Hello -- checking in as per suggested

[roach2654]

Welcome from Florida JB !

[IronWarriors3/354]

Welcome from Californistan

[Joe Beck]

Ahh I am your neighbor from Kalifornia-stan -- I know we are sworn moral enemies, but I wont tell Herr Brown if you don't comrade.

[W.Lynn]

I am home schooling our 4 year old, I might continue next year as well. I have a 9 year old in the 3rd grade. We are not happy with his education though. They stick him in front of a lap top and let the machine do the teaching. Not happy about that. My 4 year old has already achieved Kinder standards and it's only January. I was a Kinder and 3rd grade teacher so I know what they should know and the best way to teach them (after all they are mini-me-s). But two incomes was nice. Adjunct on-line teaching does not pay well, but we live within our means as if we only had one income. So I don't know, the man in me is hard wired to work. My ego is suffering to be honest.

I survived home-education with my two, but they're both over 25 now so I've been out of the loop for a long while. Have you considered tutoring for some income?

Alternatively, you could reduce log-chunks to artwork with a chainsaw, tk does that, and sells them.

[Sacajawea]

Education is what I did for a living. Higher Ed -- and in particular, online teaching systems and how to use them effectively for better learning outcomes. Sticking a kid in front of a laptop - sigh - I guess I have to go back to standing up on desks and screaming at faculty again, that this is no more effective that standing up in front of a class, reading your powerpoint slides, and then giving reading assignments.

Actually, was just talking about an idea that's been stuck in my brain for awhile, that comes up periodically. And that's an apprenticeship learning based school. Where the students work a full day, under supervision learning hands-on -- and then, supplement that with (mostly) hard math & science based academic courses, too.

It's PO'd me to no end, that "vocational training" came to mean - classes for the "slow kids" - and that HS's started pushing every single kid they could into the college track, and useless information tuition scam. As if, there isn't a huge amount of knowledge, training, and skills in the trades that just doesn't matter to society in our "information tech age". It's completely backwards and upside down. And idiotic.

[Cwi555]

Actually, was just talking about an idea that's been stuck in my brain for awhile, that comes up periodically. And that's an apprenticeship learning based school. Where the students work a full day, under supervision learning hands-on -- and then, supplement that with (mostly) hard math & science based academic courses, too.

That is interesting. You've just described how my grandparents educated me, and how we are/have educated our young ones through HS level.

Edit; minus the school environment

[Rockntoy]

Welcome from Okiehoma. Teach us well

[Joe Beck]

The whole notion that every kid needs to go to college is what will cripple us. Not every kid needs to go to college. Before I met my wife I had no desire to go to college. I was in the military and I had a dive business. I was making more then my CO as a E5. Once I got out I really started making money. But I was never home, so I switched to being a school teacher. I've been a teacher in one way or another my whole life. My teachers didn't like me because I was probably just like them. LOL-- they said I'd never go to college. I was in special ed all the way through school. The Navy really taught me how to learn, and something clicked and I was a learning machine. Once you learn how to learn (which ironically they don't teach you), you can do anything. Now I thirst to learn new things.

I believe that there should be opportunities to learn vocational skills. Most kids can't even read a tape measure! That's UNSAT! You'd be shocked to learn that at my kid's school, they spend 4 hours a day on language arts and 2 hours a day on math. I took them to the carpet on this and they squirmed out of it by saying that the other subjects (social studies, history, and science) are incorporated into the language arts curriculum. We live in a middle class area, his school is in the 900's API scores (they don't measure them that way anymore because of "Common Core" but it's a good measure of how well the kids score on standardized tests -- which is another contention of mine).

The school system is broken, they do not allow the teachers to do what they were called to do (because it is a calling), TEACH! I know how to fix it, my wife knows how to fix it but they wont let her (and she's a principal). It's part of the system, it's part of their plan (put your tin foil hats) they are creating a caste system. They are dumbing and numbing us down to make us completely reliant on the system. They will not take our rights from us, they will create a society that will wiling give up our rights. They'll create a population of people that will out vote our kind (rational, sensible, ie us AMERICANS). It's all a large and time consuming puppet show. Stepping off paranoid soap box. Thanks for letting me rant!

[kickstand]

JP, you're welcome to rant anytime, whether here , in our Tin Hat section , or in The Everyday Stuff .