Yanked him yesterday

Post #105,870 by mhuber 6/12/03 4:45:17 PM Reply	Yanked him yesterday Things went bad the day before, teacher said he needed a parent to go along on the end-of-year field trip. Mom went. Everything was fine as long as they let her stay near him. They separated them. Somebody cut ahead of my kid in line, and he bit him. Mom took him home right then, and he's not going back. Today was supposed to be the last day of school. Not for my guy... We told him about homeschooling, and he wasn't happy. I thought he would be. Not his decision. We haven't made a final decision either. There will be some experiments this summer that will give us the information we need. But he seems to be warming up to it. ---- Sometime you the windshield, sometime you the bug...
Post #105,872 by admin 6/12/03 4:53:27 PM Reply	One thing we've noticed: Home schooled kids are as a rule more polite and better behaved than their public schooled counterparts. Perhaps it comes of having Mom or Dad around constantly, so when they do act up, they get corrected immediately. A lot of problems arise simply because one or two teachers can not possibly keep up with 20 schoolkids, and stuff slips through the cracks. My son's first day at school in kindergarten (he went for one year), the other kids, having been in preschool together, decided to play a game of "hound the new guy". They were chasing my son with sticks, pushing him, etc. Guess when the teacher turned around? Right when my son put his hands around one of their necks. So my son got in trouble, not the instigators (not that what he did was appropriate... however, he tried talking to the other kids like he told him to, but they weren't buying it). We only found out about the sticks and pushing when one of the other kids told her mother what really happened. We were amazed by the bad habits our son picked up while he was going to school. Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #105,878 by mhuber 6/12/03 5:15:30 PM Reply	Somebody pointed out that public school socializes kids wrong - they are socialized almost entirely to their own narrow age group. I hadn't thought of that, but yeah, in a more natural environment kids spend lots more time with other ages. You learn better manners from the average adult than from the average kid. Lots of individual variation, but adults can derive the polite thing to do in a new situation by considering the feelings of others. Kids don't have that ability well developed, not even kids who are very considerate. So kids work by mimicry - and with a narrow age group, bizarre and often very bad positive feedback loops should be no surprise. ---- Sometime you the windshield, sometime you the bug...
Post #105,880 by admin 6/12/03 5:19:53 PM Reply	"Lord Of The Flies" Yep, home schooled kids get a wide range of ages. Duncan's new Olympics Of The Mind group will range from 8 (Duncan) to 14. You'd never get that in school-based group. Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #105,889 by Ashton 6/12/03 6:16:48 PM Reply	John De Bono's "Thinking Course" Your comment on age group spread reminded me of this excellent series of half-hours (?) on PBS in early '80s - made in UK. The object was to demonstrate what thinking er means. This group was also ~ 8-80 yos. A sample problem I recall was about "parking" problems - maybe best use of space in some area; layout, rules? etc. The suggestions were on many scales, with De Bono merely 'moderating' and occasionally directing towards a pregnant idea. I think.. this is available from PBS Videos. Agree about the Lord/Flies nature of most schooling in the Westernish world. Accentuated natch - as class-size has grown to the Impossible/teacher. In my own case, that was ameliorated via the 'military discipline' overtones, which in hindsight I'd liken to home-school enviro, much more than to public schools du jour (or du This-jour). These teachers (et al) weren't really manufacturing toy soldiers so much as -- spreading Parental authority. There were enough folks around us that, we couldn't gang-up and do stupid shit (well, after hours there was a certain amount of the usual savage sort - inevitably, but rarely.) I never thought that I would be touting the virtues of (certain types of..) "Military Schools" !! (And there are types I would disparage as much today as always: those whose actual aim IS the creation of young cannon-fodder who obey orders forever next. And these invariably have a recognizable political agenda to mold.) But.. IMhO: this one I happened to land in, not as a 'truant' but as a consequence of single-parent realities then - now appears to have been "a better environment in which to grow" than, most any public schools I have heard about and heard Too-Much about, of recent times. FWIW Ashton

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