Quote:
Originally Posted by serrendipity
Okay so the challenge to homeschooling is that we dont condone having our children bullied, exposed to drugs, and other inappropriate behavior. It is highly doubtful that any job my children would have would openly employ any individuals of the caliber of behavior your thinking of. Perhaps a future in the criminal population of a prison would be more appropriate for that quality of socialization.
Personally I'm not evangelical and I do homeschool and proud of it. I homeschool primarily for educational purposes, but the inappropriate socialization and bullying that runs rampant in schools has gone through the roof. I think the statistic is one in three kids is bullied, now add the drugs, pregnancy, etc.
That's unacceptable, and while my taxes still go to supporting these schools I can say that. That should be unacceptable for any parent. A school is a place for a proper education for your future, not for future training on how to handle oneself in a prison yard.
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Brilliantly put. And I would add that the inappropriate socialization that happens in our schools
sets some kids up to be victims for the rest of their lives. Being victimized conditions them to be victims. And it trains others to be predatory psychopaths. Personally, I question the whole model of putting large groups of children together with only one or two adults supervising them. It is not how socialization was handled among early humans, and definitely not how other primates handle raising their young. 'Schools' are a recent phenomenon in Human history. Ostriches raise their young in 'schools'. However, humans are not birds.
As I said earlier, todays schools....from pre-K on....tend to deprive children of their humanity. Toddlers should not have to spend their days defending themselves. Children should not have to live in fear of physical assault. Living under constant stress inhibits brain and physical development. Brains end up smaller. Girls bloat up. Boys end up puny, having had far less abundant floods of hormones during critical developmental phases. Kids under social stress cannot sleep well. They cannot concentrate. The cumulative/synergistic cost to society, of having children rendered less viable, is surely enormous.
ravendays.org has stories from the viewpoint of people who were bullied all the way through school. Far from being more adept at dealing with psychos in the workplace, as adults, they mostly are withdrawn in all aspects of their lives. They lead broken lives.
I'm close to, and have had a business relationship for decades with, a very unhappy Gay man. He was stuck in a 'progressive' nursery school, then the town's 'fashionable' church kindergarten.
(This was long before such things became mandatory, and so his fellows were middle-class kids from normal homes. His teachers were nice, middle-class ladies. Things are far worse for tots today.). The bullying
(we're talking physical assaults, and constant taunting...usually by groups of kids) really started in second grade, when he was sent to Mississippi, and escalated into seventh grade, when his family realized he would die, if they didn't send him to a private school. That saved his life: but in many ways, the die was already cast.
He's been working out since he started college. Before that, he was involved in the strenuous task of landscaping his family's estate
(mostly his idea) and used a push-mower to mow their extensive lawns. So he was hardly a 'bookish couch potato'. But the stress/hormones situation I described seems to have permanently limited his ability to gain muscle. I think he developed fewer muscle fibers, and a more slight skeletal structure, because of the stress. He never had that great hormonal flush critical for the final stages of masculine development: and I think it's because of severe bullying at school.
He looks feminine, even with personal trainers, and decades of weightlifting behind him
(and no, he doesn't pluck his eyebrows, or wear femmy clothes, or makeup...he tries his best to look masculine...started lifting, in fact, in the hopes of becoming 'muscle-bound', so that he would move in a manly fashion). Looking girly, in the Gay world, is the absolute kiss of death. Nobody has ever wanted him, and he's never been in a relationship. He looks 'royal'. He looks 'aristocratic'. My rich girlfriends from Hong Kong think he's totally perfect. But he's all alone.
You've probably seen his work in books or magazines. And you've definitely seen some of his clients on World News. The guy is brilliant. Most of his projects are now in the half-billion-dollar range. But he is
incapable of believing that anyone would remember him as a person. He sees himself as a faceless child, going from one school and class to another. Outside business
(in business, he does assume a formidable and rapacious persona), he is apt to not give his name when someone else introduces himself. And I've heard him on the phone, a few times, identify himself as a number: "Hello. I'm number 53447....". One can only conclude that this is from having been in schools, of one sort or another, for over two decades. Frankly, that would be a realistic self-image for someone who has lived such a life. Just youtube 'Mad World' by Gary Jules and Michael McDonald. When he sings
"...teacher...look right through me..." that's what it had to have been like for him...for two whole decades, at the beginning of his life.
I was around, when a pushy woman kept on with the business of
"I want this to be more than a professional relationship. I want to get to know the real you." I'm sure she was imagining being allowed into a gay world of fabulous parties and witty repartee. He just flat-out told her
"There is no me for you to get to know. I do not exist as a social entity. Work. Gym. That's my life."
That's the personal story I know best. I know a lot of others, in a more sketchy way. And most of those stories are far sadder than his. My own story could have turned ugly so easily... So to suggest that throwing kids into those kennels they call 'schools' somehow prepares them for dealing with aggressive and psychopathic people just leaves me with nothing to say....except...
but at what cost?
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