Posted on 01/08/2005 5:28:17 PM PST by wagglebee
I was sitting at our neighborhood pool New Year’s morning, enjoying the great South Florida weather while trying to grind out a couple of chapters for my new book, when three high school girls took the chaise lounges next to me and started talking about their New Year’s Eve party with their high school mates.
Seemingly still semi-drunk from the party, the 16- and 17-year-old girls began to recount how much coke, weed, vodka, guys and girls they did the night before. Listening to the F-bomb riddled report of the previous night’s peccadilloes left me thinking, how sad … and … what a waste … and … thank God my wife and I yanked our kids out of the public school system and away from these visionless, dissolute and spoiled morons.
It’s been eleven months since we pulled our teenage daughters out of the public school system and started to home school them, and I could kick myself for waiting so long. The educational, emotional, spiritual and physical progress they have made has been amazing. Not that they were anti-intellectual psychologically teetering bloated decadent nut jobs before they started home schooling, it’s just that I’ve been ecstatically stunned at how they have aggressively embraced this new lease on their educational life.
Now … they actually get to study the basics, pursue their educational and athletic interests, without waiting for the 186% overcrowded class to decide to cease fighting and copulating long enough that the teacher can teach the students how to write their name so that they can endorse their unemployment check later on in life.
Also, it seems that our alpha females really do not miss . . .
· Having everything they hold dear from a Christian standpoint trashed like a hotel room with Sum41 in it, by secular and atheistic teachers and students,
· Enduring the daily physical assaults and threats made by the multitudinous scum bag thugs and punk gang bangers on campus,
· Watching the constant drug trafficking, and
· Trying to ignore the lesbian, queer and over-the-top heterosexual make-out sessions during their lunch break.
Instead of being the goofy-looking home-schooled inbred stooges portrayed by TV and movies, my ladies are sharp, solid and full of holy chutzpah. Yeah … they’re clipping along at a nice pace, taking classes like macro-economics, logic, Latin, intelligence and national security, and afterward, pursuing the martial art of jiu-jitsu from the world-famous Gracie family, surfing and occasionally going with me big game hunting and fishing. Getting away from the prison-like public school system has caused their spirit and vision to soar even higher as they have resolutely separated from the pack and decided to run their own lives, rather than schlep with the lemmings.
My ClashPoint is this: parent . . . home schooling isn’t as tough as you think it is. With the advent of online virtual schools, plus the tens of thousands of people who have bailed out of the system, there are afforded to you, the home schooling parent and student, amazing resources, local networks of like-minded families and world-class curricula, to help you help yours be the leaders God intends for them to be.
Initially, I was a bit concerned about how home schooling was going to work within the insanity which is the Giles household, but it has been relatively painless. The adjustments my wife and I have had to make to our routine to accommodate our daughters for greatness are far less painful than the worry and concern we had sending them off to the monkey jungle which is the Public School system.
"There is nothing wrong or stigmatic about a GED. In fact the newly re-elected Governor of the State of Delaware has a GED"
YES
I hope it's okay with you that I post this at the other thread.
KO
Maybe I missed a post or two (wow, this thread is lonnnng), but did anybody actually suggest abandoning the public schools? When voucher programs become widely available, the public system will be sorely needed to teach the special needs kids and to provide spaces for students who have been kicked out of "alternative" programs.
You and I have chosen different paths in this particular area, but are actually in very close accord.
I agree it is not a battle that ever should have started, but since it has, I believe it must be fought and from all fronts.
I just wish more would understand that we are actually all on the same side, and as was said on another thread on a different issue, not eat our own.
This is the 3rd thread, in as many days, that I have been on in which there are far too many with a "my way or the higway" attitude. It's foolish. It is one thing to disagree with someone's position on an issue, it is an entirely different thing to call them immoral or without values because of said different position.
"Another poster on a different thread the other day actually said that the base deserved special consideration..."
***I'm sorry, but I can't resist. Please accept this as the hughmore it is intended: All Your Base Belong To Us.
:-)
"Also, they can get grant money just for having the program."
