Child # 2 gets suspended!

StinkerBell · April 28, 2008, 02:21:41 PM

Hey Mountain Don,

I do need to add my 37 cents here (ya know the cost of inflation on my initial 2 cents lol).

I think that Public schools in many ways are nonsensical. Let me give you my reasons. Then we can discuss!

Public schools teach in a format that might be good for some students, but not all. There is no flexibility in their teaching. Instructions are directed from the feds, through the state, then to the local district. Now you might get lucky and have a teacher who can teach in at least 3 different ways. But that is luck and is rare. Some people are just not wired to learn in the singular structure that Public Schools offer.

With Home Schooling a parent does have the ability to teach in a way that is best for their child. They can pick the curriculum that is better suited for their child's learning. In public schools it is a one size fits all.

benevolance · April 28, 2008, 02:32:13 PM

i agree that public school try to lump all kids into one category...I was sent home as a little kid because I do not sit well for long periods of time.... still do not... Hyper or high metabolism or whatever... Schools answer to me having too much energy... send him home... Then one teacher I had tried to get my parents to make me take pills....Thankfully my parents told them a nice 4 letter "F" word

There is more than one way to get a job done...And with kids there are lots of ways to motivate them and to educate them... any parent that takes a little time to look at their kid should be able to find a solution that is best for them and the child..

With special needs kids it is going to take more effort and you have to have a better plan of action but it is not impossible.

I remember working for AT&T and there were 1800 employees in the building...We were referred to by our work ID #'s...We felt like numbers and not people to the company...It is how kids are being treated in many schools today.

What would make me really happy as I get older is if my wife and I can live near or meet a couple other couples like us sort of...and we could take turns educating the kids... to shake things up for the kids... I would teach their kids and they could teach mine... Of course they would have to measure up... but something like that might be fun... for us and the kids

April 28, 2008, 03:41:53 PM

Stink and Peter.

My point was simply that there are parents who are not doing a proper job as a parent as it is. I'm not certain those parents could ever give their children a well rounded education. Not everyone can teach their own children, or any children. There are children who would be worse served by being home schooled.

IMO.

That does not mean that public schools are better. I never even stated anything about whether or not I felt public schools were doing a good job. I simply feel that some children may be better served by a public school than their parents.

StinkerBell · April 28, 2008, 03:43:52 PM

I think that is a very fair and reasonable statement, MountainDon.

MountainDon · April 28, 2008, 05:06:17 PM

As for public schools, by and large they suck. And that I feel has quite a lot to do with teacher unions, too large of a school bureaucracy, and not enough "checks" built into the system.

April 28, 2008, 06:39:05 PM

Well, perhaps more parents would be capable of teaching their kids if THEY had been home schooled in the first place! Not only mentally capable, but emotionally as well. Now, I know that there are many other factors at play, but it all boils down to dysfunctional families, and sending kids away from home at a young age to daycare and and public school only perpetuates and worsens the problem.

Homegrown Tomatoes · April 28, 2008, 07:21:56 PM

Quote from: MountainDon on April 28, 2008, 03:41:53 PM
Stink and Peter.

My point was simply that there are parents who are not doing a proper job as a parent as it is. I'm not certain those parents could ever give their children a well rounded education. Not everyone can teach their own children, or any children. There are children who would be worse served by being home schooled. IMO.

That does not mean that public schools are better. I never even stated anything about whether or not I felt public schools were doing a good job. I simply feel that some children may be better served by a public school than their parents.

Don, I tend to agree with you. For my kids, home school is the only option on the table at this point. But there are folks who should never be homeschooling parents. Maybe the system is broken, but there are kids who are worse served by their parents, too. When I was teaching at a private school, one of the grandmas who was raising her granddaughter asked me to tutor her in math. Well, later in the year, this woman pulled the girl out of school entirely with the assertion that she was going to homeschool this 12-year-old. I continued to tutor the girl and try to teach her basic math skills, and when I'd ask her what they were doing at home as far as homeschool was going, she'd say, "Well, nothing really. Sometimes we do stuff, but mostly not." She lived with her grandma and great-grandma in one of the most dysfunctional families I'd ever known (her dad sometimes lived with them too, but was gone a lot for his job...) All the adults in the house were co-dependent and had that "victim" mentality that totally cripples you... they were teaching this girl to be a victim, too. However, when the means and the desire is there, I think teaching kids at home is the best option.

MountainDon · April 28, 2008, 07:47:41 PM

Right, there are a number of things that have to fall into place for home schooling to work. If any one of them is missing the results may be less than desired. Thanks for recognizing that. There is not a single task, job, whatever, that there is a blanket solution for. That was/is my main point. As was pointed out by Stink, the one size fits all philosophy, is where most public education falls short.

I also think that there are a number of teachers who mean well and try hard, but the bureaucracy behind them hinders theor ability. There are also teachers who should be in a different line of work.

glenn kangiser · April 28, 2008, 11:59:36 PM

Except for more reading and rote math problems, I learned all my high school stuff by second grade. The teacher in our three room school pushed us to do all we could and I was doing 9th grade math in second grade. I was bored out of my tree the rest of the time. (Sassy asked me to mention that she was the teacher who beat my hands with a ruler and taught me the evils of government, but she was a good teacher --except for the drinks at lunch time--that made her meaner).

The only thing that was of benefit after that was vocational classes. Should be more earlier.

The PE etc. only functioned to make us good candidates to be cannon fodder by the time we were out of HS and the education they gave us made us dumb enough.

I agree that there are parents too stupid to home school their kids though. They are typical products of public schools.