Posted on 08/26/2007 9:04:26 AM PDT by FreeAtlanta
When I was in eight grade it became obvious that the students existed in different tiers when it came to discipline.
I was among the intellectual kids who didn't cut school, did all assignments, and expected good grades.
Others were undisciplined when permitted and were subject to a different standard of treatment.
One day I was standing in a line to check out a basketball, when a boys PE class was let out of a nearby classroom to participate in an outdoor activity.
The coach mistook me for one of his class, thinking that I was not moving to the outdoor activity quickly enough. He gave me a "not too severe" kick in the rump. When I turned with a surprised look on my face, he VERY quickly and profusely apologized and explained his error.
Both of us knew that the treatment which had to be tolerated by much of the class he had just released was NOT going to be tolerated by others, including me.
You think it was okay to “spank” the kids with a miniature baseball bat, too?
Do you think those issues would have been improved if you'd had to run laps around the house in order to receive breakfast, and been "spanked" with a baseball bat when you misbehaved?
“Parents who homeschool their children are a threat to state schools where homosexuality is taught to be ok. I believe that in the near future, homeschoolers are in for a horrific fight to keep their children homeschooled.”
I fail to see where this has anything to do with homeschooling OR homosexuality. I think it’s a safe bet that parents who send their kids to public school would be investigated under the same circumstances. In fact, they are all the time.
Today, PE classes consist of ‘Cup Stacking’ and croquet. Basketball and Football are too risky in our litiguous society. Calisthetics make fat kids feel ashamed and hurts their self-esteem, so they can’t have that. Dodgeball makes people pick sides, and since someone’s bound to get picked last, that will hurt their self-esteem as well.
My 7 year old nephew once got in trouble at his public school for running during recess. Running. At recess.
“For an educated teacher, this was a very inarticulate post!
WTF are you talking about??? Your post lacks a SUBJECT!!”
Actually I had no trouble at all understanding exactly what the poster meant! Guess that makes me inarticulate as well.
There are enough stories about abused children who are also "homeschooled" that one would think that must be the case.
I'm not saying that all (or even most) homeschoolers are abusive, or that all (or even most) homeschooled children are abused, because I don't think that's the case. I don't think it's true that all abusive parents homeschool, either.
I do suspect that if sometimes the authorities seem distrustful of homeschoolers, it is for this reason - maybe they've seen cases like this before.
I do think that parents like this give homeschoolers a bad name, and I can't understand anyone wanted to defend this sort of behavior, any more than I can understand people who would defend pedophile public school teachers.
My thanks for understanding what I meant.
Sometimes my posts do leave many in the dark, but again, if you do not understood my post, perhaps it was not meant for you to understand.
I read the articles, watched the news report and read the comments. Just because there are some of us that had worse punishments, that doesn’t make it right. Forcing your child to run laps everyday and beating them with a wooden baseball bat is cruel to me. You cannot equate it with a PE class. If you do exercised in gym you don’t get beat for not doing it fast enough or not finishing. You cannot equate it with playing on a sports team either. Kids choose to play sports knowing that running laps is part of the conditioning involved. The article does not say anything about them using the laps as discipline, it states they were abused for not exercising. You all can tell me it’s okay to hit your kid with a bat for not running the 15 laps? If they were getting beaten and punished for that, I hate to imagine what happened when they really did something wrong. And as for the neighbors saying they saw all of the wonderful interaction between the parents and children, don’t be fooled so easy. My neighbors and best friends at the time had the most loving family, they were right out of Norman Rockwell. Turns out the wonderful father, was horribly molesting his daughter every day from the time she was 4 until she was 14. If this poor child was traumatized enough after 4 years to hide under somebodys house, there are definately problems.
The neighbor was not being nosy. The girl was hiding underneath her house and asked her for help. I know it is hard for some people to understand that things are not always what they seem. Like I said before, someone who we thought was a wonderful person, upstanding members of the community, etc., was raping his daughter every chance he got for 10 years. Nobody can say for sure what goes on behind other peoples doors.
I'm thinking that both the children are thanking God for that nosy, busy-body neighbor. I know I would have welcomed one.
As far as what I know? I know what I read in multiple sources from a variety of papers, including policemen quotes.
Unless you know the family, you don't know squat either. And if you knew them and you saw this happening, why didn't you take action? How can you defend what is obviously child abuse? Have you no feelings for what those kids were put through for years? Or is this just status-quo to you?
I am having a real hard time understanding the purpose of forcing children to run laps. Then to hit them if they don’t do it fast enough is beyond my comprehension. You know as well as I do that if these parents are this crazy over running laps these kids have seen way worse.
Well since you live here, you should now how dangerous it was to be outside doing strenuous exercise.
I don’t think 15 laps around the house before breakfast is cruel. That is the coolest time of the day, the best time for the kids to exercise outdoors. And unless they lived in a mansion, “around the house” is not going to be very far.
The policeman quoted said it was about a mile and the kids were timed. If they didn’t go fast enough, they did extra - sometimes up to 50. Sometimes they did up to 50 for other offenses - and that wasn’t during the morning, but any time during the day they deemed it necessary.
I wish you could have talked to my gym teacher when I was in school. They were actually under the impression that it helped us become more physically fit.
typical government persecution of Christian home schoolers.
I have three boys all play sports and run laps, it’s part of the conditioning. That I understand. Forcing children to run and then hitting them is not right. There are other ways to encourage your children to be physically fit other than forcing them to do laps.
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