My wife is a hero: mom shoots intruder 5 times, saves kids

[Richy_T]

Ive been over this with Americans a dozen times, a dialog is not possible because like i said the cultures are too different.

Which culture? I'm born & bred English and very supportive of gun (and other weapon) rights.

[Richy_T]

OK, I'm not going to say that a public education is BETTER than a private/homeschool one, because that obviously isn't true. What I am trying to say is that going to a public school isn't some kind of sin, and it's not as if going to the public school automatically results in a "dumber" child. That is a myth. Plus, what if your family cannot afford to homeschool or send you to a private school? My dad worked an 8-5 job and my mom worked from home on her own graphics business. We didn't have enough money to send me to a private school, and neither of my parents had enough time to homeschool me. It didn't matter though, I still got an excellent education at the school I went to.

You'd probably be surprised at how little time it takes. I think the current recommendation is around 4 hours/day. Some people eat 1/2 that just taking their kids to public school. By the time you've cut out all the distractions and extraneous stuff that goes into a regular school day, that's a good amount of time. I was surprised when I first heard about it but thinking back to my school days (a decent education. But I got lucky, the nearby community's school was a cesspool. Even then it took me a long time to shake the statist indoctrination) it is not really out of line.

[termhn]

I have always taught at private schools. They are a world apart from your average public school. The parents are paying tens of thousands per year and they expect a serious attempt at education. No dumbed down Texas text books, no standardized tests, and the guards/teachers are armed. Save the compromises and feel good measures for the PTA, rich kids actually learn at school and are kept safe.

Yes, but then there's still that issue with the horsewhip...

That doesn't happen anymore these days

Probably not often, but I wouldn't be so sure that it never happens.  I'd wager that there is a wavier somewhere...

Well, at least at the school I attend, it doesn't happen.

Let's test that theory.  Get hammered, steal your father's favorite car, snort cocaine off of the back seat with a pair of hookers, and total the car into the founder's statue at your private school.  If they don't produce a horsewhip after that then you can assume you're safe.  If your mother says, "boys will be boys" then you're destined for Harvard.

Haha there's a few problems with that theory
1. My dad only has one car, and it's a 15 year old Honda CRv
2. There is no founder's statue at my school (although there are a few important statues)
3. There's no way my mother would says "boys will be boys" haha

[MoonShadow]

You'd probably be surprised at how little time it takes. I think the current recommendation is around 4 hours/day. Some people eat 1/2 that just taking their kids to public school. By the time you've cut out all the distractions and extraneous stuff that goes into a regular school day, that's a good amount of time. I was surprised when I first heard about it but thinking back to my school days (a decent education. But I got lucky, the nearby community's school was a cesspool. Even then it took me a long time to shake the statist indoctrination) it is not really out of line.

My kids probably average around 3 hours a day, engaged in deliberate study of academic subjects.  However, that's just about every day, including Saturdays and most of what most kids consider "summer vacation".  They still complain about the amount of time that their studies (and chores) consume, right up until I threaten them with enrollment and a 7am bus ride.  When they are really small, they think the bus is cool, so I occasionally take them on a public bus trip. (navigating the public transit system is a useful skill in it's own right)  My younger kids are not really old enough for "school", at 4 & 5, and are so close together in size and age that most people assume that they are twins.  They are my rough & tumble boys, and they fight like Cain & Able.  There are a number of differing learning styles, and professional teachers have to learn techniques for hitting as many of them with each lesson as they can, in order to teach effectively to their entire class. This actually takes up as much class time as anything, and isn't something that can be avoided. But homeschooling allows the teaching parent to tailor the lesson to match the personality & learning style of the child.  This is a huge time saver, and very effective once it's well implemented.  What takes the most time is actual lesson planning, but I'm willing & able to spend the money to have that cognative labor performed by others, by buying curriculium developed for homeschooled children that fit their learning styles and our ideological parameters.  Currently we use Sonlight for my older children.  (sonlight.com)  But one can homeschool a child well for free, using nothing but a library card and a little guidance from a website like this one...

http://www.oldfashionededucation.com/

Or this one...

http://www.amblesideonline.org/

And other online resources such as this one...

http://www.khanacademy.org/

And this one...

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/


Money is a trade for time, in education as much as anything else.  BTW, my kids have access to both Kahn Academy & MIT's Opencourseware via their Roku.  The meatspace lecture model is a dying educational paradigm regardless of it's quality.

[MoonShadow]

Let's test that theory.  Get hammered, steal your father's favorite car, snort cocaine off of the back seat with a pair of hookers, and total the car into the founder's statue at your private school.  If they don't produce a horsewhip after that then you can assume you're safe.  If your mother says, "boys will be boys" then you're destined for Harvard.

Haha there's a few problems with that theory
1. My dad only has one car, and it's a 15 year old Honda CRv
2. There is no founder's statue at my school (although there are a few important statues)
3. There's no way my mother would says "boys will be boys" haha

1) You might have to limit yourself to only one hooker at at time, that's a tiny back seat.

2) There's always some 'important' campus feature that would be very expensive to repair.

3) Yeah.  Well, I didn't get to go to Harvard either.  I was accepted to MIT, but dad said, "Congratulations son, now how are you going to pay for that?"  Turns out, the Montgomery GI bill stipend isn't enough to attend MIT.

