Love, God, Murder
Ah! The power of the press to take on an interesting angle!
On ABC News this evening, I watched the report about David Ludwig, 18, and Kara Beth Borden, 14, the current Bonnie & Clyde story. The young couple (at least the boy) are accused of killing Borden's parents in the small, unassuming town of Lititz, PA, home of Sturgis Pretzel House. Wilbur Chocolate, arguably better than Hershey's (also PA-born), began in Lititz.
The story these children is the usual tale of the tragedy of kids gone wrong, but there was a bit of unnecessary spice added in the televised story (unfortunately missing from the current web version). On TV they added the bit about how both children were homeschooled.
For the record, I am anti-homeschooling, but c'mon people! Isn't it a little ridiculous to assume that something about the homeschooling drove these two to murder? Then again, I have met some really wacky families who homeschool. It's fast becoming the education of choice for zealots in Southcentral PA.
Why did this confused kid find murder a reasonable act? Well, there had to be something in his mind that was allowed to ferment into darkness, but opening homeschooling to the criticism that it creates murderers is much to far-fetched. Homeschooling destroys community values, but it usually doesn't create murderers.
posted by Tim @ 11/14/2005 07:16:00 PM
4 Comments:
I just finished watching Fox News and that story is just terrible, it makes me afraid to have children. As a 14y/o I never dated or anything, and I can't imagine the girl being mature enough to date an 18y/o, but now those kids will have to live with what they did for the rest of their lives. I don't think homeschooling was a factor either, but I do think some children become anti-social from being in such an insular environment as that which homeschooling creates. In Germany it is illegal to homeschool!
I picked up on that, too, when I read the story on msnbc.com -- that they were homeschooled. If they attended the same public high school, no one would have mentioned that in the media -- because it wasn't a factor.
I'm pretty anti-homeschool, but like you all, I don't think they're murderers. We do a homeschool program once a month at my nature center, and seeing the homeschool families is so frustrating. Some parents do it the right way -- their kids are bright, articulate, and well-socialized because the parents have taken the time to teach them and to get them involved in activities with other kids their age. With other families, the kids just don't know how to act with other kids in a formal setting -- plus, some of them tend to be 12-year-olds that can't read. It upsets me.
So, some homeschool kids may have zero social skills and be completely illiterate, but that doesn't make them killers.
Usually.
I agree that choosing one particular aspect of a childs life as a reason for their mental instability is terrible. But in this case the story was only using the home schooling reference to show backstory on how these two kids met. Regardless, I have serious problems with home schooling and it wouldn't suprise me in the least if someone showed up with a study showing patterns of mental instability among home schooled children. But of course some one could show me a study showing exactly the opposite. My concerns about home schooling have more to do with potential social failures, the abandonment of public schools, and the fact that home schooled children are not given the same opportunites to learn as other children. Sadly, on the idea of home schooling, the Amish are more progressive than the fundamental christians who use home schooling as an opportunity to brainwash their offspring. The Amish at least wait unti a child is an adult before baptism, to give the child a chance to make decisions on his/her own.
Amish more progressive than most homeschoolers? That's an interesting thought. I wonder if the Amish teach Intelligent Design in their homeschools.
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