Any certified teachers out there...?

[tisha2]

seems to me that someone could set up a lil schoolhouse on playa to provide kids with some BRC-related learnin' and projects to bring back to reality-school to get credit for missing the first week o' school...

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The original article can be found on SFGate.com here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... B7L411.DTL
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Tuesday, February 8, 2005 (SF Chronicle)
SAN FRANCISCO/School year's early start burns parents
Heather Knight

The Board of Education is expected to approve the school district's
calendar for the 2005-06 academic year tonight -- but not before a
spirited debate among parents over when classes should begin.
There have long been arguments among parents over whether school should start before or after Labor Day, with the former winning out the past several years.
This year, however, brings a new wrinkle -- the 20th anniversary of the
Burning Man art festival in the wastelands of Nevada is scheduled for Aug.
29- Sept. 5. In an only-in-San Francisco argument, several parents are
demanding that school start Sept. 6 so their children can attend the
event.
Unfortunately for the Burning Man contingent, the board is expected to set Aug. 29 as the first day of school.

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Copyright 2005 SF Chronicle

[geekster]

It's sad that school starting early here in the Bay Area keeps so many that want to go from it. The same is true down here in the South Bay. It sucks. And the sad part is that I can't think of a good way to fix that. It's just a damned shame.

[sparkletarte]

Who the frick wants to start school in August?! I've never heard of such a thing- oh wait, I did and I thought it was stupid then too. What do they do, make it a four day school week because of the Labour Day holiday?

How to fix it? Just don't go- if you have a holiday in BRC planned, then go. Missing a bit of the first week of school isn't going to make that big of a difference, I wouldn't think.

[PurpleKoosh]

Who the frick wants to start school in August?! I've never heard of such a thing- oh wait, I did and I thought it was stupid then too. What do they do, make it a four day school week because of the Labour Day holiday?

The district where my mother teaches started the 04/05 school year on August 24th - a full WEEK before BMan started last year, and TWO weeks before Labor Day. *headdesk*

[mamagrrl]

There's a solution to the whole school-starts problem.
Pull 'em out.
Homeschool those suckers.

Homeschooling rocks.
My homeschooler-boy is working on making a flamethrower (he's lead on this project), and is helping with an art car as well as being our main plasma cutter and El-wire futzer.

So, what did your kid do in science today?
Pull the kids from boredom. Pull 'em from school.
It's really not that hard.
Seriously.

[Ranger Genius]

I've known some kids who were homeschooled. Three words for you: "Damaged little fuckers."

Mind you, these kids were exclusively homeschooled by parents who wanted to protect them from evil influences, and who had never been in a school environment at all. Absolutely no idea how to interact with other human beings. It's like they'd been raised in a fluffy garden, with no evidence but their (admittedly good) ability to speak English as evidence that they had ever even seen another human being.

[mamagrrl]

Eeeeyup,
Bummer when parents are lousy parents. Worse bummer when a government institution (read: public school) is expected to... parent. What, you want the g'vment raising kids?

Frankly I've met more mentally/socially/emotionally/physically messed up kids from PS than I ever have hsers, even including the fundie-school-at-homers. (and some of those parents are truly messed up in a clenched posterior, no-shades-of-grey kind of way.)

b'sides, one would be a touch surprised to find fundie-sah'ers at bman.
Haven't you heard it's immoral?
Bad Xtian. No biscuit.

Okay, so we're off-topic on getting kids/teachers out to bman...
BAD mamagrrl. More biscuits.
(I still say, Free Yourself and Your Kids! Do what you want, not what they say you should. It's easy and a whole lot more fun.)

[Ranger Genius]

I still say that kids need some sort of forced interaction with other kids. Public school is hell...but so is life after it.
The kids I specifically had in mind were raised by Mormon purists. Fairly conservative even by mormon standards.

But on the subject, homeschooling allows somewhere around 15,000 polygamists in UT to keep their kids from getting any kind of education and lets them do the most thorough job of brainwashing you'll ever encounter. it's a horrible abusive cycle that the option of exclusive homeschool helps to perpetuate.

Not jumping on you here, just trying to prod you to defend it, or offer solutions to the objections.

[mamagrrl]

Hey Ranger G,
Thanks, and not feeling attacked in the slightest. I'm not mormon. Plus, I think you're looking in the wrong place for the solution to your problem.

