When you just have something to say...

So tonight I want to talk about something more philosophical. Not extremely philosophical, but more so than the previous few entries have been. Tonight I want to talk a little bit about public schooling versus homeschooling. Now, I know it seems a silly thing for a college student like me to bring up, but I've always had an opinion on it and I think tonight I'm going to share it.

It is my opinion that, although public schools cannot provide the same quality of or degree of personalization in a child's education as a home school experience can, the social benefits it gives outweigh any losses this can bring about. I feel that the social experience of public schooling is extremely important for the proper growth an individual. I'm not saying homeschooling makes becoming a functioning member of society impossible or that it makes you a bad person (I definitely don't think that at all)...it just seems to be a social handicap. When a person who has not been exposed to the social arena of public school/real social situations with a diverse group of peers (and all of the dangers such a situation entails) is suddenly thrust into it, things are just awkward and it takes a while for them to properly adjust. *shrugs* Maybe this is worth it to some people, but I don't think so. I feel like the kid loses out on becoming the individual they could have been...and on a whole other type of learning.

This whole thing ties into another belief I have. I feel like a lot of kids movies today are not giving all of the right messages. It seems to me that kids need better villains and they need to see scary situations in their media. Even movies for children (I'm not talking babies here, that would be silly) need to have some reflection of reality in them. Let's take some older movies and analyze them...you can compare them to newer movies (now I could be wrong here, okay, I don't watch many movies) ;-) Sorry, this gets even more biased here...but it is my blog! "The Great Mouse Detective" is and was one of my favorite movies because of its great hero vs. great villain scenario. In addition to that, it also has great moments of comedic value and songs that no one will groan to hear. I love everything about that movie; but on to my point. In "The Great Mouse Detective" we have a truly evil villain with a rough cuts sidekick to boot. I mean, come on, he feeds another mouse to a cat and captures a toymaker forcing his daughter to go out on her own. Everyone should be able to see he is an evil dude. That movie is a more like real life good vs. evil (despite the characters being rodents...personification takes care of that though) and not in the silly fantasy way...the viewer can understand why one character is "evil" and needs to be taken down by the "hero". I think that's important; kids need to see 1. that bad things do exist, 2. the real reasons that bad things are actually bad (coming from scary moments) and 3. that heroes are imperfect but try to do their best...and sometimes it doesn't work out. In a lot of movies that kids see today they don't get messages like that. As I see it, kids get three basic types of messages from their media exposure today: 1. There are absolute forces of good and evil that are self-evident and come not from real situations but as a result of their very natures...and good always wins because it is good or 2. There are no evil forces in the universe and they are completely safe (note: this is a FINE message for younger children!!)or 3. The universe is a very scary place where adults control every it is time to withdraw. Basically, kids see movies meant for adults and pick up things too soon or they see silly children's movies and are not properly prepared for the world...which I'll admit is kinda a silly thing to say, they are just movies after all. Harry Potter is a decent exception...I'll give the world that...perhaps that is why it is so well received.

Anyway, back on topic. How about I tell a story then? One day this past summer as I was working at my job, two of my co-workers and I suddenly got into a discussion about public schooling versus home schooling. It should be noted that I respect both of these individuals as highly as I respect anyone in the world, they are both kind and highly educated individuals who work hard. But I digress, both of these gentlemen had younger children and were on the verge of deciding to home-school them. I did not try to tell them how to parent their children, mind you, but my opinion on the subject was requested. So, I told them that I felt public school was an important social experience for children and that a good solid parent (which I knew them both to be) should be able to raise their children to be excellent people without dictating every influx of information their children received as home school often results in. You see, my co-workers did not want their children exposed to any of the negative elements of society with their supervision. They wanted total control. This is of course admirable but, in my humble opinion, both impossible and detrimental to the proper development of a child. I believe that especially during the pre-school and elementary years of a child's life they have to be exposed to other individuals and the outside world without the barrier of a parent so that they can learn "how things are". Perhaps I'm just ignorant, but I feel strongly about this. The discussion ended there though, because they respected my feelings on the subject as a recent graduate of a VERY public school and I completely respected their feelings as parents wanting to raise good children.

So there's no conclusion here really...I just wanted to rant a bit. I hope you maybe enjoyed it and weren't to offended or anything.