:squint: No more reading while under the influence, k?
toldailytopic: Government run schools. What (if anything) would you do to change them
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:squint: No more reading while under the influence, k?
Alate_One
Well-known member
How about not writing under the influence?
Implying that someone said that government schools could cure child abuse - which was a nonsequitur itself since the post you replied to didn't say that at all. Which makes it appear you're saying that keeping kids home is a better solution to abuse. In any case you were about as clear as mud as to what your point actually was.
Alate_One
Well-known member
I think in an open society like we have we need to have sex education in school. Even WITH sex education its amazing what kids do not know about human reproduction even by the time they are in college. And the things they don't know are the sorts of things that can hurt you.
As much as I would like the sensitive subject to be "left to parents" I have a feeling a good proportion of them don't have good advice to give to their children. I think parents need to pay close attention to the curriculum but otherwise it isn't necessarily evil to have sex ed or even distribute contraceptives.
:doh:
:dizzy:
:help:
My point was that the correct response to finding out parents are abusing their children is not to mandate that all children be educated by the government.
It's not a non sequitur .. it's a perfectly reasonable response to the statement that some children are abused in a thread about government schools.
A valid reply to my statement might be that the response to child abuse should not be to mandate that all children are only taught by their parents. That might be a valid response. I'd probably agree with that one. But to accuse me of saying that children at home are never abused is just loopy.
It seems no wonder that we get so worked up with each other on every topic if we are just talking past each other like this all the time. How abouts we both make an effort to respond to what the other actually says rather than trying to read all the implications and inferences into the lines that don't exist between what they say? :thumb:
| There's no such thing as the perfect child By Sue Robins From Wednesday's Globe and Mail A parent asked why I didn't get prenatal testing. My son is the same as other kids. He just happens to have Down syndrome A word to the wise to those of you dying to ask a parent of a child with Down syndrome, spina bifida or an open neural tube condition if they had prenatal testing: Don't do it. Bite your tongue. Shut up. Swallow it. Because what you are really asking us is, "Why didn't you abort your child?" And, similarly, "Why is this child even alive right now?" Believe me, justifying the very existence of our beloved children hurts. It will not gain you any brownie points on the playground or when I'm writing up my Christmas card list. A while back, funny things were happening to my son, who happens to have Down syndrome, in his preschool class. Aaron went to his neighbourhood preschool, not to a special-ed site. I believe that inclusion in his community is the best thing for him. As his mother, I make decisions based on what is best for him. Other families make other decisions for their children. I'm not into judging since I got thrown off my pedestal of judgment when Aaron was born six years ago. But inclusion is the choice for us. The problem with inclusion isn't with the children. It is with a select few parents, who grew up in the era of special-education schools and segregation. They are scared of my kid. And they pass that fear on to their children. A kid came up to Aaron, and shouted in his face, "Why is Aaron different?" (For some reason, little kids like to shout when they talk.) Fair enough. We are all different, kid. Some kids have glasses. Some kids have dark skin. Some kids have earrings. See what I mean? This is easy enough to explain to children. But then another kid said, "My mom says I have to be nice to Aaron because he is different." Now, this is a comment coming from a parent, through a kid. We don't want your faux sympathy, folks. We want our kid to be accepted as part of a diverse classroom. With different skin colours, genders and abilities. Is a kid going to shout in another kid's face, "My mom says I have to be nice to Johnny because he's black"? I hope not. But intellectual disabilities or developmental delays or mental differences are the last stance for discrimination. I sat down and wrote a nice letter to the preschool parents. The teacher, who has been nothing but welcoming of Aaron over the past two years, happily handed it out. The letter explained Aaron and his family. How he is the same as other kids. How he likes construction trucks and swimming. How we are all different in this world. Read between the lines and what I'm saying is that there is no such thing as perfect. After the day we handed out the letter, a mom stopped me in the playground on my way to my car. She chit-chatted a bit, then said she was surprised by the letter. I said I was hoping if I explained a bit about Aaron it would help foster understanding. I was thinking she was the one who told her kid she had to be nice to Aaron because he's different. Then she got to her point. She really wanted to know why I didn't get prenatal testing. I looked at her, puzzled. It seemed like a funny question to ask, and staggeringly inappropriate to boot, but I had been asked it before. It was in a mom-and-baby yoga class when Aaron was only four months old. The sting of it then had not lessened almost five years later. I thought, rationally, "Here's your chance to educate - I am an ambassador against ignorance." I answered her cheerily, "Well, testing wouldn't have changed my pregnancy outcome, so I turned the testing down." Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my car in sight. It was my escape hatch, but it was several metres away. I had to immediately extract myself from this conversation because I felt as if I was floating above my own body. I said my (pleasant) goodbyes and motored to my vehicle as fast as I could in the winter snow. I slid into the driver's seat, slumped over the steering wheel and burst into tears. I'm not much of a crier. But it was as if I had been slapped. I continued crying all morning in parking lots in between running errands. I cried in the coffee shop drive-through and in the grocery store lineup. I had to bite my lip to prevent the tears from falling down my face in public. Why do I have to justify my son's very existence? Why isn't it okay that he's alive? What are you afraid of? For those of us who have children whose extra chromosomes could have been detected prenatally, it is a long and lonely road. We get asked these questions. We get frantic calls from friends who are considering amniocentesis because their triple-screen prenatal test has come back elevated. The whole genetic testing thing is fraught for parents who have kids with disabilities. One day it won't just be "us." With the clever mapping of genes, there may be tests for all the lovely imperfections of life that make us human. All in the quest for the blue-ribbon baby. What I should have asked the mom in the playground was, "What if your daughter was in a car accident tomorrow and had a brain injury? Would you love her any less?" When you can answer those questions, I will answer your questions. Sue Robins lives in Edmonton. |
Alate_One
Well-known member
Nobody said it was! That's what makes it a nonsensical response. Children are more likely abused at home, that doesn't mean that public
I didn't accuse you of saying they were NEVER abused, but you looked like you were trying to say they'd be safer at home, which isn't true. I'd agree with your stated reply. I was NOT trying to say that public schools are a solution to abuse. Only that we should be aware of the statistics before making pronouncements with regard to education.
