Episode-1307- Listener Feedback for 2-24-14
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Off to a bit of a late start today as we recover from our 5 days of running the mobile battery bank workshop. Today on the Survival Podcast I take your comments, questions and thoughts on education, technology, politics, agenda 21, economics and more.
Make sure if you submit content for a feedback show that you put something like “comment for jack”, “question for jack” or “article for jack” in the subject line to assure proper identification for my screening process.
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I also do put out a lot of information on Facebook from emails that I can’t fit on the program though so keep em coming.
Join Me Today As I Respond to Your Emails On
- Dates announced for the food forest planting workshop
- A brief update on the recent battery bank workshop
- When to be political? Only when you can make a difference that is when!
- More evidence that the educational market will radically shift in the next decade
- What the media would say about cash if it were invented today
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- The Seven Fifty Website – I don’t like this one bit!
- Virtual Education Replaces Snow Days
- Satire on The Media Reaction to this New Fangled Stuff Called CASH
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Jack,
Would you be OK is federal elections were suspended indefinitely since a vote does not matter?
If the result was that after each person’s term ended their job was over, no more federal government at all, sure.
It is a baited question of course but there is my answer. If elections were eliminated to keep people in office till death I would have an issue, if it mean no more DC, I am fine with it.
It’s not a baited question. I’m simply extrapolating the statement that one vote does not count, hence another vote doesn’t count either, neither will a third and a fourth, etc… So, then, why have elections? Let just have unicorns fart righteous men into office (to use one of your favorite analogies) so we can all go back to planting gardens. I agree with you that as of late choice R and choice D have been crap, but I see no other way to change the system other than by setting the expectation higher for politicians. This would require a smart electorate able to discern the difference between Free as in welfare and Free as in freedom. And more importantly, accept the responsibility to live like a Free man.
I’d like to see term limits and state legislatures appoint federal senators, but that boat sailed a long time ago. And the only way to revert or change its course is by way of the vote, or in its absence the way of the rifle. In a society with a strong voter base, some can afford the luxury to abstain from voting, but if all do then what naturally follows is hard tyranny followed by revolution.
Tell you what you keep voting and I will keep teaching liberty, providing a real world example by living the way I speak and motivating people to exit the machine. We will see what accomplishes more in less time.
Let me put it another way, what do you think would happen to government if no one showed up on election day, not a single person. Not even to count the votes that were never cast?
Oh 1984 right?
Really? If apathy were yielded so vigorously who would enforce their laws?
As long as there are ant workers, there will be grasshoppers willing to harness the power of the government to get a free lunch. So if on election day all the ants stay home, be assured the grasshoppers won’t. That’s what would happen, the hoppers would enforce the laws to enslave the ants even further.
As for me, I’ll keep gardening, spreading my message of liberty and voting. None are mutually exclusive.
Well let me ask, whom have you voted for at the federal level in the past 6 election cycles that has in any way been a positive force for liberty? I’d like a name or names. Not so and so was worse. I want to know who is really doing shit that fosters liberty in the federal government, just one name you voted for that really matters.
Ah, I see you’re trying to bait me, now. Well, here is my answer and rationale: Ted Cruz. I know you think he’s disingenuous, but he did put a fire under the pants of many RINOS when it came to funding Obama Care. The rest, I have to agree with you, none have furthered the cause of liberty. GW whom I voted for in 2000 signed the Patriot Act and Obama took it to the next level. Ron Paul did a lot to pave the way for Libertarian leaning Republicans into congress and the senate. I supported him financially, but he never got past first base.
Still, if the good guys give-up on voting, even if it’s for the lesser of two evils, it just makes it easier for the elitist, liberals, fascist, communist, whatever you wish to call them, to turn the US into another Europe where people have no guns and no recourse. Just look at Ukraine or Venezuela, if 1 in 10 men had rifle it would be a whole different story. So I keep voting for the guys that promises to protect the 2nd amendment over the one who doesn’t. Most nothing else matter when I vote now a days.
Ted Cruz, wow, just wow that is your actual answer. A Hawk neocon? Thank you for making my point better than I ever could.
