Homeschooling as a movement is a relatively recent phenomenon, over the last forty years, I would guess. So anybody on that list who was educated at home more than around forty years ago does not fit the definition.

There's more that I could say, along the lines of PeterS' second paragraph, but perhaps I'll leave it there for the moment.

Philip J. Rayment 22:14, 19 March 2008 (EDT)

Similar to my comment below, this criticism is overly literal. But to play that game, "homeschooling" is the movement, while those who were "homeschooled" is a broader category that can go beyond the movement.--Aschlafly 22:17, 19 March 2008 (EDT)

My immediate response to that, without thinking through it, is that that might make sense, but if it does, at the very least that distinction should be made clear in the article. Philip J. Rayment 22:19, 19 March 2008 (EDT)

Perhaps the opening part of the article could refer to a general, specific definition of homeschooling. That would clear up some of the conceptual difficulties that become more evident later in the article. Then you could branch out after that and comment on the "homeschooling movement" in the United States. PeterS 00:46, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

An addendum to my previous post: I still think my dispute with the Dickens example stands. Just because someone does not receive a formal education at a school, it does not mean they were homeschooled. The facts are these: Dickens was educated as long as was financially possible. When his father was jailed, he was sent to work in a factory, like many financially disadvantaged young people at the time. To my knowledge (and the minutiae of the personal histories of English authors are not my strongest point), there is no evidence that his mother actively homeschooled him. Indeed, all the evidence points to his mother being firmly in favour of him working at a boot-blacking factory instead of getting an education. If you have evidential proof that this was not the case, feel free to cite it. Once again, if you think my argumentation over this is not valid, then you've got to sort out the definitional problem ASAP. PeterS 00:58, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

I've reworded the introduction to:

• Remove the United States as part of the definition.
• To define homeschooling as being educated "primarily at home", rather than "outside the traditional school system", as the latter could include non-traditional schools. The existing text later in the article expands on "primarily at home", to explain the parts that are not at home.

Philip J. Rayment 06:54, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

I've also changed references to homeschooling in the prominent people list to "educated at home" or "taught at home" (as some entries already were) for all persons whose education preceded the formation of the homeschooling movement. By the way, the entry for Leonardo doesn't actually say that he was taught at home. Philip J. Rayment 07:09, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

Nobody uses the phrase "educated at home," Philip. Have you ever heard anyone use it? An encyclopedia should use common and easily understood terminology, first and foremost. "Homeschooled" is the term that is used. Also, I'm not aware of a category that is "outside the traditional school system" but not homeschooled. Homeschooling is not dependent on the physical location, but on the approach. Again, I object to the overly literal and materialistic approach.--Aschlafly 10:50, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

Regarding "educated at home"...

• I'm not in the habit of noting down every phrase I hear, so in one sense I couldn't say whether I've ever heard it, but I would think that I have heard it.
• That's apart from this article, which as I said, already used it, the phrase having been included by Dpbsmith ([1]), Hsmom ([2], [3], [4], [5],[6]), and NonXtianConservative ([7]).
• Google returns 106,000 hits for "educated at home", so it's fairly common.
• And even if none of that was the case, isn't Conservapedia proud of inventing new terms?

"Homeschooled" is one of a number of terms that are used. Another is "taught at home", which was used by none other than one Aschlafly ([8])! I've used both those terms to avoid too much repetition.

And of course there is the reason I made those changes, that if homeschooling is defined (correctly, I believe) to be a movement that started in the 1960s, then anybody educated/taught/tutored at home prior to then cannot be said to be "homeschooled". That's not to say that their situation is necessarily quite different, but it does mean that the term itself should not be used of them.

"outside the traditional school system" depends on what is meant by "traditional". It could mean schools that allow the students to decide what they learn, for example, or other schools that take a non-traditional approach in any number of ways. It could include parent-controlled Christian schools, as traditionally schools have been controlled by governments or religious denominations. Yes, those examples are all schools, but they're not necessarily traditional schools.

