Loyalty to the State
POSTED BY: canttakesky
UPDATED: Monday, March 31, 2008 03:34
VIEWED: 19263
PAGE 16 of 27
Frem
You can't get too much more anti-social than me. There's a reason I like labwork, besides it being both intellectual and hands-on. (We lab people get to use - and create, fix and modify - a lot of cool instruments and equipment. But dealing with people out of our black-box - not so much.)
I and a number of cohorts of the same mindset were able to effectively disappear into the woodwork - in a public school. And after. When it came to sending out those class reunion notices I was interested to note we were all on the roster of MIAs. (I got the notice second or third-hand. Needless to say I wasn't interested in letting on where I or anyone else was.)
And yet you bring this up, despite the fact that there are - by the accounts posted here - a number of schools that aren't the teen-age hellholes for the anti-social you portray all schools to be.
I suspect the reason why you didn't (and still don't) like schools has more to do with your own particular anti-authority personality that seeps out in many of your posts. And not so much on the plusses and minuses of schools in general or of any school in particular.
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"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."
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Quote:Frem, you ARE a dick today. I've discussed both sides of the issue of home schooling and public schooling. The problem with homeschooling is that SOME people specifically choose home schooling to isolate their children so they can beat the crap out of them, fuck 'em twice a day, or both. The reason why I don't like unexamined home schooling is to prevent that from happening. Neither you, nor Sarge, nor CTS have come up with a solution to the problem of "disappeared" children. You don't even have the balls to say it's not an issue! Your only response seems to be to pretend it doesn't happen, or to call addressing it "dishonest".
Imma just address one point, and I think I'm done here - since the folk so against homeschooling have resorted in the same "dishonest debate tactics" they claim to dislike, but only when facing them, I guess.
Now THAT'S dishonest!
Now, I grant you that some could say that I'm using the "war on terror" argument- that in order to catch a small percentage of abusers I'll resort to "treating everyone like a criminal". That may be so, I'm willing to discuss numbers, procedures, consequences, legalities and sor forth to see if that holds true. (Obiously I don't think so.) But nobody has come forward to discuss that. All people seem to want to do is wave a banner that all parents should get a free pass (sotto voce: Unless they get caught)
If I remember correctly, you had more problems with school than with home so it might be unthinkable that schools might even provide a welcome respite for some. But consider that you're making some of your acquaintances through... guess what?... A SCHOOL. And that PUBLIC SCHOOL is offering a resource that the home cannot, which is access to you. So you seem to have something of a double standard going on.
Quote:BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! Did it ever occur to you, Frem, that as a parent of a daughter with autistic-like behaviors my child NEVER wants to meet anyone outside the family????
I thought about this a while, and I realize that I am probably a rarity in this, but I wonder...
Did it ever occur to anyone some kids might not WANT regular contact with people outside their family ?
PUHLEEZ!
But on the totally unproven theory that my SO and I are going to die someday, I've worked really hard to try to get my daughter to deal with it. Home is her shelter, but she HAS to get out once in a while!
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Let's party like it's 1929.
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So, let's take another running start on this issue: There are two possible problems to homeschooling
1) Students may not get an education that allows them even the option to participate in a post-school world. That problem can be solved by requiring that homeschooled students take some sort of curriculum-based test which could allow them to ultimately get that piece of paper from HS.
2) SOME parents choose to homeschool because they're abusers. They choose to isolate their children from anybody that has any authority because they simply don't want to get caught. Now, if anyone has a solution to this problem, let me know. Or just tell me that it's not a big enough problem to deal with, and not worth disturbing other parent's rights over.
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Let's party like it's 1929.
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You ain't discussin it, you're ranting and screaming, throwing worst-case examples as commonplace, and linking together assumptions to build an easy to knock over strawman, getting explicitly snide, you and Rue both, personally insulting, downright petty and irrational instead of arguing the topic, have a look at your own conduct why don't you ?
Lest you forget, my niece goes to public school, by her own choice since for her it is more convenient having all the goods in one place, she could walk away any time she wants, but what SHE wants, is what matters to me.
And given that it's the exact same school that was the end-all blowup between me and the educational system, and that they can and HAVE engaged in abusive tactics and behavior, past and present, you can assume it would not be my choice for her to go there - but I put it in HER hands.
