Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[micstrachan]

My sky ❤ Bottom one was at 5:45 ish and top one was at 6:15

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Beautiful!

 

[micstrachan]

So I’m still catching up, but want to jump into the education conversation. Any suggestions on helping my teenage daughter? She is very bright, but failing all her classes. Her assistant principal called her “very bright” more than once in our last meeting. Her history teacher called her “a gifted thinker.” She is educating herself on things that interest her all the time.

Here is her take on religion, which may offend some of you, and for that, I apologize. “Mom, have you ever noticed that religions all over the world are similar? What if religion is really just a collective conscience and the conscience knows the humans are too STUPID to understand, unless it’s put in a context that is consistent with their culture?” I am just trying to illustrate how her brain works.

What do I do with her? She feels the public school system is a waste of time. Here in California, kids still have to meet certain curriculum standards when home schooling, so I hadn’t considered that. She’ll be 18 and legally can drop out in a little over a year. Does it make me a bad mom that I’m not that worried about her failing high school? I don’t see how I can make her care about school, and I’m not sure I care that much myself, even though I have a degree in Biology from the University of California at Berkeley myself? She is not me. And she may have a lot more natural intelligence than I do. I just wish she could find some drive and I don’t know how to help her there. Thoughts?

 

[micstrachan]

They would have to take a beakful & spit it on the ground to scratch & scatter it from these feeders...they can't get their dainty little toes into these...thus no waste, no mess!

They can’t beak out either, right? I might have to go this route. Do you cap them at night?

 

[drstratton]

VERY cool! This brings back memories. My dad was very into RC airplanes when I was a kid. And rockets. And kites. Apparently he had a thing for flight. LOL.

Sounds like he did!
As a mom I love seeing the talent & creativity my son has in all of his builds and everything else he does....

 

[micstrachan]

Treacle and Cillin have been fighting again.
Tbh, I'm not sure what I should do about it. The flash point is food. Cillin won't let Treacle eat with him or the hens. This evening I made a point of blocking Cillins attacks and fed Treacle by hand where Cillin could see. I'm trying to make the point that at supper time when I give them 'treat' food I decide who eats with who.
After two attempts to flog his way through my legs Cillin it seems got the message.
While not exactly friendy when they headed off to roost, Cillin didn't object when Treacle went ahead with Tap and Moon.
Cillin knows Treacle comes to see me and spends quite a bit of his day close to or in my house.
There is no trouble in the coop, not when they shelter under the bushes. It's just when it comes to food.

Sorry Shad. I like the method you are trying and hope it helps.

 

[micstrachan]

It is but it wasn't for you. Mine wanted me to go to trade school but that wasn't for me, university was. I am the first in my family to ever graduate and I did it on my own with no help. I worked my way through.

At today's prices my children could never do that.

I’m the first to graduate university, too! But I’ll be honest; my parents paid for it.

 

[drstratton]

I'm a huge homeschooling fan, having taught remedial reading & writing to upper grade primary children & decided that a very poor job had been done by the educational establishment. For 11 & 12 yr olds not to be able to decode words like station, fashion caution is appalling ~ & it is rampant in the Qld system!

Homeschooling is not like regular school & does not have the same objectives. Firstly the idea is not to teach anything as such but to teach the child how to learn so that they can teach themselves what they need to know. I will give you 3 examples. YD asked to learn German when she was 6/7 so she could watch a German language show with me without me going nuts translating for her. I do not speak German but I found an American ex~ consulate German translator willing to take her on. Her German accent is still excellent though she is now only using her German for music but having learnt a 2nd language with confidence she takes on all the rest: Latin ,French, Italian, Hungarian... She knows how to go about it. Later we bought her her 1st computer & I worked hard to get it up & running for her. The 1st thing she did was crash it. Unwilling to admit what she'd done she wiped the whole thing & learnt how to reset it herself. Thirdly neither of us like math. Neither of us wanted to do upper math. I wanted the child to be able to budget & that sort of thing so we did no algebra or trig. Recently the child wanted to learn it for a job application & did so.

It's not how good the teacher is. Its not how much the teacher knows or the student learns. There are plenty of college grads who never read another book once they leave college. The trick is generate a love of learning in a student & the ability to learn how to learn. Sadly most schools only teach you how to pass an exam & kill both innovation & the love of learning.



And any homeschooler will tell you their kid socialises with a much wider variety & ages of people than any school child because they are constantly out & about in the community. I brought my older girl home [@ her request] in grade 9 & watched a reticent, unwilling to express an opinion child develop into a wonderful debater in a bible study class made up of a huge variety of ages & races who, unlike her peers, were willing to listen to an alternative viewpoint.

Given the nature of humans I'm sure some homeschooling parents do a lousy job but most I've known are very thorough & do a much better job than our school system ~ including the private system! I know because mine had heaps better general knowledge, particularly in history & Literature [ obviously my strengths] than their peers & when state tested outperformed them.

Descending from my soapbox now.

Very well stated Jehane...you hit the nail on the head our schools are the same here. My oldest son came home from school every day in the 7th grade telling me "Today was a total waste of my time" and he was in the gifted class...truly sad! My children are now very well rounded adult's with the ability to think for themselves! They experienced so much diversity in their lives!
Now I have to find a chick pic...

 

[Ribh]

So I’m still catching up, but want to jump into the education conversation. Any suggestions on helping my teenage daughter? She is very bright, but failing all her classes. Her assistant principal called her “very bright” more than once in our last meeting. Her history teacher called her “a gifted thinker.” She is educating herself on things that interest her all the time.

Here is her take on religion, which may offend some of you, and for that, I apologize. “Mom, have you ever noticed that religions all over the world are similar? What if religion is really just a collective conscience and the conscience knows the humans are too STUPID to understand, unless it’s put in a context that is consistent with their culture?” I am just trying to illustrate how her brain works.

What do I do with her? She feels the public school system is a waste of time. Here in California, kids still have to meet certain curriculum standards when home schooling, so I hadn’t considered that. She’ll be 18 and legally can drop out in a little over a year. Does it make me a bad mom that I’m not that worried about her failing high school? I don’t see how I can make her care about school, and I’m not sure I care that much myself, even though I have a degree in Biology from the University of California at Berkeley myself? She is not me. And she may have a lot more natural intelligence than I do. I just wish she could find some drive and I don’t know how to help her there. Thoughts?

As long as she knows how to find out what she needs to know for whatever she chooses to do she will be fine. I have a fistful of * different learners* [as our homeschool overseer put it ]& they are all doing just fine.

 

[drstratton]

Sport, band, choir, Guides, Sunday school ~ & homeschool activity days to say nothing of just generally partaking of community life.

Exactly, my children participated in all of these activities...we had a homeschool co-op that they attended once a week...it had subjects on science, history, the bible, writing, anything that they were interested in, it was an amazing time for them. They did a play & my daughter was Anne of Green Gables...my youngest son also had a part...I wouldn't change a thing that we did for them!
Another pic...You all are going to get tired of my flock..

 

[drstratton]

You have a lovely set-up!

Thank you!