Topic : 11/24 Great School Debate

 

My pastor and his wife have 8 children all of which have been home schooled.  They are some of the smartest kids I know.  The oldest sored a 1560 on his SAT. and their other 3 in college all scored very high.  Two of them went to Georgia Tech.  I think that home schooling is a wonderful thing to do.  Their kids are involved in school for home schoolers and play on tennis, volleyball, track, and gymnastics.  When baby 8 came along mom didn't do so well.  She suffered from postpartum psychosis, after hospitalization and many hours of therapy they made a change and now mom only home schools until the 9th grade.  The kids then have an opportunity to go to a very good Christian school.  The eldest daughter  is already a published author - at 16!  I don't believe that kids have to be in the public school environment to become well adjusted adults. 

Public school does not prepare you for life your parents do.  You gain informational knowledge to be able to go to college but, ultimately the skills needed to survive in the real world come from your parents and mistakes you make along the way.

I wish that we had a voucher program in this country so parents could send their children to any school of their choosing (public or private).  I also think it would force the public school system to get their act together.  Unfortunely education is not a priority in this country, if it was teachers would be paid a respectable salary and be respected for choosing to educate the future adults of this country.  No one eccept a teacher or part of a family who has a teacher understands what goes into preparing to teach - many think it's a cush job.  IT'S NOT!!  My husband is a teacher and he works all year long - he goes to school early in the morning and comes home late at night just to keep up with the paperwork and current teaching methods.  My husband also works 2 jobs and we still can't pay all the bills - even with his masters degree and 10 years on the job he just barely makes over 50k.  Look at the countries where education is succeeding they pay their teachers well and teachers are very respected.

My kids went to public  school all of their lives and my eldest did tell me that her high school prepare her for college - which was great but, when we moved to metro Atlanta I came to the county and picked up a packet about the schools in the area that we were looking to move to an shopped schools.  I visited the top 3 scoring middle schools and the top 3 high schools.  I didn't factor academics only in my choice I also looked at the athletic program and extra curricular activities - this makes for a more well rounded school.  Picking schools was one of the best things that I did as a parent.

. As for learning disabilities, the public school system has special education programs for those students.  I don't think that public education is a wonderful, flawless thing, It definitely has it's faults, but that is not an excuse to do poorly.

 

What about the kids who aren't elegible for special ed but don't quite thrive in a regular classroom environment regardless of how hard they try? I just had a meeting with my son's teacher the other day. He said "It seems like his grades should be better for as hard as he works."   When you have one of these children its more than a "flaw" within the system.

 

 

What you just posted is very much the truth!

We took our child out of school for 2 reasons:

 

BULLIES (I call them the sad products of parents who do not take parenting serious!)

EVERYONE IS REQUIRED TO LEARN AT THE SAME SPEED!

 

My son has great confidence, why should that be shattered by someone who did not learn about respect from their parents and therefor disrespects other students?

 

My son is advanced, why should I leave him in a class with kids that have IEP's and are way behind him, but HE is forced to stay at the level they are at, because the school has no program available for the advanced kids?

We cannot afford a private school and even if  we could, there is not one close by. I also believe that the bullying problem is probably also existent in a private school as well, maybe not as much as in public school.

Also, if you read the laws pertaining to the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (which is a federal mandate), there is often very little a school can do about the behavior of some students. If a student is classified with ANY type of disability, the child cannot be suspended from school for more than ten total days per school year without a hearing.

 

Sometimes school officials know exactly what is going on with bullying, but their hands are often tied. It is a very frustrating situation. Parents say they support Zero Tolerance, and in theory most do, until it is THEIR kid doing the bullying or becoming violent. It's the same with academic standards, people like high standards in theory, but they still all want their kids to get straight A's. Most don't see the irony in that.

 

 

Oh yes bullying is indeed subtle, and it's most often done a) when the teacher is completely out of earshot and b) the methods used don't exactly "bend" any school rules, but can cause just as much harm.

And sadly, much of it is out of the teachers' hands.  One of my foster mothers was a teacher and she had to deal with a lot.  Due to privacy policy she was also never allowed to make reference to any situation, to anyone not directly involved, so she had very little outlet.

