Acrylixx

I read Francis Rizzo III's DVD review of Jesus Camp at http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=26184 and...


... I agree with you about the horrific consequences of imprinting ones children with militant dogma. I have seen this kind of thing close up and in person and it's never pretty. Simple faith can be beautiful, zealots never are.

That being said, I'd like to take the liberty of educating you Francis about the real homeschooling world and why the comments you made were particularly insulting. I am a homeschooling mother myself and I did not choose this life out of some religious fervor or puritan-esque need to disconnect from real life. These comprise so few of the real homeschooling world and I for one and very, very tired of having to defend what i see as a perfectly rational choice. It started when an 8 yr. old girl brought drugs to my son's elementary school and tried to teach children how she used them. I was admittedly shocked and felt the need to protect what was left of my children's childhoods immediately.

Homeschoolers are not backwards, shy, socially inept "creepy" children. For the most part we , the parents, have decided WITH our children to approach education with a fresh perspective and forgo the nonsense that serves as an elementary education here in the states. I will use ourselves as an example. I am no zealot. Hell, I don't go to church myself. I am a fun loving mom that enjoys teaching her own children in a safe, relaxed atmosphere. MY home schooled kids are in many social groups ( like most home schooled children), such as soccer, theatre, and music, volunteer at the local zoological gardens and library...etc. We wake up, hit the books after breakfast, get done what we gotta get done and spend the rest of the day pursuing things that turn the kids on, wether it be Egyptology one week, or space studies the next. They have a ton of friends and are very well adjusted kids. We simply like our life better since making the choice to home school. Our family has more time together. The kids aren't missing anything socially. ( Our home school group has their own prom, award banquets, art shows, etc)...


Anyway, you get the general idea. I found your review to be most informative but please, please don't make these hurtful remarks about home schoolers. What you saw was only a sampling of a very select few and most of us are not religious at all. Home schooling was the only way to school for many many centuries before the modern idea of public school caught on. We are harming no one, and would simply like the respect due any parent who is as concerned with their child's education as we are. Thank you Francis for a stellar review, and I hope you'll see home education as a viable, responsible alternative as opposed to a creepy kid factory!

FrancisRizzo3

I never meant that home-schooling is a bad thing (though I myself do not agree with it, as I feel the real-world education that is the very diverse social interaction of public school is highly important to development), just that these people use it to control their children's minds. I'm sure the majority of home school advocates simply like to be involved in their children's education and have trouble with the inherent problems of the public school system.

Or they're crazy ass militia people. Kidding.

siegfried

I have a cousin who is home schooling her children, and for them it really is not working. They live in the country and the kids are not socialized at all. I am very concerned as to what will happen to them when they grow up. But I'm sure home schooling could work for some.

Reservoir

The people in that film are far more dangerous than non-christian 'terrorists' because they may one day have access to the military power of the US of A. Flying a couple of planes into a few ugly buildings will look like nothing compared to what these people would do to other countries and then their own when they've finished on foreign lands. All in the name of their Jesus Christ.

They're fucking crazy and I feel real terror watching them.


As for homeschooling it can be a good idea for the right mix of parents and children or where the children have had severe problems at school. In the mian I don't like it because it removes children from their peer group which is never healthy.

siegfried

Somehow I think I'd rather take my chances with democratically elected governments than the alternative.

FrancisRizzo3

Like Hamas?

siegfried

"...you say Hamas, I say Fatah....lets call the whole thing off..."

Takeshi357

Last I heard, the camp got closed down because of the fuss caused by this documentary.

dhmac

Saw this last night and it's an extreme illustration of Richard Dawkins' argument that indoctrinating children into a religion is a form of child abuse. It seemed apparent to me that these kids would be a lot happier just being kids, instead of being in this camp and dragged around by adults to protest abortions.

And that lady, Becky Fischer, who was running the camp was scary in her effectiveness in indoctrinating the kids. Her admiration for the Muslim schools in the Middle East that do essentially the same sort of brainwashing of children was just disgusting, especially given that those Muslim schools tend to help produce terrorists. I know Fischer thinks what she is doing is "right" but stuff like this needs to be stopped.

X

Yes, we were lucky they weren't good-looking buildings.