Random Thread - Anything Goes

American schools are funny. My daughter once got detention (for talking during some silent reading thing) when we were living in New York, and I told her to just not go, what can they do? I mean it's American public schools in the 21st century, they're basically powerless babies. So she didn't, and then they gave her more, and I said don't go. Finally they called me to tell me that she was suspended for two days for skipping detention, and I said "so the worst punishment you could think of was to give her a vacation?"

When I was in school they'd beat the hell out of me, that still didn't make me really any more of a good student. I think I hated literally every damn minute of school aside from chasing skirt or eating lunch; not because I hate learning, I love it, I just hate the way schools are organised and make learning something worth hating.

University was different, since I was paying for it personally I cared more. If you think this means I'd make my daughter go to detention in a private school, such as an English-language private school in Moscow, think again, detention is a joke. If my kids do something bad enough, I'll ~~hit~~ punish them myself, almost forgot I was talking to a lot of people raised on Dr. Spock (who gave a lot of great, terrible advice leading to many deaths over the years and continues to, now he promotes veganism).

We now home school as of a couple of years ago, my kids know more than their peers probably because a lot of school today is just wasting time, especially schools based on American and UK learning methods (since America copied the UK with no child left behind), that is to say: nothing matters but maths and reading, and we'll do the bare minimum to teach them that so we all don't get in trouble, meanwhile we pretend to care about "STEM" careers yet do essentially nothing to help interest children in them. I know that's not an option thought for most people, though, and some kids need brutal, rigid structure.

I don't associate with really any other home schooling parents, aside from SAM I guess, because so many nut jobs and weirdos homeschool their kids, or "unschool" them, i.e. teach them basically nothing. I mean what could go wrong being taught by a crazed shell shocked father who studied nuclear science and programs for a living now?

My wife does most of the teaching, for reasons which may be apparent.