Home schooling

[Trotts]

When did kids start getting piled on with homework? I graduated from high school in '99 and it was still a joke then, so unless the past decade has been just brutal..

There are a lot of school boards that are known for stupid work loads and homework for kids. Ottawa seems to have many schools that are on the heavy side. The stupid thing is, most of the homework sent home is really more for the damn parents than the kids.

It has gotten so ridiculous there have been some cities have had to pass by-laws limiting the amount of homework that gets sent home. Toronto seemed to have a few school boards which were sending 3 to 4 hours home a night for 11 and 12 year old kids.

Not sure what you guys have south side of the border.

[Jakensama]

Busy work macht frei.

[Snowreap]

I have no agrarian backgrounds that I remember, but I seem to recall hard work failing to save plenty of farmers back in the day whose crops failed or whose cows died of anthrax.

no, it didn't save them from losing their farms. but at least they could work as ditch diggers if they had to.

you can't find work as a ditch digger today unless you are a certified backhoe operator, belong to the right union, and have enough seniority that you won't be sent packing if there's not enough work available.

-ken

[Jakensama]

Perhaps, but the fact remains that I doubt many kids are being subjected to stress over the lack of opportunities as a ditch digger.

[Moristans]

Perhaps, but the fact remains that I doubt many kids are being subjected to stress over the lack of opportunities as a ditch digger.

Kids, especially teens and preteens feel stress just by virtue of being teens and preteens. Puberty and reaging hormones make it hard for teens and preteens to keep anything in perspective. That's one of the first issues that you have to come to grips with as a public school teacher. It's the reason why teachers have their preferred grades to teach and rarely agree to teach subjects outside of those preferences.

We laugh now at our teen years, but, I for one would never want to relive them without the perspective I have now, or if I had to experience raging hormones again.

[Jakensama]

I agree, we all felt opressed and under some sort of manufactured stress as children, but to say these natural teenage feelings are somehow greater today doesn't particularly jive with me.

[Vllad]

Well that's a load of crap... First, you're going to have to explain "true adversity", because people with addictions face adversity each and every day, and that challenge is no less or more than trying to beat the guy beside you for your career job...

So no, I don't need competition in order face adversity... however, you do need to be passionate and have a goal set for yourself or you'll lack direction.

Competition

1. the act of competing; rivalry for supremacy, a prize, etc.: The competition between the two teams was bitter.
2. a contest for some prize, honor, or advantage: Both girls entered the competition.
3. the rivalry offered by a competitor: The small merchant gets powerful competition from the chain stores.
4. a competitor or competitors: What is your competition offering?
5. Sociology. rivalry between two or more persons or groups for an object desired in common, usually resulting in a victor and a loser but not necessarily involving the destruction of the latter.
6. Ecology. the struggle among organisms, both of the same and of different species, for food, space, and other vital requirements.

Synonyms:
1. emulation. 2. struggle.


Passion

1. any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate.
2. strong amorous feeling or desire; love; ardor.
3. strong sexual desire; lust.
4. an instance or experience of strong love or sexual desire.
5. a person toward whom one feels strong love or sexual desire.
6. a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything: a passion for music.
7. the object of such a fondness or desire: Accuracy became a passion with him.
8. an outburst of strong emotion or feeling: He suddenly broke into a passion of bitter words.
9. violent anger.


Passion is something you feel while competitiveness is something you do as an act. For example you can be passionate about playing the piano but that won't help you when you try out for solo job for the Boston Harmonic.

In order to be good at succeeding at goals you need pratice at them. Just like you need to pratice the piano every day if you wish to be a concert pianist.

The best way to ready people for the way the world works people need to be good at being competitive in order to succeed. Compitition is in every bit of our life. Whether it is love, marriage, job and family. The more practice you get the better you will be.

What Thudz is saying is we keep taking away competitive ventures out of our schools so eventually you end up with people that are bad at being competitive. If you don't know how to compete you can't succeed no matter how passionate you are about a subject.


Vllad

[Moristans]

I agree, we all felt opressed and under some sort of manufactured stress as children, but to say these natural teenage feelings are somehow greater today doesn't particularly jive with me.

Nope, I would never say they are more, just like I would never say they are less because it's perceived that kids don't work as hard today as they have in the past. They still feel stress even if we don't think they should feel stress.

The best way to ready people for the way the world works people need to be good at being competitive in order to succeed. Compitition is in every bit of our life. Whether it is love, marriage, job and family. The more practice you get the better you will be.