“Let me put it another way, what do you think would happen to government if no one showed up on election day, not a single person. Not even to count the votes that were never cast?”
I’ve always wondered this, if the politicians actually vote for themselves. Now, wouldn’t that be funny if Obama lost to Green Party or something because he didn’t cast a vote and lost 1 to nothing. Yeah yeah someone would count them then.
Constitutionally, it would go to congress for a vote and they would pick your next king.
I made my point, Jack, not yours. Yours is don’t vote, it doesn’t matter. But that position taken to the extreme is illogical in a democracy which, after all, is predicated on citizens voting.
I knew that no matter who I mentioned you’d retort by putting him down. But there is crappy and crappier and, of course, abstinence from the political process.
I’m not judging you for choosing to abstain from voting. I was merely asking you to clarify if we should not have elections since voting does not matter. I don’t believe you have made that point, just yet.
But hey, I’m off the Lawton’s podcast. I enjoy those Permaculture podcasts a lot more.
No you very much made mine!
Cruz is inconsistent and is fine with state’s rights until they trample on something he wants to impose on others. He is also totally okay with our nation blowing up children in foreign nations and the murder of US civilians with out not only trial but not even indictment. So you go ahead and vote for that, then tell me how it enhances liberty in this nation or the world in any way.
Cruz voted to prevent funding that would allow the removal of prisoners from Gitmo, this helps keep an unconstitutional prison system functioning. Yea liberty!
Cruz voted to implement the border fence, after a cold war and one finally falling in Berlin you’d think we would understand how dumb this is by now?
You would expect a champion of liberty like Senator Cruz to vote against the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 right? Instead he and others who talk but don’t always walk the walk, didn’t vote and it passed 51-44. Nice!
There you go!
Oh and just one more thing, I am not telling you not to vote. YOU should do what YOU want. I am telling you that your vote is the little kid throwing one or two fish back in the water. It makes you feel good, you say this one matters, but the little fish just swims back to the beach and dies. That is your vote. If you want to be politically active, do so at the city/state/county levels. Start getting shit done that flatly tells the next layer up to sod off. That might make a difference.
Jack please do a show on the current type of slavery in America. I grasp at straws trying to explain how the US debt system keeps millions of Americans in slavery every day of their lives, to pay the mortgage pay, the credit card bills, etc. specifically how Americans taking out a mortgage creates Fiat currency. I find this topic difficult to explain even to fellow libertarians.
Thanks for considering this topic, have a great day.
I would like to see the show on slavery
You know, at least in my reading of American history, employment was not much different than indentured servitude. In earlier times, the idea of being employed (a wage slave) for your entire life was revolting. A job was for a youth whose Father didn’t have much to offer him in the way of an apprenticeship, or the family business or farm; or it was for drunks, impoverished immigrants, and people who ran into bad luck. There was a concerted effort by the new Super Rich of the industrial revolution to stifle the American entrepreneurial spirit and it worked. This was the purpose of public schooling: a compliant workforce. Debt and materialism by the way are the chains in wage slavery.
keep a copy of this show. Jack’s voice is damaged, the loadness we like, is lower.
But the thruth, is not ranting, no, more like, what comes after heated opinion, this show is one lone recording of the clarity of the experieced, that is what this show sounded like to me. So SAVE IT. Then when the waves are getting higher, the panic is building within you, go back to this show, and use the clarity to plan you decisions.
I believe Jack is spot on with the future of education. We have two boys, 14 and 12 doing K12 online school. It’s like doing public school, but at home. After several years of use, I can say that my sons are getting a superior education than they’d get in our local schools. We have a teacher for each boy and they interact with the boys online only. My wife and I supervise their work and are more accurately described as learning coaches. For high school I am looking into Ron Paul’s curriculum, but only because it’s more inline, politically, with our beliefs.
@Phil – do you mind saying which online school you are using now? We homeschool, but are always looking at all options, especially as kids get older. Thanks!
We use K12.com.
