Teacher on guns "wanted to make them horrified"

[Purplehood]

I could go on all day, but I am not in favor of limiting my son's horizons to a sheltered environment with his family. I want him to grow up to be a strong, independent and self-willed individual that is well-able to cope with society.

No disrespect intended to those that Home-school their children. That is their choice and it should be their choice.

As for the topic of this thread. A parent needs to be proactive and involved in their publicly educated childs education. You watch for this kind of ridiculous behavior and directly confront it by addressing your concerns to all involved. You don't sit and ignore it.

I hold a permanent teaching certificate and taught in the public schools, though I admit it wasn't in Texas or recently.
1. Public education today most does the opposite of what you want for your son. It stifles creativity, champions conformity, tries to force every child to learn the same way and, above all, discourages independent thinking. I'm not saying that all schools and teachers are like this but just that the preponderance of our education system across all States behaves this way.
2. The next situation that I hear about where a parent was happy about their proactive involvement in the public schools within the past 20 years will be the first. The zero tolerance mentality is far reaching and covers many more topics than weapons in a school. There may be an occasional school where parents can have some influence but, by and large, it is a topic government bureaucracy and they will tell you want is good for both you and your child. Good luck presenting a different point of view.

My wife and I are both teachers. She has taught recently and in Texas. We've both tried to be proactively involved in schools and understand the difference between approaching a topic from an adversarial point of view and a cooperative, helpful one.

Lastly, I'm lousy at Algebra, too. If the time comes when our granddaughter is taught Algebra in the same manner that I've observed, I'll drag out the Algebra materials and figure it out so that I can teach her. Your assumption that just because a school has an Algebra teacher that your child is better off in that class than with the individual instruction that he could get from you may not be accurate. Besides, the quickest way to learn something yourself is to try to teach it to someone else. Home schooled kids often have access to tutors for some of the more difficult subjects. There is a whole network of home school parents that have the same problems that you might and have built resources to help..

In someway, our educational system is much like the subject of guns. There are many inaccurate perceptions that have little to no basis in fact.

Edit: to include this link
http://www.odysseyofthemind.com/ as example of better ways to helping kids to be creative. My wife and I were coaches.

My son is a pre-AP Freshman at Klein Oak HS. I am and have been impressed both with the school district and my son. His Mom was a HS Teacher at Lamar in downtown Houston. One year of that experience was enough to get her to quit teaching.

It is all about playing the Lotto. You get a good school, or you do not.

[chasfm11]

It is all about playing the Lotto. You get a good school, or you do not.

...and it shouldn't be. There are too many schools with teachers like the one cited in the OP. The kids who go to the non-winning schools end up coming out with less education and more indoctrination. Our granddaughter is lucky so far in her elementary school. I've met some of the other principals and know that the kids in their schools are not so fortunate. There always seem to be more than enough pompous D.Ed.s who are more impressed with their own importance than the need provide a good teaching environment for our kids

[Purplehood]

It is all about playing the Lotto. You get a good school, or you do not.

...and it shouldn't be. There are too many schools with teachers like the one cited in the OP. The kids who go to the non-winning schools end up coming out with less education and more indoctrination. Our granddaughter is lucky so far in her elementary school. I've met some of the other principals and know that the kids in their schools are not so fortunate. There always seem to be more than enough pompous D.Ed.s who are more impressed with their own importance than the need provide a good teaching environment for our kids

I can't argue with that.

What worries me about home-schooling is what about those folks that consider themselves qualified to teach their kids, and really are not? Are they getting what they paid for?

[zero4o3]

All the home schooled people I know are just a little bit off. They have no sense of how to interact with their peers. Its like watching a live version for Sheldon Cooper from the big bang theory

Respectfully, I would ask you to attend one of the home school conventions where some of the best curriculum in the world is offered for sale. Home Schoolers are not just making it up as they go along. The booths are overwhelmingly run by home school families whose small to teen children will discuss the merits of whatever is available on an intelligent adult level. I have been to several and it never fails to impress me the average public high school student would be a fish out of water. The students who are breaking records at your local college for the youngest to graduate are home schooled. I have had the chance to see several home school families raise their children to adulthood. The vast majority of them is happy, healthy, well adjusted to all age groups--not just their own. They go on field trips to actually see the things the public school kids see in a book or watch in a class presentation. They have not been hazed by bullies, been in drug rehab, arrested by the police, etc. They actually notice what goes on in the world and don't hate their parents or their siblings. They don't live in a vacuum without friends. The older ones sit in our waiting room quietly helping the younger ones to study. Are there SOME weirdos---yep, but FAR less than what you will see at any public school you care to point to. I hope this did not sound like a rant. It was not meant to be offensive.

