Same here. I have worked as a math tutor for several years in a lab with other math majors. Most of the tutors are in Calculus 1 or higher, and have trouble executing arithmetic beyond standard times tables, though they are whizzes at algebra.
The heliocentric theory is also incorrect. Both Sun and Earth revolve around an intermediate point which does not coincide with the center of mass of either body.
Odorless whiteboard markers are available these days.
And are harder to erase, in long-term whiteboard maintenance. The solvents which permit their dry-erase functionality do not work as well as the high-as-a kite ones.
Ahm.. how do home schoolers count as a protectable social group if all they have in common is homeschooling?
From the article, it is "particular social group", not "protected social group", and that terminology is applied specifically to home schoolers in Germany. In that country it is much more difficult to start a home education program.
"I do not want to follow the laws of my home country" should not be an automatic 'you can immigrate to the US' pass.
Perhaps not automatic, but I think that many Americans' ancestors had similar motivations for coming here.
It might. This certainly brings attention to the issue. People are migrating from a place in order to do what they want to do, and a separate sovereign nation is affirming them. Sounds like a great start to me!
I'd like to applaud you for presenting a well written, middle-of-the-road argument in favor of homeschooling. It's one of those things where I fear what I hear, because the only people making noise are whack jobs.
I appreciated the GP's post, too, because I was homeschooled K-12 in Florida, where (if I remember correctly) the litmus test for homeschooled kids' progression from year to year is that each one "demonstrates a level of educational progress commensurate with his or her ability." (Shooting from the hip, here; it has been eight years.) This is usually assessed by standardized tests or interviews with certified teachers.
How do you address the social aspects of school? A valuable part of being in school was learning how to interact with new people, larger groups, and authority respectfully and responsibly. Its unfortunate, but part of being a productive adult is working with difficult strangers or at least working around them.
In my family's case, we banded together in an incorporated support group. We started with 7 families and grew to 120 by the time I left for college. It is my understanding that the group is down to 50 families now, but that is because more support groups have started up in the same county. These groups provide a framework for organized sports and field trips, dissemination of information about curriculum, and opportunities for homeschool parents who had specific skills in some area (art, woodworking, acting) to provide lessons for other parents' children. We spent lots of time with other kids: our immediate peers in the same grade, yes, but also kids of a variety of ages. We got along well with one another. Furthermore, we had occasion to interact with other adults, and not just in a teacher/authoritarian role.
We also spent plenty of time interacting with people in the community. We'd go on shopping trips with Mom and learn about commerce. We spent time volunteering at the public library, nursing homes and other such places. We were involved in community theater and clubs like 4-H, so we did have interaction with public and private schooled children, along with kids from outside our own city.
Where was the line for you between, "I'll do this myself" and "Extend/correct/expound/refine what they learned at school"? Of the teachers I know, the best students weren't always the smartest but they were the ones whose parents took an active interest in what they were learning and who added on to that at home. Even the ultra-religious, "Harry Potter is a sin", parents got some respect for actually being aware of what their kids were being exposed to.
For my parents, the main issue was the social environment of public schools. Peer pressure, drugs, adolescent silliness... all that crap. And this is, to be honest, the best thing homeschooling has going for it. From what I see, kids raised at home are much less rebellious towards their parents during adolescence. I don't doubt that I would have gotten a sufficient knowledge education at my local elementary, middle, and high schools. It is the social education that would have been inferior. It is ironic that 'socialization' is usually the first concern that people have for homeschooled students, but it is the one thing that homeschooling may actually do better, on the whole, than public schools.
Your thoughts? I know you don't speak for the entire homeschool community, but might as well draw some of your good ideas off while we've got someone who's done it.
inviolet may not be speaking for all homeschoolers, but I reckon they speak for the majority. The last statement, "I can't believe I used to think homeschooling was a scarey responsibility; today I find it equally scarey to trust my sons' minds to a public edifice", is probably typical of those who were pioneering homeschool parents and are now veterans of the same. Most of them started because they perceived shortcomings in the status quo. Coming out the other side, I think that there are few who have regrets.
If you RTFA, it looks like the cops are saying that they should get counseling because the kid and parents were upset by the incident.
Actually, the way I read the pertitent part of TFA, the counselling recommendation sounds to be in lieu of more serious consequences rather than as a concession to what the student and family have been put through (my emphasis added):
The student will not be prosecuted, but authorities were recommending that he and his parents get counseling, the spokesman said. The student violated school policies, but there was no criminal intent, Luque said.
That sounds to me like the point of the counselling is to help the family learn how to avoid unwittingly inciting panic.
Explosives are a basic application of science, and any well-rounded person should have a fair idea how bombs work and thus how to make them.
It is worth noting that the Nobel Peace Prize exists precisely because the inventor of dynamite didn't realize that explosives could be used to harm people until after he invented it.
These are the people who gave the kid an assignment.
TFA describes this as a 'personal science project', which sounds unassigned. If that was the case, then it might have seemed that much more suspicious.
What happens when my boss finds out that I was using my company email address to send out resumes six months ago, although I later changed my mind and decided to stick with the same employer?
Slashdot Mirror
But it is not the same as the sun's center of mass, so it's more like helio-off-centric.
Same here. I have worked as a math tutor for several years in a lab with other math majors. Most of the tutors are in Calculus 1 or higher, and have trouble executing arithmetic beyond standard times tables, though they are whizzes at algebra.
The heliocentric theory is also incorrect. Both Sun and Earth revolve around an intermediate point which does not coincide with the center of mass of either body.
Actually, It is not so hard to copy fingerprints.
Oh, they've done that already. I thought they did it before Google.
Some teach abstinence and others condoms, but teens still get pregnant. Clearly, the DMCA is our only hope.
