Newspaper Page Text
♦ WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2006
4A
Houston .IJourtutl
OPINION
Daniel F. Evans
Editor and Publisher
Don Moncrief
Managing Editor
Home schooling should he
allowed
The European Court on Human Rights
ruled this past week that parents do
not have the fundamental right to
home school their children.
Basically what that means according to
reports is now all 25 states in the European
Union could act to ban home schooling.
Does it signal the end of home schooling
in America? Well, supposedly education and
political experts are reportedly debating
that exact question right now.
Why is unknown?
Here are a few statistics and facts from
the federal
government’s
National
Center for
Education
Statistics.
There were
850,000 chil
dren home
schooled in
1999. That
number was
1.1 million
in 2003 and
around 2 million today; the growth rate has
been 7-15 percent per year.
According to the NCES, reasons people
home school are: 31 percent are concerned
about the social environment of public
schools, 30 percent want to provide moral
and religious instruction, 16 are dissatis
fied with public school and 9 percent have a
desire for more family time and to provide
individualized instruction.
Also according the NCES, a study of 5,000
home school graduates showed that once
home schoolers graduated, they found work
and were more involved in their commu
nities than the average public school stu
dent.
And, listen to this. Home schooled chil
dren scored an average of 20 to 30 percen
tile points higher than their average public
school counterparts on standardized tests.
No offense to public schools, which prob
ably take no offense anyway considering the
fact having fewer students enables them to
have more one-on-one time, but Europe can
do what it wants.
In America, we hope it stays the way it
is.
Letter to the Emtor
Security is at the core of
our education
Current events in our country continue to remind us
of the premium we must put on the issue of safety in our
schools. As a former administrator and now a candidate
for the Houston County Board of Education, I can relate
to many concerns pertaining to safety in our schools.
Because parents send their most precious possession,
their children, off to school everyday, safety must be a
top priority. We have taken a number of steps to keep
our children safe here in Houston County. I am proud
to have played a small part by implementing features
like security monitoring systems and cameras, safety
planning, security personnel services, Crimestoppers
and ADVANCE (a drug, alcohol, tobacco and gang aware
ness program ). If fortunate enough to represent the
people of Houston County, I would continue to push for
increased safety measures to include the installation of
advanced surveillance equipment and electronic entry
pads, increasing the number of on site safety personnel,
requiring the use of student IDs, as well as adding strate
gies in the ADVANCE program to help students deal with
internet predators, violence and bullying.
Security is at the very heart of our educational enter
prise. In order to provide our students an optimum envi
ronment from which to learn, it is absolutely crucial that
we do everything possible to keep our schools safe and
secure.
Marianne Melnick, Warner Robins
Send your Letters to the Editor to:
The Houston Home Journal
P.O. Box 1910 • Perry, Ga 31069 or
Email: hhj@evansnewspapers.com
Julie B. Evans
Vice President
Foy S. Evans
Editor Emeritus
And, listen to this.
Home schooled children
scored an average
ol 20 to 30 percen
tile points higher than
their average public
school counterparts on
standardized tests.
Be aware of your kids' online activities
UTT ow many of you have been
I lon MySpace? More than
JL A once? How many have a
MySpace account?”
At our seminars called “Play it Safe:
A Parent’s Guide to Internet Safety,”
an expert asks parents this question.
At some schools, 50-60 percent of par
ents say they have accessed this wildly
popular place for kids to connect with
one another, express their creativity
and experience uncensored content
and communication posted by some of
its 100 million registered members. At
other schools 5-10 percent of parents
acknowledge visiting MySpace.
This means that somewhere between
40-95 percent of parents we speak to
have never been to the online place
where many kids spend an average of
1.5 hours a day. And if they have read
or heard the horror stories attached
to online personal content generation
sites, most parents still don’t have a
clue what their kids are doing there.
We make a lot of recommendations
in our seminars on Internet safety, but
the two most important things we say
are: ••
1. what your kids are experi
encing online. Follow their activities,
install filtering and tracking software,
ask for their password to sites such as
MySpace, Facebook and Xanga. Then
go there with them to see what they
are talking with friends about, what
they have posted on their site and
others’ and see what their “friends”
are posting to your child’s site. If you
haven’t been to these sites before, you
may be alarmed at what you find.
Nevertheless, click around on the site
and learn more about the people your
child has accepted as “friends.” (The
word “friend” doesn’t have the same
meaning it did just a few years ago.
Now it simply means someone you may
or may not know, who has requested
access to your site, and td whom you
have granted that permission.)
2. Talk with your children about the
Internet. This is the most important
thing you can do in the area of Internet
safety. As a reminder, we’re not only
trying to help parents keep their kids
safe from the predators who stalk, kid
nap and abuse children; we’re also con
cerned about other influences online
that parents are usually not aware of.
Your kids - or grandchildren, nieces,
"Your teachers say you
just are not able to “Congratulations, my boy!
think for yourself..." You are going to have a
career in politics!”
Cleaning the can can be just as good as a tune-up
Why is it that a clean car drives
better than a sloppy car? Is it
for the same reason that a car
runs better when you’re thinking of
selling it?
In any case, I cleaned out my car
recently, and it has run great ever
since. I never intended to spruce it
up, though; as with most things I do
around the house, my wife was the
moving force.
On a recent Saturday, I mowed the
yard, as usual. The next day, as usual,
we got into my car to drive to church.
“Where did all this grass come from?”
she asked as we settled in our seats.
“You must have left your windows
down when you mowed the yard and
some grass got inside.”
An innocent enough remark, but I
never leave my windows down. I am a
confirmed closer and locker. My car is
never left unlocked, even if it is parked
in the driveway.