All the home schooled people I know are just a little bit off. They have no sense of how to interact with their peers. Its like watching a live version for Sheldon Cooper from the big bang theory

How many do you know? Two? Three? You don't have a teacher in the family by any chance do you?

I think its a two edged sword, TexasGal is right, I was homeschooled up until the year before I started highschool, there is more focus on your school work and in such a small settings its easy to plan the material around the kid, that and you know the kid well enough to know how they learn best.

That being said, I still agree with psijac, you dont develop (for having no better way to say it) the same social behaviors, as you do interacting with a large group of kids daily at school. if you do al ittle looking around though, you will find that there are a lot of homeschool groups you can find to get your kids out their and interacting with others, just not in the same way, although with the drug problems most of the public schools around here have I dont know which is worse hehe

[Purplehood]

I think the whole thing that really bothers me about home-schooling (and I don't say this tongue-in-cheek when compared to Public Schooling, but perhaps I should) is the lack of continuity. I can only imagine the broad spectrum of quality when comparing one home-schooled kid to another.

[Ameer]

I think the whole thing that really bothers me about home-schooling (and I don't say this tongue-in-cheek when compared to Public Schooling, but perhaps I should) is the lack of continuity. I can only imagine the broad spectrum of quality when comparing one home-schooled kid to another.

I don't think it can be a bigger spread than the top student in Harris County compared to an illiterate HISD dropout. At least taxpayers aren't forced to pay for lunch and babysitting and stadiums for the home schooled kids.

[Ameer]

All the home schooled people I know are just a little bit off. They have no sense of how to interact with their peers. Its like watching a live version for Sheldon Cooper from the big bang theory

Respectfully, I would ask you to attend one of the home school conventions where some of the best curriculum in the world is offered for sale. Home Schoolers are not just making it up as they go along. The booths are overwhelmingly run by home school families whose small to teen children will discuss the merits of whatever is available on an intelligent adult level. I have been to several and it never fails to impress me the average public high school student would be a fish out of water. The students who are breaking records at your local college for the youngest to graduate are home schooled.

You haven't said anything that contradicts what psijac said. The fictional character Sheldon Cooper entered UT at 11 and graduated summa cum laude at 14. He earned his first doctorate at 16.

Based on my classmates, and stories about teachers like this, I think maybe the baseline Texas budget has the right idea to cut spending to public schools and universities. Cutbacks in K-12 might force them to focus on the 3R basics, instead of bilingual classes and football and cheering and this teacher's anti American brainwashing. Raising tuition at state universities might cut back on the number of students who are not ready for university level work and shift the financial burden where it belongs.

[Oldgringo]

I think the whole thing that really bothers me about home-schooling (and I don't say this tongue-in-cheek when compared to Public Schooling, but perhaps I should) is the lack of continuity. I can only imagine the broad spectrum of quality when comparing one home-schooled kid to another.

That comparison could also be made when between inner-city and suburban schools. Similarly, just because one went to college a while and received a teaching certificate doesn't qualify one to be a teacher.

Over the course of my formal book learnin', I think that I may have encountered a couple who were in it for the pension? Budget cuts might be a means of separating the wheat from the chaff?

Thank goodness, we no longer have any dogs in this hunt.

[VMI77]

It is all about playing the Lotto. You get a good school, or you do not.

...and it shouldn't be. There are too many schools with teachers like the one cited in the OP. The kids who go to the non-winning schools end up coming out with less education and more indoctrination. Our granddaughter is lucky so far in her elementary school. I've met some of the other principals and know that the kids in their schools are not so fortunate. There always seem to be more than enough pompous D.Ed.s who are more impressed with their own importance than the need provide a good teaching environment for our kids

I can't argue with that.

What worries me about home-schooling is what about those folks that consider themselves qualified to teach their kids, and really are not? Are they getting what they paid for?

