We do leave at least one thread hanging: if anyone can confirm or deny what DeMille wrote re his credentials in the original edition of TJE, please email me and I will add it in. (And if there is anything else that you simply must get off of your chest, please email it to me as well. Use my first name AT timesandseasons DOT org.)

Thank you all for a good conversation.

UPDATE:

(1) A TJE supporter emailed me his transcription of p22 of the original TJE. The only difference is that his has “respected private university” instead of “respected university.” In other words, it appears that Oliver DeMille lied in print about his credentials by claiming that he had graduated from BYU when he had in fact dropped out. (He did later earn a degree from BYU, which is even odder given his feelings for “conveyor belt education.”)

(2) Here is some information sent to me about a few GWC graduates (not my words or research below):

Kimberly Smith, Masters, Biblical Studies. Has authored two books on the subject of how the Bible only allows music that is not “carnal,” and why contemporary Christian music is thus an abomination (which I agree, it is, just for entirely different reasons…)

Glen Kimber, PhD, Education. Runs — you guessed it — a home-schooling training and textbook business. Math: “The Kimber MATH method is principle-based. It teaches students to apply mathematic principles to life. Students actually create and solve their own problems, thus learning to self-govern with correct principles.” History: “The Kimber HISTORY is based on “Hook Dates.” Ten major dates are selected which cover a particular period of time (such as Old Testament and World History). To these dates is attached a significant personality of the time. Then to this information is attached a significant event. An example of this is 4,000 B.C. The personalities are Adam and Eve. The Events are the world’s creation and the Fall.”

Ann B. Tracy, PhD, Health Sciences. She’s the crusader against antidepressants who got a PhD after self-publishing a book about Prozac. From the Deseret News, August 21, 2004. “In 1991, Tracy wrote an 80-page pamphlet called “Prozac: Panacea or Pandora?” Three years later she expanded it into a 424-page book that she published herself. She wrote a lot of it longhand, while sitting in the Salt Lake LDS Temple: the one place, she says, where she was sure Satan didn’t have a foothold.”

Mark D. Siljander, Ph.D., International Business, from GWC. Was a U.S. Congressman from Michigan an Reagan appointee to the UN delegation in the 1980s. Now runs a consulting/lobbying/import-export business and serves in various capacities of various far-right organizations and defense funds. Oh, and in January of this year he was indicted for money laundering, conspiracy, and obstruction, in relation to that case where money to a supposed Islamic charity was going to a terrorist organization. Was an adjunct at GWC — in fact his pages still up, though it’s not linked to from the current faculty list. Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_D._Siljander#2008_indictment
http://www.gwc.edu/about/faculty_staff/msiljander.php

(3) There is an anti-GWC google group:
http://groups.google.com/group/anti-gwc

The file “DiplomaDeMille.doc” that you can read there is really good stuff–it has links to all sorts of DeMille materials that I couldn’t otherwise find on the web, including this gem:

“No classic is more important than the Book of Mormon, yet is [sic] has never been used as a central curriculum like the Old Testament, New Testament and the Koran. Not only does the Book of Mormon contain all the necessary fields of study, at levels from Kindergarten to Doctoral studies, it also provides its own specific guidelines for how and what to study—both for religious and secular education. In short, it is the classic of classics, and it’s about time to start utilizing it as such.”

That same document contains some delightful quotes from the CRBU (where DeMille claimed he got the best education) catalog including this gem: “More people than any other singular language in the world use the Spanish language worldwide.” Not only is the grammar a train wreck, but it isn’t true!

That said, anyone who thinks that the best method of math instruction for elementary-aged children is for mom to sit on the couch reading Euclid and muttering “that sure is interesting” until the child is so inspired by her example that s/he decides to begin to study math . . . wow . . . I just don’t have the words.

TMD, I already said I understood your position. You don’t accept the “deeply problematic data” I’m relying on. That’s fine. I accept it and my anecdotal experience for 15 years and meeting thousands of homeschoolers and speaking across the country and running web forums for homeschoolers and directing homeschool choirs and teaching homeschool classes and even being involved in testing (Stanford) them supports it.

that does not speak to the experience of most homeschoolers.

I think I probably have a better handle on “the experience of most homeschoolers” than you do, but please clarify your associations with them if I’m wrong.

Still you go on to make claims about homeschooler’s socialization. How can you verify this while “unbiased quantitative data on these topics do not exist”? Or is only the anti-homeshooling data free from being “deeply problematic.”

Still, we have plenty of empirical, peer-reviewed data showing the inefficiencies in public schools, no? So why not focus on problem areas that we can PROVE are problems, rather than on speculation that the “deeply problematic data” isn’t really as good as it claims to be?

FWIW, I host multiple parties from upwards of 70 homeschoolers annually (in addition to multiple parties for my own (homeschooled) kids). Funny that I don’t see what you assert and, in fact, I’d never host 70 NON-homeschooled teens at one time. Anecdotal, absolutely, but also spot on in every area I’ve lived in. (i.e. large groups of non-homeschoolers have always resulted in property damage and kids sneaking off to grope in the weeds. But homeschoolers don’t appear to be socialized enough to figure out how to engage in group vandalism and petting?)

