Thursday, December 11, 2008

Famous Homeschooled People

1. Agatha Christie. Agatha was a painfully shy girl, so her mom homeschooled her even though her two older siblings attended private school.


2. Pearl S. Buck was born in West Virginia, but her family moved to China when she was just three months old. She was homeschooled by a Confucian scholar and learned English as a second language from her mom.


3. Alexander Graham Bell was homeschooled by his mother until he was about 10. It was at this point that she started to go deaf and didn’t feel she could properly educate him any more. Her deafness inspired Bell to study acoustics and sound later in life.


4. If Thomas Edison was around today, he would probably be diagnosed with ADD – he left public school after only three months because his mind wouldn’t stop wandering. His mom homeschooled him after that, and he credited her with the success of his education: “My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint.”


5. Ansel Adams was homeschooled at the age of 12 after his “wild laughter and undisguised contempt for the inept ramblings of his teachers” disrupted the classroom. His father took on his education from that point forward.


6. Robert Frost hated school so much he would get physically ill at the thought of going. He was homeschooled until his high school years.


7. Woodrow Wilson studied under his dad, one of the founders of the Southern Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS). He didn’t learn to read until he was about 12. He took a few classes at a school in Augusta, Georgia, to supplement his father’s teachings, and ended up spending a year at Davidson College before transferring to Princeton.


8. Mozart was educated by his dad as the Mozart family toured Europe from 1763-1766.


9. Laura Ingalls Wilder was homeschooled until her parents finally settled in De Smet in what was then Dakota Territory. She started teaching school herself when she was only 15 years old.


10. Louisa May Alcott studied mostly with her dad, but had a few lessons from family friends Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Can you imagine?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

What are your degrees? Do you have a masters in Education? Yes, I am sure you can read and repeat what's an a book to your kids, but can you back it up? Can you interpret them? Do you have an extensive background in History and Science? Have you travelled abroad and learned other languages? Do you even know there is a world outside the US? You seem like the typical fat redneck with minimum culture. Whya re you exposing your family in a blog like this? Why don't you keep it to yourself and your family members and close friends? Do you realize the whole world can see you? Do you think your low income low education family is anything special? There are tons of uneducated overweight people out there! Do you realize that being overweight and LETTING yourkids be fat at such an early age is a sign of ignorance? You do not know anything about nutrition and I am sure you are filling your kids with fatty and sugary treats.

Jesus H. Christ said...

There are two points I'm going to address here. For the record I am critical of home education. I'm not against it, only critical. I hope schooled for the 5th grade during the summer. I did like 1/3 of my 6th grade on my own at sea.

On a side note, I developed simple software to quiz my spelling. Computer would speak out words, and I'd type them in, nothing fancy.

My father was in a one room Schoolhouse until high school, he had to boat to the mainland to get there. He didn't have the funds to go to Notre Dame or St. Marten's. He had a full ride scholarship to both but debt with the private school prevented his grades from being transferred.

----
1) It does not follow that these famous people are your kids.

2) You don't come across as an idiot like others in this so called atheist movement.
"From: Jane Everhart NYC Athists
Sent: Wed 8/06/08 7:12 PM
To: Ige Panda
Hi -Thank you for your information.
However, I do respect autodidacts. My father was one. He too never went to college--or even high school--but was very well informed and could speak 5 languages.. Abe Lincoln never went to college, nor did George Bernard Shaw, nor did the guy who invented the geodesic dome." -- Jane Everhart New York City Atheists

She likely meant Bucky Fuller who went to Harvard and later got his terminal degree from Bates (Lewiston Maine). Oh and Mr. Shaw spent over a decade in university. No degree but over a decade at university is hardly no college.

These people will applaud self-education when it applies to one of their own who sort of claimed to translate the bible from Koine Greek. Wanna see how well he did tossing in Greek into a layman's presentation?

http://tinyurl.com/TomLameGreek

Look at it, and think to your self this was transcription, not memory. The "self-taught expert" couldn't quote the Odyssey nor Luke 24:35 (IIRC). Maybe he couldn't find a polytonic bible or didn't know how to use google. Granted it's not the exact same group, but this east coast clan is all interconnected. The next time they give you flack, look at that. I'll link you to the presentation in question if you want a good laugh.

So the people you are dealing with will employ intellectual dishonesty in the extreme. That's just wrong. Facts are independent of beliefs.