It seems like what you're looking for is a safety net to ensure that parents will never abuse (mentally, emotionally, or in this case, religiously) or limit their kids... and that's just not out there. Not even in public school.

Let me repeat that.
Public school provides no safety net.
(Repeat that amongst yourselves for a while...)

Some folks might say, "Sure, but the chance is higher that someone will notice something." ...but that's not really true. Most teachers (yes, there are exceptions) deal with more than 30 kids in a class and frequently classes rotate between teachers, so now each teacher is dealing with, say, 180 kids (30x6classes.) Most don't have aides or helpers. They see these kids for only 50 minutes a day, that's less than 2 minutes per child. Folks think they're going to notice a bruise, much less belief-abuse and be able to change it to what you or I would consider a more acceptable viewpoint? Override parents who directly influence the other 17 hours straight (24 on weekends)? Honey, I wish it were so. It just isn't, though. More likely the religio-parents would get Heavily involved in the PTA/etc and start banning books, cutting pages out of texts and limiting the information the rest of the kids get. It happens way too often.

What information there is, anyway. I've got a friend who teaches elementary, and she gripes about the lack of time she has to actually teach the kids. She's so busy getting the kids ready for their standardized tests and the imposed curricula which is supposedly geared towards improving the test scores... she says it has nothing to do with actually learning, and everything to do with increasing the money the schools get. The poor thing's so disillusioned, but still she's hanging in there. More power to her, if that's what she needs to do.

As for 'forced interaction' with other kids their age, you really think that'd work? Do you remember elementary/high school? Did you hang out with the kids who were like you, or Not like you? C'mon, be honest. You hung out with dorks like yourself. (or were you one of the cool kids?)

Who do you think the regular kids would hang out with? The high-octane-mormon kids? To torture them, maybe. Who do you think the mormon kids would hang out with? Yeah. Other mormon kids.
Interaction? Naw. Bullying and teasing? Absolutely. Reinforces that they can only trust other mormons? Yep. Not a lot of forward movement there.

Homeschoolers (the normal ones, not the crazy ones like you know) interact with people of ALL ages, and usually in meaningful ways. Society isn't made up of groups of only one age. We're all ages. What if someone told you to only talk to people within a year of your age and for only 5 minutes every hour, and quiet for the other 55 minutes. You'd think they were nuts. Welcome to school.

Lastly, the position that the world is cruel, so kids should be treated cruelly is un-necessary. I used to believe (many years ago) that kids would only learn through hard-knocks and falling on their faces. Much to my surprise, that's not what it took. To my astonishment, the kids who'd been supported and embraced throughout their growing years grew up to be the most well-balanced and intelligent people I'd met. Great people, these kids. So I figured HS couldn't be any worse than the boredom of PS.

Are there exceptions and is it perfect? Yes there are exceptions. Of course it's not perfect. Is it better than PS or PrivateS? For many kids and families, absolutely. For some, maybe not. For people who are bummed about missing bman so their kid can do his/her PS seat time, definitely, homeschooling's something to consider.

Seat time sucks.
Playa time rocks.
Free yourself.
Free your kids.
(and free a mormon, while you're at it!)
(and Ranger Genius, we're so off-topic, maybe we should take it off-board and private? I'd hate to bore the folks who want to lament the start of school. (evil grin))

[Ranger Genius]

Eh, this thread was dead, so there's no reason not to continue here.

I just meant that the people I've known who were homeschooled were unprepared for how cruel adults can be in the real world (it's not just kids). It's not a good thing to reach early adulthood with your naivete still completely intact.

As a former Mormon for whom what I learned in public school freed me, I can tell you that those few hours at school, especially during really formative years, make a HUGE difference. We learned about biology and evolution, and about literature (which really opened doors for me), and about other religions and cultures. I didn't even know there WERE other religions. Young kids don't have those religious prejudices worked out yet, so they'll play and fight with whomever they want at school...and they remember those interactions with different types of people later. Believe me. Kids at home school get a better education (when education and not the opposite is the objective of schooling the kids), but forced attendance at a traditional school for a couple years during childhood (between six and eight) seems like it can only be helpful for kids.

