Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Defensive Homeschoolers?

Dave, wow, that last post of yours was truly condescending. Do you really not see it? I'm sure we're all glad you showed up here, you have a lot of really interesting things to say.
I look forward to more invigorating and spirited iconversations with you.
You really know how to beat a dead horse, though. I really thought my DH had the market cornered their, but you make him look like an amatuer.
What did that poor horse do to you? The horse is dead, Dave. Put the club down.......walk away.......let the horse rest in peace.


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Yes, stereotypes are hurtful, no matter what they're about. And usually the insults are unintentional.

There's plenty I'm defensive about when it comes to DS, mostly because he doesn't fit the mold around here and I have received unsolicited comments from family and friends about what's wrong with him, or what's wrong with my parenting. And even though the experts have reassured me that there is nothing wrong with him or my parenting of him (and that in fact, it is to be admired), I still second-guess myself when faced with comment du jour. And it certainly doesn't make me feel any better when I hear "he's so much better." Still the same kid as far as I'm concerned. (And most of these comments have to do with sensory and attentional issues that my parents and teachers at his old school do not understand or accept - like covering his ears when he was 5 in the planetarium just before they showed the big bang, or not wanting to go to birthday parties until he was in first grade). And around here, I'm defensive about our decision to send him to PS, I'm defensive about considering HS, etc., etc. But I'm getting better. Still, the comment that makes me bristle is when someone comments about someone else's child that he or she just needs discipline. How do they know what that child needs?

I wish I could ignore it all, but I can't. I envy those who can. Still, it won't keep my from my appointed rounds... (that's what they say about the post office, right?)

I don't like people bashing any group, OHG. Everyone has a right to his/her beliefs, and I support that right with my vote and with the way I live my life. Belittling or demeaning the beliefs of anyone is inappropriate.

I don't like the attitude or the exclusivity of a lot of evangelical Christian HSers, though. I think people do have to learn to be in the world (if not of the world), and too many times I think the really conservative Christian HSers are really separationists. Their lives, their choice, but I think it's wrongheaded. I prefer inclusion. I would never join a HS group that asked me to sign a statement of belief, even if I agreed with the group's religious beliefs. I disagree with the whole notion of exclusion in that context, and I won't support it.

FWIW, I must confess that I also have mixed feelings about the Bible-reading in public school. It depends upon how it's handled and when it's happening, but having religion in any form in the schools does make me personally uncomfortable. I think separation of church and state benefits us all by protecting our right to worship as we please. I'd be equally uncomfortable with a child reading the Koran or Scientology or Satanic tracts or any other religious/spiritual works at school for anything other than an historical study--and that usually doesn't happen until college-level classes. Teachers just aren't equipped for the situations that might arise.

Imagine some other religion were the dominant religion in our country, and kids were reading their religious works at school and your GS is a Christian. Wouldn't that be exclusionary and uncomfortable for him? That's what I'm thinking about here.

Now, if GS is off by himself reading at recess without making a big deal about it, I don't see a problem with that. But I don't like the idea of Bible studies in school (even at recess) or reading the Bible for class.

That's just my opinion, of course, and I submit it respectfully. But I want to make it clear that it is because I think a person's religious beliefs are so important and so sacred that I would prefer that people who are not trained to handle those beliefs stay far away from them. To me, that means keeping religion and public school separate.

FWIW...

Kriston, I understand your views. The problem is, my GS was reading his Bible during some free time, he'd just gotten it and was carrying it everywhere. But because the teacher and other staff were so afraid of violating 'separation of church & state', and having someone offended by a 6 year old with a Bible, that they violated his right to read what he wanted.
As for Christian HSers having separatists views, don't we all protect our children from experiences we think they are not old enough or mature enough to handle? I disagree with separating ourselves from the world in the way some Christians do, because I don't think that's the example we were given by Jesus.

OK, I'm going to quit on this thread, because I didn't want to get into religious debates, not the time or place here for that. I said what causes me to get defensive, and that's all I intended to do on this thread.

Yes, I respect what you're saying. I hope I haven't added to your defensiveness with my response. You know how much I like and respect you, I hope.

