home schooling good or bad???

Great Debates
81

Sigh, so much for me not debating this anymore, but I am insulted by what you said.

Sending a child to school, knowing that it is LIKELY that he will encounter a bullies and situations that are not comfy and happy/cheery is not child abuse. I don’t care how smart you think you are, that is a fallacy, and an insulting one.

Sending a child to a babysitters house when you know the sitter is a child molester is not the same freaking thing as sending a child to school.

Raising your child free of conflict, pampering him/her, etc is the far greater crime. Your child will not know how to deal with life, because contrary to the fantasy world you live in, life is harsh and over half the population are self centered assholes that will do anything to get ahead. Denying your child experiences that will build callouses on his character and teach him necessary skills is the crime, we don’t live in a cushy, feather pillow filled world in which people are nice to each other.

82

No, it isn’t contradictory, I am not saying parents shouldn’t teach anything, or everything for that matter. You are taking my statements out of contex. READ my previous posts. Do I say anywhere that I don’t think parents shouldn’t teach their kids or help them in anyway?

83

I’m not surprised. It’s people with your attitude that I am seeking to protect my children from: people who would willfully place other people into potentially deadly situations they are not prepared to deal without assistance or backup. Even adults should not be forced into such situations unwillingly, and those who consent to do so are either fools or heroes.

84

Another point on school bullies: Yes there are certain situations where a child should absolutely go to a parent or a teacher to address a problem. Especially if there is the threat of very serious violence, or if there’s been a sexual assault. The problem I see with completely removing the child from the environment though, is that he loses the experience of dealing with the dozens of minor personal and social challenges he’d otherwise face each day, challenges that the child would be capable of confronting and surmounting, and giving him not only the edge in future confrontations, but a boost to his self esteem as well.

85

Well, better not let your kid go outside and play. I mean, he could get run over, there is a chance of it. Then you would have willingly placed your kid in danger knowing full and well that he/she had the risk of being in a life threatening situation. See you in prison. :rolleyes:

Yeah, because so many deaths happen in schools. Situations involving Bullies= life threatening situations. Yeah, way to go with your flawless logic there Mrs. 99.5 percentile.

86

zwaldd, when my girlfriend was raped in school, the teacher refused to believe that she had been raped. Teachers routinely side with the “popular kids” (because failing to side with them leads to termination or harassment from parents). It is a fact of life in most parts of the United States and most school systems that students cannot expect to be protected at school. They might be, especially if they’re the child of a influental family in the town or friends with one, but there’s no guarantee. And if you’re an outsider, or if your family situation is unusual (e.g. your parents are gay, or you’re Jewish in a largely Christian community, or you’re some other minority, or just because you’re poor) you are on your own. Teachers will, at best, do nothing to protect you, and may actually make things worse.

Epimethus, I think it’s your world full of reliable, competent, fair teachers and school administrators who care only about students instead of their political power that is “cushy, feather pillow filled”. You’re ignoring the reality that exists in today’s schools.

The only reason I wasn’t bullied more when I was in school is that my father was on the board of education. Even with that, I got bullied. If I hadn’t had that protection, I would have gotten it far worse.

87

Epimetheus, also, children do die from bullying. Or have you forgotten Columbine?

88

See here:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=153258

89

Yeah, what three incidents in the last- 10 years in a nation of 255 million people. Three nutjobs. Man, all those kids blowing each other away…

90

I keep trying to reconcile the vision I have of homeschooling my child with the one I think the anti-home schoolers are presenting…

I don’t see myself locking her in a room alone with a pile of material to learn and saying you can come out when you’ve achieved enough knowledge to get a diploma.

I see lots of library and museum trips. Age/level appropriate texts. “gym” classes at the Y or some other venue. “art” in ceramics classes or just lots of messy colorful stuff to play in.

Am I better educated than a teacher with a degree in education? On paper probably not (I haven’t completed a degree program although I’ve got enough hours they just don’t satisfy any one major’s program) Am I willing to take the lessons she needs to learn and do my own homework before presenting the material? Definately.

Will she be socialized? Will she have activities that take her beyond my care? Of course… I want her to grow up to be a decent person and to learn independance and self reliance.

Will I take her concerns and feelings into account should she want to go to school like all her other friends? Certainly.

However she is my child and as such I am responsible for ensuring her safety and well being until she becomes legally responsible for herself and I will be the final authority on all house rules!

I had an algebra teacher who spent his class oblivious to the fact that he no longer knew algebra. (Tenure is such a wonderful thing) Boy that prepared me for college! I had a music teacher that spent all his time reading the newspaper and an elementary teacher who spent lots of time in the back perfecting his golf swing with a yardstick. My first grade teacher asked my mom at teacher conferences how to spell her (the teacher’s) last name as she filled in a form. Yup just hand someone a degree and that makes them qualified to do anything. How about a degree in common sense and hard work?

91

Did the judge/jury believe it?

92

zwaldd, what judge or jury? Most rapes are not prosecuted.

Demanding proof that a poster who claims to have been raped actually was raped should be a bannable offense.

93

Would the confession of the lead rapist be enough? He was 12 at the time, but when we were in the same junior high school, he went around bragging about it much to my humiliation.

At the time, the teacher I told told me that telling anyone, especially my mother meant no one would ever love me and being in third grade, I believed her. I don’t quite understand how my mother let stand the fact I was missing items of clothing, but since it was not the first time I had been stripped and my clothing drug through the mud, I suppose she just thought it had happened yet again. At the time, I did not quite understand how much more serious this would be to others than the usual beatings and humiliations. It was not anywhere near the first time that I had been held down by as many kids as it took for others to do something horrible to me while others cheered them on.

