Hackers and Painters
I got a copy of Hackers and Painters from gnat/O'Reilly at WWDC, and starting reading it. The whole first chapter was basically, for me, "The Top Reason Why We Are Going to Homeschool Our Children." It describes very well some of the main reasons why we won't subject our children to the public school system: it's a gigantic waste of time where children are thrown together for the main purpose of keeping them out of the adults' hair, where you learn little and are challenged less, and where only the rare person can not fit in socially and come out of it without scarring.
Some people say public school teaches kids about the real world; I don't know what kind of fantasy school they went to, or what kind of miserable life they have led since school, but for me, jr. high and high school were the lowllights of my entire life.
And it's not merely that I was an outcast, like many of us nerds. I was, but I was one of the seemingly rare kids who got over it by seventh grade, and decided to not give a damn what anyone else thought. It's not that the experience was exceptionally negative (though it was), it's that it wasn't positive. I could have skipped 95% of what happened in high school and I'd not only not have missed anything, but I'd have been able to fill my life with more good things: more learning, more experiences, more friends, more whatever.
Bottom line: school sucks. I'll help the overcrowding problem by keeping my kids out of it.
Some people say public school teaches kids about the real world; I don't know what kind of fantasy school they went to, or what kind of miserable life they have led since school, but for me, jr. high and high school were the lowllights of my entire life.
And it's not merely that I was an outcast, like many of us nerds. I was, but I was one of the seemingly rare kids who got over it by seventh grade, and decided to not give a damn what anyone else thought. It's not that the experience was exceptionally negative (though it was), it's that it wasn't positive. I could have skipped 95% of what happened in high school and I'd not only not have missed anything, but I'd have been able to fill my life with more good things: more learning, more experiences, more friends, more whatever.
Bottom line: school sucks. I'll help the overcrowding problem by keeping my kids out of it.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
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