*"Homeschooler /Anti-School C. R. Thread!"*

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School may, sometimes, produce ostensibly adapted/"normal" people out of aspies, but the process of social adaptation to school, ( which is a hostile environment for many children, especially the most sensitive and who think the most) , so much harder/stressful than home, will quite possibly cost them their capacity to engage usefully in any thing else, and actually severely reduce their later employment chances, restricting them to jobs as mindnumbing as school was.

There is no justification, in the modern world, for putting millions of children in a situation, for 14 years, where they can not think freely or peacefully most of the time, or investigate what interests them when it interests them; a situation in which they are required, if they are to "perform" acceptably, to concentrate all or most of their attention on one person feeding them data, most of the time at a pace which the children have no control over, except by disrupting the class.

WHO actually learns well like that?

What in fact are they actually learning in that situation? I believe that it is something profoundly disabling/negative.

What could children be doing instead in that vast expanse of time?

Your last few posts in fact, DW_a_mom, begin to sound as if the only reason for keeping children in school is because the rest of society is like that, and we have no choice, and life is hard.

Last edited by ouinon on 22 Mar 2008, 6:48 am, edited 6 times in total.

I can't? Why not? Is that another one of these odd ideas, like "all choices and ideas are equally valid", and "if I don't respect everybody's ideas equally I am being unfair or unreasonable" ?

Are you seriously suggesting that responsibility is an illusion?

It may be true that the final first cause for things can never be known, but I believe that most of science, and several other branches of study are founded on the idea that cause and effect is real, and worth finding out about/understanding, because it can sometimes/occasionally be useful!


Not frustrated , so much as angry, and sad, that people think children are not able to say for themselves what is best for them. I do not have to work out what is best for my son, apart from reminding myself that it mostly involves listening to him, because he usually knows for himself.

I came across a super article about something called NARCIS on a site called Helium.

"Education, ( or lack thereof ), or why America is getting dumber" . by Tyro Mazzeo, at:

http://www.helium.com/items/722900-dysl ... piperdream

As this article, and also the Wikipedia article on Controversy about ADHD, point out, the kind of trance that increasing numbers of people fall into at school is not good for growing brains.

Schleppenheimer mentioned this phenomenon on my other thread, ( about whether could homeschool if child wanted to) , about her son. Her son talks of going into almost a kind of coma, so that it is only by redoing all the work outside school that he keeps up with coursework.

Last edited by ouinon on 22 Mar 2008, 11:29 am, edited 4 times in total.

Bullying, mockery, harassment, and exclusion, are not accidental unwanted bits of school.

They are an intrinsic part of how it functions. As with the old prefect and fagging systems in fee-paying/boarding schools they serve as an extra stick to frighten people into the flock. The teachers do not have to be very unpleasant, in fact in most modern schools most of them are not, ( overtly ), because the children police themselves into submission.

It was very distinctly from the moment I began to be bullied, mocked, and excluded, aged 12, that I began to study "socialising" and "being like everybody else", very very hard. I had experienced some exclusion and mockery before, and I think it contributed to other behaviour changes, but I don't remember them so well, whereas the period from 12 years old, I remember perfectly, and have no trouble, now, in recognising how superbly well it worked to "train" me.

ouinon, did you go to school in the U.S.? If so, what region were you in (you don't have to answer if this is too personal).

The only reason that I ask is that our family has moved quite a bit. We lived in the northeast while my son (now 21) was going to school, and it was rough for him. Then we moved to Utah, and he had a really great school experience. There, academics was less important (not a great thing, but good for him at the time), but being "nice" was extremely important and almost required at school. Therefore, he went through middle school with the best experience I can imagine anyone having during those commonly rough years. We returned to the northeast during the high school years, and again, it was harder, but doable for him because he'd at least had three good years somewhere else.

I think that some places in the northeast can be rough places for school, whereas the west coast of the country can be easier for kids, basically because the culture is more open and accepting of differences. We were thinking of moving to Seattle recently, and looking into that area made me think that would be a great place for a kid on the spectrum to go to school, in terms of acceptance from others.

Kris

England ( UK) , three very different regions, four schools over 14 years.

You aren't suggesting that your son's three good years out of 14 is satisfactory, though, or that it is possible for everybody to live in the nice regions, ( if in fact that was enough to make a difference), are you?