Why the obsessive-compulsive behav
ior? I think it’s part of being a father.
A man’s main function in a family, you
probably know, is to go from room to
room, shutting off lights, turning off
radios that aren’t being heard, secur
ing dripping faucets and closing doors
that should have been closed. It’s what
we do.
My wife knows I would never have
mowed the grass with my car wide
open.
OPINION
nephews, younger siblings, or neigh
bors - need to know that online dan
gers exist in subtle and not-so-subtle
forms: mature discussions in chat '
rooms about sex and sexual orienta
tion, photographs and videos of others
from the mildly offensive to hardcore
pornography, language, jokes and atti
tudes that may not reflect your values.
That’s why we strongly suggest every
family with children between the ages
of 8 and 18 draft an Internet Behavior
Agreement to spell out the parents’
expectations of what the child (ren) will
do online - and what they won’t.
Last week I detailed a few content
points for this Internet Behavior
Agreement:
■ When, where and for what dura
tion will your child be allowed to access
the Internet? For some, the answer
may be, “She is only 10 (or 12 or 15);
she doesn’t need a MySpace account.”
That is a perfectly acceptable (and
wise) answer.
■ What kind of content is the child
allowed to access? Be specific.
■ What kind of content is NOT
allowed? Be more specific; don’t assume
they will know or follow your implied
rules. You must tell them what is not
OK, and why.
This week I want to give you as
many additional content points for the
Internet Behavior Agreement as we
have room for.
■ What are your expectations of how
they conduct themselves? Tell your
kids that activities such as cyberbul
lying, hate speech or bigotry, profanity
or dirty jokes are not acceptable for a
member of your family. Remind them
that they represent the whole family
online, and not just themselves. Also,
let your older kids know that future
employers or college admissions offices
may one day find their writings, pic
tures or videos online and make deci
sions about your child’s future based
on a fleeting attempt at humor.
■ What are your child’s privacy rights?
She was just doing what she does.
I leaned down and looked at the car
pet in my car.
“That’s not grass,” I told her. “That’s
just months of dirt and trash that’s
been dragged in from every foot and
paw in the family. I guess it’s time to
clean out the car.”
She just nodded; wifely mission
accomplished.
After church, I checked out the car
in detail. How many gum wrappers can
one center console hold, anyway? Pens,
gasoline receipts, napkins, toothpicks
and something that looks as though it
once might have been a bite of some
thing.
I had lived with all that junk for
months but had grown so accustomed
to it that it never even caught my eye.
My wife, though, has a sharper eye.
I opened the rear hatch and noticed
for the first time that the cargo area
was even worse. It really did look like
a dead lawn.
Ik
Greg
Hunter
Columnist
Georgia Family Council
Glynn
Moore
Columnist
Morris News Service
HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL
A Georgia Bureau of Investigation com
puter forensics expert - and mother of
seven - told me this was her statement
to her children: “There is no presump
tion of privacy in this house.” She has
seen the crimes, and their associated
pain and suffering, caused when kids
get careless online, and she knows the
best prevention is parental involve
ment and guidance. Remember, this
is not like sneaking a peak into your
daughter’s little pink diary hidden in
her closet. These are conversations
posted for 100 million to see.
■ What are acceptable uses of other
technologies, particularly mobile devic
es? What can they do on their friends’
computers? More and more new tech
nologies are allowing unfiltered access
to the Internet - video iPods, picture
phones and video phones, even por
table gaming devices. And the pornog
raphy industry has been scrambling
quite effectively to produce material
our children can access easily through
these devices. In the words of my
friend at the GBI, “Why do kids need
a video phone or these other devices?
If parents want to get their child a
phone, buy them one that they can use
to make a phone call - not to access
objectionable and dangerous material
online.” Well said.
■ What happens if the rules are
broken? One mom, a writer with
the Los Angeles Times, told of her
experience with getting her daughter
a MySpace account. Wisely, she put
rules like these in place and together
they signed their agreement. When
she found a profanity on her daugh
ter’s site, mom removed her daughter’s
privileges for two weeks. Later, when
the daughter posted a picture of herself
with her friends making an obscene
gesture, mom revoked privileges until
her daughter’s next birthday - about
nine months away.
This was a mom willing to put up
with the comments such as, “You’ve
taken away all my fun,” “You don’t
love me,” “You’ve ruined my life!” and
others. But she is also a mom who
wants to protect her daughter from
making unwise decisions, and to let
her experience consequences at the
hand of her loving mother rather than
as the victim of a stranger.
To order your copy of the Play it Safe
guide, go to www.georgiafamily.org.
Then I realized that what passed for
leaves of grass were actually the brown
needles of Christmas past. Christmases
past, no doubt, because I’m pretty sure
I found traces of cedar, pine and fir.
Thank goodness I found nothing that
was alive or once-alive. I recalled the
time I found a neighbor, well into
December, busily scrubbing out the
trunk of his car.
He told me his wife had bought a
frozen turkey that had rolled out of the
bag and been left in the car by mistake.
Do you know what a thawed dead bird
smells like after it ripens? My neighbor
did, and it took a lot of elbow grease to
deturkey that car.
(If memory serves, those neighbors
became vegetarians, denounced the
observance of Thanksgiving and rolled
down their windows when driving
through an automatic car wash.)
I spent the good part of a day vacu
uming out my vehicle. I tossed away a
bag of trash, scrubbed down the floor
mats, washed the windows and spiffied
up the dash with spray-on vinyl pro
tectant.
When I had finished, it was just like
having a new car, except that there
was no new-car smell; just the odor of
cleaning products.
I didn’t mind, though. It could have
been worse. It could have been turkey.
Reach Glynn Moore at glynn.
moore@morris.com.