Here's the deal. So long as you are open to external review, so long as you are willing to have your kids tested by a neutral party, so long as you don't presume you're doing a good job, I'm personally willing to accept home schooling. It wouldn't be hard to actually improve upon them. There are concerns, if you're willing to address them and prove you're doing a good job, no problem.

US schools are not bad, but they're not all that great either. In Finland kids have to be literate in three languages to even graduate high school (Finnish/Swedish/English). There are serious issues with our education system, and one should really consider supplementing a public school program with more than the bare minimum.

The big deal is socialization, but objectively speaking church membership actually covers this to extent. Glow in the dark night rosary bead fights count if you're catholic.

Cortni said...

I never compared my kids to these famous people. I posted it because just being homeschooled does not rule kids out of going on and doing something great or wonderful.

And I am not sure how much of my blog you have read but my kids are no longer homeschooled. They are now in public school and that decision was made before any of the atheists decided to come onto my blog.

And I can't think of a single homeschooling parent that I have met that is 100% confident that they are 100% providing their kids with an A+ all the way education. But I also believe that public schools don't accomplish that task either.

I feel good about my kids being in public school because I am in constant contact with their teachers about what they are learning and I supplement what I can at home to help them learn even more.

Too many parents just drop their kids off and have no clue what they are learning, just completely trusting that the public school system will provide them all they need. I am not one of those parents.

But it's really not my place to judge to be honest. What other people do with their kids is none of my business. I worry about my kids and that is enough.

Jesus H. Christ said...

The line what other people do with their kids gets fuzzy. Obviously in cases of clear abuse this is a matter that should be addressed without a second thought. Matters of education are in essence a public issue which is rather why the state of Texas has compulsory education. Competing in a global economy is a valid concern and something that we Americans are failing at.

As a citizen I can propose that it's a good idea to teach our kids at least 1 foreign language. As a parent, which one is totally up to you. If you thought it was a good idea to teach your one of the mora based languages like Mayan I'd say spiffy. Heck, I'd pay for that.

I did notice you put your kids in public school but at some point you might choose to go back to home school.

I've seen first hand how bad public schools can be, well technically second hand. My brother attended a high school that had a 12% illiteracy rate among graduates. If you wonder how they could take tests if they couldn't read, they didn't take tests. They were passed anyway.

Texas looks like have a limited required curriculum.
"reading, spelling, grammar, mathematics and a study of good citizenship"

Other states are more strict
"science, mathematics, language, social studies, history, health, reading, writing and spelling, art/music appreciation, vocational training"

We're a little odd in the fact that we don't consider geography to be separate subject.

I am critical of homeschooling, but I can not deny that it would be trivial to actually do a better job than public schools. The standards are rather low. I actually support external review of home schools in the form of standardized testing.

But I thought you would be amused at the poor level of scholarship these east coast "Atheists" promote. A person they promote as an expert in biblical languages can't even transcribe Greek.

Jesus H. Christ said...

"I never compared my kids to these famous people. I posted it because just being homeschooled does not rule kids out of going on and doing something great or wonderful."

Ah, here is were we were confused. I'm sure it was NEVER your intent to compare your kids to these famous people, and I'm sure your intent was as you stated it.

However here's how it works. Let's say 2 million Americans are home schooled. I don't happen to have an accurate figure. You cited the 10 cream of the crop. Obviously 10 out of 2 million is not a meaningful demographic. What would have "some" meaning would be actual statistics of those who were home schooled who later went on to university, or their relative earning potential. Even that won't tell you if you're doing your job.

This is why I'm for standardized testing for home schoolers, as well as mandatory refresher courses for the basics.

Now when I made this post I was unaware how Texas public schooled ranked, and given that data I would be concerned.

http://www.window.state.tx.us/comptrol/wwstand/wws0512ed/

I'm not trying to bash Texas but demographics are helpful for pointing out weak areas. Given this data, homeschooling looks more attractive.

Cortni said...

There are a lot more people than you think that have been homeschooled and gone on to do great things. Here is another list for you.

http://www.homeschoolacademy.com/famoushomeschoolers.htm

Have you seen the movie Eragon or read the book? That was written by a 17 year old homeschooled kid.

Generally homeschooled kids do better at standardized tests and more of them go on to college than public school kids do....I am sick so I don't have time to look up the data, but I can tell you are a person who can find out that stuff easily.