What my schooling experience looked like to my parents was , "Could do better", but adequate. I didn't know what harm it had done me, didn't understand how it had disabled me and robbed me, until long after school and university.

"Difficulties" in school may just be the tip of the iceberg; be grateful for them as signals, because many children don't even manage to articulate their distress until afterwards when it is too late. It is very hard to understand that something is bad for you if everybody tells you that it is a good thing. ( Smoking was like that. For many years presented as being good for the lungs.)

It's not regions and teachers, it's being obliged to sit still, for hours, every day, for years, and let someone else direct and control your access to information, regulate/restrict the time you can spend on independent and productive self-directed thought, and an institution which teaches more powerfully than almost anything else that you can not learn on your own, that information has to be pushed into people.

It is a kind of brain death for many children, amongst them your son that goes into a kind of coma.

Last edited by ouinon on 22 Mar 2008, 8:18 am, edited 2 times in total.

I'm wondering whether anyone on here is familiar with the history of "hysteria" in the 19th century? It was a phenomenon confined almost exclusively to women, and most widespread in Europe.

It occupied doctors, psychologists/psychiatrists, and many hundreds of experts and authorities in their field for many years. Thousands of papers were written about it. Much "scientific" thought was spent on it, including "scientific" experiments involving hypnosis, electric shock treatment, removal of the clitoris, medication, confinement/restraints.

The most eminent thinkers dedicated themselves to understanding and analysing this "epidemic" of strange maladies; repeated/frequent fainting, screaming, "excessive"/"inappropriate" sexual arousal, fits, convulsions, trembling, sickness, loss of speech, loss of sensation, pathologically sensitive skin reactions, foaming at the mouth, unstoppable laughter, over-excitability, crying constantly, complete loss of appetite, apathy, anxiety.

What happened to "hysteria"? What happened to the symptoms I listed above, and to the thousands of women diagnosed as suffering from this maladie? ( mainly women in the middle class, married and young women, educated women, though not always).

What happened is that women started being allowed to go out to work, ( because men were at the Boer War, amongst other campaigns), and were permitted to leave, if they wished, the world of "home and family" which until then had been judged ( by men) quite sufficient, and appropriate, and soon afterwards they won the right to vote, which was official recognition that what they had to say mattered, that they should be listened to, so that they did not have to resort to mystifying and bizarre symbolic language of the body anymore to make themselves heard/noticed.

I disagree wholeheartedly.

They are reflections of the attitudes of the community around those children, and I choose not to live where those attitudes are accepted. As a result, these actions are not tolerated at my children's school. True, they can still happen, but you should see the parents when they find out their child has acted this way! The children quickly learn from their parents that the behavior is not acceptable, and they quickly learn to spread that message among themselves.

PLEASE do not equate public schooling with abuse. I have done much work with the issue of abuse and I cannot take this associate lightly. Can abuse arise in a public school setting? YES, I will not deny that, but it is the fault of the INDIVIDUALS involved, and is not indeminc to the institution.

I will agree, however, from your personal stories (which I really enjoy reading, and I am glad you are willing to share, even though it must be very difficult) that you suffered abuse at the hands of the school system. And, as a parent, I need to do everything I can to make sure that neither of my children are suffering or will suffer in the way you have.

I realized last night that one of the reasons my son enjoys school is because it IS a very structured environment. Did you know that he laments why school cannot have a longer day, or include Saturdays? Lol, that way, he figures, he could eliminate homework, and to him homework is the ultimate evil of evils. He likes his world in little boxes: at school you listen, follow the routine, and learn. He finds a lot of comfort in that, in knowing the expectations. At home you are supposed to be free. When either box intrudes upon the other he rebels: homework is school intruding upon home. And a party is home intruding upon school - he doesn't like parties, lol. And he does not like school vacations, when he is home too much, and enjoying too much freedom. We have to enroll him in daycare or daycamps so that he feels he has some structure.

The thing is, there is NO one-size-fits-all answer for every child. You are so convinced that every child is suffering as you were, that you cannot see far beyond it. It just isn't true.

I think you have made a very important point here. This is especially true with Aspies.

