Texas

[Jungleexplorer]

Quote:
Way to go!

 

[uglychickens]

Does anyone know if it is possible to take a 'wild' chicken that doesn't know what a coop is so totally free range.. to roost in the coop at night and nest in a nesting box? Has anyone done this? LOL

When we first moved to our new house we found out there were two male roosters running around. No one knew how they got there they were there for about five years. They started coming up to our house when our pullets came to age. One day they walked into my shed... I shut the door! I had to cull one cause he was way too wild but after two weeks of living in the shed that other wild rooster is part of our flock. He eats out of my husbands hand and comes running when he whistles Yankee Doodle. So yes it's totally do able! It took 5 months of constant contact before he realized we weren't gonna hurt him but he's so nice and would never harm our girls. He's a perfect gentleman. It's a long road but can be done!

 

[CatKai]

Remember how y'all were talking about raking feathers the other day....? Well, I let my 6 week olds out for a romp in the chicken yard and they are trying...and succeeding sometimes....to EAT them!

I know they have plenty of protein in their starter feed and you would think one taste and yuck, but they must taste good. Silly chickies.

 

[Jungleexplorer]

Quote:
Home Schooling is not as hard as you think. There are great home schooling associations that you can join that can give you all the help you need. As a member you get lots of benefits. You can take your kids on field trips and get the same privileges as if they were in public school (discounts, access, etc.). You don’t have to worry about creating a curriculum yourself. There are great home schooling curriculums that have been around for over half a century that make it easy to home school. Now days there are complete online schools. Actually, the State of Texas started offering an online public school course several years ago to kids that live way out in the country (too reduce busing expenses). So your kids can go to public school and never leave home. The State will provide the computer and pay for the Internet access for them to attend public school from home. The bottom line is this; ever academic test ever done has proven that kids that are home schooled are smarter and more balanced then kids that go to a group school, like public school. Don’t worry about of the people that argue about social adjustment and all that garbage. All they are saying is that they are afraid they will not be able to brainwash your kids into believe in their social engineering agenda. The truth is this; parents have been teaching their kids since the beginning of humanity. Public school in the US is a relatively new concept. Ultimately, God gave children to parents to educate; He did not give children to the government to educate. The government wants you to believe that it is their responsibility. It is not and never will be. I am not saying that it is wrong to send your kids to public school. I am just saying that this mentality that some people try to promote that you are being a bad parent if you don’t is not founded in truth or history. All the arguments they try to use to argue in favor of public school do not hold water in reality. They try to make parents feel “Unqualified”. If God thought parents were “Unqualified” to teach their kids, why did He give them to parents? Huh? In the end, you have to consider what you want your kids to learn. When your child is in public school, you may think that you child only has a few teachers. The truth is that every kids in school is teaching your kids something, and therefore your child has hundreds of teachers over which you have no say so or control. Just food for thought.

 

[jajeanpierre]

The thing with the public school system is that it harbors the wrong social lessons for students. It runs like a hierarchy and teaches many students to resent their teachers and younger/older students. It also tends to not motivate students. That being said, a lot of these problems could be solved with better training for teachers (along with better pay) and more hands-on parenting.

This is my point of view, just because I've seen the student side (I'm only 21, so I definitely remember public school), I've seen the teacher side (Mom is a middle school teacher in one of the most poverty-ridden areas of town), and Mom and I often discuss the parenting aspect.

There are many parents (this is based on the school, it's not a generalization) who aren't stable and they defend their unstable children. One parent threatened my Mom because he said she was picking on his son. The boy only had minor problems that a little focus would have solved. There are many other stories like this.

Teachers that are currently being hired are young and lack in training. I think more paid, in-school training would help keep them from quitting so early in their career and would help them adapt to the pressures of teaching. This would definitely make them better teachers.

From the student aspect, I gotta say that public school didn't socialize me. I learned a lot of things, but not anything about working with others. I was put down by richer students despite being in more advanced classes. I wasn't motivated to interact because it was such a volatile environment. I learned as well as I did because I didn't like people and spending time in the library was better than spending a single second in the cafeteria surrounded by morons.

Homeschooling was something my brother had to do because of his anxiety disorder. He flourished with it and eventually went to a public high school and then college. He was taught by an instructor that would visit the house daily. So yes, there are standards. It helps that it's one-on-one. Not to say it would work for everyone, but still.

Texas is a state that you have to take in with a grain of salt (or grit, 'cause we're country like that, y'all). Some things are easy here (guns, owning wild animals, hunting wild hogs, etc.); some things are hard (education, poverty, taxes, etc). But the reason why Texas hasn't collapsed due to the pressures of a failing educational system, rising taxes, and a meddling state government is because the people here are resilient. That's why success stories pop up around here. It's why great teachers pop up and inspire their students to learn to read. It's why Mom has been teaching for 25 years and still gets students who say she's saved their lives.

I think there are many things wrong with this state but I'm proud to be here because of what is right.

Edit: I think I went on a tangent and I forget why, haha!

You make some really good points. I agree--education should be valued by society so the educators are paid well enough that they stay in the profession. I suspect if society supported teachers by paying them well, we would have the best teachers staying to teach, and the lousy teachers would be weeded out. Nothing can be more important than educating our children. It does seem that the good educators get the heck out of the teaching because of all the things you've mentioned.

Does the state of Texas demand any minimum standards of home-schooling families? Where I grew up, attendance at a recognized school was required by law. If a family home schooled, the state would check up on the students to make sure they were meeting minimum standards, whatever that would be.

It is a complicated problem.