Here in Texas, only certain districts have approved it. It is public school online. Not technically homeschool, but it does almost “real” homeschool does. It was a good way to get my wife on board, she was/is intimidated by having to come up with the curriculum ourselves. Everything was provided, we just needed a computer with high speed internet.
A good thing about it being public school curriculum is that the boys will learn the “facts” that they will need to know if they choose to enter into college. They are already able to identify statist propaganda instead of being brainwashed by it because we are present to point it out.
Thanks, Phil!
As a three year listener I must say that the show is in a little bit in a rut. I’ve had a hard time listening in the past few weeks with the same topics over and over again. Not trying to complain, just providing feedback.
I will complain about the education top though. I agree that there are huge flaws in the education system, but to me the bigger flaw is in the college system. Jack has admitted to not being super successful, but very capable in high school and it’s hard to listen to someone comment on something that didn’t fit with their personality/strengths. I liken it with having someone tell me about managing money who has no money. Just my 2 cents.
You get what you pay for, it looks like you are in the hole by about 2 cents.
@Andrew, all I can say is we are on the cusp of one of the biggest shifts in modern history. One with massive political, economic and cultural consequences. One you are going to be right in the middle of.
My background makes me honestly perfectly qualified to explain this. If you don’t like the topic, send me some of your own for feedback shows. Feedback is how these shows are made, I discuss the topics that have the most audience interest and are relevant to what we do here.
In your model of education, who is with the children? You pointed out brick and mortar schoolhouses are obsolete, however, you have not pointed out who is at home with them. Businesses are paying less and less then by law taking more and more requiring everyone able to work to do so, leaving no adults at home to care for children. Upon destroying the home economy, are businesses going to start paying what would be a proper wage, allowing someone to return home. I do not get payed to teach and believe that most teachers are poor at the job at best. Businesses helped to create this mess and they are going to, clean it up?
Turn to the market.
1. If kids only need a PC and internet to do their work. Why can’t enterprising individuals set up satellite schools where they basically provide simple adult supervision. Now this doesn’t work well for K-3or4ish but by 5th grade level with basic supervision kids are pretty self sufficient. Oh and the problem kids? They are out quickly and parents have to deal with them.
2. Give parents this option and how many more would move the hell out of high dollar school districts where they just live for “good schools”, how much more money would said families have? How many more stay at home moms would be created?
3. Multi-generational housing is coming back en-vogue. Grandparents are once again returning to their traditional roles of the kinder gentler more patient parents helper.
I could keep going but your question is a lot like “who would build the roads if libertarians were in charge”. Well if you mean LP.org libertarians well the gov some, the market some and we will figure it out as we go.
Oh and let me add I never said all schools would close just we would have a lot less of them. So on this,
“I do not get payed to teach and believe that most teachers are poor at the job at best.”
Well first you are wrong, no MOST don’t suck, many suck, likely half or in that range. To say most is a pretty big disservice to folks that are doing the best they can with what they have. If you cut schools (brick and mortar) by half a lot of the shitty teachers are going to be sent packing. Many of the private alternatives that ARE GOING to spring up will attract the very best.
Then on this,
“Businesses helped to create this mess and they are going to, clean it up?”
Man do you have that wrong! Business is every single human that does their own thing and makes their own money, like me for instance or Kelly with Survival Gear Bags and say Vic at SafeCastle, we are all business, get it?
What you really should be saying is “neo fascist mega corporations in conjunction with regulations created this problem”. I would say in that case spot on. And no I don’t expect those people to fix the problem, I expect them to fight us on this tooth and nail and I will gleefully watch as their paradigm dies a deserving death they can’t prevent.
Their system runs on stolen money but the wells are running dry, people are opting out and this shift is making opting out easier and easier to do. No one ever thought monarchies would fall or that the Roman Church would stop having political authority at one time either.
This shift is a decade or less in the making, it is coming now, get ready for it.
