Hello,
My name is Doris Anne Beaulieu. I have a website-Life’s Ultimate Test dot com-on which you can learn more about my mission to change the face of home schooling.
I attended a parochial school as a child in the 1950's. In this Catholic school I was sheltered from the realities of the world around me-from swearing, from public displays of affection, from slang. These are often some of the same things that modern home schooling parents aim to protect their children from. A superior court judge said " In today’s threatening world, we seek to protect children from abuse, not just physical, but also educational abuse." This protection however often leaves behind a naiveness to the surrounding world the children must eventually enter.
Children need to be exposed to real life. Parents should as a family, talk about the world openly so children may not only learn that the world holds cruelness, but so they can gain knowledge from their parents experience and guidance for adulthood.
Playing with other children, a basic aspect of childhood was something we were unable to do because of the lack of seeing children outside of their family. Home schooled kids face the same consequences. A child who hasn’t efficiently learned how to deal with childhood conflict can not deal with adult conflict.
A child could become an active member of an organization that offers compromising skills. Be it girl scouts, boy scouts or some form of sports in their community. Anything of this nature would improve the outcome.
In my school, we spent most of the day praying- in church and in class. Who is to say in home schooling the children are receiving a full education which I even lacked in a parochial school? The same judge mentioned before also said " how can we not monitor the educational welfare of all of our children?" There should be a system, of more than just suggestions, to guarantee the children are being educated. This system should also lack so much variance from state to state.
More of my personal experience can be found in my book The Torments of the Modest Secluded Farm Life and it’s screenplay "Broken Souls." I hope, through my experience, I can soon make a difference for children facing similar situations.
Thank you,
Doris Anne Beaulieu
http://www.LifesUltimateTest.com
My book paints a very clear picture of the closeness of families who live a protective, sheltered life going to a private school(Which is not the home-schools of today). One’s only friends are those also living under that protective blanket, or in my case, only my siblings. One is raised to believe the whole world lives this way. Individuals only speak the truth because one is taught a person is only as good as his word. It is also emphasized that everyone treats others with kindness as that is the pure moral way to live life. I give details of how my life was lived year after year. Readers will clearly see that what is instilled in a child be it right, wrong, or naive, becomes a permanent and lasting part of one’s being. No matter the direction life may take, make no mistake, one’s childhood mentally follows him or her throughout life, causing doubt in every move because one knows how naive he or she was raised and things are just not the same in the world he or she now must live in.
Which takes me to the second reason is about the mental trauma of having lived a protective, sheltered life and entering the cruel, dishonest, harsh world as an independent adult. One is first hit with harsh language he and mostly she can not begin to understand. The lying and cruelness of how people treat each other is enough to make him and mostly she wants to run back under that umbrella of protection. Just think for a moment, if you were raised with no conflicts in child’s play. How does one expect you to have developed the skills needed to handle adult conflict? Do you do as you were raised and just shut up and become victims in this harsh society? Do you just run home in fear and cry? That life style creates fear and fear is a powerful thing, especially for women. An individual gets confused as to what is right and wrong in life because the world is not what he or she was raised to believe. He or she feels like there must be two different worlds and one needs to find the other kinder one as this other world scares them to the point of total disbelief. My book, shows us all as parents the need for proper transition from one world to the other, what our home-schooled children need from us in order to not only grow up physically, but also mentally. A proper transition of such would save the children from an adult life of mental therapy.
Finally, the third reason for writing my book is based on the fact home-schooling rules differ from state-to-state. Some states have no regulations at all, and with the No Child Left Behind law I feel that these rules contradict each other. Where the states fail our children with proper accountability of education for home-schoolers, the government needs to take notice, step in, and make a change. I had a conversation on one of the political sites on Myspace where a man said "I quit school at 16 because school was nothing but a waste of my time." This same man said he was going to home-school his children. Can you just imagine the education his children are going to receive? And how are they going to adjust into society when they turn eighteen? Schools are all being academically measured up, but what are we going to have for these failing parents? What kind of society are we creating?
In the year 2003 there were over one million children being home-schooled and various forms of unschooled. Yes, you heard me right "unschooled," where counting eggs while picking them is math. That was 2003 and the numbers have more then doubled since that time. We as a nation need to wake up fast and take a real hard look at this area of education. Let my book in part be a wake-up call to the society being created and let us worry much less about stepping on toes and let us as a nation do what is morally right for the children in our nation. Every child deserves an equal shot to an education and for this education to allow growth, not only physically, but also mentally. Read my book, The Torments of the Modest, Secluded Farm Life ISBN:1-58721-806-2 for the heads-up on the society that is being created and as a good starting point for making changes to help the children here at home in America.
Thank You,
