Comments on: It brings back memories

By: Andrea

Andrea — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 02:21:29 +0000

billie-Jean: First, I would have told her they don’t legislate parenting, and also the schools are not held accountable when they fail to educate, and I probably would have finished up with “pass the bean dip”.

This is a prime example of what Ron and I call the “how DARE we have fun homeschooling and get away with it” arguments.

Yay for Jordan, tell him to keep it up. She sounded like a real winner.

By: Learning to Think « Just Enough, and Nothing More

Learning to Think « Just Enough, and Nothing More — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 19:28:35 +0000

[...] Ron over at atypicalhomeschool hits the nail hard, right smack in the center: After I had been out of college a few months I went to a weeklong series of seminars related to the equipment I was supporting. The first seminar is really the only one I remember anything about. And if I were to see the person who conducted it, I would remember where I had seen him instantly. At the time, he was one of the leading experts in optimizing the use of the equipment I supported. He traveled across Canada charging more for a day than I was making in 2 weeks. (He quoted a range of figures based on an inquiry from the audience and he wasnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t permitted to give an exact figure.) And what he said was, The real world is a special case. [...]

By: Billi-Jean

Billi-Jean — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 01:43:39 +0000

*grok* … on several points.

I was thinking about you and Andrea today when I was challenged by a hostile woman I hardly to know to prove that I was ‘teaching Jordan what he is supposed to know’. … because I am not well-spoken under pressure and I haven’t bothered to really define the reasons we homeschool. So while *I* understand it perfectly and feel strongly about it, I’m not as good at passing that information on, as you are.

In the end, it went like this:
me: “SUPOSED” to know? What do you mean?
Hostile Woman: Well, who do you report to?
Jordan: I LOVE being homeschooled!
me: I don’t report to anyone. Private schools set their own curriculum and I set mine.
HW: You must report to someone. How else do we know you’re doing it right?
me: uuuhh.. It’s none of your business or anyone else’s if I’m doing it right, really. Whatever “right” is…
HW: It is *someone’s* business, like the school board, or the government.
me: Legally, no. It isn’t. Everyone can eduate thier child in the way they see fit.
HW: No they can’t! How many hours do you spend do school each day?
J: Wanna know what I did for school yesterday and today? It was great!
me: We don’t ‘do school’ every day. How much depends on a lot of things.
HW: There is some kind of minimum, I’m sure.
me: No. There isn’t.
J: We went APPLE PICKING! We picked THREE bushels. And then all day yesterday and today, we peeled and chopped them and made apple crisp and apple sauce!
HW: *glare*
J: I haven’t seen a school book in DAYS! We made TWENTY-SIX apple crisps!
HW: *Huff*Glare*
me: *grin*

By: Ron

Ron — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 02:50:14 +0000

Carrie: Yes, exactly. Now that you mention it I’m debating whether the lack of willingness is more prevalent than the lack of ability.

JoVE – Thank you. Sometimes at 1 AM I have trouble getting a sense that I’ve said it well. Would there be room for it on a T-shirt?

Jax

By: Jax

Jax — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 20:54:12 +0000

Great post – and working as a helpdesk supervisor, I am spending part of every day tearing my hair out trying to get your statement about the problem through to ppl. Think I might start a quotes page on the wiki…

By: atypicalife.net » That’s me in the spotlight

atypicalife.net » That’s me in the spotlight — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 19:41:48 +0000

[...] I sometimes tell people offline that I’m famous in a small corner of the Internet, and stuff like this helps. Now I have to actually *write down* some of the other “hacks” we’ve applied to pur parenting. You know, on top of teaching the kids how to actually think. *snort* [...]

By: Tricotomania

Tricotomania — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 16:51:32 +0000

The point……

Here’s the conclusion to Ron’s post today. “What I set out to do as a parent and while I was an instructor was cultivate the ability to think and apply the knowledge that they have at their disposal. Knowledge has…

By: JoVE

JoVE — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 16:41:15 +0000

That last paragraph says it all. Brilliant. I love the way you think.

And I think we should take that line about the problem and make a poster out of it for that blank spot on the kitchen wall. Or maybe do a needlepoint sampler or something.

By: Carrie K.

Carrie K. — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 15:32:01 +0000

“The ability to use the knowledge available has never seemed to be in such short supply.”

Yes, yes, yes! I would go farther and say the willingness to use the knowledge available has never seemed to be in such short supply. I come across cases of ignorance-on-purpose all the time and it is a huge source of frustration.