I agree that the best way to be skillful at anything is to practice. The thing that concerns me about learning how to be competitive through social interaction at school is that social situations in school are often unforgiving to the point that the kid isn't learning a lesson. Kids just get rolled and people think that's fine because it's perceived as being some hard and fast rule of nature.

I just had a talk with a kid who acted out by scribbling obescenities onto my roll sheet. Turns out, he got jumped on the way home from school the previous day and didn't know any other way to let that frustration out. That happens all too often and sure it's a learning situation for the kid. But, if people aren't there to offer positive support and guidance through a situation like that, they'll never learn how to respond properly.

[Jakensama]

There is most certainly a middle ground between putting kids in a competitive environment and tossing them out to the wolves or putting them in the thunderdome. I don't think anyone is going to argue that the social problems of kids outside of school in rough areas are positive experiences or that nothing should be done about it - but in the discussion at hand I think that the argument that the competitive and social environments of a school can be a benefit over home school.

[Moristans]

I don't think anyone is going to argue that the social problems of kids outside of school in rough areas are positive experiences or that nothing should be done about it - but in the discussion at hand I think that the argument that the competitive and social environments of a school can be a benefit over home school.

I understand that. My point is that socialization in high school, not just in rough urban areas, also involves elements that tear kids down if kids aren't given support, which they have plenty of at home. I'm not arguing that public schooling can't be a rich experience, but there's nothing inherently better about goung to a public school versus being home schooled which is what people here want to argue. As with most things concerning kids, you have to look at the circumstances.

In short, I agree that public schooling can be a benefit over home schooling, but home schooling can also be a benefit over public schooling.

I would argue further that competition isnt the key, or even an important factor seperating the two.

I guess my question at this point is, outside of intra and intermural sports, debate club, chess club, and academic decathalon, exactly what are these healthy, competitive experiences that your average K-12 kid is supposed to be experiencing?

Most kids do not experience these things and just go through K-12 as your quiet unassuming kid with varying amounts of interaction with schoolmates. I would hardly call school cliques, trying to get a date for prom, or hormonal raging in an environment with 1500 fellow hormonally raging kids to be a necessary experience for every kid to experience in order to be a fully realized successful adult.

Contrary to popular belief, kids in K-12 do not compete with other classmates directly for grades either. Grading on a curve where you have to have X number of As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and Fs is not how students in K-12 are assesed. Every kid has the opportunity to succeed or fail in a classroom independently of how their classmates do. The class Valedictorian is not the survivor of a single elimination tournement.

[amins]

Snow and Trotts have it right: Stress is derived from different points from when we, our parrents, and our grandparrents were growing up... you have to see this.

... Our grandparrents said we had it easy, our parrents said we have it easy, and now we say our children have it easy... yet growing up was not easy in any way, shape, or form... It was just, different, with its own set of unique stress inducers brought on by competitive parrents, tired and overworked/underpaid educators, and our 'new' fast paced info society and having to be 'up and in the know' through new technology.

Its easy to fall into routine and pass the buck by saying 'you just don't know how good you have it'.

Now, back onto the subject of competitiion vs passion and which is a better tool to succeed.... because that's what this is really about.

First I need to say I'm all for competition, however, there are many ways to succeed and they are not all based on this idea of competition. Competition is a secondary nature to the product... achieving a goal.

Passion, Desire, and Fortitude are what need to be taught, and those don't require competition in the equation in order to succeed, because success isn't measured by what the next person is doing, but how content you are with what you gained.


6. a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything: a passion for music.

Passion begins the road that competition plays on. If a child is taught the piano, and is forced to play concerts in order to be 'better' or to measure up to other people, when the child gets bored, they'll move on.

Take that same child who is passonate about playing the piano and put them through the same ordeal, they will be a better pianist because they have the desire and passon to do so.

There are many ways/methods of competition, and one is to not compete, but to stay focused on what you want, desire... and it doesn't always mean competiting with the guy beside you....

Look at University grads, I know some of you stats junkies out there will like this one... just because they have a Masters, doesn't mean they'll get the job.. you need social skills, charisma, and a willingness to grow and adapt.... Those are all personal 'improvements' that person did to thier character to make them more impersonable. Did or could they have done it based on competition, in order to get the job over someone else... sure, but they could have also done it because they saw a need to make a change within themselves because they didn't like that aspect of themself...

You're right, competition is everywhere, but you have a choice weither to compete or find another avenue to achieve your personal goals.

