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Originally posted by Dweller in Darkness:
Graeme goes to an elementary school that teaches seven-day creation.

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Originally posted by Dweller in Darkness:
On the subject of home vs. school education, Graeme goes to an elementary school that teaches seven-day creation. They're pretty hardline about it.

I, as I've said, am not. In fact, I think seven-day creation makes as much sense charging a premium on left-handed baseball bats, but I'm not averse to him knowing about it because I've taught him, and will continue to teach him, to the think critically. Examine an idea based not on what people tell you about it, but on its own merits, and be willing to constantly reevaluate what you think you know.

I'm also brutal on the materials that they use in his class. If they're deceptive or outdated, I'll say it and show him how and where they're wrong, making sure that he knows that this isn't his teachers lying to him, this is people teaching him what they think he needs to know but not thinking it through, like English teachers who tell you to never split an infinitive.

In the short term, this may mean that he believes in seven-day creation - he's six, so he just thinks that dinosaurs are awesome - but if he's smart and capable, I'm convinced that it'll change. Or he's smarter than me and it's possible to critically examine the evidence and come to a different conclusion than me, which is equally awesome.

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Originally posted by Dweller in Darkness:
On a purely reasonable level, my son's certain death is of less value than the probably death of the van passengers. If I want to maximize the number of people who will come away from this incident alive, I will let my son be killed.

And I'm running out into the damn road and getting my son out of danger. Fuck the people in the van. I don't care if it's the reincarnate Christ, the Pope, Neil and the entire original cast of Wicked, they can perish in flames, Graeme's getting out safe.

It's not reasonable, but that sound you heard? That was the sound of every parent on the board nodding vigorously in agreement with me. And this is the same instinct that lets parents put themselves in harm's way - a nearly daily occurence in the first few years of life - in order to prevent harm to their kids. Take away this emotional reaction and you have bad parents.

And I'm not saying the emotions are superior to reason, not at all. There are times when emotions are dumb. "I'm going to choose this cancer doctor to treat my son's rare form of leukemia because he makes me laugh, never mind that he has no training in dealing with the disease," is a decision based on instinctive emotion as well - that which pleases me I want to repeat - but in this case the emotion serves no one any good and is what most people would call "selfish."

What irks me isn't people choosing reason over emotion, it's people who choose reason instead of emotion, who would remove the emotional component of any and all human interaction if they could, or, as is more often the case, the people who say that reason is vastly superior to emotion but still allow themselves to be guided in life by their appetites.

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On the subject of home vs. school education, Graeme goes to an elementary school that teaches seven-day creation. They're pretty hardline about it.

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Originally posted by halucinagenia:
Dude, I hope thats a religious school! You couldn't even mention god at my primary school!

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Originally posted by Domitella:

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but then again, there are more things learned in school than just academics

yup.

At home you don't tend to meet qualified physicists, biologists, chemists, psychologists, historians, sociologists, mathematicians, computer scientists, linguists (all fluent), ancient linguists and whatever people with English or drama or RE or art or textiles or DT degrees are called.

And all the people - I knew as much about Hinduism and Islam when I was little as I did about Chrisianity, and you don't learn about things like that out of books the same way you learn about it from other people. And the ideas you get off the other kids while you're learning, like half the songs and things we learned in French and Spanish were off people in the class, and the questions other people ask you realise you want to know the answer to as well but you'd never thought of.

I just loved being able to ask any question I wanted of people who hadn't just read it out of a book, they'd been studying it for years (in the UK people have degrees in or around their teaching subject) - me, my mate Hannah and the physics teacher staying after class so she could show us how black holes worked, or the history teacher having us act out the Battle of Hastings so we could see why following the Normans down the hill had been a silly idea, or being able to corner the whole of the lower school to do our psychology surveys, or having all the equipment so we could do science experiments that should probably be illegal, having a special needs teacher for my numerical wotsits, or the history department's own collection of Historical Objects, and actually having to have gym classes and music classes even though you don't want them.

And did I mention the people? you just do not get your pick of the people when you only do out-of-school activities or, and I know because I did them too, or see just people from the neighbourhood or friends of the family. You don't get the same mix of opinions, of backgrounds, of anything else, who haven't been preselected by their interest in an area, or thwir income which means they live on that street, or the fact that they're friends with your mum. Because you can't manufacture and artificially assemble what it's like just to be in this huge group of random people, with no common sense of purpose or ideology or community, just people who happen to be there and you never really get it again, I don't think, after you leave. And on top of all that you have what you learn at home.

Elite Special Force Procrastinator, trained in High Arts of Extended Coffee Breaks and
Master Linguist of the Water Cooler Conversation

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just so you all know, this attitude right here is what pisses me off beyond all belief. i don't mean to be rude, domi, but that is utterly ignorant of what homeschooling is like. i mean, i'm sure there are crap parents out there who homeschool their kids so they can keep them in a box and prevent them from interacting with the outside world (hell, i've known a few), but that isn't what homeschooling is, nor is it the norm.

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well, i don't have trouble interacting with people who aren't so caught up in their own understanding of the world that they attempt to ridicule and debase mine. seriously, have i ever come around here proselytizing? ever? have i ever tried to talk anyone out of their belief in evolution? no! i'm honest about what i believe, and then i tend to say that i understand that other people don't see things that way and that i am not ignorant of the fact that the evidence supports evolution. but, if you guys are to be believed, i'm just...boo radley with big words.

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Originally posted by Hive:
Oh, it bothers me! He is also minoring in Replacing "Th" With The Letter "F".

(There's nuffin I like better than a well-spoken child.)

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Originally posted by Marvinmarymac:
Lend him to me!

He's the light of my life, though, even if he is torkin li' a chav.

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Originally posted by Apathy:
we may be crazy religious psychos who believe things you can't possibly accept, but we're not trying to undermine the rest of society, and we're not entirely unreasonable.

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*snip* does have rational science to go along with it. it may not satisfy you for many reasons, but it's out there.