Comments

Episode-1740- Expert Council Q&A for 2-26-16 — 25 Comments

  1. I’ve talked to people who believe people are fundamentally scum and require violence to exist. A scary number of people. I think something in our society convinces people they are scum themselves, and they project that view to society as a whole. That’s my theory at least.

    • So by taking other people who are thereby also scum and giving them power over others we get a peaceful society. Wow what an argument.

      • Statist logic in a nutshell, yep. Because apparently the collective- the least common deminator- would be better.

  2. My wife had never heard the expression “butt-hurt” before and was in hysterics at the sheer number of times you said it and how many variations of the expression you had!

    Oh, and of course the content was great, too! We’re new listeners and love the podcast. Thanks.

  3. Enjoyed Sue and Michael on their audition!

    Also enjoyed Jack’s talk on Anarchy- very Murray Rothbard with morality case versus utility/cost effectiveness. Make sense to me.

  4. “What about their social development?” is the “who will build the roads?” of homeschooling 😀

    • Actually, I learned a great deal from public education. Things like…

      How to smoke and snort cocaine and speed.
      How to ditch class and lie to teachers.
      How to cheat on tests.
      How to join a gang.
      How to get a girl by being disingenuous and deceitful.
      How to punch, kick, and generally be a violent nuisance.

      And probably most importantly, I learned that the Constitution is a lie, the founding fathers were slave owning racists, and freedom is a sin against big brother.

      Yes sir, ‘socialization’ in modern public schools leaves one with a great many skills to use later in life.

  5. I really enjoyed the addition of Michael & Sue. When Michael said, “You get to know your kid, help them find their passion, then go do stuff with fun people who like the same stuff,” I got a little emotional! That’s the way it should be. Government schools seem to impose the opposite. My son is eleven and attends a small private school that we are really happy with. I often tell myself it is about as close to home school as I can get without actually homeschooling. But even with that, it is often hard for him to find kids with similar interests and values. I’m raising him with a “modern survival” mindset and we do fun things together on the weekends but I can see how homeschooling in the way Michael and Sue describe would take it to a whole new level. Thank you Michael and Sue and Jack.

  6. I really enjoyed the part about homeschooling. My wife and I can’t pull our children out of the government school system right now, but we can school our children at home in the time we have with them. I am certainly interested in pulling ideas from this homeschooling duo.

  7. the homeschool parents were awesome! I loved hearing their take on it. I’m going to be homeschooling my 3 year old and I found them inspirational.

  8. Jack, I can not thank you enough for bringing on Sue and Michael. I’ve got 4 kids, oldest is 15 and is now doing fine in government schools. But it wasn’t always so. My 12 year old is making do and I think she’ll be okay too. But we’ll see, we’ll see.
    The middle school where she goes is an absolute nightmare though. (For those looking to move into neighborhoods with the “5 star”schools, trust me, we’ve moved around a lot and those “Great” schools aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.)
    It’s my two boys though I’m most worried about. One has dyslexia and the schools simply refuse to recognize it. It’s freaking crazy! Yet dyslexia affects many, many kids and the schools just ignore it.
    However, they both have major peanut allergies too. It’s a major battle every, single day to try to limit their exposure to peanuts. In this case, I actually find the schools try to accommodate but they are swamped by angry moms who think they should be able to bring in homemade cupcakes and such whenever they want and if my kids are allergic and can’t participate, well sucks to be them. We actually had one prominent mom not wanting her kids to be in class with allergy kids.
    Yeah, just wait till YOU have give an Epi to a young child because he came in contact with peanuts and can’t breathe and you aren’t sure if he’s going to make it.

    Anyway, sorry for the ramble… back to the point. So, with my boys we have 2 more years before they go to the insane asylum called middle school where my daughter goes. We simply can not allow that. Thus we’re investigating all options and you bringing on Mike and Sue is a true Godsend.

    Blessings sir!

  9. Oh, by the way, this weekend, my kids and I made a potato gun and fired it. Didn’t work perfectly but it did fire and with a couple upgrades to the ignition system should be just fine.
    Got the kids outside and interested in the “science” of how this thing works and we all had a blast.

    I wish they would have done stuff like this when I was in school that way it would have kept my attention. But instead, I hated school and almost didn’t even graduate. So, my prospects were bleak coming out of high school and the infantry was my best bet.

    But for kids to just have to listen to teachers drone on and on and on, boys especially, when they look outside and see a grassy field they’d kill to run around on, is torture and no way to learn.

    In my boys’ elementary school the PE teacher even makes them use foam balls for basketball so no one gets hurt. yet the balls don’t dribble! So, they have to run with the balls instead of dribbling.

    During kick ball they are told to cover their faces when a kid is about to kick to make sure they don’t get hurt too. And I’m the crazy one for thinking this is insane???

  10. Hey Darby,

    You didn’t mention using trees to help fix high moisture situations. What about using trees like willow and alder and I sure there are others. I heard those tree roots help open up soil structure and help soil drainage in the process. I would think that using trees intermittently throughout the land holding might help also.

    Also, what about using swales above the low water area so it soaks in and doesn’t have a chance to go down to the low water areas.

  11. Jack, so glad to have Sue and Michael to do homeschool questions for the expert council. I have been scheming how to do it but have not had much opportunity due to schedule. This helps get the topic into my everyday and should guide me in the right direction. I will look forward to hear more from them. Thank you

  12. Thanks for the confirmation of technique to Nick Ferguson.
    I used a manageable sized piece of pegboard, marked the holes at the spacing I wanted (every 2″ square) and a piece of small dowel rod with tape wrapped around it as a “pre-poker/poker” tool.
    I’ve put hundreds of scarified Black Locust seeds into OSB sided pallets filled with municipal compost and hope to have most to plant in to a “Fuel Wood”: Pollarded Black Locust over the next decades of my life and whoever follows me.

  13. WOW. I think you need to give out CEU’s for the anwser Erica gave on hot sauce. It was awesome and very, very informative. Thanks

  14. Regarding wearing military clothing: Years ago I was shopping in a grocery store and was wearing a camo M-65 field jacket which I had inherited from an uncle. There are no insignia, tapes, or patches of any kind on it. This guy approaches me and asked if I was in Vietnam. I answered no, I was never in the military. He proceeded to give me crap about wearing their ‘colors’, apparently being a Vietnam vet himself. I tried to explain that my uncle from whom I had inherited the jacket, was in Vietnam and Korea as well, and had recently passed away. He wouldn’t have any of that, continuing to insist that I should not be wearing camouflage. Even after going on my way to finish my shopping, he managed to track me down again to let me know I was ‘wrong’. I think I quit shopping at that store after that. It seemed to attract a lot of weirdos. Yay me for being honest, huh?

  15. I went to a public school and I’m antisocial and generally intimidated by people.

    My SO was home schooled and can make friends with you in 10 minutes flat.

  16. I keep meaning to read the comments here but we’ve been out camping two weekends, helping friends move onto their 6 acres nearby, other crazy stuff that happens with 7 kids (one wedding in June) AND our internet is often out.

    Thanks for all the comments! We’re so glad we could encourage some of you to think differently about your kids learning.

    Bring some specific questions so we can all think about this together and come up with a sustainable plan even for those who think government school is their only option. Did you know that compulsory schooling wasn’t enforced until 1852 in Massachusetts and 1917 in Mississippi?

    There has to be a better way to learn real skills 🙂