A or B no C screw D … What about let’s put a parent back in the home to build the family and family wealth, to instill their beliefs and values, to build bonds of belonging to community not government? Where’s the honest wage for an honest day? You hold up the business, but refuse to realize that business are run by people who need laws to treat people right. Were these businesses above board there would be no unions. I am saying that if businesses would evolve, allow the ones who actually build the wealth share in that wealth in the form of being able to live on what is payed. Allowing for the idea that as long as there are boys and girls, there’s gonna be more boys and girls and allow for growth. Be HUMAN we are not dollars, slaves or trash so consider that the real human resource department.
Remember as you say this is the lowest form of communication and therefore you can’t see that I am considering what you say, nor see me shaking my head in agreement on parts. I am simply pointing out holes in what you said or how I understand what you have said.
I may sound like a lot of things, but I tend my own mind and ask questions where I have them and I have a feeling you say the same thing bout yourself. I have no group political affiliations and don’t want any as I refuse to support evil, just sayin
See you keep lumping in business and corportacracy.
You said, ” You hold up the business, but refuse to realize that business are run by people who need laws to treat people right.”
Does my business need laws to treat people right? Does Vic’s? Do really think Jeff Gleason needs laws to force him to treat his customers right? What companies need laws to be forced to treat people right?
Start naming names dude and you know what you will get right? A list of the companies that are writing the very laws you cite as making them treat people right. So what does that tell you.
Look brother I know you and have for a while. Right now some part of you has gone back to a bitter and angry point of your life. Let that shit go, there is NOTHING FOR YOU THERE but pain, misery and anger.
There are many good people doing many good things, you can’t blame government and use us and them, we are them to a greater degree than most will admit. Live in liberty, fight for what is right and let go of being pissed off about your circle of concern and get back to your circle of influence.
I heard someone refer to the public school system as welfare for the middle class, and government daycare. I do think that this will be a big hurdle for people who aren’t at home during the day. It may have been Jack who discussed a reversal of the school model, where kids were going to school to do labs and homework and watch lessons/lectures online at home. That would be a good model for working parents who come home and struggle with kids doing homework on subjects that they themselves forget how to do. Who knows what future education will look like, I just hope it includes a real choice unlike what we have today. Something must be wrong when you see public school teachers sending their kids to private schools at twice the rate as the average person.
A good read on the topic is the short book by James Ostrowski – Government School are bad for your kids.
Shorty,
You need to think out of the employment box. You get paid what you are worth according to the supply and demand for someone with your skill set (which makes immigration insidious in a sense, because it floods the market with workers keeping the wages down). To ask someone to pay you more than you are worth is to ask for charity. You can increase your wages by increasing your value to employers. But better yet, don’t lean on other people to take care of you. Don’t be a wage slave. Start a business, buy assets that make you money, a lawnmower and a leaf blower come to mind.
Jack you were speaking about bees a little in this one. The comments have long since closed on 1217 so I want to pass along some swarm trap plans one of my readers made. These plans make 4 traps from 1 4 x 8 sheet of plywood. Ecah trap holds 5 frames, and could also be used as nuc boxes. Good for anyone wanting to trap bees, but with no old equipment laying around.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/40tkavtjetlfiyz/nPM0haUTwA
I noticed the first print only shows the vertical dimensions not the horizontal ones.
Sheet 2 of 3 (swarm trap 4 x 8 layout.) is just a guide for efficiently ripping the plywood into more manageable pieces. Page 3 should have all dimension information (swarm trap parts list). If I am misunderstanding you let me know.
I feel like it may be a little late to comment about today’s Tuesday show but I think you should DEFINITELY do a show on the current version of slavery like you mentioned. I like listening to philosophical shows like that because it reinforces my belief that I need to get stuff going in my life and I need to GO and it makes it hard to get caught in the day to day rut of life which I am trying to stay out of entirely as early in life as possibly.
Also, have you ever thought about how the government just so happened to endorse and massively support producing foods that just so happen to make people very unhealthy and slow (mainly grains and to an extent dairy) and how stupid, unhealthy people are much much easier to control? I’m generally VERY skeptical of conspiracy theories and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they didn’t know better 50 years ago or whatever and now they won’t tell us they were wrong because they don’t want to lose credibility, but it’s just a thought.
