Monday, November 27, 2006
BOO to Dr. Phil
Did you know Dr. Phil now airs at night? Well, the other night, Jeff and I stopped on it because Dr. Phil is talking about the "Great School Debate", and had some radical unschoolers on as well as some more traditional homeschoolers, and of course some teachers, public school officials, etc. We stopped to watch it, thinking it was going to be viewed objectively and with equal consideration for all sides. WOW. I was actually surprised at how ill-informed he seemed to be. Still, it didn't really upset me, because it was pretty much a "common" view. But Jeff -- I didn't know how passionately he felt about homeschooling until then!
Anyhoo, my point is that it was very biased and unbalanced. For example, he had a woman who had been homeschooled and felt socially-inept come on and essentially beg others to not homeschool their kids, but did not have someone who either had been public-schooled come on and say the same about that, or someone who had been homeschooled and loved it come on. That would have felt more balanced IMO.
The highlight was when this woman stated that she was scared for the kids of the radical homeschoolers and for herself, in case those kids in the future had her health in their hands ... I guess I found it funny, because her concern is that they wouldn't be "book-learned", even though she's neglected the fact that in order to BE in charge of her health, one would have to get into and complete college, and post-graduate work, probably Med school! Just seemed farcical to me.
I used to like Dr. Phil, and it isn't just this episode that has started changing my mind. I liked him much more when he was once a week, at the behest of Oprah.
Labels: homeschooling, Jeff, parenting
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