26 September 2009

Pearls of Wisdom.

"On one hand, public school kids are dumb as rocks because the schools are worthless. On the other hand, I know homeschooled 10-years-olds who are still nursing, 12-year-olds who can't read (unschooling), 8-year-olds who have never been to a store and never saw escalators because of their mom's phobias, and I know the fundies aren't teaching their kids proper science because they don't believe in science."

"I knew 2 whole families who were homeschooling for educational reasons--and I was one of them, so I just think that it's extremely possible for homeschool kids to be smarter than public school brats, I'm just not seeing it locally."


Because I realize some of y'all are still waking up in Australia, I have to edit this post with a Christmas-y green to emphasise that I didn't say or write the above. ((Good morning, Ganeida!))

I know I come off as odd and rather fundamentalist. I'm sure some of my comments have rubbed you the wrong way and you're about to just go, "GAH! What's she thinking?" every now and then. Rest assured as I read your blog, if you type posts like this, I feel the same way.

I find a fair number of *wonderful* blogs by using search engines and typing "homeschooling" and short homeschool-related phrases, but obviously my granola mix has a few nuts in it. I was tempted to ask the poster why she hung out with people who nursed their ten-year-olds and never looked at escalators, but I refrained. I did. I'm also leaving the "public school brats" comment alone, too. Congratulate me! In fact, now that I've copied this tripe, I'm hitting an X in the corner of that posting and never looking at it again if I can help it. Other stuff to do. :P

11 comments:

  1. Congratulations! I'm very proud of you. I would have said something about the nursing thing. Yuck!

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  2. It's early here & I've only just finished my first coffee so for a mini second there I was wondering which of your kids was still nursing, if it was bubs who couldn't read Dracula & which of your 2 PS kids was dumb! Sorry about that. Now I have my head screwed on right I am snorting in my coffee. I can't believe you resisted the temptation to mess with this person'e head! lol You did well, girl.

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  3. Bonnie: breast is best. What kinda anti-nursing nut are you, anyway? LOL... eeew.

    Ganeida: I'm laughing my head off at your expense and so I just *had* to edit the post for you. Good morning, sunshine! :]

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  4. You know, it's morning in Japan here too, and I do appreciate the color coding, but I never would have mistaken those comments as your own!!

    Some people. Geez. And ditto on the "eeeew"!

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  5. Thanks MrsC. Is now a good time to mention I'm colour blind?

    lol. Nah, not really. In my defense it was 4am. No~one should have to think at 4am.

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  6. Good morning to you as well. I don't always agree with everything you say/write but I always respect your opinions because you are intelligent and articulate and put your thoughts out there in a well organised manner.

    It was your writing which made me realise that not all American christians were gun-toting fundamentalist fools. Thankyou for that.

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  7. That blogwriter needs to get out more . . . it sounds like that person is even more secluded than the so-called fundies . . .

    I do not own any guns and never had. I have a master's degree in mathematics, so I am an educated fool. I have long hair (to keep my ears warm) but I live in jeans (not jean skirts).

    I also believe that the Bible is God's word and God-breathed and God-inspired and I take it seriously. I believe it is truth and contains a wide-variety of literary genre.

    While I do not take the whole thing literally (uh, like the psalms is poetry and songs folks), I am a creationist (evolution requires just as much faith as creationism--they just dress it up with a fancy word called a singularity). I do teach science: so far this year, we have studied trees, lichen, and cattails for nature study and are studying astronomy.

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  8. I don't know that I believe that she, herself, actually knew the breastfeeding 10 year old (yeah, ew), or the illiterate 12 year old. I think those kids are urban legends invented to give anti-homeschoolers some kind of leg to stand on.

    And about proper science - please. The big bang theory is not a fact people. There is no real SCIENCE there at all. Same for evolution. Believing all that nonsense (read Humanism - a *gasp!* religion) takes way more faith in my opinion, anyway.

    On the other hand, you know, we're a weird bunch. I'm ok with that. The reason I read home school blogs is to be among other weirdos.

    Frankly, the first reaction I get when I tell people that we homeschool is somewhere along the lines of "you must be a redneck who doesn't value education". Nothing could be further from the truth, but I don't care what they think. As long as they leave me alone and don't try to take away my rights to homeschool.

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  9. LOL Thanks, Sue! You never know, though. Sometimes I say stuff just to be shocking.

    ((Ganeida)) please tell me that's not why you were reading my blog at 4 a.m.

    Kim, you are *SO* right, because I've never shot a gun. :]

    Tammy, I'm going to admit that science is not my strong point, but mostly because in the upper levels it seems to involve making a "hypothesis" about things and then proving them in simple steps using household tools. And... I don't get how I can do that. I've seen the Zoom episodes where they do things like that but don't understand why they would connect the experiment with the hypothesis. (Hope that made sense.) I am also the student whose labs never "worked right" and so I "proved" all kinds of crazy things. :p

    Deb... to get the "you must be a redneck who doesn't value education" sort of look speaks more about how much the other person understands about homeschooling. I've overheard a public school mom (who *happened* to be loud, wearing a beer shirt and cussing up a storm) threaten her teenage boy with homeschooling if he didn't get his school project done. The kid said that he didn't want to wind up a retard like all the homeschoolers. And the mom?

    I've learned that people that extreme won't listen to you when you try to talk to them. You try to avoid them as much as you can so that words like "retarded" don't pop up in your common conversation as well.

    Though I act like I don't, I *do* care. You're extraordinarily strong not to care. Now... my caring doesn't mean I'm going to change anything to suit people like that, but it is hurtful to hear words like "retarded" and whathaveyou.

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  10. Oh, I left out after "And the mom?":

    Was implied to be 'retarded' for thinking about it by her son. I felt sorry for her, but since she laughed it off and didn't take control of the situation, it's just one of those things you pretend to not hear."

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  11. No, of course I am not extraordinarily strong. I hope I didn't say anything in my comment that offended you.

    I've spent enough time being different than other people and disapproved of by other people that I have developed a pretty healthy Screw You attitiude. On the other hand, my kids are still very young, so I haven't had that many people insert their opinions in what I am doing.

    And yes, I completely agree that certain comments reveal more about the speaker than the person they are talking about. That mom was just pathetic and ignorant and bringing up her son to be the same way. What can you do but roll your eyes and hope your kids didn't hear that kind of talk?

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Non-troll comments always welcome! :)

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