Jack also did mention only keeping kids at home for this after they’re reasonably old enough to take care of themselves.
Your arguments against businesses don’t really make any sense. They certainly did not create the mess in the housing market. Bad lending practices, government encouraging/enforcing bad lending practices, irresponsible/ignorant buyers taking loans they shouldn’t be taking, irresponsible lenders (subprime mortgage backed bonds, really who thinks of that?!) and a host of unsustainable cultural trends (“everybody deserves a house and a yard and you deserve your house to keep going up in value every year”) caused the housing mess. Yes the case can be made that the banks are businesses and in that case businesses really did make the mess but I don’t think Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fit the description of a true business.
Maybe you do, in which case I think I’ve misunderstood you and your anti-business tirade actually makes sense and you should clarify WHICH businesses created the mess.
I’m not sure that is the case though.
Beating up on business does not help the education problem at all though, and we know there IS an education problem because after 13 years of education when our synapses are most actively forming they can’t give us an education that will give us any decent job.
We already know that business offering alternative solutions to education works though because it is happening every single day.
Jack,
Just letting you know that the review for the Norwood Portamill should be coming somewhat soon. Right now I’m waiting on some customer support from them, but what I can tell you thus far, it has been a complete unmitigated total disaster. Cool idea/design, absolutely 100% terrible hardware (I broke 4 bolts while putting it together, by hand), the cheap measuring stick broke during shipping because it was completely unprotected, I’ve had to tap completely messed up factory threads, and worst of all it broke my brand new Stihl MS 660 Magnum chainsaw (1200 dollar chainsaw), after cutting maybe 4 or 5 cuts. Oh, and they won’t return my emails now…
So it sounds like I owe you some money and an apology for getting you into this.
HAHA. Nahhhhhh.
I now really really want to get the review out. There are so little reviews (particularly videos) on any of these chainsaw mills. The only “Norwood Portamill” reviews are just like 3 people sawing a couple of boards, not talking anything about it.
There are also a ton of other considerations regarding it that people should know going into it (Like the size ladder you need and how expensive that really is). At this point it seems like getting a Logosol (M5 or M8) is by far a better idea.
This may have already been addressed but if the kids stay home for school how do you think this will affect homes were both parents have to work? I loved the show for three years and I pretty sure I will continue to do so because your not shitty at what you do… hehehe
I didn’t comment on it here but I did on a more recent episode. Rather than rehash it here, let me simply direct you to that post, http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/feedback-2-24-14/comment-page-1#comment-659726
Jack,
You nailed an important evil in modern education, public or private. A student working alone can do a day’s work in about two hours at the most. Schools do in-school suspension, they send the student to my office at the beginning of the day with all their books and list of everything they were supposed to do in class that day. Invariably they are done, successfully, in under two hours, often just an hour. This a huge crime against children, to steal so much of their childhood, to make them sit in straight miserable rows, not even going to the bathroom without getting permission from some lady. The modern classroom steals a large portion of their childhood, kills most students’ love learning, can be very damaging psychologically/socially and it ingrains habits of unthinking obedience. It sucks their little souls out. If you have to send your kid to school, what I am trying to create (once I walk to freedom), is a one room school house (no age grouping, this is the key to modern schooling) which would look a lot more a maker shed than a formal school. A visitor would see students building a boat, forming a band, feeding their hogs, tweaking their aquaponics system, building a set for a drama production, doing karate practice, or sitting in a read club devoring Jane Austen alongside a gifted teacher who can make such things come to life and have meaning. The curriculum would have a core, very tight core, of knowledge and skills they are expected to master. As long as they stay fairly on course, they are largely self-directed with occasional meetings with a a teacher to access progress through core curriculum. The main rules are don’t waste your time, don’t waste others time, and the golden rule. Our goal is children who can do, can do whatever they put their minds too. Who can think through their problems. Our goals is every child an entrepreneur, starting their first business probably before they are a teen ager. I would want our graduates to not even think of going to college (unless they really had a passion for higher education) because they are already close to supporting their own household and four years of college would be a four year set back.
Steve – Former teacher and principal. Former, because the whole model of modern education is a huge disservice to children.
