Professional vs. parental teaching

There's an old Doonesbury cartoon where Zonker is at the typewriter, writing:

Most problems, like answers, have finite resolutions. The basis for these resolutions contain many of the ambiguities which conditional man daily struggles with. Accordingly, most problematic solutions are fallible. Mercifully, all else fails; conversely, hope lies in a myriad of polemics.

Mike comes in and asks, "Which paper is this?"

Zonker says, "Dunno. I haven't decided yet."

I was strongly reminded of Zonker's b.s. when I came across this paragraph in the California Standards for the Teaching Profession:

Teaching is more than methodology. Philosophical and theoretical understandings of teaching and learning empower teachers to make thoughtful, informed decisions about instructional strategies and ways to support students' learning. A teacher's practice cannot be viewed or evaluated separately from her or his professional ideas and understandings; all aspects of teaching are interdependent. The Standards are broad and interdependent because the professional practice of teaching needs to be seen comprehensively as a complex, dynamic process in which practical and conceptual elements are woven together as a seamless fabric.

There are people who would read this hooey, and think of all those teacher's colleges, and all those libraries full of education journals and research papers, and conclude that homeschoolers are rejecting an entire field of social science. They might conclude, in fact, that homeschoolers reject science generally, and have an appalling lack of respect for expert knowledge. Because science has become part of the great political divide, with many progressives claiming science as 1) the only appropriate means of comprehending the world and 2) exclusively theirs, a minority of progressives just cannot abide a homeschooler who appears (in their eyes) to hate science.

There's no arguing with someone who writes you off as positively medieval because you avoid formal schooling. But, just to get my own thoughts clear, I would make these points:

1. What makes teaching difficult and complex and worthy of reams of scientific studies is the absurd adult-to-child ratio. The Big Questions like "Sight reading or phonics?" are a moot point when you're using individual instruction, because then you just use whichever one works best for that child.
2. Administrators complicate teaching in order to justify their own employment. (There are at least twice as many of them, per teacher, as there were in the 1950's.)
   
3. Because I am an expert in my own children, I have an enormous advantage over a stranger who only has minutes per day in which to get to know my child.
   
4. I have a major advantage in being able to "strike while the iron is hot" and explain concepts at precisely the moment when my child is curious.
5. Autonomy increases learning (e.g., see Alfie Kohn). Enough said.
6. Anxiety decreases learning; school is a hostile social environment.
7. Attempting to teach a concept too early results in lost time, lost effort, and much frustration for everyone involved. Not having a schedule is thus another advantage.
8. Assessment is basically pointless when you homeschool. I can't imagine how any parent could do it without having a pretty good idea of where their children were in math and reading skills, without understanding their depth of knowledge in the topics that interest them.

To give an example of these ordinary, everyday advantages enjoyed by homeschoolers, last night at about 10:15pm I introduced Anya to the topic of asexual vs. sexual reproduction. I admit, it was long past bedtime and I didn't want to get into it, but we homeschool, and thus we had the discussion. She was confused about how tribbles (from Star Trek's The Trouble with Tribbles) can have babies even if there's no boy around to mate with. I gave her the jargon, and then we talked about how it's mostly plants that use asexual reproduction, although not all plants-- and that no, I could not think of an animal that reproduces asexually. (There must be some, though. Earthworms? I'll have to use Wiki or Google....) She won't quite remember these terms, the first time around. I know that because I know her (see #3). "Asexual reproduction" is too many syllables to be absorbed on the first go at 10:15 at night. But over the next few days, I'll find a way to say them again (maybe once I find an animal that reproduces asexually), and in another week or two she'll have it down.

The "science is on my side" zealot says "You think you can emulate a scientifically trained professional? You think you're an expert educator?"

My reply is, "You think all the professional training in the world can make up for the teacher being a stranger, having only minutes a day to spend with my child, having 24 other children to look after, wasting my child's time constantly, making learning drudgery, holding them back, eliminating autonomy, enforcing an unreasonable schedule, destroying intrinsic motivation, and teaching in an environment of competition, hostility and anxiety?"

They think a teaching degree can do that?