I'm pretty sure I was responding to what you actually said, though I agree we need to be more careful about reading
. But I am sure you were not responding to what was actually said before, but something that's never been said in this thread by me or anyone else.
Yes it should be left to the parents. And the parents should do it. But today's society makes children afraid to talk to their parents about it. Sad, I know.
And I have two examples, one quite recent.
The first: A female friend of mine once called me a name [as a joke] that had to do with male anatomy, specifically of the sexual organ. She then told me that she just learned that word that day, and what it was. She was a 22 year old college student at the time. I then told her it was equal to me calling her something to do with the female sexual organ and she asked me what it was. She had no idea what the names of her own body parts were. At 22. And then, after I told her what it was, she asked where it was.:doh:
The second: My brother had a similar conversation with an eighteen year old girl. She did not know the names of her own body parts. Or where some of them were located. And he suggested she talk to her mom, she refused.
Her parents should have already initiated that conversation. Both sets of parents should have initiated those conversations. As it was those girls ended up learning from other people, who happened to be guys. And if you have a brain you know where such a thing can lead.
nicholsmom
New member
I don't know how your school board works, but here we almost never get a chance to get in a new member. I think that they must never have to run for re-election. I ought to check into it.
I stand by my recommendation that parents have much more power in the firing of teachers and in the selection of curricula. It is what I would change about the current system - isn't that the point of this thread, to tell what we would change? The current system, including the impotence of school boards, is clearly not functioning properly, so this is my personal recommendation.
I haven't read a decent response opposing the idea either
nicholsmom
New member
The stuff that we teach to kids under 5 is the easy stuff, and lots of the stuff we teach them continues to be in the parents' arena regardless of other education - things like proper behavior in public, how to be a friend, obedience, love of God, etc.
Certainly every parent teaches his child as long as the child lives at home - both good and bad lessons are taught. That is not the same thing as teaching a kid to read. If you can read, then you can teach a child to read, but if you have a cognitive disability and can't really read, then who will do the job? Consider further: cognitive disabilities that result in an inability to learn to read properly run in families - they tend to be genetic disabilities. Such a person could not then turn to a sister or brother to teach her kids to read, or anyone of ordinary capability for that matter because her kid is likely to require a specialist in that particular disability to help the child leap the hurdles that most kids do not have to leap.
My neighbor is such a person. I thought at one time that I could help her teach her own kids, and then I realized the depth of her troubles, as well as the number of my own kids for whom I am responsible to educate. I simply could not help her. Naturally, having a limited education and intelligence, she married one like herself and had children like the both of them. Great boys, don't get me wrong. They don't all have the disability, but they are all slow learners and require speech therapy and other supports to help them along. If not for the public school, where would they turn?
My neighbor really wanted to teach her own. She really values a good education and saw that the school system was not caring for her boys the way she would - kids with learning disabilities are often labeled as troublemakers because they need an aid and the parents don't know that they can request and get one in the classroom based on that need. She would love to be able to read better (you know, so that she can understand the words she's reading), but she would have to get professional help and she can't afford that. I have also found that church schools and co-ops are ill-equipped to handle special needs of kids with disabilities.
So you see, it isn't always about willingness.
:squint: Weird. What kind of schools did these girls go to? You'd think they would have figured things out by the age of 22, even if it wasn't from their parents or school. I can understand how asking other friends might be embarrassing but you can do research yourself.
...Adolph Hitler.
Hilary Clinton was interested in that, too. "Reading the college thesis of our former First Lady Hillary Clinton titled “There is Only the Fight… An Analysis of the Alinsky Model”, it becomes painfully clear why this document has been off limits for the public at large until recently. It shows in very tangible unambiguous detail the motivations and methodology of the modern incarnation of Marxism. In an equally disturbing fashion the author not only shows no aversion to its aims but defends at every chance, the pioneer of this modern system, Saul Alinsky. Clinton On Alinsky: A Revelation of the Method http://www.infowars.com/clinton-on-alinsky-a-revelation-of-the-method/
Public school, as far as I know.
Why foreign languages?
It should be offered.
Parents should have the right to opt out of any sex ed/abstinence only classes and NO, contraceptives should not be given to students.
The best philosophers wrote either in Greek, Latin, French, or German.
That's a decent compromise.
And most of them were idiots.
I see.
When you say the majority should be those subjects, how much would you have in there for maths, sciences, history, etc.
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