Actually, if you listen to talk radio, you hear a lot of bashing of liberals with public school educations. Especially from Rush.
Ah. I used to have to listen to Rush at work when I was a radio reporter centuries ago. I acquired quite an aversion to his program, although I salute anyone who can listen for the purposes of keeping tabs without vomiting.
Rush's 'opinions' notwithstanding, it's pretty hard to directly attribute a person's specific failures or shortcomings to the method of one's education because there are just so many factors that go into a child's progress into adulthood.
If people would let go of the stereotype that all homeschoolers are jumper-wearing religious nuts, that would free me up to combat stereotypes of feminists.
Oh, I agree with you that generalizing about "public school" education, isn't helpful. Nor do I think that "they do it, we should too" is good excuse. I don't want to be like Rush, in any way shape or form. It was just a factual quibble. 
I don't want to be like Rush, in any way shape or form. It was just a factual quibble. I figured as much. It's a valid quibble, too. I limit my exposure to talk radio so I miss out on that stuff. Then I forget that millions of other people hear it.
Well, I listen to it a fair bit. One because the only local news station is the one that carries Rush/Boortz/Hannity etc. Just to stay in touch with the message, and all that.
Plus, I have family scattered throughout the southeast, and whenever it's roadtrip time, the radio wasteland extravaganza is limited to preachers or talk radio (or both, if I'm extra lucky).
Oh and, I have had quite a few homeschool students come through my classes. All of them have been what I think of as more of category of hippie homeschoolers than the jumper wearing stereotype you mention. I LOVE them. They know much more, can think for themselves, and aren't shy about speaking up. The downside is that they spend a lot of time giving their less intellectually inclined classmates the stinkeye (for being slckers, etc) and tend to monopolize classroom discussion. Relative downside, I should say, because it's a high quality problem (from my perspective).
Well, his specific set of homeschooling circumstances (the pseudoscientific "Sunday School Every Day" approach) is certainly relevant to his automatonic 6,000-year-old-Earth pronouncements. I'm also guessing that his first reaction to the death of Coretta Scott King ("She's a COMMUNIST!") could have been tempered by attending a racially mixed classroom. Results may vary.
Also, for the record, I bring up GW's prep school education all the time, not only to illustrate his "born on third base and hit a triple" mentality, but to argue that he's not really a Texan.
You may be right, Norbiz. And you certainly get credit for hammering at the elitist underpinnings of Bush's regular-guy schtick. But I'd have an easier time attributing Domenech's stupidity to homeschooling if he were still a teenager. I mean, hell, when I was a senior in (a very whitebread, privileged) public high school, I thought Reaganomics was a damned fine idea. But Domenech is 24. He's had time to meet reality and make his own professional and ethical decisions. Sometimes an idiot is just an idiot.
Sunday school, every day? For real?
Believe me, I've seen it in action (not me, but several friends). The deprogramming takes a little while.
Sunday school, every day? For real?
I think by about the 30th day of "Jesus Loves the Little Children" I'd go all Patty Hearst.
I was just thinking that if their Sunday School was like mine, they'd have 13 year olds still messing about with paste and construction paper.
You are right to question such a blanket assertion. I'll admit to some bias on the subject. I used to have a very high opinion of home schooling. Until relatively recently - it was the province of artistic types and 60's refugees. The generation just below me (folks in their mid-30's) were the first home schooler's to graduate into adulthood. My friends that fit into that category are, on the whole, super educated – more conversant in alternative literature and philosophy than most – but able to function quite well on any number of levels. That seems to have changed, however; and here’s where my bias kicks in. My best friend teaches H. S. Some of her students came out of home school environments. She says they are woefully ignorant of anything other than a basic knowledge of New Testament Biblical references – no history, higher mathematics, science, literature – in other words woefully ignorant. I’m afraid when I heard Domenech was a 20-something and home schooled, and I heard that he was a serial plagiarist – I assumed he fell into the ‘ignorant’ category rather than ‘super educated’. I shouldn’t make assumptions. I would guess there are as many dedicated and intelligent home schooling moms and dads today as there are narrow minded fools limiting their children’s exposure to world knowledge. Tarring everyone with the same brush is wrong.
Here is some additional commentary on the subject that I just came across today.
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