There are parents who take their kids out of school for reasons that have nothing to do with education and say they are "homeschooling" but I think people like this are small in number as most parents who are actually homeschooling want the best for their children. These days there are internet high schools that feature instruction from certified teachers, so "unqualified" parents can get instruction for their children. Frankly, I went to the public schools myself and even back when I was in high school I didn't consider a good number of teachers to be particularly well qualified. I had maybe three teachers in high school who were truly competent and impressed me.

In this state the easiest four year colleges to get into, with the lowest college admission test requirements, are generally the teacher colleges. I also don't believe the emphasis on the educational process, and hence, the "education" degree, creates the most qualified teachers --especially at the high school level. At the high school level math teachers should have math degrees, science teachers should have science degrees, and English and history teachers should have English and History degrees. A college math professor doesn't have a degree in "Education," he has a degree in mathematics. I mean, come on, you can have a PhD in engineering, science, or mathematics from MIT, and you can teach at Harvard, but you can't teach in a public high school because you're not a "certified teacher" --that's absurd.

I haven't kept up with the statistics and with more people homeschooling the quality may have dropped, but back ten years ago or so the average homeschooler was exceeding the average public schooler in college admission test scores. When you focus on the brightest students in both environments I'm not sure how the numbers played out, but truly intelligent kids probably manage to do well wherever they are --it's the average students and the marginal students that are probably damaged the most by the public school system.

[KD5NRH]

There are so many things she could be teaching those kids. Actually giving them an education. Instead, she wants to play the president's speech for them.

IIRC, we got two Presidential speeches outside of government and history classes. One was January 29, 1986; Reagan's speech from the previous night, and the other was his 1987 "tear down this wall" speech in Berlin.

Of course, that was just Reagan, and we all know he wasn't half the orator that Obama is.

[Fangs]

Eh, I agree with psijac. I was a homeschooler for most of my school years, and he has a point.

I don't think anyone would argue that homeschoolers aren't smart. I agree, they're better at talking to adults as adults too. It's when you you get them around a group of people their age who aren't at a church / homeschool function that you notice it. They're generally just a little weird.

For what it's worth, I spent the first year or two of college just figuring out how to interact with "normal people" my age. It's little things, like how they resented me for using words they didn't understand.

Maybe being a huge nerd contributed to it as well, but whenever I blame something on being homeschooled (i.e - I still can't get the cool hand shake / fist bump / flippity-flop thing down that people do), it almost always surprises people. "Really? I would have never guessed," Is a common response. Because, like it or not, most homeschoolers are obviously homeschoolers.

[VMI77]

Eh, I agree with psijac. I was a homeschooler for most of my school years, and he has a point.

I don't think anyone would argue that homeschoolers aren't smart. I agree, they're better at talking to adults as adults too. It's when you you get them around a group of people their age who aren't at a church / homeschool function that you notice it. They're generally just a little weird.

For what it's worth, I spent the first year or two of college just figuring out how to interact with "normal people" my age. It's little things, like how they resented me for using words they didn't understand.

Maybe being a huge nerd contributed to it as well, but whenever I blame something on being homeschooled (i.e - I still can't get the cool hand shake / fist bump / flippity-flop thing down that people do), it almost always surprises people. "Really? I would have never guessed," Is a common response. Because, like it or not, most homeschoolers are obviously homeschoolers.

Your post suggests you're defining "normal people" by intelligence so "normal" roughly translates to "ignorant." For me the priority in choosing the people I associate with is good character. Unfortunately, in my experience, either quality --good character or intelligence-- is in short supply in the general population, and doesn't correlate with "normal." However, it is also my experience that people of good character will accept you with all your flaws if you are also a person of good character, and relationships with people of good character can be highly rewarding --throw intelligence into the mix and you've really got something.

Frankly, in my view, most people aren't worth knowing. If you're not obnoxious about your intelligence, if you're not condescending and not a braggart (all part of good character), then people who resent you for being more intelligent than they are aren't worth knowing. If you have to be less than you are to have a relationship with someone that person is not a friend.

[Oldgringo]

<snipperoo>

....Frankly, in my view, most people aren't worth knowing....

That oughta' hold down the old phone, et al, bills down.

[RPB]

<snipperoo>

....Frankly, in my view, most people aren't worth knowing....

That oughta' hold down the old phone, et al, bills down.

Means I don't need to get grassburs outta the carpet as often too

[VMI77]

<snipperoo>

....Frankly, in my view, most people aren't worth knowing....

That oughta' hold down the old phone, et al, bills down.

Only the food and booze bill, everything else costs about the same, or even more.