If "homeschooling" is not dependent (to a fair extent) on the physical location, then why is it called "homeschooling"? And if it's dependent on the approach, why is it not defined in terms of the approach? In any case, the previous definition was based on physical location, that being "outside ... schools".

How is my definition "overly literal"?

And how is is "materialistic"?

Philip J. Rayment 09:53, 21 March 2008 (EDT)

Read an interesting article

I generally don't follow "homeschooling politics" but I recently read an interesting article. Apparently CA has recently placed a de facto ban on homeschooling. Does that sound like something appropriate for this article? (It would be nice to have something not in list form.) HelpJazz 16:20, 19 March 2008 (EDT)

The government of California has said they will not enforce it, but to have it on the books begs a time when the government may not be as friendly and could decide to crack down. They didn't allow homeschooling per se, but did it's equivalent by saying a special license was necessary to teach. Since homeschoolers score higher on standardized tests than their public school counterparts, it is especially troubling to see efforts made to curtail it. Learn together 20:59, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

Thanks for the info, Learn Together! I didn't read it from a primary source, I read it from someone who regurgitated it for me. They said that that they would require extensive training/licencing to be a homeschool teacher, which would essentially kill the movement. The article I read didn't say that CA wasn't going to enforce the ruling (because that would make for a significantly less interesting article for a libertarian newsletter!) HelpJazz 21:35, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

"Nearly every great mathematician"

Can I object to the statement that "nearly every great mathematician" was homeschooled? It is patently ridiculous, even to a supporter of homeschooling. Here's just a few of the many famous mathematicians from the last few centuries who were not homeschooled: Isaac Newton, Leonhard Euler, George Polya, Carl Friedrich Gauss, John Venn, several of the Bernoulli family, Pierre de Fermat and Johannes Kepler. Off the top of my head, August Möbius was homeschooled only to the age of 13, and some mathematicians were born into European aristocracy who would never even think of allowing their children to be taught in a normal education system, which at the time would have been grossly inferior. Less hyperbole, please! PeterS 21:00, 19 March 2008 (EDT)

Fine, let's look at your examples, several of whom would not be described as "great mathematicians"; others in your list who were homeschooled; and still more who were schooled but achieved despite it. Spell out the schooling of each of your examples and you'll find that nearly all of them fall in one of the categories I just identified, and hence my reversion.--Aschlafly 21:54, 19 March 2008 (EDT)

That last category ("were schooled but achieved despite it") is of people who were not homeschooled. Correct? Philip J. Rayment 22:04, 19 March 2008 (EDT)

Well, yes, you are literally correct, but figuratively that category reinforces the thesis.--Aschlafly 22:13, 19 March 2008 (EDT)

How does "people who were educated in a regular shool and did well" (to rephrase it) support the thesis? (The phrase "despite it" presumes what the thesis is trying to demonstrate, so is a circular argument.) Philip J. Rayment 22:19, 19 March 2008 (EDT)

Right, so let's have a look at the first criterion. In other words, "several of whom would not be described as great mathematicians". Actually, I don't think that's my job. I think if you want to make a statement claiming that "nearly every great mathematician" was homeschooled, you need to prove it. You need to identify exactly who you would classify as a "great mathematician" and name them all: or have you already done that? What are your criteria for great mathematicians? Then you need to identify what percentage of those were homeschooled. Then you can assert that "nearly every great mathematician" was homeschooled. Now: "others in your list who were homeschooled". Again, it's a meaningless statement because you have never defined exactly what constitutes a homeschooled person - how many years they need to have been homeschooled - and when people have asked on this talk page, you haven't answered. Next: "still more who were schooled but achieved despite it". Hmmm... so you're making the assumption that because they were high achievers but attended school, they must have achieved despite their education? And you're using that justify the contention that homeschooling is better than a regular education? Which means that those who achieved highly did so despite their education? Which means that homeschooling is better than a regular education? Where does the circular nature of that argument end? Can I reiterate: I think that homeschooling is great if people are prepared to do it, and I think that you personally have done a lot of good things in terms of homeschooling. But I don't think it helps our conservative cause if we make silly hyperbolic statements all over the place in a futile gesture to stick it up to the liberals/atheists. PeterS 00:35, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

