Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[HappyClucker7]

THAT is flippin adorable. Shat fine specimen do I have the pleasure of observing here?

Thank you! That's my 5 month old Cochin Bantam, Mango. She's my little lap chicken, and she just has the sweetest disposition.

 

[LaFemmeKatia]

Yup, somewhere it all changed from, we teach you how to think, to we teach you what to think.

Yes!!!! These are my exact words when talking to my own kids and grandkids!
The whole purpose of higher education is supposed to be to open your mind to information and thinking.
Brain-washing is not learning.

 

[LaFemmeKatia]

My problem with this is, it often means that the values of the parents are passed on to their children, especially if the parents control who the child socialises with.

That’s what I like about it.
I wanted my children to have my values. They are my values because I believe they are good. Who doesn’t want to instill their children with their values instead of those of a bunch of strangers?

 

[HappyClucker7]

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?

I had a similar problem when I was little (I'm talking like, third grade little). I was totally bored in school. I did my work, but I wasn't challenged. My parents had me skip 4th grade, and go straight to 5th grade. I was challenged at first, but then I got bored again.
After 5th grade, my parents started homeschooling me. I could finally go as fast or as slow as I needed with my school, and I soon found myself far ahead of my friends.
When I was 13, my parents decided to try and get me into a community college not too far away. I took the entrance exam, and got in.
My first year there, I took relatively easy classes. Then I took harder and harder classes, and I loved it. I was finally challenged, and I was interested in school.
If you have a community college near you, I think that might be a good solution for your daughter.

Here's my chicken pic:

 

[LaFemmeKatia]

One more...just to make sure I have truly made amends... Madeleine...my Sapphire Olive Egger!

View attachment 2411749

And baby Madeleine... Okay...hopefully I'm absolved now...

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You make me want to get more chickens!

 

[LaFemmeKatia]

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.

This is pretty much how I see it too.
I didn’t home school myself 40 years ago, but if it were today, I think I would!

 

[BY Bob]

Thank you! That's my 5 month old Cochin Bantam, Mango. She's my little lap chicken, and she just as the sweetest disposition.

View attachment 2412197

She's beautiful.

 

[HappyClucker7]

She's beautiful.

Thank you!

 

[BY Bob]

I had a similar problem when I was little (I'm talking like, third grade little). I was totally bored in school. I did my work, but I wasn't challenged. My parents had me skip 4th grade, and go straight to 5th grade. I was challenged at first, but then I got bored again.
After 5th grade, my parents started homeschooling me. I could finally go as fast or as slow as I needed with my school, and I soon found myself far ahead of my friends.
When I was 13, my parents decided to try and get me into a community college not too far away. I took the entrance exam, and got in.
My first year there, I took relatively easy classes. Then I took harder and harder classes, and I loved it. I was finally challenged, and I was interested in school.
If you have a community college near you, I think that might be a good solution for your daughter.

Here's my chicken pic:
View attachment 2412210

I obviously agree with this line of thinking.

 

[LaFemmeKatia]

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?

Maybe her courses in her high school are simply not challenging enough for her. It sounds like she is bored to death in school all day.
Are there any Alternative educational programs in your area?