This idea that there is only 1 price and everyone needs to compete for it, is infectous and doesn't represent our westernized society... there are many ways to achieve a specific desire.

Now, if you're talking about becoming 'insert a top position in government, big business, etc', sure... without a doubt, the easiest way to get that position is by competing for it based on your personal investmetns... however, that has to be the goal: to get that position...

On the flip side, you could make your own company/business/idea, and become that person too.... Sure, now you'll have to compete as a business instead of as a person, but now the games changed with new rules. The difference is creation vs competition.

In either case, you'd better be passionate about what you're doing.

As for school, there's soo much competition (for grades, social standing (fashion/popularity/family wealth, etc etc), sports, etc) in schools and after school activities (skateboarding, video games/mmo/first person, whatever) that by taking a few activities out of school in order to save what's important (education).... yeah.

Having said all that, if the homeschooling parrents don't have a good head on thier shoulders it's better for the kid to put them into public/private schooling.... or get tutors to suppliment thier childrens education.

IMO, we as parrents put too much emphasis on competition. It's in everything, but it doesn't have to be.

[Thudz]

On the macro level I can't say but on the micro level my children have it so much easier than I did. It's not even debatable.

[Snowreap]

"easier" is a matter of definition. each generation tries to remove the "hard" things from their children's lives, but they do so using tools and techniques they consider "easy" (and which their own parents frequently considered "hard").

imagine going back in time and telling your great-grandfather that you have brought a wonderful invention with you that will make his life so much easier, and all he has to do to make it work is write a few dozen lines of Java code, telling the device what he wants it to do.

kids are doing things now for high school science fairs in a few weeks, that my mother spent years working on, culminating in her PhD thesis. think about that for a moment. the amount of education that required 20 years of study 40 years ago, you are now expected to learn in only 12 years.

-ken

[Hoofhurr]

Yeah there's a lot of discussion going around about splitting up the medical curriculum because of how much it has grown in the last quarter century. The sheer volume and detail in the field now dwarfs what physicians had to learn 25 years ago. Many doctors make the argument that a lot of time is wasted teaching students information outside of their eventual specialties.

[Zephyrs]

[
There are a lot of school boards that are known for stupid work loads and homework for kids. Ottawa seems to have many schools that are on the heavy side. The stupid thing is, most of the homework sent home is really more for the damn parents than the kids.
.

In Ottawa I went to the best school I ever attended.
Lisgar Collegiate.

I cannot reccomend it highly enough, from its school spirit and extra curicular activities to its academics, and first rate teachers.

[Moristans]

On the macro level I can't say but on the micro level my children have it so much easier than I did. It's not even debatable.

My mom and dad made it so much more easier for me and I can't thank them enough.

That still didn't keep me from thinking the world was ending and getting drunk off my ass when my would-be girlfriend wouldn't go out with me. I can imagine mom wanting to tell me, "You think you have it tough? You didn't have to be evacuated from your home because someone was going to drop a hydrogen bomb on it." Instead, she brought me a bowl of chicken soup when I woke up the next morning after puking all night.

[Thudz]

On the macro level I can't say but on the micro level my children have it so much easier than I did. It's not even debatable.

My mom and dad made it so much more easier for me and I can't thank them enough.

That still didn't keep me from thinking the world was ending and getting drunk off my ass when my would-be girlfriend wouldn't go out with me. I can imagine mom wanting to tell me, "You think you have it tough? You didn't have to be evacuated from your home because someone was going to drop a hydrogen bomb on it." Instead, she brought me a bowl of chicken soup when I woke up the next morning after puking all night.

No doubt. I bust my ass so my children have everything they want and need. I don't want my children to experience the pains and suffering of my childhood. Yes, they have some of their own but they will not have the hardship I had just like I didn't have the hardship my parents had. I atleast had running water unlike my parents.

[Trotts]

[
There are a lot of school boards that are known for stupid work loads and homework for kids. Ottawa seems to have many schools that are on the heavy side. The stupid thing is, most of the homework sent home is really more for the damn parents than the kids.
.

In Ottawa I went to the best school I ever attended.
Lisgar Collegiate.

I cannot reccomend it highly enough, from its school spirit and extra curicular activities to its academics, and first rate teachers.

I'll have to look into that! I think what I've heard is that many students try to get into that school from outside the school zones and it can be somewhat limited at times.

I'll have to start collecting information on the teachers, principals in order to gain some leverage in the years to come ;>