Awesome Steven!
And the reason we split up kids in the lip service anyway is why, “big kids pick on little kids”. That is always the real reason when you dig into it with people.
However back when one room schools were the norm, there was no real problem, why? Tell us Steve what would happen to a disruptive child that failed to be kind to his fellow school mates at Steve’s One Room Awesome School, the new SORAS-ISD, LOL.
The answer to your question is the students are going to straighten out the disruptive child. The disruptive child is disrupting something the other students want to do. Imagine the behavior of your typical first grade student in class. Besides being bad, it’s also the same as all the other first grade students he is surrounded by, but in the one room school class room, the 6 year old is going to see the behavior of all these older students and move in that direction quickly. And if they don’t some 13 year old girl is going to turn them around and provide strong encouragement to grow up.
A school district in a remote part of Alaska moved to the one room school model purely for financial reasons; there were so few kids spread over such a huge area, they couldn’t afford to provide age-graded classes. To their surprise, the students test scores went through the roof, happiness and well being and student behaviors also greatly improved and of course they saved a lot of money.
The bad news about a one room school house is that the children have to be ‘independent learners’ because the teacher can’t possibly teach all those different grade levels. The good new is that the children will become independent learners. In fact in many ways, I hope none of my students actually graduate, but rather realize they don’t need school to learn. I think the main reason they would remain is so they can have access to the maker shed facilities and to work along side like-minded friends.
Excellent answer, I would add if you get the rare problem that can’t be corrected, you have the ability to tell the parents, this child may not have the privilege of attending my school if this isn’t rectified.
I want to share a simple true story here. At one time I was pretty broke as in when I first came to Texas. I took a job making 6 bucks an hour packing boxes. I made my quota daily, I was in the top 10 of about 40 packers every day.
There was a man named Nate who packed about double what the average packer did daily always number one. One day the supervisor said Nate is going to pack with you for a day. Nate told me to seal and mark the boxes and try to keep up, I laughed. 4 hours later at lunch I was not laughing! I wanted to go home but had four more hours of hell. Together we did almost but not quite 3 times the number two station, nothing dramatic there.
Till the next day when my numbers went up 35% and I was number two in the plant. From that day until I quit I was in the top three every day, though neither myself nor the guy I went back and forth between 2 and 3 with ever topped Nate he was a fricken machine.
Now here is the thing, he never showed me how to do a thing, never said see like this or that. I just experienced what he did and that alone improved my performance massively.
This is a great deal of why one room schools work so well!
There is an ethics lesson here too. This job sucked, it wasn’t something I planned to stick to. I was working to get on with MCI as a contractor which I did in about 60 days after this Nate experience. I was underpaid, over worked and the management was full of assholes. This company treated property better than they did workers. Yet I worked hard and did more than most. I felt if I was going to have even this shitty job I wanted to be good at it.
Our youth need a bit of a lesson in that view as well.
Steve I enjoyed reading your replies. I’d like to hear more, could you/ would you think about being a guest on TSP?
Jason, thanks for the compliment. I have thought a lot about being a guest if Jack wanted me. I guess this will be my application to be a guest. I was on a local talk show some years back and it was a lot of fun. I was only supposed to be on for 30 minutes and it wound up being two hours. I was told it was a very good show. I also have given numerous presentations to audiences as large as 400 on education and child rearing that were well received. I feel a little nauseous tooting my own horn, but if anyone spent the past twenty years studying education, particularly the history of education, they would have a lot of surprising and interesting ideas to share too. So much of what we think is normal turns out to be abnormal over the course of history. So much of the box that has been built around us by corporate/statists is so wrong, but we think it is normal because it is all we know. I also believe, and think that I can argue, that education and strong families and entrepreneurialism have huge roles in independent, self-reliant living over the long run.
A comment doesn’t equal a guest app and Dorothy kicks my ass if I touch her schedule and her bookings procedure. When the form comes back, fill one out and she will get you on air.