I tried to put it out of my mind and just when it bothered me the most, in junior high when I realized that counted as losing my virginity, he started to taunt me in public about it. He has since killed himself, and I do find some odd bit of peace in that.

There was no judge, no jury, just my peers. That doesn’t mean that it did not happen.

94

Is that what I did?

95

Epimetheus, at the risk of continuing the hijack, I will also tell you that children do die from bullying, although I don’t have the statistics on suicides by teenagers. My best friend had a nervous breakdown the summer between our sophomore and junior years, and I have deep psychological scars, including a tendency toward clinical depression because of what I endured. Twenty years after I graduated, my high school was sued by the parents of two teenagers who the school refused to protect. I think agentfroot was going to school with them at the time. As for me, while technically I don’t think my life was in danger, a kid did pull a knife out and point it at me when I was in my junior year of high school. Please note that this was in a suburban, upper-middle class public school in the early 1980’s. For those at the bottom of society, the threat is real. While this may apply to only 1% or 2% of children in a school, it can be devastating for that 1% or 2%.

Each child and each set of parents is different. I don’t know what would have worked in my case, but I do know that home schooling worked for my friends’ daughter. I also know public school worked for my brothers, as I think it does for most children. To me, both are viable options, depending on circumstances.

CJ

96

Well, at the expense of sounding like a jerk- because I will no doubt…

I, at a very young age was molested by a teenager that was the son of my babysitter. I also had on attempt when I was 14 by a friend.

My whole life I had one or two friends, no allies, nothing. Just myself. And the knowledge my parents imparted on me. I was picked on for being small, looking younger than I am, and being different.
In First grade the principals son beat on me, picked on me, and well, was smarter than I was. He called me stutter brain and threw rocks at me. This continued through second grade.
Third grade my parents moved, and I was taken out of the Christian school I was attending. My only friends in this new neigborhood were the types that beat the crap out of me when there friends were around, but were cool when it was just me and him. (either of them).
Name calling, beatings, etc ensued. My parents enrolled me in martial arts in 5th grade. I punched my friend for pushing me down and kicking me in the ribs on the soccer field. I now had no friend, was suspended and had to move to a different school.
The bullies changed identies, but they kept the same face.
It was in 4th and 8th grade that my molestations occured. 8th grade was from a best friend that tried to “stick it in my butt” as they say. He tried to beat the crap out of me when I refused. He was larger than I, but I had martial arts experience.
The bulling went on untill 12th grade. I stood up for myself, but there is only so much one can do, physically. I grew up out of beating people up for pushing me around, and learned from the experience.

My words of advice; You are not the only person that was molested and abused, picked on or had no, or few friends. I speak from experience, it is possible to grow up and leave the past what it is- the past.

I don’t understand this “it tramatized me”, made me want to kill myself, gave me clinical depression outlook when these things always come up. Don’t parents teach children to cope with things like this? Mine sure as hell did, and I love them for it.

My whole life has been one big pile of donky crap, bullies, people calling me stupid, etc. Do I let it get me down. No, I take it as an opportunity to grow and get stronger. As should you.

97

Epimetheus: And you think that your children should be subjected to the same torture that you were because -----?

98

See, there you go again. I didn’t say that. DID YOU READ MY FREAKING POSTS? See above where I said that if I had kids I would homeschool them.

However, saying that I went through that, and that my kids WILL DEFINATLY go through that is not the same thing. There is more of a chance of my kid getting struck by lightning waiting at the bus stop than him/her going through my ordeals. If they do, however, they will know how to deal with it, because I will teach them how to grow, and learn, and they will know that I am there to help them with these things. I am not the mediator though, I am not here to fix their problems, only help them fix it themselves.

Again- I think homeschooling has its merits, and I don’t like public schools. How many times do I need to say this? I do however feel that 1) A child that is pampered will smother and not grow properly, and 2) homeschooling should be supervised, however lightly, to prevent nutjobs… from, well being nutjobs and destroying society.

99

In first grade, in addition to allowing me to be beaten and sometimes hitting me because others were hitting me and I had the gall to complain to the teacher, I was also yelled at for learning to read too fast. I was yelled at for using more than one color in a drawing, and for coloring a fish an unrealistic color (purple) as well as drawing in scales. I was berated when my school supplies were stolen. I was smacked when I showed my report card to a child who had been saying I had all F’s when I had all A’s. I don’t see much value in these experiences.

I do see a lot of value in what the three of us and others we employ can provide our child, and I don’t want anyone to try to prevent me. I can’t see that there is any rational reason why I should not homeschool my children. We have laws that provide consequences for educational neglect and other abuses. They don’t seem to be applied to schools, but I think they are enough to cover improper homeschooling.

I am eager to teach my child, I want her to grow and learn. I don’t plan to keep her from interacting from all others, but I certainly don’t plan to surrender her to a public school system that has trouble teaching most of the students in its care to read and does not provide adequate protection from violence.

100

I don’t condone these experiences. They do happen though, bad things do happen. How we deal with them is the mark of character. I have had those experiences, I remember getting spanked because I was a tattle tell, or because I instigated it, and more often then not, telling got me in trouble. All these things happen to me, but I that does not mean they are ubiquous experiences. You focus on the bad experiences too much and the fact that you ignore everything else and spout rape, death, beatings, suicide, etc as the mark of public schools tells me you have issues that need to be dealt with. This isn’t the whole of it.
For every bad thing in our lifes we tell, I would imagine there is three or four more people that have happy stories. You can’t seem to see that, and there is no real point in debating with a person that refuses to accept that he or she is wrong or that personal experiences are coloring their vision.