This is why our kids didn't go to school. We homeschooled, they did stuff - survival school, climbing Kilimanjaro, duck and deer hunting, sailing and scuba camps, working, paying for their own stuff, laundry, etc. We got them out of college with no debt by sticking to state schools. (One did an apprenticeship instead of college.) We went dollar for dollar with them on a car, paid cash, and they all had those cars for a good long time (7-10 years!). I told them, "We are NOT the Cosbys - you're not moving back in! You'll eat ramen and peanut butter like the rest of us did." They're wonderful (adult) kids!
It's so much worse than not teaching anything. My 10-year-old niece has to show a QR code to use the toilet at school. She's apparently the only kid there who doesn't have a smartphone, so she's being singled out by teachers because it's inconvenient for them to get a special paper pass every time she has to pee. Teacher doesn't actually believe the "I don't have a smartphone" thing anyway. Like: "Aw, c'mon, just go get it out of your bag, I know you have it."
Sure, my generation can resist digital vax passes for participation in public life. How's that gonna work out if you've been using a digital pass to access the toilet since you were 10?
You tell it like it is Bad Kitty! My kids geography class didn't teach them where one country was and during the lock down we home schooled and learned all the countries on Settera and Geography Now, as well as our Constitutional Rights. I pulled my son out of the charter school when he was told to write an 8 paragraph essay on his "white privileges".
My neighbor, a retired high school social studies and math teacher, told me that inflation is caused by corporations being greedy. I subscribe to Robert Reich's substack and read his column, and was not surprised that he pushes the same stupidity. It's possible he knows the truth and instead pushes that crap in an effort to mislead the minions who think he's some kind of god due to his professorship. I dunno. Some days I think, most people simply aren't bright, and the vast majority cannot noodle through a complex problem. I don't see a good ending to our story.
The education system in most countries has been broken for decades and now it is destroyed and is brainwashing children into obedient little zombies - eliminating all creativity and suppressing independent thinking! Nothing new, just the next level
I MUST share this story, which has become family lore. When my younger daughter was in college, one of her roommates was in pre-med. In the fall they were watching a football game on tv; one of the teams was the Patriots. The pre-med roommate said, "What state is New England in, anyway"? Upon being questioned, she revealed she thought "New England" was a city.
This post makes me sad, Bad Cat. Upwards of 2 million people follow Reich and Turner. Yet, neither of them seems qualified to find their ass with both hands. Yep... (I can guarantee you, beyond any doubt, that I have friends my age--I am 63--who believe the bullshit Reich said!) #WeAreSoScrewed
Private Christian School and home schooled my children. I would continually tell them to focus on the core subjects (English, Math, Science, History and we did religious education) and they would be years a head of most of their peers. They did and they finished high school early, Finished their bachelor's degree early (debt free). Plus we didn't have the drama that often comes from high school age students. It was school, sports if they wanted to, and work during high school.
I did not let them take many electives - they did those at the community college where it actually counted towards their future careers. Both kids graduated high school with a skill, my son did IT, at 17 was hired making over 50k a year, he is now 21 and making 75k a year and finished his bachelor's degree while working full-time. They both thank me for not letting them do the "traditional" school experience - they did complain during those years that they were missing out. It is a challenge and it requires parents to sacrifice but it is sp worth it - we don't have to continue raising adult kids and we know they have the means and ability to take care of themselves and their future spouses.
Indeed. When I was a child, I learned to ride a bike without training wheels. Admittedly, this was the early 60s. Falling was part of the drill. I learned way faster than other kids who did have the training wheels. At the end of the day, they took off the training wheels and weren't that much closer to being able to ride than I was when I first started.
The problem with 'training wheels' is we teach children to think that falling isn't natural. They think its accidental and shouldn't happen. This expands the window of fear beyond the physical pain window to include shame at failing, or the fear of failing etc, and suddenly kids (and adults) freeze up.
At my company, the most difficult thing we teach to new hires (usually directly out of a master's degree program) is that the most powerful words they can utter outloud when working with us is "I don't know" followed by "I'll figure it out." Those who continually resist this profession of ignorance and the search for answers just don't make it. They usually self sort out of the company because they can't own that they haven't already mastered everything they need to know to work with us (despite the masters degree), and they are unwilling to be seen wobbling on the bike on the street and crashing into the curb.
Ultimately, the thing that hurts all of us is a blind certainty. What I find with the woo-woo types is they connect their certainty to ideology and not to experience. Their perception of the real world is continuously being warped to match their ideology. This problem lives on the entire political spectrum. I often find that those nearest the extremes on either side are most susceptible to it.
Over these past few years I've been bitterly, bitterly disappointed by so many reasonably intelligent people having an absolute lack of intellectual discernment. And don't respond that they're stupid, because they're not.
There's a writer I started following online because I'd read her essay on trying to get a diagnosis and help for her very disabled autistic son, and it was so beautifully and horrifyingly expressed, so moving, that I wanted to read more of her, regularly.
Recently she made an elemental mistake in reading comprehension resulting in a rather silly Twitter contretemps, and then the other day she recommended an online essay in such rapturous terms that I went and read it and returned absolutely baffled that anyone could have found that writing exceptional.
This is a woman with a successful fiction and nonfiction career and I say humbly as a nobody that you'd think she weren't none too bright.
Back in 2016 I thought Nina Turner was charming, refreshing and intelligent.
Is it me? Or are people turning themselves into morons for some unintelligible reason?
This is why our kids didn't go to school. We homeschooled, they did stuff - survival school, climbing Kilimanjaro, duck and deer hunting, sailing and scuba camps, working, paying for their own stuff, laundry, etc. We got them out of college with no debt by sticking to state schools. (One did an apprenticeship instead of college.) We went dollar for dollar with them on a car, paid cash, and they all had those cars for a good long time (7-10 years!). I told them, "We are NOT the Cosbys - you're not moving back in! You'll eat ramen and peanut butter like the rest of us did." They're wonderful (adult) kids!