[mamagrrl]

I'd totally agree with you that totally naieve kids out in the world, are in harms way. No two ways about it. Parents who raise totally naieve kids are deluding themselves and harming their kids. It's BAD PARENTING.

It's obvious that PS was a way for you to get relief from a bad-for-you situation. I'm delighted it was there for you. Seriously. For thousands of other kids though, it's more a prison than a liberation. Schools are not in place to provide parenting, to open doorways, or even provide a comprehensive education. It happens from time to time, but they were originally founded to provide good factory workers. Yeah. No kidding. Look it up.

Okay, down to brass tacks. What you're looking for is a mandated way for family-imprisoned kids to be freed of their families for a few years, so they have a chance to make an intelligent decision about their lives. Yes? You feel that PS worked for you, so it's a good solution, maybe? But is it a good solution for everyone?

Is it fair/right/ethical to imprison the many to help free a few? I can tell you right now that I won't harm my child to help another. I'll try to help the other, sure, but not by removing my kids freedoms. There's no reason he should sit his posterior in a chair for 6 hours a day so some other kid can read Huck Finn. Man, that's what libraries are for.

I know of a small boy, he's 10 or so now, but his mom had him in PS second grade when the real troubles grew. He was hit almost daily by a classmate. He'd have things routinely stolen from him, nothing big, just constant. No matter how he tried, he could never do as much classwork as well as the others. His teacher didn't recognize his learning difference (dyslexia) and told him that if he didn't work harder, he'd never amount to much. He started believing he was stupid and couldn't do anything. He started having stomach aches and feeling ill on school mornings. The mom finally pulled him and they went HS. Freedom from getting hit, feeling stupid, the thefts, the taunts... He reads just fine now (if a little slowly), doesn't feel stupid, is out and about in the world trying all sorts of things and is happier than he ever was in second grade. He's respectful, but not a patsy. He's bright, but not remarkably so. A great, normal kid. Should he have stayed through that 2nd grade year and another? It's what you'd ask him to do.

Is it fair that some kids get lousy parents? Of course not.
Would it be fair to penalize kids with great parents? Of course not.

How would you structure the forced attendence to keep from imprisoning kids like the now-10 year old above? Where's the happy medium?
Or, is forced school-time not the answer and maybe something else is? Maybe kids should be forced to sign 24 different books a year out of the public library? (How many mormon books can there be in a library?) (and should the FBI have the right to look at which books you've signed out?)
IS there an answer that doesn't impinge heavily on free-will?
Will Lassie get Timmy out of the well?
Tune in for the exciting conclusion!

[Ranger Genius]

I don't know what the solution is, but I know allowing complete homeschool with little or no oversight is not it. Maybe mandatory public service?

Kids with bad parents have rights, too. It's not fair to them to allow their parents to keep them away from outside interactions in order to perpetuate the cycle of psychological, spiritual, and sexual abuse that goes on in those families I talked about. Remember Tom Green? He homeschooled his kids, and wound up marrying and impregnating one of them (step-daughter, 13 at the time). The only way to break that cycle is to allow those kids some time away from that environment, to give them some exterior influences, and to protect them from their parents' total controlling influence, even for just a while. It's no one's job but the parents to raise their kids, but that does not leave us the liberty of abandoning children who have bad parents.

[mamagrrl]

Mandatory public service is an interesting idea - but how do you specify that the public service can't be served within the church. After all, churches to many people, mean good things.

As for 'allowing' homeschool, phooey.
Homeschooling is the most traditional method of education and for the vast majority, it works stupendously well.
No fewer than 14 US Presidents were homeschooled and many (most?) founding fathers. Douglas MacArthur was homeschooled. DaVinci was homeschooled. At least four US Supreme Court Justices were homeschooled (including Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.) Pierre Curie, Albert Einstein, TH Huxley and Booker T Washington were homeschooled. Claude Monet, Grandma Moses, Andrew Wyeth and William Blake were homeschooled. Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, William Lear (lear jets), Eli Whitney and the Wright brothers were homeschooled. Irving Berlin, Noel Coward, Mozart and John Philip Sousa were homeschooled. Hans Christian Anderson, Pearl S. Buck, Agatha Christie, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Robert Frost, Alex Haley and CS Lewis were homeschooled. George Bernard Shaw and Walt Whitman were homeschooled. Presidents of Smith, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, Princeton and Texas A&M were homeschooled. Louis Armstrong, Whoopi Goldberg, Jennifer Love Hewitt and LeAnne Rimes were homeschooled. Andrew Carnegie, Colonel Sanders, Dave Thomas(Wendy's), Ray Kroc and Joseph Pulizer (Pulizer Prize) were homeschooled. Clara Barton, JJ Audubon, Susan B Anthony, Ansel Adams, Mary Leakey, Florence Nighingale and Thomas Paine were homeschooled. Will Rogers was homeschooled. Gloria Steinem, Sir Ernest Shackleton and Albert Schweitzer were homeschooled. Frank Lloyd Wright was homeschooled. With No Oversight. ...and somehow they turned out alright. Were there homeschooled 'losers'? Sure. But WAY more winners and homeschooled without the benefit of government oversight.