Agreed - the money doesn't hurt. But, in a way, that's part of the conspiracy, as it keeps it together.
I don't know either way with the test results - but I can't see it helping in a standardized English test.
Me, too! "The Spirit of '76" and we had red, white and blue tassles in honor of the bicentennial instead of the traditional school colors. That was a public H.S. but my elementary years were at Parochial school and I don't regret that experience, either. Nuns and all.
I am pleased I had both. Our current parish just built a school and honestly we were hoping our daughter could attend for the Parochial School experience but they started at younger grades and are adding on as the children progress, so she missed out. But we are very pleased with our public school--the whole system. And she does take religious education through our church. People tend to act like parents dump their kids at a public school and have no further influence on their little lambs. LOL
And our new found FRiend, PleasNoMore, seems to fit in perfectly!!!!!
"All public schools are bad?"
Yes. To me, when I hear parents compare public schools, it sounds no different than prisoners comparing cell blocks. Meaning some may appear better than others, but anyone with half a brain knows they're all terrible places and the best thing to do is get out.
This is such a load of crap. Blanket statements like this do very little to expand the debate. Literally millions of us are products of public school. Many are good many are not. Get a grip.
I hate to break it to you, but there are public schools all over the country singing "Silent Night" and doing the Pledge of Allegiance and it will stay that way, I can assure you.
LOL!! No offense taken. :)
What do tax returns and credits have to do with a school being good or not?
Actually, the "evil incarnate" statements are not the issue here.
And while your particular issue may be with the semantics of what you did or did not say, the "program" in question is simply a group of people who are fed up with the self-righteous, or "holier-than-thou" crowd. And there are a great deal of condescending/rude/insulting comments from homeschoolers toward those who have there kids anywhere but home. Hence the addition of homeschooling threads to the Holier-Than-Thou Watch List.
While this ping list is mostly tongue-in-cheek, there's a lot of truth in it. There are a TON of so-called Christians, who are all about casting stones and being judgemental.
It's fine if you homeschool. It's fine if you don't. The bigger issue is how you perform as a parent.
As to your specific issue here - feel free to leave the rest of us out of it. That's between you and Gabz.
Do not think you are capable of lecturing me on Logic 101.
What you express in your "opinions" also tell me all I need to know about you, in fact they tell me far more than I care to know.
I do not know what your problem is, nor do I wish to know, however your projecting of it upon me is rather unseemly and I would appreciate if you cease and desist.
"we may very well be able to get some others to accept the reality that ALL public schools are not bad and all parents who send their kids to them are not bad parents."
Please point to a single post which claims that ALL public schools are bad or that all parents who send their kids to public schools are bad parents.
If you cannot do that, please point to a single post that claims ANY parents who send their kids to public schools are bad parents because they do so.
Thank you.
"It is one thing to disagree with someone's position on an issue, it is an entirely different thing to call them immoral or without values because of said different position."
I haven't been following most of the back-and-forth personal discussion on this thread - I had enough of challenge trying to clean up my own mess.
We have to remember that we got thrown into this mess through no fault of our own by an often dysfunctional public education establishment, and had they simply stayed the course, home schooling wouldn't be what it is today, and private schools wouldn't be as prevalent.
In other words, if public schools were seen as universally successful, we wouldn't need to have this debate. But there are a lot of messes out there (starting at the inner cities, but in many other places also). Even given that, you and many others here have shown that you can make a system that's heavily rigged against you, actually work in your favor.
You guys should be commended.
You don't know what you are talking about in regard to the choices and sacrifices she and her husband have made for their daughter.
I can say the exact same about you, and suspect that PNM also fits in the same category.
Maybe I should go back to lobbying on a full time basis, the grief I got on a daily basis in the Capitol is nothing compared to what many of us are being subjected to by supposedly our own side here.
SHEESH.
" What do tax returns and credits have to do with a school being good or not?"
Nothing. What I mean is that until I fully assess your personal situation (including the available public and private schools), I'm in no position to tell you what decision you should make.
I've learned a lot from this thread - one of them is that there are still good public schools.
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