Odorless whiteboard markers are available these days.
And are harder to erase, in long-term whiteboard maintenance. The solvents which permit their dry-erase functionality do not work as well as the high-as-a kite ones.
So long as one is not frustrated by overuse of system resources.
...google.nl/...
But that's in Dutch. He meant a new word in English.
Hey, if you type in your private key, it will show as stars
*********************, see?
Are you so sure? What might be wrong? Is there no way that it could be genuinely better?
I think that they might have intended to convey that in the American dialect of English, the 'u's are unnecessary.
Ahm.. how do home schoolers count as a protectable social group if all they have in common is homeschooling?
From the article, it is "particular social group", not "protected social group", and that terminology is applied specifically to home schoolers in Germany. In that country it is much more difficult to start a home education program.
"I do not want to follow the laws of my home country" should not be an automatic 'you can immigrate to the US' pass.
Perhaps not automatic, but I think that many Americans' ancestors had similar motivations for coming here.
Does this get bumped up to the UN?
It might. This certainly brings attention to the issue. People are migrating from a place in order to do what they want to do, and a separate sovereign nation is affirming them. Sounds like a great start to me!
I'd like to applaud you for presenting a well written, middle-of-the-road argument in favor of homeschooling. It's one of those things where I fear what I hear, because the only people making noise are whack jobs.
I appreciated the GP's post, too, because I was homeschooled K-12 in Florida, where (if I remember correctly) the litmus test for homeschooled kids' progression from year to year is that each one "demonstrates a level of educational progress commensurate with his or her ability." (Shooting from the hip, here; it has been eight years.) This is usually assessed by standardized tests or interviews with certified teachers.
How do you address the social aspects of school? A valuable part of being in school was learning how to interact with new people, larger groups, and authority respectfully and responsibly. Its unfortunate, but part of being a productive adult is working with difficult strangers or at least working around them.
In my family's case, we banded together in an incorporated support group. We started with 7 families and grew to 120 by the time I left for college. It is my understanding that the group is down to 50 families now, but that is because more support groups have started up in the same county. These groups provide a framework for organized sports and field trips, dissemination of information about curriculum, and opportunities for homeschool parents who had specific skills in some area (art, woodworking, acting) to provide lessons for other parents' children. We spent lots of time with other kids: our immediate peers in the same grade, yes, but also kids of a variety of ages. We got along well with one another. Furthermore, we had occasion to interact with other adults, and not just in a teacher/authoritarian role.
We also spent plenty of time interacting with people in the community. We'd go on shopping trips with Mom and learn about commerce. We spent time volunteering at the public library, nursing homes and other such places. We were involved in community theater and clubs like 4-H, so we did have interaction with public and private schooled children, along with kids from outside our own city.
Where was the line for you between, "I'll do this myself" and "Extend/correct/expound/refine what they learned at school"? Of the teachers I know, the best students weren't always the smartest but they were the ones whose parents took an active interest in what they were learning and who added on to that at home. Even the ultra-religious, "Harry Potter is a sin", parents got some respect for actually being aware of what their kids were being exposed to.
For my parents, the main issue was the social environment of public schools. Peer pressure, drugs, adolescent silliness... all that crap. And this is, to be honest, the best thing homeschooling has going for it. From what I see, kids raised at home are much less rebellious towards their parents during adolescence. I don't doubt that I would have gotten a sufficient knowledge education at my local elementary, middle, and high schools. It is the social education that would have been inferior. It is ironic that 'socialization' is usually the first concern that people have for homeschooled students, but it is the one thing that homeschooling may actually do better, on the whole, than public schools.
Your thoughts? I know you don't speak for the entire homeschool community, but might as well draw some of your good ideas off while we've got someone who's done it.
inviolet may not be speaking for all homeschoolers, but I reckon they speak for the majority. The last statement, "I can't believe I used to think homeschooling was a scarey responsibility; today I find it equally scarey to trust my sons' minds to a public edifice", is probably typical of those who were pioneering homeschool parents and are now veterans of the same. Most of them started because they perceived shortcomings in the status quo. Coming out the other side, I think that there are few who have regrets.
Not just yet. TFA says that this case did not make it up to a sufficiently high court to set a precedent.
Not so loud! If people realize that's how it works, it could send us into a recession! ...oh, wait.
If it's good enough for Apple with OS X and who-knows-what-else, why can't it be good enough for this company?
If you RTFA, it looks like the cops are saying that they should get counseling because the kid and parents were upset by the incident.
Actually, the way I read the pertitent part of TFA, the counselling recommendation sounds to be in lieu of more serious consequences rather than as a concession to what the student and family have been put through (my emphasis added):
The student will not be prosecuted, but authorities were recommending that he and his parents get counseling, the spokesman said. The student violated school policies, but there was no criminal intent, Luque said.
That sounds to me like the point of the counselling is to help the family learn how to avoid unwittingly inciting panic.
Explosives are a basic application of science, and any well-rounded person should have a fair idea how bombs work and thus how to make them.
It is worth noting that the Nobel Peace Prize exists precisely because the inventor of dynamite didn't realize that explosives could be used to harm people until after he invented it.
These are the people who gave the kid an assignment.
TFA describes this as a 'personal science project', which sounds unassigned. If that was the case, then it might have seemed that much more suspicious.
Most new Linux users need to be tutored in this by someone who owns a Mac.
The 15th image has this in the caption: 'Pen on paper, 8" x 5"'. Are you sure you meant that picture?
What happens when my boss finds out that I was using my company email address to send out resumes six months ago, although I later changed my mind and decided to stick with the same employer?
I bet they'd be more impressed with a top hat than a Children of Bodom t-shirt.
Or a bowler.