I live in Utah. Mormon land. Majority of students in PS are LDS. We are not. When my kids went to a private/parochial school, it was not a problem, when they switched to charter I had an eye opening experiences. LDS people are very nice but they concentrate on evangelization. Especially the youth of the church. After all, all men 18 and older are expected to serve a 2 year mission for the church.
In PS here missionaries are allowed to do volunteer work. I do not agree with that. They are, after all, missionaries! Public HS have a special free period built into them, so the kids can take seminary class. Every day for four years. Technically, the seminary building is not connected with PS but it is righ by or across the school from it. The school willingly accomodates that. I do not agree. But I live here by choice. It is a great and beautiful state.

ROTFLOL...

Step away from the horse, Dave, step away!

incogneato,

No, it was not "condescending." Merely calling it "condescending" does not make it so!

I think if you check back, you will find that I merely have responded specifically to posts that gratuitously insulted me -- as you just gratuitously did. I certainly have not simply aimed a string of posts at someone who was not directing posts to me. It is kind of sensible to respond to a post directed explicitly to me! To call that beating a dead horse is simply insulting

Personally, these gratuitous insults do not seem to bother me as much as they do some people, but, yes, I do actually feel entitled to respond to gratuitous and false personal insults, such as yours.

You are rude.

And, more significantly, there is a real and interesting question of substance here: does the hothouse environment of traditional schooling, in which kids spend over a thousand hours a year with kids almost exactly their own age, not exactly the environment in which most humans have traditionally lived, cause people to grow up with an over-sensitivity to social peer-group pressures?

That was the original question I was raising as a general point, not directed at anyone here personally and one or two people happened to get personally upset about the matter!

One does not have to be a psychotherapist to suspect that this rather peculiar over-reaction does reveal something about the general question, and that, I think, is quite interesting.

Incidentally, I am not, of course, by any means the first person to have realized this effect that the schooling experience has on so many people's emotional and psychological development. For example, Grace Palladino alludes to it in her study "Teenagers": she is making no connection to "homeschooling" but just noting the social-psychological dynamics that are created in the schools.

Social psychology (e.g., Milgram's famed "Obedience to Authority" study, Zimbardo's well-known "Stanford prison experiment," etc.) is rather interesting, although it does tend to produce negative emotional reactions in some people!

Dave

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Ah, Lorel!

As I mentioned to incogneato, I do feel an obligation to respond to someone, such as Kriston or incogneato herself, who directs a post explicitly to me that is gratuitously and falsely personally insulting.

But I do see your point.

My larger concern here, which is an issue on which indeed I have never throughout my life shown an ability to let go, is the issue of open and free discussion. My original point, which had nothing to do with Kriston at all personally was, as I said earlier:
> does the hothouse environment of traditional schooling, in which kids spend over a thousand hours a year with kids almost exactly their own age, not exactly the environment in which most humans have traditionally lived, cause people to grow up with an over-sensitivity to social peer-group pressures?

Kriston managed to personalize that general issue and, when I responded to her use of personalization to express her disagreement with my general point, she tried to turn the matter into pretending that I had personally attacked her and thereby prevent me from responding effectively to her points.

That is bullying.

I�ve seen this happen again and again over the decades in discussions having to do with politics, religion, education, ethics, feminism, environmentalism, and, once or twice, even science and engineering!

We all know how it works: if you criticize Barack Obama or Rev. Jeremiah Wright (I kind of like Obama, and, in many ways, even Rev. Wright), you are insulting me personally! How dare you! How can you be so condescending as to question my political judgments! You must retract your condescending remarks! And if you continue to criticize Wright or Obama further, you will be continuing to condescendingly insult me!

Etc.

We all know the game � by now, it has been perfected by conservatives and liberals, by homeschoolers and public-schoolers, by evangelicals and atheists, etc.

But it is bullying, nonetheless.

No doubt to fail to knuckle under to such bullying is indeed beating a dead horse. But I fear that is just in ineradicable character trait that I possess. As my parents will ruefully testify, my passion for freedom of speech, and my antipathy to attempts by any means to limit open speech, go back to about the time I learned to speak.

No doubt Kriston cannot help her defensiveness about defensiveness and, in the same way, I fear I can do nothing at all about my defensiveness about freedom of speech.

All the best,

Dave