Replies to '11/24 Great School Debate'

of how things can be misinterpreted.  Unfortunately, you missed the whole idea behind my post.  I simply used Chinese as an example as you had mentioned that in your post.  My point was that many homeschool/unschoolers claim certain techniques, curriculum and methods used in public schools are unfair and/or useless compared to their methods and curriculum.  Again, depending on your career field,interest and hobbies Chinese may be useful.  For others, it's really not.  Just as learning Spanish (as I have taught my boys) is useful in California for them being close to the border ,  the reality is not all of us have the same situation.  It's a shame that those outside of the "system" don't seem to have the worldy attitude they claim they use everyday.  My public schooled child has traveled, visited nursing homes, museums, science centers and everything in between.  He also participates in sports and has great friends.  He is everything an unschooler/homeschooler claims their children to be.  Is that so unimaginable that two kids with different backgrounds could be equally great?  By the way, my dad (also  a PHD) and my brother (business owner) and my Mom ( community activist) have never really found the need in their lives to learn Chinese.   Is that because they are sheltered?  Or maybe they just have different circumstances than your family.  Why is there such a dividing point that one way is better than the other?  Maybe one could explain. 

I completely agree...

My 16 year old girl who is obsessed with the Chinese language (we are not Chinese ourselves) will make a great teacher of ESL some day to Chinese who come here.  Our neighbours are Chinese and their parents came over from China and she was giddy with delight when she visited them and taught them some English and they taught her some Chinese. (Mandarin).
My daughter, while she is far from fluent in either yet, knows the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin, where to me it all sounds like gibberish.

And whose to say people will never go to China?  My daughter just might, as she talks about it and wants to travel to Asia some day.  Some people travel as missionaries or do things in other fields.

She's fascinated by it.  The fact that we ourselves are not Chinese should have impacted her learning it for the worse, but she's still obsessed with it.

You never know when your talent might be useful to someone.  We look narrowly at the yuppie, English world as if that is everyone's ultimate goal and dream.