My kids went to schools overseas and finding good education was a real challenge, especially with kids with somewhat special needs. Educating them has been one of the most worrisome things of my life. [My oldest, the autistic-spectrum son, just graduated from one of the top-ranked universities in the world. He starts his first job at Google in a couple of weeks making tons of money. My youngest, after 3 years in a biology program decided biology wasn't for him and will start over in engineering. He's a work in progress, lol!]

 

[Jungleexplorer]

Here is a funny video.



[VIDEO]https://www.facebook.com/video/embed?video_id=10152642257355300[/VIDEO]

 

[galanie]

You make some really good points.  I agree--education should be valued by society so the educators are paid well enough that they stay in the profession.  I suspect if society supported teachers by paying them well, we would have the best teachers staying to teach, and the lousy teachers would be weeded out.  Nothing can be more important than educating our children.  It does seem that the good educators get the heck out of the teaching because of all the things you've mentioned.

Does the state of Texas demand any minimum standards of home-schooling families?  Where I grew up, attendance at a recognized school was required by law.  If a family home schooled, the state would check up on the students to make sure they were meeting minimum standards, whatever that would be.

It is a complicated problem.

My kids went to schools overseas and finding good education was a real challenge, especially with kids with somewhat special needs.  Educating them has been one of the most worrisome things of my life.  [My oldest, the autistic-spectrum son, just graduated from one of the top-ranked universities in the world.  He starts his first job at Google in a couple of weeks making tons of money.  My youngest, after 3 years in a biology program decided biology wasn't for him and will start over in engineering.  He's a work in progress, lol!]

All I can say to this is, that both my brothers and my sister in law are teachers. The one brother and his wife are retired and glad to be. They didn't suffer from not having enough money. They got to hate teaching because it has gotten to be such a problem. You can't do anything much to make the kids behave, and the many that are being raised with no respect for others just undermine any attempt at teaching the teacher can do. Then you've got the BS from the school board and everywhere else to deal with. Teaching isn't teaching any more, it's battling the hierarchy.

Point being, pay alone is not what will keep a good teacher. I kept a job for 30 years that I just hated every minute of, for the money alone. And some of the crappiest workers there were doing the same thing.

 

[uglychickens]

I've seen some really nasty teachers and some really bad parents! I had a teacher growing up who did nothing in her class but talk of her children and husband and how perfect they were... Totally BS behavior. She was our English teacher.
I used to date a guy whose mother was really a piece of work she let her daughter back talk the teachers because they didn't respect her! She's 6 respect is earned people! Grrr that whole subject makes me mad! She was and still is a snotty nose brat! I dumped him because he thought this behavior was ok. Didn't want to pass that belief to any of my future offspring!!

 

[TexasLisa]

Below is the Texas Homeschooling Law:

https://www.homeschool-life.com/sysfiles/member/custom_public/custom.cfm?memberid=506&customid=4580

Home Schooling Is Legal
Home schools in Texas have been determined by the Texas courts to be private schools, and private schools are not regulated by the state of Texas. Parents do not have to “register” with the state, and home school students are not required to be “enrolled” in an accredited program. There are no requirements such as teacher certification or curriculum approval. The ruling in the landmark Leeper case states that “a parent or one standing in parental authority” may educate a child. A home school may have whatever curricula the parents decide upon in whatever mode they choose, provided the curricula cover the five basic subjects of reading, spelling, grammar, math, and a study in good citizenship, and that the curricula are followed in a bone fide way (not a sham).

Go here if you want to see some of the famous people who were homeschooled:

http://www.homeschoolacademy.com/famoushomeschoolers.htm

Lisa

 

[LBejaran]

You make some really good points.  I agree--education should be valued by society so the educators are paid well enough that they stay in the profession.  I suspect if society supported teachers by paying them well, we would have the best teachers staying to teach, and the lousy teachers would be weeded out.  Nothing can be more important than educating our children.  It does seem that the good educators get the heck out of the teaching because of all the things you've mentioned.

Does the state of Texas demand any minimum standards of home-schooling families?  Where I grew up, attendance at a recognized school was required by law.  If a family home schooled, the state would check up on the students to make sure they were meeting minimum standards, whatever that would be.

It is a complicated problem.

My kids went to schools overseas and finding good education was a real challenge, especially with kids with somewhat special needs.  Educating them has been one of the most worrisome things of my life.  [My oldest, the autistic-spectrum son, just graduated from one of the top-ranked universities in the world.  He starts his first job at Google in a couple of weeks making tons of money.  My youngest, after 3 years in a biology program decided biology wasn't for him and will start over in engineering.  He's a work in progress, lol!]

In my brother's situation, he was taught by an instructor sent by the school district, so he was taught the same material as his peers. Albeit, those standards aren't always the highest.

I think finding a proper educator for your child is hard no matter where you are, just not all parents question where their children go to school. In the past, people would just go to the public school closest to their home. Now, there are more schools to choose from and more nvolved parents, but in impoverished areas, it doesn't matter as much.

Recently, they got rid of the Resource classes at my Mom's school. Those classes had teachers that specialized in teaching special needs students. All those students are now scattered throughout normal classes. The teacher who taught the Resource classes is supposed to be an assistant to the teachers that have those kids. Well, that teacher got arrested and is suspended. And I curse school politics because she is STILL getting paid!

The truth is, though, that she isn't the most qualified person to be teaching these children. My Mom started working with them (she has several in her classes) and to the shock of the Resource teacher), my Mom got them to interact with the entire class. And Mom isn't getting paid for all the extra students or the extra work.

It's beyond frustrating. The woman who has been there the longest and has helped so many isn't being recognized for it. Teachers who do a subpar job get paid despite not working. This isn't right. It is why newer teachers are fearful of teaching. Substituting is easier and it pays better. Sure, there is no job security, but what makes up for it is the lack of responsibility. Sigh.

Talking about this stresses me out.