Hey Jack,
I figured a comment wasn’t an application, but that if you were interested you’d let me know how. I imagine you are inundated with apps to be on your program.
thanks,
Steve
I see a comment above from someone who hasn’t cared for the shows of late… I don’t usually comment here but I wanted to today. My 2 cents is I have loved the shows since the new year. Even shows that I went into thinking would be just ok or I wouldn’t even care for the topic I have loved. There has been a lot of talk about education of late and I guess I’m biased because I love it. My wife, who is a teacher by trade, but is currently a stay at home mom, and I have been talking a lot lately about home schooling. (I’m blessed with an over priced education that allows me to work three jobs so she can stay at home… ) We have been talking about this a lot lately and your shows have simply been pouring gas on my fire.
My son is in third grade and is literally brilliant (gets that from his mother) is bored to tears and hates school. He is socially very awkward though and has been diagnosed with mild Asperger’s, now autism spectrum disorder. We fear taking him out of school will turn him into a social recluse. hearing you talk about all of these things Jack and your experiences is helping me to conjure up some courage! I certainly don’t expect you to do shows for me but I’m eating this stuff up! 🙂
I want to share that this is the first time I have ever spoke publically about my sons struggles… I refuse to treat him differently or make excuses for him. The world isn’t going to change for him, he needs find a way to make his way in it! That mindset make it harder for me to pull the trigger on the home schooling…
Shaun, you are right that the world won’t change for your child, and you shouldn’t lower your standards for him, but, school has nothing in common with the real world. Most of the social hardships faced in school will not be faced in the real world, at least not nearly to the degree. Secondly, your son should be able to achieve much higher standards at home, than at school. As Jack pointed out, you can accomplish in two hours what takes students in a classroom all day to accomplish. For his sake I would strongly recommend not putting him on the yellow prison buses, especially the short-ones.
Very well said Steve!
@Shaun – You said, “We fear taking him out of school will turn him into a social recluse.” Your son sounds similar to ours–except in our case, he admired and conspired with the other same-age discontents when he was in school. In homeschooling you are free to choose social interactions for your kids that will be beneficial to them and that they can be successful at. Believe me, there are plenty of options! Our kids get positive socialization at sports and at church. They have lots of interactions with adults, especially parents, and are not so sensitive to peer pressure.
Best wishes, Shaun, for your journey with your son! Go with your gut for him, and don’t let other people’s labels stick to him.
Kerry
We also found at through home schooling our daughter has learned to talk with people of all ages not just young people. Many people have made comments about how Jada can carry on an actual conversation with an adult. People get hung up on this socialization thing….. I have been around other kids jada’s age and they are socially awkward when they are trying to speak with adults. Simple things like taking her to the grocery store teaches interaction. My wife used to be so proud of my daughter when she would talk to the baggers that were special needs and help them with bagging. I don’t see that often of 10, 11, and 12 year olds. My kids are adults in training… Being around 200 kids the same age does not necessarily teach social interaction.
Shaun you should not have to worry about about your son’s social skills if you get him involved in sports, church, and/or scouts. Scouts might be something he really gets into. Best of luck from an old Eagle Scout!
Funny you should mention that! We got him into scouts this year! He enjoys it quite a bit. We have also tried basketball, soccer, baseball and this winter, snow boarding… with somewhat mixed results… 😉 This has been rough as my wife and I were both pretty solid athletes, it tough to see him not interested… 🙁 Give him a book though and that boy will inhale it and tell you every fact that catches his eye after! You should hear the stuff he says to me… I ask him if it’s true and his response has become “google it”… I do and see that he is right… humbling…. 🙂
I’m inside the powder keg, so to speak. As a graduate student, I see a lot of the things that Jack is talking about. There are so many mediocre degree programs, mediocre teachers, and people who frankly don’t have a clue WHY they’re going to school.
US institutions (and their graduates) hold themselves in the highest esteem. However, one of the things I want to point out is that American universities are generally seen as top-tier institutions by people in other countries as well. They pay to send their best and brightest to the US to study and bring them back home to work in industry and communicate what they have learned. In this way, foreign education systems are steadily improving.
