Bonmot, you weren't home schooled were you, or is it just a natural lack of comprehension?

Poirot, Killarney, I can see more than a few reasons for home schooling, if you have the necessary time, ability, & patience. I think I would lack the latter, but had to do quite a bit of home coaching of 2 of my kids, & a few of their friends & neighbours, in math & Physics, when the school would not, [or perhaps could not] do anything about getting rid of a couple of incompetents.

Unfortunately in this competitive world I would be extremely unlikely to hire anyone from such a sheltered background.

One of my main complaints is this ridiculous sheltering kids from stress they go on with today. In fact I'm sure it is sheltering teachers from having their poor performance highlighted.

In todays world, apart from the bureaucracy, & academia, it's a tough competitive place. Sheltering kids just doesn't prepare them for making a go of it out there.

I want to see a return to fully competitive externally set & marked exams, so the kids are toughened up a bit, & I can judge from their results, if they are suitable to employ. If they can't take the minor stress of school & exams, they are not going to be much use in a bussy company.

Hasbeen,

I really have no desire to argue further with anyone about this issue. I've never encountered the sort of vehement invective dished out from diver and individual amongst my own friends and relatives (or anyone else, for that matter), so I've been quite taken aback...anyhooo, 'sheltered'. If you mean he is sheltered from institutional learning, then I can't argue with that. However, that's where his sheltering ends. You people seem to think that he walks around under my skirts. We have a robust homeschooling community around these parts, we've gone on excursions to farms and forests, we've bush-walked after informative talks, made notes - gone on boats, to dairies, museums, etc. There are heaps of things to do in a community everyday - things that require him to ask questions and interact with 'people'...how is that sheltered? I can still see him bantering with the MC at last year's Christmas Festival in our city - in front of over three hundred people. He wasn't phased at all - if that's sheltered, then I'm a monkey's auntie.

Tony Lavis,

If you're asking whether I have expertise in the following: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=13279&page=0#229602 - the answer is no I don't have those kind of qualifications. But I do know how to provide the appropriate environment and stimulation to assist my son in his quest.

bonmot,

Thank you : )

TEACHERS SHOULD STICK TO TEACHING, NOT INDOCTRINATING!

If 'EDUCATING' means indoctrinating my children, then I don't want my kids educated!

If this author's socialism/feminimism/greenieism/human-rights-ism... is meant to be good... then I want my children to remain ingnorant savages!

Ignorant savages that know right from wrong, that know good from bad and want to work to make the world better!

I want to teach MY children what is right and wrong... not have some state-funded evil teaching profession tell them black is white and up is down.

TEACHERS SHOULD STICK TO TEACHING, NOT INDOCTRINATING!

>>If you're asking whether I have expertise in the following: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=13279&page=0#229602<<

Your link was TLDR (too long, didn't read) so its point was lost on me.

I'm asking you whether you have expertise that even really clever people have to spend 4+ years at university and and a truckload of time in vocational learning to fully master. If you do: how did you magically come to have this expertise without putting in the hard yards? Was it just beamed into your head by one of those secret government satellites usually used to read minds? Did you go on some sort of mystical vision quest where one of your ancestors imparted the wisdom to you? Or do you just naturally know better than everybody else?

Are you the modern renaissance woman? Can you cook better than Blumenthal, drive better than Schumacher, write better than Rowling and theorise better than Hawking? Or is it possible that your perceived abilities are greater than your actual abilities? Maybe you not only don't know everything - maybe there are some people out there who know a lot more than you do within their own area of expertise. I would ask you to keep an open mind about this possibility, unpalatable though it may be.

>>the answer is no I don't have those kind of qualifications.<<

Then maybe you should get them. Or maybe you don't think you need them. Maybe you think a mother's love and special understanding of her child is an appropriate substitute for the rigorous training which teachers undergo. Maybe you are right. But I'm not convinced that you've given due consideration to the possibility that you may be wrong.

TBC

>>But I do know how to provide the appropriate environment and stimulation to assist my son<<

And it's unthinkable that anybody else could have such knowledge? I don't know any special needs teachers as such. But my sister is a speech pathologist of many years experience, specialising in children. She may not teach them the school curriculum, but she still teaches them. A lot of her patients have an autism spectrum diagnosis. Are you going to sit there and insinuate that my dear darling big sister doesn't know how to provide an appropriate environment and stimulation to assist an aspie? I take exception to that.

>>in his quest.<<

In his quest? I'm sorry, but in his quest? XD

As much as I wish it was, life is not a game of D&D. And playing too much D&D is not a life although there is no harm in moderate gaming despite what fundamentalist Christians will have you believe. Vin Diesel plays D&D and he's buff.

Cheers,

Tony

Tony,

Your post was too long - didn't read...see ya!