Never for a moment forget that fact.
Part of your problem is that you are so wrapped up in fronting your damn agenda, you don't even distinguish between Me, Sarge, and CTS as individuals - screeching at one of us for a point someone else made, or lambasting us about a viewpoint or opinion offered by one of the others, and imma just downright call you out for the liar you are.
The reason you don't like unexamined homeschooling is because it goes against your holy worship of the State in all it's benevolence, I swear you sound like a damned religious zealot sometimes - and you are NOT willing to discuss those things, you wanna take them, build strawmen from them and triumph the glory of the State, rah rah rah.
Cause I *did* offer suggestions on that, and *was* willing to discuss it, till you started acting like an asswipe cause your little sacred cow got a little kicked in the knees, which might not have happened had you not *gone out of your way* earlier in the thread to make a post offering NOTHING but insult to people simply because they disagreed with you, something you *claimed* to despise around here.
You had your chance to discuss it, till you started throwing a hissy because some folks didn't agree with you.
Maybe if you acted like an adult about it, folks might give your opinion a little more credence, and might be willing to discuss things with you, but doll, this is three for three with the shit from you, on three totally different topics, and each time you have resorted to this *instead* of arguing the topic like a mature adult, and always on the assumption that folks can't live their lives properly without intervention from the state, which some of us don't hold with.
Either get OVER it, or stop wrecking perfectly good discussions with your over the top temper tantrums, dammit.
-F
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Frem... whatever.
Quote:Nope
You ain't discussin it, you're ranting and screaming
Quote:Nope
throwing worst-case examples as commonplace
Quote:Nope
and linking together assumptions to build an easy to knock over strawman
Quote:Yep
getting explicitly snide
Quote:Not Rue
you and Rue both
Quote:Yep
personally insulting
Quote:Nope
downright petty and irrational
FREM:
** rant on*....
lots skipped...
*rant off*
Quote:Yep
Cause I *did* offer suggestions on that
Quote:Only to a certain point
and *was* willing to discuss it
Quote:Yep
till you started acting like an asswipe
Quote:Not by anybody here, that's for sure
cause your little sacred cow got a little kicked in the knees
Quote:yep, but followed by more substantive issues
which might not have happened had you not *gone out of your way* earlier in the thread to make a post offering NOTHING but insult to people simply because they disagreed with you
Quote:Just assume I have short hair up my *ss.
something you *claimed* to despise around here.
Quote:No comment!
Either get OVER it, or stop wrecking perfectly good discussions with your over the top temper tantrums, dammit.
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Let's party like it's 1929.
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I personally think SignyM has a point about abusive people purposefully isolating their children.
And no, no one out of the group of CTS, Sarge and Frem, has actually come forth to even admit that such a thing happens, let alone suggest a solution.
Frem, I know you have some deeply held feelings - but they are at times in contradiction to each other. You say it's all about the children. But when it's shown that government-based monitoring can detect serious abuse that might not be addressed any other way - all of the sudden it's not about the children but about your anti-government biases. There's only ever school abuse. It's all the damn gummint. And when it comes to how to keep children safe from their homes in the absense outside intervention you get - quiet.
Not to put you on the spot but you're the only one posting at the moment.
PS From the three of you I also get the sense that teachers, education standards and curricula are trivial. Which is why I posted my little post about surgery and airplane design. Unless you can show me otherwise, I assume that at a certain point self-study breaks down as an efficient way to learn. Which is something I know in real life from having written detailed procedures of 'how to do' complex things in the lab - and having trained roughly 50 people to do those things. An explanation, a demonstration, observation and commentary from a knowledgeable person can replace dozens of pages of text and blind trial.
So for me the question is WHERE it breaks down - at what level of instruction - and not if. You all seem to assume that learning sans teacher is always sufficient.
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Unless you all really are vested in a non-technical society where shade-tree mechanics and secretive herbalists are the acme of learning.
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Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
/quote]Did you say you were in Australia? Maybe the educational system there is better than here. All I can speak on is the educational system in the States.
I talked about choices. You don't have alternatives to mainstream school? I'm pretty sure there are waldorf, montesorri, steiner and other independent schools in the US.