Bullies are indeed in many facets of real life as adults.  Like you said, though, the methods of dealing with them are often very effective, and taken way more seriously.  They're not restricted to "bad neighbourhoods", either, nor to backgrounds where there were "good parents" or "bad parents". 

I've known many very good parents who are bewildered when one of their children turns out to be a bully and the other one does not, yet they were raised with the same love and care.  As adults, people make their own choices, and not always wise ones.

FYI: There was a law established many years before Hitler was born, 126 yrs to be excact.

 It was King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia who established the general regional school regulation. 

 

http://www.homeedmag.com/blogs/newscomm/?p=590

 

 

Tinkerbell -

How would you feel if your child was mistakely  or even rightly accused of an offense at school and the police questioned your child without your knowledge or consent?

You have a very valid point about how things 'can be' or have been with any system. Yes, it appears the regulations have gotten stricter over the last few years, but it again comes down to the accountability issue.

 

Just like in a 'school system' there are those who cut corners and do not the their very best in offering themselves to their students, so it goes for homeschooling parents. It is a shame that there ARE those out there who do not take to heart the reality of a lazy approach to homeschooling (by that I don't mean unschooling - I mean, park in front of a TV and play all day). Those folks give the rest of us a bad name - just as the lazy teachers also give other teachers a bad name.

 

I believe that even 6 years ago, if you looked at the statistics though, that most homeschooling families are happy to adhere to some form of accountability. Personally, I like it. Mandatory testing shows my kids learned and that they are at the same or at a higher rate than their peers. I"m not sleeping on the job and the scores prove it.

 

Yes, there are those who use the 'guise' of homeschooling as a means to avoid responsibility....but there are those who also use the public school system the same way and thus avoid parenting by thinking "it's the school's job to make them behave" ...so no matter how many regulations get beefed up on either side of this debate - there will always be 'those people' who taint it for the rest of us!

 

Blessings!

Donna

Right.  And while I don't advocate corporal punishment in schools, there was a time where schools could discipline, which was reinforced at home.  (Similar to what the other poster -- tinkerbelle? I believe, is advocating, the 'village' raising the children).

 

But when schools are controlled by the government, yet the government ties the schools' hands by not allowing them to discipline, we end up with the problems we have in the schools today.  Add in the parents that don't care, parents who think their kid can do no wrong, and it becomes a huge problem.

 

I once knew of an older guy who was a speed skater.  One winter he and another older guy (late 60s in age) spent a few hours shoveling a speedskating path for themselves.  They skated, went home, and when they came back, they found a kid riding his bike all over the ice, spewing sand and dirt with his tires.  Sand and dirt on ice for skating = very bad.

 

So they called him on it.  The kid didn't care.  So they spoke to his parents.  Parents didn't care.  Okay, it's one thing if the kid didn't realize that his tires would spew sand and render the path unusable.  Understandable.  But admitting it, apologizing, etc. goes a long way.  And if I were the parent, I'd have my kid apologize too (and I'd hope they wouldn't have to be made to!)  If my kid copped an attitude or didn't think it was a big deal even after it being pointed out, and if my kid were unapologetic, my kid would be out on that ice shoveling a new path.

 

Society today (yes, this is a generality!) is insane.

First off, I know you are an atheist and have been lurking on this board so I knew it was only a matter of time before this came out.  My husband and I explained (as we have in the past) that some people don't believe in God so that's why the girl was confused and told on him.  Also, we have suggested that next time he simply start with..."I believe..." and go from there.  And again, if an atheist approached my son (as unlikely as that would be in my neighborhood) he would probably be upset (as most are when a death occurs) yet as a family we would find solace and comfort in the Bible and love of family.  Just so you know, things like this have come up and my son has always stood by his Faith and we are proud.  I know this probably doesn't sit well with you and for that I'm sorry.  However, as we could debate all day about atheism (my hubby was atheist when we met./married) I don't think you're really curious at all.  I think you look ( as others do) for a reason to lash out at those different.  You preach tolerance but really don't seem to have any especially in this arena.  So, to satisy my curiosity....how do you explain death to your little girl?