The more I learn, the more convinced I am that copying the government school model is the worst educational mistake any parent can make.
By Carolyn Forte, https://excellenceineducationhomeschooling.com/academy/
When my husband and I began our homeschool adventure in 1982, the last thing we hoped to do was copy the public schools. As a former public school teacher, I know there was little worth emulating and much to be avoided. As a first-grade teacher, I longed to escape the classroom with my students because I saw how much more they learned on the few field trips, we were allowed. My dream was a van and five students so we could experience an endless round of field trips and real experiences. We could do book work in parks and libraries. At the time, I had not heard of homeschooling but that is exactly what I was envisioning.
During the next 35 years, I have learned a great deal more about education in general and our government schools in particular. The more I learn, the more convinced I am that copying the government school model is the worst educational mistake any parent can make. Moreover, for a Christian parent, the model of the progressive public schools is a recipe for disaster. You may be thinking that you can escape this problem by using a Christian curriculum. Hear me out, however, and carefully consider whether that approach more closely approximates a Biblical education or a secular progressive one with a little Christian “frosting.”
First, let us examine the typical “scope and sequence” used in virtually all schools, secular or Christian. The “scope” in each subject area refers to the concepts covered and the “sequence” refers to the order in which concepts are taught. Did you ever wonder who decided that children should be taught multiplication beginning in the second grade or earth science in the eighth grade? Would you be surprised to learn that 70 years ago, children began to learn multiplication in the fourth grade and began to learn to read in the first grade? While once, these decisions were made by local teachers, principals and school boards, today’s grade level standards are handed down from a federal bureaucracy. Although they have no Constitutional authority over states and local school districts, they force their will on virtually every school in America with the twin weapons of funding and testing — the carrot and the stick. Do you think it is absurd to teach algebra to five-year-olds? Too bad, if you refuse to follow the federal scope and sequence, your children will score poorly on the “state” (actually federal) test and your school stands to lose funding or, in the case of private schools, prestige.
Using this methodology, federal bureaucrats have essentially taken over the curriculum of every public school in America. Oh, but what about the Christian schools with a Christian curriculum? Surely, this does not affect them. Wrong! Christian schools and most Christian publishers follow the same scope and sequence as the public schools because they use the same standardized tests. When, in the 1970s the public schools adopted the New Math, with an algebraic format beginning in the first grade, the Christian schools dragged their feet for a few years, but eventually they adopted a similar scope and sequence. That program was a disaster, so it was “revised” several times. Today, it is called Common Core and you can see its elements in nearly all math programs, secular and Christian.
Of course, there are variations. Christian publishers want to convince customers that their texts are better than those used by the public schools. Sometimes, they decide to be “better” by accelerating the sequence, like teaching the parts of speech three years before the public schools. Another way they can claim to be “better” is to demand more memorization or give more homework. Christian publishers sincerely want to provide a superior and Godly product and in many ways they succeed, but with few exceptions, they follow the federal standards whether those make sense or not.
The problem is that the federal standards, in most if not all subjects, make no sense at all both developmentally and educationally. When parents complained that children weren’t learning to read with phonics, the bureaucracy responded by introducing a sort of pseudo-phonics and pushing reading standards down a full two years. Thus, where first grade teachers once taught children the alphabet, sounds and beginning reading, that job has now been given to pre-school teachers. Children as young as four are being pressured to memorize “sight words” so they can read the tests faster. While many parents are excited to see their four-year-olds “reading,” their accelerated pace comes with a price. Developmentally, most four and five year olds are not ready for reading. Those who cannot keep up with the accelerated pace become discouraged with learning. Even worse, as documented by Dr. Sammuel Orton nearly 100 years ago, many will develop a sight-reading reflex causing symptoms of dyslexia. Thus, millions of children are set up for failure. All replicable early childhood research shows that pushing academics on young children is counterproductive, yet virtually all textbook publishers impose reading and writing on four and five-year-olds.