[Dabs]

Since this thread has turned into an education thread, here's my input:

Stuff My Kids will Learn (though probably not from any school except my own.):

1. Unarmed Martial Arts. Striking. Grappling. Taekwondo. Karate. Kick-boxing. Kung Fu. Jiu-Jitsu. Aikido. Wrestling.
2. Armed Martial Arts. Sticks. Knives. Firearms. How to field strip and clean a 1911 and an AR-15.
3. How to shave the old fashioned way. Or at least with a double edged safety razor.
4. How to make money selling lemonade or whatever. Sell them for bitcoins.
5. How to make paper wallets for bitcoins.
6. How to use encryption. Use GPG. Public Key. AES. And why secret decoder rings are no good against Dad.
7. How to pick the right wife; if he plans to get married. (husband, for my daughter.)
8. How to Throw a Ball. (and how to catch it.)
9. How to Tie a Tie. How to dress up.
10. How to Build a Bookshelf. With a hammer, nails, screwdriver and wood.
11. How to Squat, Bench, Deadlift and Press with a barbell.
12. How to Swim and How to Scuba Dive.
13. How to go camping or Climb a mountain.
14. How to fish.
15. How to change the oil in your car. (And how to drive, of course!)
16. How to change a flat tire.
17. How to cook a steak.
18. How to invest in mutual funds or index stocks. (And how to spot ponzi schemes!)
19. How to get a scholarship for school.

I'm sure I'll think of other things that are probably not taught in school.

[MoonShadow]

I'm sure I'll think of other things that are probably not taught in school.

While I agree that those are all nice, and I've already engaged my older children in most of those, my wife & I long ago agreed to invest time and money to teach a few things that we consider "life skills"; i.e. skills that any independent person might need to know how to do to save their own lives.

The first one on the list should be self-evident, but very few schools teach it.

Swimming.

[malevolent]

The first one on the list should be self-evident, but very few schools teach it.

Swimming.

In Holland swimming lessons are compulsory and part of the school curriculum in primary school. The kids even have to learn how to swim with full and heavy clothing and shoes on

[MoonShadow]

The first one on the list should be self-evident, but very few schools teach it.

Swimming.

In Holland swimming lessons are compulsory and part of the school curriculum in primary school. The kids even have to learn how to swim with full and heavy clothing and shoes on

The vast majority of public school districts in the United States are not nearly as logical as that.  If anything, swimming is a competitive sport; so not only would they not actually teach you to swim as a beginner, they wouldn't dream of letting you in the pool with your shoes on.

However, the YMCA sponsors swimming lessons for a very low cost.  Homeschooled children like my own take them during the school day, usually.  And the swim lessons sometimes include survival swimming as young as 3 months old.  Yes, you can teach an infant to swim.  I've seen it first hand.  But most moms would be hard pressed to do to their own child what is required to teach an infant to swim.  But once they learn, it's awesome to watch.

[Dabs]

Yes, I agree with the "Life" skills. Swimming is in my list, just not at the top.

My brother and his kids do triathlons: swim, bike, and run.

There are videos I've seen of infants below 12 months old that can swim or self-rescue if they somehow drop in a pool deeper than their height. I think I'm going to save some of them (I saw them on youtube) to show to the wife.

Things I have seen or know to be possible for infants and very young children:
0. Sign language (ask for more milk, more food, carry me) without crying. Below 12 months.
1. Swim 1 year old.
2. Unarmed martial arts 3 to 4 years old. (grappling arts can start younger.)
3. Armed martial arts 5 to 6 years old (with a full size 1911 at that.) supervised by soldier Dad of course.
4. Climb trees and stuff ... as soon as they can walk and run.
5. Barbell exercises without weights. 8 years old.
6. Barbell exercises with weights heavier than their body. 15 years old. (Maybe younger.)
7. Bike. 3 to 4 years old.

I know all those because either I've seen it on a video, or I've actually witnessed it personally.

[MoonShadow]

0. Sign language (ask for more milk, more food, carry me) without crying. Below 12 months.

Funny you should mention this, because I recently encountered a one year old that could sign some of these things while working in the Sunday morning nursery at church.  I asked if she was hearing impared, because she kept signing "more" (tips of fingers on each hand together, and tapping tips of fingers to each other repeatedly) after running out of wheat wafers.  She wasn't, and I asked why she is learning signing, and the answer is that they can communicate quicker with signing than speech, even though they can understand their parents fine.  It was kind of surreal watching a baby who can't walk or talk doing sign language, even if it was only single word communication.

[Dabs]

There's this DVD called Baby Signing Times and other similar baby sign language things. After 2 years old, they can start talking in sentences to you, but at 1 year old, they tend to be limited to single syllables or maximum of 3 syllables.

My eldest, who is now... 18 months old, can identify different animals and objects but for some reason refuses to count, although he knows he is 1 year old. heheheheh. As for signing, apparently he seemed to have skipped that since he can articulate what food he likes already; and I didn't teach him to sign for more milk. And he knows how to operate the iPad and Samsung tablets, at least to go to the kiddy games installed there (mostly colorful shape apps with sounds.)

He does truncate everything I say to the last one or two syllables. Dog is dog, but butterfly is just "fly" or "ter fly.". But he calls all the heavy equipment "big tractor" which is 3 syllables, so.. I dunno how that works.

And I get called a fruit sometimes .. Papaya.