California!! It's Another Country!!

[Haggis@wk]

Here's a clue....it's not just happening in CA.

Of course it's not. When my Liberal friends (yes, I has many here in Blue Dallas County) ask me why I carry a gun, I send them copies of articles like this.

[piqaboo]

Jaysus.
They ought to arrest everyone they can see in the video for 'aiding and abetting'.

They're not only going after free parking either. I forget(sheesh) the latest inanity I heard from Sac on the radio yesterday.

And then we've got some gal at the state level dissing san diego schools because we didnt sign on to get a certain federal grant.
Being as we're a large area, that will impact the state's chances at the $$. The reason we didnt sign on?
The state plans to use it as if it were an on-going source of money instead of a one-time deal. We cant afford year two.
We cant afford the implementation costs of year 1.
Rather than review the plan based on our comments, and revise, they've chose to revile instead.

Meantime, I hear up and down the state about teachers having to pay to have enough paper for their rooms.
Hello - would someone tell the school my kid doesnt need to bring home 5 sheets of announcements every freaking day?
Nor the same announcement over and over and over and over....

And PTA - when you send me a letter begging me to donate juice boxes, you are not 'accepting donations', you are 'soliciting donations'.

Altoid's years in public school may kill me....

[BigJon]

Ditch the career and home-school . . .

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Ditch the career and home-school . . .

Homeschooling has its advantages - academically it may be better than public school. Breadth of knowledge depends so much on the quality of teaching the parents can generate, though.
BUT
Have you ever worked with an adult who was homeschooled for any reasons other than geographical necessity? I don't know if homeschooling lacks some necessary herd learning or if it's just that kids who can't deal with the gradeschool herd end up in homeschooling by default. As adults, they often lack many of the social group skills that are really needed to get along in groups.

[jamiebk]

Jaysus.
They ought to arrest everyone they can see in the video for 'aiding and abetting'.

Thanks to local cameras and cell phone cameras, arrests are starting today. The city worker was released form the hospital and is recovering at home. He had broken teeth, nose, arms, clavicle, and multiple contusions. I hope they sentence them all to attempted murder.

[piqaboo]

Ditch the career and home-school . . .

We want Altoid to survive her childhood, w two living parents.
Homeschooling by either of us would pretty well ensure that at least one of those two goals were not met.

On the happy side, the school told us yesterday they are going to try to get 70/30% chinese/english for the first graders next year.
That would be awesome. The only thing better would be if this past year were 100% immersion, but timetravel is out of the district's budget.

[BigJon]

Ditch the career and home-school . . .

We want Altoid to survive her childhood, w two living parents.
Homeschooling by either of us would pretty well ensure that at least one of those two goals were not met.

Hah! Know thyself, I guess. My wife is a saint.

On the happy side, the school told us yesterday they are going to try to get 70/30% chinese/english for the first graders next year.
That would be awesome. The only thing better would be if this past year were 100% immersion, but timetravel is out of the district's budget.

What does this mean? 30% of all instruction will be in Mandarin? Interesting. We have Spanish immersion tracks in our area, but no other languages that I know of.

[Shapley]

Have you ever worked with an adult who was homeschooled for any reasons other than geographical necessity? I don't know if homeschooling lacks some necessary herd learning or if it's just that kids who can't deal with the gradeschool herd end up in homeschooling by default. As adults, they often lack many of the social group skills that are really needed to get along in groups.

Homeschooling here in the Midwest is pretty big. They have networks that arrange social outings, as well as resource sharing. They did have a network of 'visiting instructors' that traveled around, offering specialty classes at local libraries and community centers. The availability of these resources varied from community to community, with some offering more than others.

[Haggis@wk]

Homeschooling here in the Midwest is pretty big. They have networks that arrange social outings, as well as resource sharing. They did have a network of 'visiting instructors' that traveled around, offering specialty classes at local libraries and community centers. The availability of these resources varied from community to community, with some offering more than others.

Ditto in North Texas, Homeschool community here is huge. About the only thing the homeschooled community doesn't have is a football team, and high school football is a religion in Texas

[BigJon]

Cultivating Failure The title seems to be the modus operandi of all CA government these days . . . This one is specifically about school kids and lefty training therein.