Way too many people in this country are allowed to vote.
It's so much worse than not teaching anything. My 10-year-old niece has to show a QR code to use the toilet at school. She's apparently the only kid there who doesn't have a smartphone, so she's being singled out by teachers because it's inconvenient for them to get a special paper pass every time she has to pee. Teacher doesn't actually believe the "I don't have a smartphone" thing anyway. Like: "Aw, c'mon, just go get it out of your bag, I know you have it."
Sure, my generation can resist digital vax passes for participation in public life. How's that gonna work out if you've been using a digital pass to access the toilet since you were 10?
It's like you say about other stuff all the time:
Education isn't 'too important to be left to the market', Education is too important to be left to government.
You tell it like it is Bad Kitty! My kids geography class didn't teach them where one country was and during the lock down we home schooled and learned all the countries on Settera and Geography Now, as well as our Constitutional Rights. I pulled my son out of the charter school when he was told to write an 8 paragraph essay on his "white privileges".
My neighbor, a retired high school social studies and math teacher, told me that inflation is caused by corporations being greedy. I subscribe to Robert Reich's substack and read his column, and was not surprised that he pushes the same stupidity. It's possible he knows the truth and instead pushes that crap in an effort to mislead the minions who think he's some kind of god due to his professorship. I dunno. Some days I think, most people simply aren't bright, and the vast majority cannot noodle through a complex problem. I don't see a good ending to our story.
The education system in most countries has been broken for decades and now it is destroyed and is brainwashing children into obedient little zombies - eliminating all creativity and suppressing independent thinking! Nothing new, just the next level
I MUST share this story, which has become family lore. When my younger daughter was in college, one of her roommates was in pre-med. In the fall they were watching a football game on tv; one of the teams was the Patriots. The pre-med roommate said, "What state is New England in, anyway"? Upon being questioned, she revealed she thought "New England" was a city.
Err, and some of us don’t know the difference between “capitol” and “capital.” Sorry, couldn’t help myself.
Great post.
Could we just summarize the decline of our country as; The decline of PLAY?
Seriously?
This post makes me sad, Bad Cat. Upwards of 2 million people follow Reich and Turner. Yet, neither of them seems qualified to find their ass with both hands. Yep... (I can guarantee you, beyond any doubt, that I have friends my age--I am 63--who believe the bullshit Reich said!) #WeAreSoScrewed
Private Christian School and home schooled my children. I would continually tell them to focus on the core subjects (English, Math, Science, History and we did religious education) and they would be years a head of most of their peers. They did and they finished high school early, Finished their bachelor's degree early (debt free). Plus we didn't have the drama that often comes from high school age students. It was school, sports if they wanted to, and work during high school.
I did not let them take many electives - they did those at the community college where it actually counted towards their future careers. Both kids graduated high school with a skill, my son did IT, at 17 was hired making over 50k a year, he is now 21 and making 75k a year and finished his bachelor's degree while working full-time. They both thank me for not letting them do the "traditional" school experience - they did complain during those years that they were missing out. It is a challenge and it requires parents to sacrifice but it is sp worth it - we don't have to continue raising adult kids and we know they have the means and ability to take care of themselves and their future spouses.
"without falls, no one learns to climb unaided."
Indeed. When I was a child, I learned to ride a bike without training wheels. Admittedly, this was the early 60s. Falling was part of the drill. I learned way faster than other kids who did have the training wheels. At the end of the day, they took off the training wheels and weren't that much closer to being able to ride than I was when I first started.
The problem with 'training wheels' is we teach children to think that falling isn't natural. They think its accidental and shouldn't happen. This expands the window of fear beyond the physical pain window to include shame at failing, or the fear of failing etc, and suddenly kids (and adults) freeze up.
At my company, the most difficult thing we teach to new hires (usually directly out of a master's degree program) is that the most powerful words they can utter outloud when working with us is "I don't know" followed by "I'll figure it out." Those who continually resist this profession of ignorance and the search for answers just don't make it. They usually self sort out of the company because they can't own that they haven't already mastered everything they need to know to work with us (despite the masters degree), and they are unwilling to be seen wobbling on the bike on the street and crashing into the curb.
Ultimately, the thing that hurts all of us is a blind certainty. What I find with the woo-woo types is they connect their certainty to ideology and not to experience. Their perception of the real world is continuously being warped to match their ideology. This problem lives on the entire political spectrum. I often find that those nearest the extremes on either side are most susceptible to it.
1) The "experts" are a product of our education system, and 2) oof.
The Federal Reserve is the LENDER. The gubmint is BORROWER. The taxpaying sheeple are the DEBT SLAVES.
Over these past few years I've been bitterly, bitterly disappointed by so many reasonably intelligent people having an absolute lack of intellectual discernment. And don't respond that they're stupid, because they're not.
There's a writer I started following online because I'd read her essay on trying to get a diagnosis and help for her very disabled autistic son, and it was so beautifully and horrifyingly expressed, so moving, that I wanted to read more of her, regularly.
Recently she made an elemental mistake in reading comprehension resulting in a rather silly Twitter contretemps, and then the other day she recommended an online essay in such rapturous terms that I went and read it and returned absolutely baffled that anyone could have found that writing exceptional.
This is a woman with a successful fiction and nonfiction career and I say humbly as a nobody that you'd think she weren't none too bright.
Back in 2016 I thought Nina Turner was charming, refreshing and intelligent.
Is it me? Or are people turning themselves into morons for some unintelligible reason?