PeterS, our list of homeschoolers includes many of the greatest mathematicians. Please read it. Your list does not disprove the statement that nearly every great mathematician was homeschooled. I invited you to spell out the schooling of those in your list (as I have done for those homeschooled), but so far you've declined to do so. So your objection does not persuade.--Aschlafly 10:53, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

Andrew, I have read the list. But "many of the greatest mathematicians" is a different statement from "nearly every great mathematician". "Many" is completely different from "nearly every". "Many" is fairly uncontroversial, because it doesn't directly imply proportionality - it could mean a majority, or it could mean a sizeable minority, or it could mean some arbitrary proportion that you specify. "Nearly every" implies a sizeable majority, probably somewhere in the region of 90-95% - I'm being arbitrary here, but "nearly every" would, in the English language, be somewhere close to 100%. Now, until you can tell us what a "great mathematician" is, and list all those that you classify as great mathematicians, you cannot say that almost 100% of great mathematicians were homeschooled. If a student came to me with an essay saying something like "nearly every person killed in the Reign of Terror was an aristocrat", I would underline the statement, ask in the page margin for a citation of the number of people killed in the Terror, ask for a citation of the number of aristocrats killed in the Terror, and ask them to justify why that may have been the case (based on a historical interpretation). Your statement does not match any of these rather non-exhaustive criteria, and it'd be interesting if you could address this. On to the second part of your question: citations for my names. It should not be my job to find citations to help to prove or disprove your unproven statement. And I ask that before you try to pick apart my examples and set arbitrary criteria, you address what I've just said in this paragraph and my previous statements. But I'll do this anyway.

• Isaac Newton - accounts vary, but all acknowledge that he received a formal education in at least one school. According to this source, [9], he was educated at King's School, Grantham. According to this source, [10] he was educated at Free Grammar School, Grantham. Despite the inconsistency in the name, we can conclude that whichever school(s) he attended, he did attend school for most of his childhood. This source [11] tells us that while he spent years out of school, he was not homeschooled during that time: indeed, it was felt that "he did not need an education". Without even requiring criteria, I think we can conclude that the development of Calculus is enough to make him a "great mathematician", not to mention these things called the laws of motion...
• Leonhard Euler - this source [12] tells us that he went to a low quality school, but the fact stands: he attended school during that time, even if he self-taught and received tutoring at the same time. But even if you choose to disagree with my contention, it doesn't change my objections, noted in all my above comments. Anyway, Euler = great mathematician, no contest, even without criteria.
• George Pólya - [13] says it all. Again, criteria are a problem, because you have never specified any, but Pólya is one of the world's foremost modern contributors to mathematical logic and combinatorics through elements such as the Pólya enumeration theorem and his four principles of mathematical proofs/problem solving.
• Carl Friedrich Gauss - this source [14] tells us that he was educated from the age of seven. Case closed. That page also details his mathematical achievements very well in areas such as number theory in particular.
• John Venn - [15]: went straight through Cholmley's and Islington. End of story. As for being a great mathematician... ever used a Venn diagram?
• Bernoulli family - it is much more difficult to find evidence for the Bernoulli family - it is a pattern that people would either be taught at home or sent to a local school before moving onto more prestigious pursuits in secondary school or university. Obviously it's difficult to be consistent in researching across a cross-generational family. I'll gladly ignore this one.
• Pierre de Fermat - he self-taught mathematics [16], but that came once he had already studied jurisprudence at university and become a councillor. This source [17] tells us that he did indeed receive a primary and secondary education. This source confirms that he was probably schooled at a Franciscan monastery [18]. And he was great; no matter what criteria you set.
• Johannes Kepler - this source [19] tells us that although he helped in his grandfather's inn, he attended a local school and then a seminary. Kepler did of course achieve extraordinary things in astronomy, physics and mathematics including things such as positing the Kepler conjecture (which will probably become a theorem).

