You know what school does? It squashes the values you teach kids when they're too young for school. Children's television programs encourage them to be independent, free-thinking, creative people. Schools teach them to stand in line and act as a herd. If you teach your kid to read before or above his "class level", he'll be ignored wile they work on the slower learning kids. Part of it is because there's no incentive for teachers to work with advanced kids, only punishments for "failing" the kids who are behind. But part of it is that schools are set up for third graders to work at third grade level. There's no room for third grade kids who work at 6th grade level. I had one of those and when I tried to skip her a grade they gave me the most laughable and outright stupid reasons to deny it. She was smaller than the kids she'd be in class with. So, what?, all kids with dwarfism should be forever trapped in kindergarten, and tall kids should skip middle school altogether? She was emotionally behind them; they'd eat her alive! Translation: all autistic kids should stay in first grade till they age out of public school at 21.
But I remain opposed to home-schooling. Home schooling teaches kids that when the going gets tough, the tough retreat and make their own rules. We don't need to remove our kids from reality; we need to fix reality! I only wish I knew how. I'm sending Tommy to preschool next year, where he'll be turned into a drop in the amorphous "class" blob. I hate it, but it's the lesser of 2 very bad evils. I want him to know the rules and learn the skills, but I wish there was a way to do it without stripping him of his individuality.
Showing posts with label home schooling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home schooling. Show all posts
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
It's just kinda crappy
I am increasingly disturbed by this "Every man for himself" mentality I see pervading America. For one thing, it seems like absolutely no one can ever say anything to anyone else because the other person is assumed to "know best". New mothers with absolutely no experience or education about babies or child care are told not to worry because "it's your baby and you know best." It is a scientific medical fact that breast milk is superior to formula, and doctors tell women who choose formula that they know what's best for their babies.
Same with choosing not to vaccinate. Call me naive, but wouldn't doctors, with their supposed superior knowledge of anatomy, nutrition, and health know better than some woman with nothing but gestation on her list of accomplishments? And the fact is that not vaccinating a child hurts other children, too. Not every immunization takes hold. Some kids who have gotten the measles shot can still catch measles later. But if every kid is immunized against measles, then the disease doesn't have enough targets to spread to and dies out. It's called herd immunity and it's what eradicated polio. But with the anti-vaccine crowd comes a resurgence of diseases like measles. And some kids whose parents did vaccinate can get sick. Now, it used to be that you could explain this to people and they'd care. Their sense of social responsibility would kick in and they'd not want to be the one who took down half of Timmy's fifth grade class with pertussis. But now they don't care. Other people's kids aren't their problem. Every man for himself.
Twenty years ago, if a parent felt that the school system was inadequate, they went to the principal about it, or the school board, and made a reasoned argument as to why the class needed new textbooks or that the teacher might need to rethink their approach. But now, to Hell with all the other kids in the class, we're home schooling! Don't worry about improving things for other kids, let their parents do it if they want to. Every man for himself.
In the fifties, the "golden age" that all the big conservative pundits like to ramble on about returning to (before gay people and black people and poor people, when apparently everyone was a white WWII veteran and even the TV sets saw life in stark black and white), no one let their neighbor die for lack of health care. If Mrs Jones had cancer and there was a treatment for it that she couldn't afford, schools held bake sales and churches took up collections and neighbors pitched in. If you could afford to help, you did. And if you couldn't afford to help, you helped in another way. But you did not argue that the woman needed no help because your family had good insurance and you had worked hard for your money and it was downright socialist for anyone to expect you to help or even care. But now . . . it's unfortunate that Mrs Jones is sick and you really hope things turn around for her but she should have gone to college and gotten a job with better insurance, but it's not your fault that she didn't and you have your own family to worry about. Every man for himself.
Same with choosing not to vaccinate. Call me naive, but wouldn't doctors, with their supposed superior knowledge of anatomy, nutrition, and health know better than some woman with nothing but gestation on her list of accomplishments? And the fact is that not vaccinating a child hurts other children, too. Not every immunization takes hold. Some kids who have gotten the measles shot can still catch measles later. But if every kid is immunized against measles, then the disease doesn't have enough targets to spread to and dies out. It's called herd immunity and it's what eradicated polio. But with the anti-vaccine crowd comes a resurgence of diseases like measles. And some kids whose parents did vaccinate can get sick. Now, it used to be that you could explain this to people and they'd care. Their sense of social responsibility would kick in and they'd not want to be the one who took down half of Timmy's fifth grade class with pertussis. But now they don't care. Other people's kids aren't their problem. Every man for himself.
Twenty years ago, if a parent felt that the school system was inadequate, they went to the principal about it, or the school board, and made a reasoned argument as to why the class needed new textbooks or that the teacher might need to rethink their approach. But now, to Hell with all the other kids in the class, we're home schooling! Don't worry about improving things for other kids, let their parents do it if they want to. Every man for himself.
In the fifties, the "golden age" that all the big conservative pundits like to ramble on about returning to (before gay people and black people and poor people, when apparently everyone was a white WWII veteran and even the TV sets saw life in stark black and white), no one let their neighbor die for lack of health care. If Mrs Jones had cancer and there was a treatment for it that she couldn't afford, schools held bake sales and churches took up collections and neighbors pitched in. If you could afford to help, you did. And if you couldn't afford to help, you helped in another way. But you did not argue that the woman needed no help because your family had good insurance and you had worked hard for your money and it was downright socialist for anyone to expect you to help or even care. But now . . . it's unfortunate that Mrs Jones is sick and you really hope things turn around for her but she should have gone to college and gotten a job with better insurance, but it's not your fault that she didn't and you have your own family to worry about. Every man for himself.
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