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A MOTHER jailed in a dispute over homeschooling has said she wanted to show her children how to stand up for themselves.

 

Link to article: http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/education/not-one-educationallyneglected-child-has-been-helped-by-my-going-to-prison-jailed-home-school-mum-30559570.html

 

I am interested to hear your comments on this situation. Seems to me that the state is asserting its ownership and sending up the warning flares to any dissent and imitation. 

Posted

A MOTHER jailed in a dispute over homeschooling has said she wanted to show her children how to stand up for themselves.

 

Link to article: http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/education/not-one-educationallyneglected-child-has-been-helped-by-my-going-to-prison-jailed-home-school-mum-30559570.html

 

I am interested to hear your comments on this situation. Seems to me that the state is asserting its ownership and sending up the warning flares to any dissent and imitation. 

Um... Yeah, I think it's more proof that the state believes it owns the children. Take a look at the recent cases, one in the US and one in the UK of parents questioning medical services and having their children taken and forcibly treated. In the UK the parents wanted what they thought was a better treatment and was one that wasn't available to them. So they traveled to another country to receive the care and Interpol was sent after them for "kidnapping" their own child...  

 

While I don't know what they test for, I'm going to assume that it's their way of making sure there is at least some state indoctrination involved. I'm thinking about parents who unschool and may have a child that doesn't learn to read until much later. I know someone who's daughter was about 12 before she learned to read but within 6-8 weeks she was at peer level and has since went past her peers. She loves to read now and has immersed herself in books. If the state tested her at 11 years old they would have found her to be illiterate and probably would have kidnapped her.

  • Upvote 2
Posted

 

While I don't know what they test for, I'm going to assume that it's their way of making sure there is at least some state indoctrination involved. I'm thinking about parents who unschool and may have a child that doesn't learn to read until much later. I know someone who's daughter was about 12 before she learned to read but within 6-8 weeks she was at peer level and has since went past her peers. She loves to read now and has immersed herself in books. If the state tested her at 11 years old they would have found her to be illiterate and probably would have kidnapped her.

 

That is exactly what I meant. Stef underestimates the "magical ingredience," enthusiasm in this case. I wonder how high the rate of illitarates among those unlearners really is. Is his daughter a genius - to debunk the second objection?

 

I found a great quote: "The great scandal of education is that every time you teach a child something you deprive them of the opportunity to discover it for themselves." 

 

http://www.unlearning101.com/fuhgetaboutit_the_art_of_/2011/08/unlearning-learning.html

 

Insightfull ted video: http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education

  • Upvote 2
Posted

The whole home-school education thing is extremely rare in this country. I can count on one hand the cases I have heard of home-schooling. It does seem extremely odd that people can have children and be responsible for them in terms of welfare but they are not allowed to educate the children independently even when they are obviously qualified.

From my primary school days, I totted it up and from my class and the year ahead of me I figured that at least a quarter of the males left primary school at 12-13 illiterate. Of these, a small number became literate in later years. This is from the mid-90's. In retrospect alot of these chaps, I can see now, were dyslexic or had ADHD or some other need for adapted learning. There was just absolutely no awareness or taking into account for this at that time. 

Posted

ADHD is a sore subject for me as I firmly believe it's over diagnosed in order to make life in the indoctrination camps easier. I'm positive I would have been labeled ADHD if I went to school today. Truth is I was bored to tears. I got bad grades due to homework. I never understood why we had to do 60-90 minutes worth of busywork at night; especially when I would get high 90's on my tests. Zero's don't do much for your GPA and depending on the class my high 90's went into the low 80's or even upper 70's due to incomplete homework. My low grades kept me in the average classes where I barely had to work at all to pass. In fact, they wanted to put me into special ed classes. BTW, I had two IQ tests when I was young; 137 and 139. Yet the wonderful school system saw me as "special", not gifted and I had to fight to stay in "average" classes... I finally dropped out and went to college with a GED, something that to this day pisses my mother off, but that's a different story.... 

  • Upvote 1
Posted

ADHD is a sore subject for me as I firmly believe it's over diagnosed in order to make life in the indoctrination camps easier. I'm positive I would have been labeled ADHD if I went to school today. Truth is I was bored to tears. I got bad grades due to homework. I never understood why we had to do 60-90 minutes worth of busywork at night; especially when I would get high 90's on my tests. Zero's don't do much for your GPA and depending on the class my high 90's went into the low 80's or even upper 70's due to incomplete homework. My low grades kept me in the average classes where I barely had to work at all to pass. In fact, they wanted to put me into special ed classes. BTW, I had two IQ tests when I was young; 137 and 139. Yet the wonderful school system saw me as "special", not gifted and I had to fight to stay in "average" classes... I finally dropped out and went to college with a GED, something that to this day pisses my mother off, but that's a different story.... 

I have an inkling that you are correct. I also had an inkling that my ADHD comment would be picked up. All I can say is that whether it was dyslexia or ADHD or something else, a one-size-fits-all education system came nowhere near to being adequate for these chaps. There was one guy who was sent out of class so much to stand in the courtyard that he had a permanent tan. That's quite an achievement in this country. 

I have also seen countless( particularly males) who were highly intelligent and indeed gifted who just were not catered for in this system. Alot of them seemed bored and unchallenged from the schooling. Some of them went on to do great things but some of them went the opposite direction. All they needed was a little understanding and communication. It is an incalculable waste of human talent and time. 

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