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by PeterS (talk)

OK, your list of great mathematicians who were not homeschooled is dwindling fast. Working backwards, Kepler evidently was educated while helped at his relative's inn, and he isn't considered a great mathematician anyway. Fermat was self-taught in mathematics. The Bernouilli family almost certainly handed down their expertise through homeschooling, and you've conceded dropping them. Venn was not a great mathematician.

We're left with only four: Newton, Euler, Polya, and Gauss. I'll check them out now. It may be that a few of them were not homeschooled, which is why the claim is not that every great mathematician was homeschooled, but that nearly every great mathematician was homeschooled. But I'm curious to investigate the education of these four.--Aschlafly 22:47, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

Newton apparently did not attend school until age 10, making him another homeschooler. [20] --Aschlafly 22:51, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

Andrew Schlafly, you claim to be an expert in everything yet you are totally incapable of answering a simple request of another person is only trying to improve your encyclopaedia. I have spent several screenfuls of this discussion page trying to ask you two very simple questions, which shouldn't be too difficult whether the answerer is homeschooled or not. (1) What is your definition of a great mathematician? and (2) What exactly constitutes homeschooling? Your page does neither. Under your (highly elusive) criteria, spending a couple of years at home while of primary school age is sufficient to qualify as homeschooling. Under your criteria, receiving private tutoring while simultaneously attending school daily is sufficient to qualify as homeschooling. Under your criteria, a mathematician is great only if you say so, because under your criteria, Johannes Kepler and John Venn cease to become a great mathematician. Schlafly, this encyclopaedia will only live up to its name - Conservapedia - when it becomes an accurate reflection of a conservative viewpoint. At the moment, its Schlaflipedia: if you don't want to answer a reasonable question, you block your ears. That's also why you lock Conservapedia from editing when there aren't sysops around to jump on people who are trying to improve articles. You are driving away conservatives who want to make a difference but can't because Sleep-ly (grab a German dictionary if you don't get the pun) doesn't want his personal authority challenged. I am a conservative on every issue - foreign policy, economic policy, social policy et al - but that won't keep me at Conservapedia. You are harming the good work of real conservatives who deal in facts and proofs. I should note that I don't expect this comment to be here tomorrow; I expect that it will be "archived" in the rubbish bin, along with my user account. "Godspeed" to anyone who ever tries to object to Schlafly's perverse logic and warped ideas. PeterS 05:41, 21 March 2008 (EDT)

PeterS, your comments are becoming increasingly long-winded, incoherent and insulting. Get to the point succinctly and politely, and I'll respond to you. Otherwise, I'm not going to waste my time. By the way, I don't have a definition for "great mathematician," nor is one necessary for such a term.--Aschlafly 10:24, 21 March 2008 (EDT)

Then you've just conceded his point. If you don't define what constitutes a "great mathematician" then you can not define the set of "great mathematicians" therefore you can not legitimately claim that "nearly every great mathematician was homeschooled" be cause it is completely unquantifiable. Like-wise, you refuse to define what constitutes "homeschooled". For you, it appears to mean anyone who ever learned anything outside of a traditional public school system education from K-12 and college... but this ignores the fact that such traditional structure has not been commonplace since the dawn of history. Many of the examples you give are from several hundred years ago when this structure was not in plaace in the manner it is to day, yet you conflate any kind of home learning in that time period with homescholling as it is today... the two are not necessarily equivalent. You want them to be, in order to push your ideology. Also, discounting any example given as either "not a great mathematician" or labelling them "homeschooled" because they have some minor period of time that they were not traditionally schooled seems a prime example of either conservative deceit or deliberate ignorance. And, in case you are actually interested in true facts, and a quantifiable definition of great mathematicians... here's at least one list of the 100 greatest per Mathematics Teacher magazine from 1962: afrodita.rcub.bg.ac.yu/~flora/100.html You might note that Kepler is among the names listed. QNA 11:22, 21 March 2008 (EDT)