But think about this: what happens when those countries stop and say “why are we sending our people all the way to the US when they will do just as well studying here?” I think there’s a big shift coming.
I think the shows have been better than ever since Jack recharged over the holidays. You can hear it in his voice…even when it is hoarse.
John Holt (unschooling advocate – died in 1985) has many of the same ideas as you do. More money won’t help, parents vote with their feet, people have been complaining about schools poor quality all the way back to the turn of the 1900s (with another specific date of 1946 – about every 10 years a report comes out), solution is always more money, solution makes problem worse, schools are like factories, solutions are simple – like if you want to increase literacy give the kids a stack of books and let them read, etc.
Interesting when we learn history nothing has really changed. I’m glad my kids aren’t going to government schools. I’m glad they are homeschooling. I wish I could have home schooled as a child.
[Here’s the link to the interviews](http://www.johnholtgws.com/john-holt-audio-recordings/). Of the ones I’ve listened to I like the *WBOS A Nation at Risk* and the *David Freudberg* interview (at the bottom).
According to the Robinson method (a very strict method) kids can teach themselves starting by 2nd grade. Once they have the reading/writing/math tables/basic math down there isn’t much left to be taught, after that the kids can teach themselves.
A mentor might be helpful, but not necessary. Mainly just a desire and love to learn is the most important thing.
I can’t stand Robinson’s one size fits all approach to curriculum, and rigid workbook/textbook type learning, but I absolutely love his thoughts on kids learning how to learn. Most homeschool families drop out as the kids hit the higher grades because mom can’t teach chemistry, etc.. But if the child had been learning largely independently since he was 6 or 7, he can deal with chemistry on his own. In fact an independent learner will probably be leaving mom behind pretty early.
It seems like libertarians always think in terms of small businesses similar to the ones they have worked in or those that they associate with and make arguments with regards to that. That’s what they identify with and I understand that to an extent, but I think there are plenty of big businesses that are outside of that and even if there was less govt regulations I would imagine they could find plenty of ways to abuse power and take unfair advantage. That is what they will always be trying to do and they will hire consultants, experts, and all kinds of lawyers to help them figure out how to leverage their power and find loopholes in any situation govt regulation or otherwise. Any entity with tremendous financial wealth is going to have a great deal of power to leverage. I don’t really think it is such an easy problem but it is probably human nature to attempt to simplify things with regards to theorizing on that ..
I knew some good teachers, but I can’t really think of any teacher who was perfect or even that many that where great. We had a teacher in computer science whom everyone thought was great. He had a weird sense of dry corny humor and I seemed to have adopted this. Later on people probably didn’t appreciate my sense of humor when I started working as I used that to deal with stress but I got it from his classes and he was supposedly this awesome guy and I was actually kind of trying to imitate him in some ways. He made sure all the problems where very difficult so you would be challenged and learn. Some students dropped out of the program as a result. This nearly happened to a friend of mine. He would have flunked had I not helped him with his homework. I then recommended him a book that was easier to understand and more intuitive rather than some difficult obtuse approach meant to heavily challenge you a great deal. With my help he did eventually get a job as a computer programmer and worked there for at least a year. Later he went back to auto mechanic work, but I felt like my efforts to help him where well worth the rewards and his mother thanked me a great deal for helping him out.
You often find the business world is very different than the academic world, yet colleges help create engineers that businesses then use. Alot of people in business seem somewhat at odds with academic side of things when it ends up in the workplace. They just want to see results, yet alot of technology came from or was propagated by the academic world.
I also think people are human and easily prejudiced. They may ask you a question to evaluate you and if you get it wrong then they think you are not worth hiring yet it’s possible that you have some great strengths that they overlooked even though perhaps you did have that one weakness at that time. They then will remember you and if you ever submit your resume to that company again even years later they may never give you a second chance. People make mistakes but if technology is used to track you, evaluate you and grade you; then perhaps just because you made some mistakes or at one time where not doing so well, you will be labeled, black listed, etc. That is partly why when someone says evaluate teachers and all I am not sure if the reality of what it could end up being would be something worthwhile or that is my skepticism on that ..