I think it is great for you to challenge conventional thinking. It is important in many ways, many of which you have written about. But that does not mean revolution is the right result. Usually the revolutionary thinking is best applied to making necessary adjustments, but not to outright overturning, what exists in society. I think history, as a whole, shows this. Revolution is just as dangerous as blind convention.

Still, the conversation is useful, as long as we can keep it civil.

And meeting my work deadline is getting more and more terrifying, so I really must be DONE with this!

I've been told to cut down on the rhetoric so I'll keep it short:

http://ednews.org/articles/20389/1/The- ... Page1.html

A completely unrelated quote by Ivan Illich which I found:

Last edited by ouinon on 22 Mar 2008, 12:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Can be true, is not always.

The article does not describe teaching at my children's school. Among other things, most of our teachers come to us straight out of school, and their methods are formed from the get-go by the school culture of "teaching to the individual child" and applying a "whole child" concept that integrates individuality, emotional health, and life skills with the acedemic basics. Our school principal is a former hippy, after all. A counter-culture revolutionary! Who learned to tweak from within the system.

My son's teacher is (I am convinced, although I've never asked) an Aspie, and runs the most chaotic classroom you will ever see. He believes that children need motion, to be themselves. Although, yes, there are times he really needs them to listen, and they have come to respect that.

My son has issues with the chaos, but adores the teacher, because he is a endless fountain of interesting information and obscure facts. So, he deals. He could have chosen a different teacher this year, who runs a very calm classroom, but he saw the pros and cons either way and decided to be happy whereever he landed.

I simply cannot engage in this anymore.

I just found another article which puts it much better than I do. It ocurs to me that if I sound frustrated that might be the reason. :

http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/john_gatto.html

Last edited by ouinon on 22 Mar 2008, 2:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

No, and WOW -- I think you have no idea how offensive that remark could be to a parent!

First of all, I am all for your right to homeschool. I think it's WONDERFUL! I think you should be commended for your work, and I would NEVER think of saying such offensive things to you. I also am grateful that you've told us about your negative experiences with your schooling, and therefore, if I had those experiences as well, I would see homeschooling as the ONLY GOOD OPTION. I cannot find one thing wrong with your statements about THAT.

On the other hand, you have NO IDEA what you're talking about when you are talking about my children and my family. For one thing, when my older son was going through his negative school situations, HE HADN'T BEEN DIAGNOSED WITH ANY PROBLEM. It was only when our younger son was diagnosed with high-functioning autism that we realized that maybe our older son was dealing with a mild form of Asperger's syndrome. So, to answer your question, NO, I don't think that three good years out of 14 is satisfactory, and I really find your question to be unkind.

What I WAS saying, if you could listen for a minute without reading much of these posts through the prism of your own experience, was that I have found that there are different cultures within schools, partly due to where a person may live. In the Northeast U.S., academics is more important, cliques are more important, and being kind or accepting "seems" to be less important than in other places I have lived with my family (and even what I am saying here is a HUGE generalization.) I grew up on the West coast, where (and I generalize again, here) academics is less important, but there is much more acceptance of differences in people. Therefore one's school experience could be much more enjoyable for a kid on the spectrum. With my son, he enjoyed being one of the smarter kids in school, while at the same time, his peers seemed to enjoy him BECAUSE he was so smart AND BECAUSE he was so different. The teachers were kinder to him because he was a better student. His whole experience was much nicer. And it wasn't for just three years. This experience benefited him when he returned to the Northeast to school. Then, we moved again to California, and he had a good experience there as well (for one year).

I worried, and worried, and worried over this son -- and he's only mildly affected. He is now in college, has a work internship in his chosen major, is paying partially for his tuition, has many friends and a wonderful girlfriend. He is STILL the same kid he was in high school -- very liberal (and going to an incredibly conservative university), very opinionated, still very different from his peers, but he's found a way to hold on to his individualism, and hold on to what is so spectacular about people with Asperger's, and yet he blends well with society. Most of all, and he would tell you this, he is HAPPY and CONTENT.