[jamiebk]

I am not so sure that the article (obviously slanted) gets the point. I'll be the first to admit that there are plenty of things that we can spend education dollars on...gardens are probably not essential. However, so many kids are growing up in cities these days that they have no idea whatsoever where any of our food actually comes from. More to the point, the garden contains a pletheora of examples of things that ARE being studied in school...chemistry, biology, weather, and social skills (teamwork) to make it all happen. Kids can get a real sense of accomplishment at harvest time and they can develop an appreciation for protecting our resources that are essential for mankind's long term survival. All in all, I would say that 30 minutes out of a day to explore all of this is worth the meager investment.

[piqaboo]

Ditch the career and home-school . . .

We want Altoid to survive her childhood, w two living parents.
Homeschooling by either of us would pretty well ensure that at least one of those two goals were not met.

Hah! Know thyself, I guess. My wife is a saint.

BTW, why does your wife homeschool and not you? Why did you assume I would be the home-school teacher and not OT?
Am curious.

On the happy side, the school told us yesterday they are going to try to get 70/30% chinese/english for the first graders next year.
That would be awesome. The only thing better would be if this past year were 100% immersion, but timetravel is out of the district's budget.

What does this mean? 30% of all instruction will be in Mandarin? Interesting. We have Spanish immersion tracks in our area, but no other languages that I know of.

Nope. For first graders, 70% of instruction will be conducted in Mandarin only - math, "science" such as it is in 1st grade, etc.
There are ~ 90 min a day of instruction in "English" - aka reading and writing, that will be conducted in English.
In a Spanish immersion program, often even reading and writing is taught in Spanish for the first two years (100% immersion). They can do that because of the shared alphabet.

The lucky kindergarteners will get 80% mandarin next year vs the 15% 4x a week this year.

There are tradeoffs here. The kids will learn exponentially more mandarin this way. However the parents become primarily responsible for english vocabulary acquistion. Since that's pretty well the way I figure it no matter what language school is in, I'm ok w that.
Math being fairly concrete in the K & 1st grade, teaching it in Mandarin is not a problem.

If it were me, I'd have one recess a day as 'mandarin only' too. That forces the kids to generate communication and not just receive.
That's the fastest path to learning to speak.

[analog]

is that the makeup of the school population, 70% mandarin?

[BigJon]

Ditch the career and home-school . . .

BTW, why does your wife homeschool and not you?

I did home school with them for over a year while my wife worked. But my home school ran more like a military school. I'm sure the kids breathed a sigh of relief when I got my next job. I also think one of us would not have survived. I found it more of a chore than a pleasure, even though I enjoy teaching in other settings.

Another practical reason is that my earning potential is much higher than hers.

Why did you assume I would be the home-school teacher and not OT?
Am curious.

'cause I'ma stinka' dat way. Given what I knew of you and OT's job situations, I figured it would be the most outrageous suggestion. Thus the icon.

The Mandarin immersion program sounds awesome.

[BigJon]

Ditch the career and home-school . . .

Homeschooling has its advantages - academically it may be better than public school. Breadth of knowledge depends so much on the quality of teaching the parents can generate, though.
BUT
Have you ever worked with an adult who was homeschooled for any reasons other than geographical necessity? I don't know if homeschooling lacks some necessary herd learning or if it's just that kids who can't deal with the gradeschool herd end up in homeschooling by default. As adults, they often lack many of the social group skills that are really needed to get along in groups.

I started to get miffed when I first read your quote, but looking at the "other" kids in our homeschooling cluster, the stereotype holds.

I think I wrote this before, but my wife and I both had horrible experiences in public school. I was bullied and threatened because I was the big, dorky kid who wouldn't fight back and wouldn't shut up. My wife was the poor girl in the rich school. Abused because she didn't dress right, didn't hang with the right crowd or drive the right car and didn't throw herself at all the guys. My parents blessed me with tuition to small, private schools for junior high and high school and I was able to blossom a bit. I really learned to spread my wings in college though. My wife stayed in public school throughout, and was ready to quit several times due to the miserable atmosphere.

edit
Hah! Timing!

[piqaboo]

is that the makeup of the school population, 70% mandarin?

No. In fact there are few or no Mandarin-speaking kids at the school.
Its a "magnet" school - you can choose to attend whether or not you live in the area.
We drive Altoid past 2 perfectly good more-local schools, one of which is a Spanish immersion school my friend's kid went to.
That's my one regret about the whole thing.
There are real drawbacks in not attending locally, in getting to know the local kids.
It wasnt a huge deal for me as a kid, because I was very introverted. Altoid however is a tenor thru and thru.

[BigJon]

Hah! Awesome.

[BigJon]

Too true!

[BigJon]

[BigJon]