I’ve recent read Educated by Tara Westover and I almsot couldn’t put it down. Even the cover is betiful and it goes with the story. The region is still home to her even after she redefines her life and by the end it her education blends together with it. However, the more I think about this story the more I can’t believe this actually happened.
I’ve had a pretty normal life, my parents let me go to a public school and like more normal families, they wanted me to get good grades. But looking at Tara’s childhood its hard to imagination that parents wouldn’t want there kids to be educated. I’ve had friends with parents that wanted them to be home schooled, but they would still use cirrculm that was similar to public schools. Other then that a lot of preschoolers I knew had religious parents who would probably put the bible in as part of their studies. But Tara’s parents took that to a whole new level. I’m suprised they didn’t get taken away. The more I think about it, the more i feel like I have to do something. So I think the least I can do is have a discussion about it. Here’s a list of questions, that I will try to answer for myself, but I’m curious about what everyone else thinks as well:
- How do we get people to trust doctors and nurses more?
- Should homeschool be allowed? What rules should we set to make sure kids are getting the education they need?
- Should we keep relgion out of schools or would it juist cause more tension?
- And most importantly what can we do to prevent children from being abused?
To answer the first question, I think it depends a lot of things. Some don’t trust them due to expereince. Maybe their doctor messed something up and they can never recover from it. Maybe they just simply don’t trust people to do their jobs. I’ve felt this way at times, but I’ve learned how to combat it. Now I do my own research and when I need a doctor I try to go to more then one. If thier don’t add up then I know I need to look into more. Try not to jump into things right away, make sure the surgery or the pills getting really will help.
I think other people don’t trust doctors for religous reasons. ANd the number of parnets who refuse to give thier kids blood tranfussions is depressing. I don’t know for sure where the laws lie on this, but to me this is child abuse if the child really needs it. I’m all for being self suffient, but if people don’t do thier research -whcih some reliogus intutions refuse to do that since thye’re taught to be afraid of science- then a lot of people will suffer. Tara’s life and the lives of her fasmily members could’ve been so much better if they just got help.
And as for the second question, I don’t think alll famlies are doing their kids a favor by home schooling. I know people around my age that were home-schooled. By that I mean tutors and sometimes the older siblings would teach the younger ones. I knew one specifically that was suoer lazy and ended up getting several years behind. However, I also have had friends that went through a homescholling program. From what they told me the courses seemed rigid and that the program was porbably just as good or better than the high school I went to. But their was a clear simlaity between the two – both households were christain and didn’t seem to wawnt their children to know anyone outside of their ideology. I know this doesn’t apply to all homeschoolers, but I find famlies that decide to do this usually do so for religous reasons. I don’t think preventing kids from interacting with others famlies with different belief systems helps kids. I thinks its closed minded and unfair, this is the time for kids to explore, but instead many families choose top keep them in a bubble.
As for the rules to set for homescholers, I do think they need to at least somewhat have the same cicculium as a public school would. I understand that every child is different and we all have different interests, so I do think courses should be more moldable especilay as child get close to becoming adults. I do think that at leasat some socail interaction is nesscary. I think homeschooling can be good for introverted kids, but to make in reality we all need communication skills to get good jobs.
I also think that teaching relgion in school is nesscary, as it has played a huge role in our history. I think banning it would just resort to more people leaving public schools and choosing to take their kids to private schools or home schooling them. However, I don’t think relgion should be involved in sciene. Religions are faith based and for the most part they are not scientifically accurate.
Another important thing that concerns me about homeschooling is how will we know if kids are abused if they only commicate with their nuclear famlies? I do think that parnets of homeschoolers religous and otherwise do have to worry about cps. I think the best way to prevent this would be to make sure their kids talk to other people outside the family. That way if someone accuses them of abusing their kid, they can have plenty of people to testy against them. Its alrady hard enough to stop child abuse -even in public schools- kids might be ashamed of what has happened to them. Or their parnets might threaten them not to tell anyone about it. I think homeschooling can worry a lot of people due to the fact that they children may not get to see a lot of people and may hardly ever get the oppurtunity to tell others what’s happening in their home life.
I think the only way to help prevent child abuse is to be vililalent and think of every child as someone in the community we need to make sure feels safe and protected.
So that’s my spiel on this topic, if you want to dicuss this more please leave a comment below!
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