Poirot,

You can save the petulance.

You introduced the subject of the home schooling of your son.

It was a government report I linked to and there were red flags.

Outside of yourself and his 'nanna', I sure hope your son gets to hang out with other youth, even if they are the 'schooled kids' you look down on.

otb

for once in my life I agree with Poirot. I was a school dunce only passing high school for being good at sport. I now have a daughter with a couple of degrees and honours in languages and a son with 2 years left in medicine. The smartest one is a sparky. Homeschooling mainly done by my wife paid huge dividends and exposed how poor the education system is. Why do you think so mainly highly paid 'shiny'bums are against it? The bureacrats certainly gave my wife and I a hard time. Egg is all over their face. They know how flawed the system is. They are the ones pushing the Gonski distortions trying to make out more money will end in better results. What they mean is more money for average teachers, more bureacrats and no net gain.

otb,

You sure are desperate to get a reaction, aren't you.

What a strange way to go about your business.

Judging from the 4 boys abounding here today (ages 13, 13, 12, and 10) I'm thinking there's not a problem with socialisation - sleep over last week - meeting back here later in the week....and whoopydoo they all go to school!

I know you'd love to assume that it's all dysfunctional - but it's not (sorry about that)

He does attend a theatre class at the local entertainment centre once a week in a class with around 20 other young people - he's into seniors next year!

Now let's see what you can conjure up to cast a dark shadow on that aspect.

(I'm sure you can come up with something...what a sad act you have)

runner,

It's interesting that your wife was given such a hard time by the authorities for homeschooling.

We contacted the Education Department in my state and right from the start have had nothing but respect and cooperation from them. We've been home educating for 7 years now and it's working out very well.

I'll just add that otb's article was pertaining to home education in Britain.

Education in Australia is controlled by state governments which handle registration for home education - not as in Britain where where it all appears a little ad hoc.

otb, the only red flags around are the ones you keep waving to get a reaction.

It must be trying living with such a sour provocative disposition...

'It's interesting that your wife was given such a hard time by the authorities for homeschooling.'

Yea Poirot thankfully we had a very good local pollie (Labour) who went in the bat for us and got the hounds off our back. Ironically the bureacrats were insisting we teach a second language even though the local school had no LOTE teacher. It ironic because my daughter did four languages at ANU.

Poirot and Runner, good on you for home schooling your kids.
I would never have had the patience for it.

Mind you, we didn't have enough income for one of us to stay home with our daughter, so you two were lucky in that respect.

I was happy with her education though, and she is doing very well now too.
I think it all depends on the child as well.

Poirot, it doesn't do to give people like OTB too much personal info, because he will use anything he can get to goad you into a fight with him....