For The Kids: What should I have my son do?

[Kstanki2]

^I'm interested in homeschooling when I have kids, public school is a miniature Orwellian nightmare. The only potential problem I see is the amount of time required for it, I mean it would be like a full time job for the parent(s) wouldn't it? I suppose I should do some research.

You mentioned he has an interest in building video games, I would start him off with something that gives him a big payoff for his work at that age. Learning the basics of code is essential, but it can be dry and boring if he doesn't have the right context of how code translates into a game, or anything else.

I would recommend finding a PC game with an extensive mod kit, teach him how to modify an existing game to make it his own and it will register that he can create anything imaginable in the virtual world with the right tools. It usually doesn't require any real code, I remember playing around with the Morrowind and Neverwinter Nights editors and making some cool quests and stories when I was 12-13, I built maps in Counter Strike as well. It lets him see what it's like to design a game without getting bogged down in technical stuff, he might not go on to be a game developer but having that experience is awesome if he plans on working with coding and software.

 

[tspesh]

^I'm interested in homeschooling when I have kids, public school is a miniature Orwellian nightmare.

I really think that's a load of crap.

How can university be chalk full of liberal free spirited professors that just teach kids the world is their own and yet they only pump out Orwellian teachers for our grade school?

Which is it?

 

[Kstanki2]

I really think that's a load of crap.

How can university be chalk full of liberal free spirited professors that just teach kids the world is their own and yet they only pump out Orwellian teachers for our grade school?

Which is it?

Teaching adults and adolescents are wildly different jobs. When you have a class full of adults who know how to shut the hell up, a professor has the freedom to spout their 'liberal' spiel because they have control over the classroom. Most grade school teachers would love to repeat the free-spirited stuff they heard in college, but they find out very quickly that it's impossible when you have a room full of children.

When you have a class full of teenagers who are either asleep, high, talking, laughing, or just flat out ignoring you, you spend all your time as a teacher babysitting and disciplining and the quality of the education suffers, their time in school is spent on learning to obey and behave instead of learning what they're passionate about. When you teach a teenager one on one, you don't have that problem and they focus on the subject at hand and get it done way faster.

The atmosphere of public school is simply not ideal for an effective education, immature young people won't cooperate and listen in a group setting unless you hold punishments over their head as motivation, hence, miniature Orwellian nightmare. It's not the teacher's fault, that's just how kids are when you put them in a group and make them sit still for hours on end.

 

[cardine]

Teaching adults and adolescents are wildly different jobs. When you have a class full of adults who know how to shut the hell up, a professor has the freedom to spout their 'liberal' spiel because they have control over the classroom. Most grade school teachers would love to repeat the free-spirited stuff they heard in college, but they find out very quickly that it's impossible when you have a room full of children.

When you have a class full of teenagers who are either asleep, high, talking, laughing, or just flat out ignoring you, you spend all your time as a teacher babysitting and disciplining and the quality of the education suffers, their time in school is spent on learning to obey and behave instead of learning what they're passionate about. When you teach a teenager one on one, you don't have that problem and they focus on the subject at hand and get it done way faster.

The atmosphere of public school is simply not ideal for an effective education, immature young people won't cooperate and listen in a group setting unless you hold punishments over their head as motivation, hence, miniature Orwellian nightmare. It's not the teacher's fault, that's just how kids are when you put them in a group and make them sit still for hours on end.

Then send your kid to a private school.

 

[thosmi]

Maybe send him to school and teach him to be like other kids?

 

[Kstanki2]

Then send your kid to a private school.

That's an option too. Kids are still way down the road for me, I'm just interested in alternatives for their education.

 

[tspesh]

Teaching adults and adolescents are wildly different jobs. When you have a class full of adults who know how to shut the hell up, a professor has the freedom to spout their 'liberal' spiel because they have control over the classroom. Most grade school teachers would love to repeat the free-spirited stuff they heard in college, but they find out very quickly that it's impossible when you have a room full of children.

When you have a class full of teenagers who are either asleep, high, talking, laughing, or just flat out ignoring you, you spend all your time as a teacher babysitting and disciplining and the quality of the education suffers, their time in school is spent on learning to obey and behave instead of learning what they're passionate about. When you teach a teenager one on one, you don't have that problem and they focus on the subject at hand and get it done way faster.

The atmosphere of public school is simply not ideal for an effective education, immature young people won't cooperate and listen in a group setting unless you hold punishments over their head as motivation, hence, miniature Orwellian nightmare. It's not the teacher's fault, that's just how kids are when you put them in a group and make them sit still for hours on end.

You realize the real world works the same: Act like a dipshit and bad things happen.

It happens in college too, interestingly enough.

Also, there are plenty of other ways to motivate kids other than threat of punishment, but that's an entirely different topic about the quality of educators.

 

[Bofu2U]

You have a 10 yr old that you home school and you are pushing him into sitting in front of a computer hanging with dad for his fun time?

Technically he'd be sitting beside his kid, as the computer would be in pieces on the floor/table. Try not to group shit together like he's forcing his kid to do this. He asked his son if he would like to learn, his son said yes. Why would you even encourage his father to FORCE his son to go outside and "play" with "friends" if he doesn't want to, or doesn't have any? Think about the big picture man, it's what the kid wants to do. He said he wants to learn, and he thinks it's cool. Period.

You may want to open the front door to the house and point to those other people his own size, which you may want to explain are other children. See how they move their legs real fast, that is called running. See how their mouths are turned up and teeth are showing, that is called a smile. Let your kid be a kid, let your kid spend time with other kids or he is going to be a social outcast. The greatest gift you can give your son is the ability to not be a social dork.