Quote:
Here, teachers aren't experts in science, math, history, or whatever subject they are teaching. That is not what they studied in college. To get a bachelor's in education, you take mostly classes in practice and theory of education--they spend most of their time learning procedures and processes of how to teach, not what to teach. That is the substance of their credential.
but you yourself wrote at some length on how you don't need to be expert in any particular subject to teach. That it's engendering a desire to learn,and giving children access to resources which are the most important thing. I think the fact that teachers aren't expert indicates that they are not, in fact, imparting information, but trained to do pretty much what you say you do (whether they do or not is another issue)
Teachers face an endless barrage of criticism. I don't know why anyone does it frankly, because the pay is crap as well. If they aren't 'experts' they are criticised. If they don't teach the basics, they are criticised. If they teach in a manner outside of parents expertise (ie child focused) they are criticised.
Basically teachers bear the brunt of the obsessive, overbearing, overly controlling focus on children that is one of the features of parenting today, the flip side of abuse and neglect. Particularly in many middle class or aspirational families where every other child is either gifted, has a developmental disorder (pick your initials), special dietary requirements, special educational needs...aaaarrgggghhhhh.
Good grief, would it be too much if kids just actually had to cope with existing in an imperfect world where every single thing wasn't specially tailored to their individual needs????? I really worry about future generations.
A few of you have talked about your crappy experiences at school, well did you ever think that you are different to your child, that their school experience may not actually be yours???
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
So, let's take another running start on this issue: There are two possible problems to homeschooling
1) Students may not get an education that allows them even the option to participate in a post-school world. That problem can be solved by requiring that homeschooled students take some sort of curriculum-based test which could allow them to ultimately get that piece of paper from HS.
2) SOME parents choose to homeschool because they're abusers. They choose to isolate their children from anybody that has any authority because they simply don't want to get caught. Now, if anyone has a solution to this problem, let me know. Or just tell me that it's not a big enough problem to deal with, and not worth disturbing other parent's rights over.
It's also interesting to come at this from another angle. Teachers who have been teaching for a long time are reporting increasing numbers of children with significant behavioural problems, much of which is observed at school entry age. Reports of family abuse are ever steadily increasing.
I think its unfair to target school and educational problems as being the cause of all ills when there are plenty of indicators that many , many families struggle with issues of setting behavioural limits and expectations. Basically, many parents are not doing a crash hot job of parenting. Are the kids that use bullying, violent behaviour doing so as a result of the 'system' or of what's going on at home? I'd say home and what they have learnt at home plays the biggest part in how kids will react to any situation.
And lastly,a kid who wishes to learn and has that love of life long learning (which inevitably will be significantly influenced by his family) will also do so at a public high school as well. Some kids excel in public schools and go on to have wonderful lives and/or careers. Some kids do crap at high school and go on to have wonderful lives and/or careers.
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No Magon, you didn't kill the thread. 
I think people are just worn out!
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Let's party like it's 1929.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
... Now, I grant you that some could say that I'm using the "war on terror" argument- that in order to catch a small percentage of abusers I'll resort to "treating everyone like a criminal".
You are, but that's not the dishonest part. It's not effective, and not worth the cost, but it's fairly straightforward. What you're doing that's dishonest, and what makes it so hard to take you're arguments seriously, is this for-us-or-against-us bullshit pulled right out of the neo-con's playbook. I mentioned it before, and I'm calling you on it again.
Quote:
... Neither you, nor Sarge, nor CTS have come up with a solution to the problem of "disappeared" children. You don't even have the balls to say it's not an issue!
I'm not gonna play along with your grandstanding demagoguery by stating the obvious. I shouldn't have to defend myself with disclaimers about how much "I really do care about children's welfare after all", and I won't. I won't do that any more than I'll preface every complaint about our idiotic foreign policy with overt statement of my patriotism. So keep your propaganda.
The bottom line is I don't think your solution is worth a shit. On the whole, I just don't think that government does much to stop violence and injustice. It just organizes them. And it's not going to stop bad parents from harming their kids. What it will do is insist that we all follow the same prescription, no matter how bad that prescription may be.
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
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