The same holds true in the math arena. Where counting, adding, subtracting and measuring once comprised the entire arithmetic curriculum through third grade, we now ask children in kindergarten to learn elementary algebra concepts! From a developmental standpoint, this is insane! In her book, Endangered Minds, Jane Healy, Ph.D. documents the folly of teaching a concept before a child is developmentally ready. The child may learn to do the task at hand but will develop inappropriate brain pathways to do so, resulting in a neurological dead-end at a future date. This is one reason so many children have difficulty with math today. Another is that Common Core math is essentially divorced from both logic and practical use. These are some of the reasons why so many children have great difficulty with math today. The federally-mandated scope and sequence is designed to create massive failure* and nearly all current math textbooks use at least some Common Core standards as a framework.
This may sound incredible but it is easy to prove. Pick up a copy of Ray’s New Higher Arithmetic and try to do a few of the word problems (the only kind it contains). Here are two of the simplest examples:
- Find the accurate interest of $5,064.30 for 7 months, 12 days at 7%?
- If 3 men mow 5 acres of grass in a day, how many men will mow 13 1/2 acres in a day?
These are the kinds of problems that 14-year-olds routinely did without a calculator. How many 8th graders today, or even college grads would be able to figure these out even with a calculator? Today, 8th graders generally do something called Pre-Algebra which is a tortured and illogical version of what used to be called Algebra I.
Another problem with modern texts is that they cover way too much at too fast a pace. Learning doesn’t happen that way. Reading a chapter of history, answering some questions and passing a test only means that the student shoved a pile of trivia into short term memory long enough to pass a test. Soon after, 90% or more was deleted to make room for the next chapter’s list of trivia. The real lessons of history and literature come gradually as a student contemplates and hopefully discusses the meaning and import of stories, events and wisdom (or folly) of the past. Real learning takes time; it can’t be rushed to keep up with an artificial schedule. In The Book of Learning and Forgetting, Frank Smith explains the futility of the textbook/test treadmill: Isolated facts are forgotten faster than they are learned!
This is not to say that you shouldn’t ever buy a textbook. Many Christian publishers have produced very fine products. But, you need to beware of the pitfalls of slavishly following a packaged curriculum. Choose only what you need, find useful and interesting. Disregard the trappings of school that are needed by a teacher with 30 students like tests, schedules and sometimes even worksheets. Some may occasionally be helpful, but usually, they are not conducive to real learning. Whenever possible, use real books that address the subjects and ideas you and your children want to study. Textbooks don’t have to be interesting because they have a captive market. Real books (Charlotte Mason called them “living books”) have to be interesting and useful because if they are not, no one will buy them. If you fill your bookshelves with good, interesting, living books as advocated by Dr. Robinson, creator of the Robinson Curriculum, your children will educate themselves in many subjects, freeing you to help them when needed.
I can hear the worried objections: “How do I know my children are learning what they need to know in each grade level?” “I don’t want my children to fall behind.” Do you realize that more than half of the students in any given grade are nowhere near “grade level” in math and reading? Dr. Raymond Moore, co-author with his wife Dorothy, of Better Late Than Early, School Can Wait, and The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook stated that, “It only takes about 2-1/2 years of study to be ready for high school.” I was skeptical when I heard him say this, but I have seen the proof of his statement. You needn’t worry about your child’s educational progress as long as you see him learning new things and improving his skills. The grammar that takes two or three years to learn in primary school can be well absorbed in less than a year in middle school or high school.
Don’t be afraid to slow it down or wait for a while. Think more in terms of developing skills (arithmetic, reading, vocabulary, penmanship) than keeping up with a textbook. If you do use textbooks in English and math, remember that they are designed to constantly repeat skills that were taught long before. Use your discretion in assigning work. Avoid busywork. Feel free to delete work that is too advanced (anything with algebraic symbols or concepts below 7th or 8th grade). I’ll leave you with one last admonition:
Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:33
*See pp 14-15 of Deliberate Dumbing Down of America by Charlotte Iserbyt – www.deliberatedumbingdown.com
