Corona Homeschool Anyone?

[AlaskaBushPilot]

Our kids did a presentation for about a hundred 4th graders from classes at a school district in the midwest. Mid November.

They had 130 power point slides, talked for an hour, and then took questions.

It was on our home school in rural Alaska. They were 8 and 9 when they delivered. So 3rd and 4th grade homeschoolers presenting to 4th grade government school kids, teachers, and admins.

It is really interesting therefore, that in the same school year this Coronavirus has cancelled government school, and the only option parents have if they wish to school at all right now is at home.

State law varies, but up here you can either do correspondence school through the district in which you live, or homeschool where the parents are in charge of the curriculum, with no supervision, licensing, testing - complete freedom.

At our presentation, it really was society at large as the emperor not wearing any clothes because the things that resonated with their kids the most was people their age handling adult responsibilities. Running pieces of equipment worth tens of thousands, driving truckloads of product to customers and invoicing them for more money than their teachers make in hourly pay.

A bulldozer is just pedals and levers, kids play video games way more complicated. It is more physical, sure but the main difference is a kid can make over $100 an hour with a bulldozer. Net.

Or a metal lathe, welding, a shoe making machine or foundry stamp, whatever. All the kid needs is the same technology the adults have. Our ten year old knows three coding languages, he is not so enthusiastic about outdoor work. But same thing there, he is getting coaching from the right person on that for making money with it. His uncle.

For us, life is 100% normal with homeschool, except watching the world on fire, an economic implosion going on and the older people dying. But school - nothing new.

Millions of parents across the country right now though are by force of quarantine having to re-think the whole system. Even if it ended this semester, the fact you put millions of children back into their homes means parents see some things first-hand that they have never seen before. Making adjustments that once made - are no longer adjustments!

Obviously, online education is going to prove far less costly and more flexible for the students. It is no contest. Millions of parents never considered it before, and now their schools are going to finish the year by online correspondence anyway. That's what our schools are doing.

Abraham Lincoln would be in prison for child neglect today if the current laws applied when he left his kids alone for months to find a wife. Parents will re-think the laws putting them in prison for leaving their kids in charge of their own home when they go back to work during the day. Once they see how effective correspondence school is.

Kids can sure keep a good house too if they knock school out in a couple hours, no transportation time necessary. Eat chips while you read by the fire. Your .44 magnum on the coffee stand.

Every child a school shooter! That sounds like a great non-profit charitable organization, doesn't it? Like the Gideons. Except a wider choice. We'll give them a Bible if they choose, but a high powered fully auto loaded rifle with armor-piercing shells - whatever they want. The girls are going to go for something stylish and sleek, like a pink .22 derringer. Stick that right in the neck of the guy holding your mom hostage and pap-pap, a little double tap.

Back to the topic - a lot of kids are going to be looking for the first time at homeschool or correspondence themselves. The profit motive is now there for entrepreneurs in online or alternative education. Inquiries are going through the roof at our distance delivery contractors.

All these organized sports that have eaten up so much of young people's time. The only way the kids can question their value realistically is to do without them. Now they are.

I wonder if kids are going to see those social emperors as having no clothes too. What is a high school diploma and all those days of attendance in the brick and mortar police state doing for you? At home you sure have a lot more personal freedom. Are all those concussions from football necessary?

We stayed with two teachers and listened in on a statewide geography curriculum meeting - they have to police the curriculum for the new language and thought control regime on bathrooms, sex re-assignment or declaration, and get the right ancillary identity politics belief into, uh... geography.

That week-end they had to attend training sessions on the official language regulations for all the genders so far developed and whether the current choice is surgical or not. Boy to girl, girl to boy, surgical or nonsurgical, so that was four just to begin with. Then others I guess.

The teachers were stressed and harried, the violence surprised me but it is from kids of violent parents. It seems very tedious for the teachers to deal with, police had forcibly removed two different psycho-moms from the building our kids gave their talk so far that semester. If a kid gets a bad grade or disciplined, the mom is going to come in to harangue the staff. It's their fault. Alcohol and drugs, single moms with criminal gangster boyfriends...

So a lot of parents are going to find home is a safer and more secure learning environment.

To be fair, there are going to be families that can't wait to get back to the old system of Orwellian no-child-gets-ahead lockstep age-sorted PC Zeitgeist factory processing and warehousing of kids. The socialist indocrination archapeligo.

Is this a harbinger of change in education? Towards greater decentralization? Will brick and mortar delivery systems start to decline like the American Mall?

We have to get our White Power meeting going, the kids are half Asian so we have to work a lot harder at being accepted in the Neo Nazi fold.

ta ta!

 

[Puppycow]

Harvard professor wants to ban homeschooling because it’s ‘authoritarian’

A Harvard University law professor has sparked controversy after calling for a ban on homeschooling.

Elizabeth Bartholet told Harvard Magazine that it gives parents “authoritarian” control over their kids — and can even expose them to white supremacy and misogyny.

“The issue is, do we think that parents should have 24/7, essentially authoritarian control over their children from ages zero to 18? I think that’s dangerous,” Bartholet said. “I think it’s always dangerous to put powerful people in charge of the powerless, and to give the powerful ones total authority.”

 

[Butter!]

I think that professor is right that homeschooling can be used for the wrong reasons, by families who don't want their kids exposed to other worldviews or who want to conceal abuse. I do not, however, think homeschooling should be banned. It can be a really great alternative for kids who struggle with classroom settings, who live in areas with ****** schools, who move around a lot, who have special needs, etc. The list goes on and on. Lots of good reasons for homeschooling.

I think the problems with misuse of homeschooling, like this prof is concerned about, could easily be solved with some increased regulations. There's no reason to ban it. I think that would be a bad thing.

Of course, I don't have kids, so my opinion carries a bit less weight.

 

[wasapi]

My 3 little granddaughters, ages 5, 11, and 12, are being home schooled now. They are lucky to have kind, intelligent, patient parents. They are emailed lesson plans, and study the same hours they would be at school. So far it is working really well.

The 5 yr old told me the only thing she misses about school is recess!

 

[Sherkeu]

It is interesting for us right now to see what educators thought of pandemics before Covid-19.

Our county pentathlon materials just happened to focus on medicine and diseases this year....picked several years in advance. They are reading a book called "Fever" about a late 18th century yellow fever outbreak through the eyes of a young girl.

Anyway, the lessons seem geared toward pointing out the new authoritarian powers of the government to isolate and force people into testing and treatment (e.g. Typhoid Mary's story). This is presented as a dangerous overreach and threat to individual liberties that needed to be guarded against.

If the lessons were written today they would probably look a bit different!