Is this due to being in public school? No! I'm never going to say that I'm happy with public school, because I'm not. I agree with most of your points -- it's too regimented, it doesn't take into account individuality and special abilities, and there is much going on in public school that is not positive. I do not, however, believe that ALL public schools are as awful as you say they are, and I also do not believe, as it would appear from so many of your posts, that ANY PARENT WHO ALLOWS THEIR CHILD TO ATTEND PUBLIC SCHOOL DOESN'T REALLY CARE FOR THEIR CHILD. Even if I am considering homeschooling my child, it is not due to a public school that isn't fulfilling my child's needs. The school he is attending has been nothing but kind to him, even the other students are good to him. Not all students, of course, but the lion's share are. Middle school is notoriously awful for most kids, and was for my NT daughter, but my son has said he enjoys it more than elementary school. I think that he would really miss his friends, even though he has just a handful, if he was homeschooled. Sure, he would make new ones, and I think that he would do well to be homeschooled. I just don't have enough information currently to make a decision yet.

I apologize if I sounded angry. I guess I am. I think anyone would be if the implication was put out that it was ok with us as parents to send our children to a school where they are being abused by teachers, administration, and students. It's not ok at all, and if I ever had any idea from my youngest son that this was going on, I would yank him out of school in a New York minute. So far, that's not the case IN HIS SITUATION. AND, my older son WAS having a rough time like this in elementary school, BUT HE NEVER TOLD ME about it until he was older. Even if he had, I knew nothing about Asperger's syndrome at the time, and wouldn't have had an understanding about sensory difficulties, social difficulties, etc. I even asked him periodically, and this older son wouldn't tell me, and always came HOME in a cheerful mood as an elementary student. It was highly confusing. Only when he became a moody teenager did I come to understand some of the difficulties he was going through -- and that's right when he began to find more acceptance with peers at school, and things began to turn around for him.

I guess my point is this: There is no one-size fits-all answer to the homeschooling -- public education situation. What works for each individual family is best, and I'm happy for those who have found the right answer for THEM.

Kris

I didn't mean to be unkind; I know that you couldn't possibly think it was satisfactory, but I didn't understand why you seemed to describe his experience as some kind of defence of state school. I now realise that it was specifically and precisely to prove how immensely different districts can be.

But as I said I don't believe that it is possible for everyone to live only in the nice areas. Thus introducing a major element of privilege. In fact I think that even the better places are still suffering from most of the profound flaws which result in loss of autonomy, etc, for many children. They may just seem like oases of peace and comfort after worse models.

i am really glad that things have turned out so well.


I don't believe that.

I think that most mistakes made about what is good for other people/one's children, are not the result of "not caring" but the result of "not knowing".

I am desperate that people should know, really know; not just think that homeschooling is an option for minority of people, a strange fringe lifestyle choice; that they should really know that there is a serious case against the common widespread form of state schooling. I read so many threads on here which indicate that for most people state school is all they consider.

This makes me feel very sad, and somewhat angry too. But I do not mean that non-homeschoolers are uncaring. I just think that many have unnecessarily/unfortunately narrow ideas of homeschooling, who it's for, what it's like etc.

The bias is almost without exception in favour of state school, despite the fact that it is doing an increasingly abysmal job.
I apologise if I seemed unkind. I was confused, and sometimes that makes me snipey, but I genuinely did not believe that you thought it was satisfactory. Obviously you could not.

I don't follow why his aspergers diagnosis would have altered anything earlier on. If he seemed happy as you say, you would have had no reason to do anything. Yes, I can imagine.

Thank you for replying so fully.

Last edited by ouinon on 22 Mar 2008, 2:36 pm, edited 6 times in total.

I found another excellent article, about the bullying issue;

"Where Does the Bullying Mentality Come From ?" by Roland Meighan, at:

http://edheretics.gn.apc.org/EHT005.htm

It's a wonderful article in fact. When I read these things I feel sane. As the little boy says to his father at the end, "Now that I know that there are other people who think school is crackers I can cope with it!"... "find bits of treasure in the wreck".

Knowing that other people know that it is a wreck is such a relief to me. I wish that I had known that as a child, at school.

I think there are interesting points, and select lessons to be learned, but overall, I simply do not agree. I, personally, have always enjoyed, yes ENJOYED, the classroom setting as way to educate myself. I like the exchange of ideas, the meeting of face to face. Lecture halls - not so much. But I've taken wonderful classes in my lifetime. At least, that is how I saw it then.

There are many ways to acquire knowledge, and I encourage everyone to use what works best for them. I am simply not going to fall into what I see as edge thinking that all schools are bad places. It doesn't fit with my life experience, nor with that of my friends and family.