Educational Oversight? Forbid the thought! But really, you're not interested in education. You're interested in Child Protective Services. Please stop confusing the two. Rock on in pushing for the CPS or whatever, but keep the educational shackles off of perfectly healthy, happy kids, eh?

In any event, here are the homeschooling rules for Utah:
****************************
53A-11-102 . Minors exempt from school attendance.

(1) A school-age minor may be excused from attendance by the local board of education and a parent exempted from application of Subsections 53A-11-101 (2) and (3) for any of the following reasons:

(a) a minor over age 16 may receive a partial release from school to enter employment if the minor has completed the eighth grade. Minors excused under this subsection are required to attend part-time schooling or home schooling as prescribed by the board; or

(b) on an annual basis, a minor may receive a full release from attending a public, regularly established private, or part-time school or class if:

(i) the minor has already completed the work required for graduation from high school, or has demonstrated mastery of required skills and competencies in accordance with Subsection 53A-15-102 (1);

(ii) the minor is taught at home in the subjects prescribed by the State Board of Education in accordance with the law for the same length of time as minors are required by law to be taught in the district schools;

(iii) the minor is in a physical or mental condition, certified by a competent physician if required by the district board, which renders attendance inexpedient and impracticable;

(iv) proper influences and adequate opportunities for education are provided in connection with the minor's employment; or

(v) the district superintendent has determined that a minor over the age of 16 is unable to profit from attendance at school because of inability or a continuing negative attitude toward school regulations and discipline.

(2) In each case, evidence of reasons for granting an exemption must be sufficient to satisfy the local board.

(3) Boards excusing minors from attendance shall issue a certificate stating that the minor is excused from attendance during the time specified on the certificate.

Amended by Chapter 99, 1999 General Session
*******************
So, there's oversight. They require the family go before a school board, prove they teach the same courses for the same length of time (what a crock!) as a public school. There's your biology, your lit., your foreign languages, etc. I wouldn't want to live in Utah, 'cause the gov't shouldn't interfere in the education of my child. Well, there are other reasons, but that one's good enough for now.

Actually, I don't know Tom Green. He sounds like a sicko, but there are more public school parents who molest and impregnate their children (and don't get caught by anyone in the PS system) than sicko homeschooling parents. Shoot, Public School TEACHERS molest their students. There were two of 'em in the news just recently. At least one was impregnated by a 13 year old boy. Maybe we should do away with public school teachers...or provide some 'oversight' for the poor kids in public school. Sure couldn't hurt. (tongue in cheek, 'cause it sure didn't help!)

I'm all for not abandoning kids who need to get away from bad parents, but that intervention has NOTHING to do with public school or private school or homeschooling. It has Everything to do with CPS. If you see a kid in trouble, call CPS. If you think they need their horizons widened, take 'em to the library, the movies or even for a good long chat.

Maybe some folks think more invasive oversight of homeschooling is the easiest answer... but it's not. I mean, it's not the answer at all. It won't solve anything. Parents will still take their kids off-radar and do what they want. Instead of public school, they'll start a private school and send the kids there for the mandi two years (while other kids have to suffer through in PS.)

Stop throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You're throwing out reams of good, because there's a small bit of bad. Find another way to excise the bad, but leave the good alone. (and get more educated on non-sicko homeschoolers, eh? We're pretty great people!)

Suggested reading: anything and everything by John Taylor Gatto, 'Doing School' by Denise Clark Pope and just about anything by Grace Llewellyn. Check your library.