Thanks for all the thoughtful comments on yesterday's cartoon about homeschooling.
A few notes:
I've never known a homeschooling family, so the post was entirely off the top of my head and intended to be humorous and cynical, not accurate. I threw in some self-deprecating language at the end to that effect for good reason. I'm sure there are plenty of disparate examples of homeschool grads, bad and good, crazy and sane.
I moderate my comments, which means they don't post until I read them and approve or reject them. That explains why none showed up until this morning. Sorry for the delay, but it's the only thing I've found that keeps away the losers who verbally attack the other commenters. I reject almost nothing, except personal attacks that have nothing to do with the blog or cartoons and advertising links.
I actually wish I'd been homeschooled by cool, open-minded parents who dragged me all over the city and countryside to learn about the real world, as one of the commenters described. I went to Catholic school through 7th, then public school, so my degree of social and psychological warp is fairly average.
I don't envy parents trying to find a decent way to educate their kids these days. It's important and difficult. I sent my kids to public magnet schools, which I felt was a good combination of public and private schooling.
Yes, the links in the photos are from AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com. Amazing site.
2 comments:
oh thanks man.... just lost an hour of my life becasue of that link.
There should be a "time sucker-upper warning" next to that link!!!!!
ya punk
Love the second photo on page 14 (http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/page/14/)
The original comic was funny, but there's humor in some reactions too.
"I don't envy parents trying to find a decent way to educate their kids these days."
Nice how today's parents take education seriously, but how about a little balance? I mean, there are "placement tests" for kindergarten, and I know parents who obsess over their 3rd-grader getting a "perfect" report card. Whatever happened to "playtime"?
Whether parents opt for expensive private schools or home-schooling, the underlying issue I see is that many parents want to create a perfect world of predictability from their child. Despite their good intentions, I don't think the results will be that predictable, especially if parents replace the whole K-12 experience with themselves. Like that's what your kid needs--being with you 24/7, until they're reduced to a shivering ball of nerves under your loving micro-management.
No doubt a few parents will raise a few more gifted cartoonists with a fine-tuned sense of satire.
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