I am a homeschooling mom...

[agilebrit]

And I will not wank. No, I won't. Not there, anyway. Eh. *grabs a tissue and cleans up* Seriously, I couldn't let that go.

However, all you have to do is look at the "quality" of fic at FFN to see the sort of "education" that public schools are churning out. Semi-literate snowflakes who bristle at the merest hint of criticism? Pretty much.

Yeah, not in my house. Da Boy already gets corrected if he doesn't capitalize "I" or the word at the start of a sentence, and he's seven. And I don't think I'm stunting his creativity.

Comments

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

Hey, I went to public school and got a pretty decent education. Of course, that was over 25 years ago, and from what I've seen, the entire climate has changed. I realize that "Drillbit Taylor" isn't necessarily "reality," at least not in every school, but I also think it's reality enough in some schools to be a problem. One of the commenters in that post said that her brother got beat up by three kids on the playground, was witnessed by her mother, and the playground monitor basically shrugged and said "They have to learn to work this stuff out for themselves." And heaven forbid a kid actually defend themselves against bullying by fighting back--they'll get suspended quicker than the kid doing the actual bullying. A kid right here in Utah was arrested recently for taking a gun to school because he was being bullied. Not that I think he should take a gun to school, but he also shouldn't feel as if he needs to resort to such an extreme measure because none of the adults is doing anything about it.

I'll admit that I have a knee-jerk reaction when people bitch about the "social retardation" aspect of homeschooling, which is where the wank is in the comments on that post. Da Boy is a pretty self-assured 7-year-old who plays with kids of all ages in the neighborhood. And I'm looking at it from the standpoint of what's best for my kid and what we can do to facilitate it. I've seen what the public schools here produce, and he's going into one over my dead body. The sad thing is that Utah public schools are considered some of the best in the country--our test scores are good and everything. And yet I went to work with people who didn't know the difference between "they're" and "their."

It's down to the kids caring, and the teachers making sure they care by creating consequences if they don't. And from what I've seen (it may be different where you are), the consequences have disappeared. A kid can still get an A on a semi-literate piece of trash because correcting her will stifle her creativity. This is utter twaddle to me, and I won't put up with it in my kid.

I also realize that this is partially the parents' fault as well. The Hubby went to a school where the teachers were physically threatened if they looked like they were going to fail a kid, and I can't imagine that it's got much better where he was. We have parents who won't let the teachers do their frelling job, and teachers who are so jaded that they don't care anymore. 'Cause, you know, it's not like they'll get fired for incompetence or anything--the union protects them from that.

And you, my dear, are an exception. You care about your grammar and your spelling, whereas many of your contemporaries don't. Just look at the dreck that FFN is filled with. You'd die before you published something that didn't capitalize "I" or a story that spelled Rogue's name wrong. And if someone gives you crit, you don't go off on them like they just stomped your favorite puppy. Too many high school kids think they're above crit, and "it's just fanfic anyway." This attitude frosts me.

And don't ever worry about a comment that's "too long." I welcome them. *hugs*