A week and a half ago I spoke at a convention in SLC. The teens had wonderful socialization that looked markedly like what I’ve seen at school dances/parties–except that there weren’t kids simulating sex on the dance floor and the fat girls and 100-pound boys were involved, instead of standing by the snack table downing the Ding Dongs.

I just spoke at a four-day homeschool conference in Virginia last week where there were hundreds of teens. I didn’t see the poor quality relationships there, either, just lots of laughter and fun. But they were lacking in the gang beating that we had at Willowcreek Middle in Lehi, Utah, a couple of weeks ago.

Maybe we should define what we mean by socialization. Schools are about the last place I’d recommend sending a child to learn to be civilized and/or be independent and/or learn to get along. But maybe there’s something else we’re looking for.

Perhaps I should clarify something. I define homeschooling in a different way than some of you might think. To me it’s not about where you school, it’s about who is in charge of it. In my home, the school board, the principal, etc. do not dictate what, when, and how we learn.

If the cheerleading coach is the AP chemistry teacher (as is the case at Lehi High School) we don’t waste our time. We find a better source for chemistry (which would be just about anything in this case…) If the school has a very good program for something, we use it. But we only use it for the things that are actually beneficial to our kids.

To be clear, I’m not anti-school. What I’m opposed to, if anything, is to let such an institution dictate what is best for educating my kids–when they not only do not know what is best, but doing what is best for my kids isn’t remotely their primary purpose.

Still, in spite of the assumed deleterious effects of homeschooling, my “poorly socialized” kids can jump in and out of any situation and seem to not only survive, but thrive. When they aren’t in school, they work hard and learn a lot in a personalized way in a minimum amount of time. They have a great deal of time to pursue their interests. (BTW, many of their interests actually include living humans, which must be a shock.) When they attend any classes at school (which they can choose at any time and which I encourage when they start seminary) they excel academically (all three who have taken classes in middle or high school have straight 4.0 GPA) and have readily made big groups of great friends.

More surprising, perhaps, is that they’ve made friends without resorting to following the school social strata. In fact, more often, they’ve been the ones to obliterate it. That comes from NOT being so peer-dependent as many schooled kids tend to be.

One of my third daughter’s school teachers recently said, “Alana set the entire tone for the whole state honor choir event. It was amazing.” Another teacher said, “She is just remarkable. Where did she come from?”

The truth is (again, in my anecdotal experience) kids get so accustomed to the school hierarchy (that great socialization, eh?) that they forget that they are reinforcing it by their own behavior. All it takes is ONE kid–in this case a homeschooled kid who isn’t socialized mainly by the peer group–to come in and say, “Hey, I don’t have to fall into line and march to your orders.” for the other kids to say, “Hey, that’s right!” Suddenly the cliques lose their power.

To date my older children have been very successful as adults as well. My oldest (on scholarship at BYU), just finished her junior year. She has a great group of friends there as well as a slew from when she was homeschooled (and confined to our home 24/7 with no opportunities to interact with anyone but her siblings). She is an award winning film editor and writer. She edits BYU’s True Blue sports program and is currently one of eight post-production interns (out of over 3,000 applicants) in Burbank at Disney Studios.

It’s amazing how she overcame the trauma of homeschool socialization and learned to deal with “the real world”–which apparently is being in an age-segregated room and confined to your assigned group and a particular table in the lunchroom for most of your waking life. Then again, maybe her friends just aren’t bona fide enough to qualify…

So far, I see absolutely no drawbacks to homeschooling at all, unless you include the resources involved. But I feel it’s a privilege to have them around and to contribute so directly to their lives.

To be clear, I don’t personally know ANY homeschooler (and I know thousands) for whom “homeschool” means “sit at the kitchen table and isolate yourself from the world.” IMO homeschooling simply gives you access to all the options, rather than being confined to a 7-hour-per-day, 180-day-per-year track that is dictated by a bunch of people who belong to the NEA.

Sorry for the threadjack, Julie. I won’t post on it anymore. Honest.

Back to post:

Julie, thank you for all this info. I’m thrilled to have it all in one place. Yes, Brooks is the guy I spoke to as well when I was researching this.

Thank you so much for posting Jenson’s writings. They express so many of my concerns as well.

I’d love to be able to forward Jenson’s article to those who contact me about TJEd. I have a whole bunch of them from the last conference dinner. Would it be possible for Jenson to contact me or for you to forward my contact info to him?

He can reach me at smitham at alphasmith dot com.

Again, thank for all your time and effort on this!

The response from Shannon Brooks speaks for itself. I was amused at the threat of libel for referring to Coral Ridge as a diploma mill. It is both very funny and highly ironic that, should GWC ever decide to sue anybody, they would have to employ attorneys who were educated in the “conveyor belt” system, rather than their own people whose education is supposed to be so superior.

To top it off, the event at which the speech linked in # 234 was delivered was called a “How Firm a Foundation” seminar. I give them credit for chutzpah, but not much else.

Julie, I totally respect your wishes, and won’t persist, but I don’t think it is irrelevant. I think your analysis of TJE has demonstrated the variety of homeschooling approaches out there, and calls into question this apparently popular approach.

Solid research into the performance of ALL homeschoolers, with detailed data about the homeschooling philosophy used, if any, would greatly inform this discussion about TJE.

TMD