Maybe their fathers didn't have the ability to teach them what they were interested in, or more importantly: maybe they didn't even ask and just pushed them outside to "play with friends". "Kids will be kids" doesn't mean shit if you just see your kid as a "kid" and not your son. He has interests, he has wants, he has preferred things to do. If you don't ask, you won't know. Don't be another hands off blanket parent. "Oh, age 10. Should go out and play tag with his friends".

If your son wanted to learn about computers, and you know about computers, and you just tell them "you should be outside playing with your friends" every time instead of maybe teaching them when they want, and they play outside for the rest. The OP isn't talking about grounding his damn son indoors and forcing him to take systems apart and put them back together like a sweatshop.

Then send your kid to a private school.

This. I don't regret going and thank my parents 100% for it.

(FULL DISCLOSURE: I'm not a father (to my knowledge)).

 

[Beach Affiliate]

Isn't the important thing here is that this guy is cool enough to actually want to do things with his kids?

Hell, he's the 1% of parents just for that.

 

[DewChugr]

^I'm interested in homeschooling when I have kids, public school is a miniature Orwellian nightmare. The only potential problem I see is the amount of time required for it, I mean it would be like a full time job for the parent(s) wouldn't it? I suppose I should do some research.

When you consider how much time out of the day your average school spends learning you'll quickly find out that you can cover more than the public schools in half the time. Your kids can go out and ride their bike or play basketball and that's part of school, i.e. Phys ed. You'll find there are lots of kids in your town that are home schooled and they usually have group activities where one day a parent will teach an art class or whatever. You can have them help shop and cook meals and that can be part of it. In Illinois your kids can take band, etc at the local high school. There are weekend conferences you can go to where there are workgroups companies showing off their educational material.

And, you don't have to spend half of the class time teaching to the lowest level of a class of 30 or trying to discipline/get kids to listen. We had two families in our neighborhood that home schooled, each with three kids. One set of kids was very normal, but brighter than average, the other group had an overbearing mother, bright but not quite socially normal kids. Do some research, talk to people doing it (in you town or state) and check the requirements in your state. Colleges seem to readily welcome home schooled kids.

 

[ENDed]

When you consider how much time out of the day your average school spends learning you'll quickly find out that you can cover more than the public schools in half the time. Your kids can go out and ride their bike or play basketball and that's part of school, i.e. Phys ed. You'll find there are lots of kids in your town that are home schooled and they usually have group activities where one day a parent will teach an art class or whatever. You can have them help shop and cook meals and that can be part of it. In Illinois your kids can take band, etc at the local high school. There are weekend conferences you can go to where there are workgroups companies showing off their educational material.

And, you don't have to spend half of the class time teaching to the lowest level of a class of 30 or trying to discipline/get kids to listen. We had two families in our neighborhood that home schooled, each with three kids. One set of kids was very normal, but brighter than average, the other group had an overbearing mother, bright but not quite socially normal kids. Do some research, talk to people doing it (in you town or state) and check the requirements in your state. Colleges seem to readily welcome home schooled kids.

The College part is true, They will accept home school kids all day because believe it or not that kids work ethic is usually better.

Most kids in school are either bored to death and/or frustrated with the material matter at hand.

Like I also stated next year he will be going to private school. This is one of the reasons I want to get him learning more on the computer and maybe making apps and stuff.

The school he will be going to gives Ipads and Laptops to every kid to use as they please.

MY MIND -
how cool would it be my son makes a game he could sell to the other kids through itunes. This to me is the modern day equivalent of selling candy muhahahhahaha.

making a poll in another thread lets see how it goes,


anyway,


you also have to understand there are different forms of homeschooling.

To the person saying it would take a whole day, Not really you use every chance you have to make it a learning experience and you make it fun to the child. When they are in school only 10-20% of the time are they actually learning anything.

We use a mixture with k-12 and we blow through a day of lessons in less than 2 hours,

 

[Kstanki2]

You realize the real world works the same: Act like a dipshit and bad things happen.

It happens in college too, interestingly enough.

Also, there are plenty of other ways to motivate kids other than threat of punishment, but that's an entirely different topic about the quality of educators.

Well of course there are repercussions for your actions, but in a public school setting the entire classroom is punished because a few kids are being dipshits, if anything it teaches them socialist-oriented values because everyone has to pay for the fuck ups while they slide by.

Most of the class is trying to get engaged and learn something, young people naturally want to learn and find their passion, but the idiots who's parents didn't discipline them properly at home carry their bullshit over into the classroom and ruin it for everybody. If you single them out and try to correct it fairly you get shit for it, 'no child left behind' after all, so everyone gets treated like an idiot in the name of 'fairness'.

The difference is that in college you can get left behind, so you either pay attention or waste your tuition, it weeds out the idiots that couldn't hack high school.

But I feel like we're getting a bit off track here. I applaud OP for allowing his son to pursue his interests, his young age is an advantage, not a barrier. If he loses interest at some point, and he probably will, let him change direction and learn about something else for a while. He'll come back to coding/computers/websites if it's meant to be.

 

[turbolapp]

RP said something (out of context) similar last week, talking about an "honest rape". Took me a while to grasp but it's something along these same lines of thinking.

There's sincere manipulation ... Influence where we want the best for someone else and at the same time looking our for our self

Then there's the evil manipulation ... Influencing by wanting the best for yourself (or friends) while looking out only for yourself at the expense of someone else. This influence is usually exclusively mental those days and you're being trained like a dog.

Yes. There's nothing wrong with manipulation, it's all how you wield it that matters. Like a hammer that can be used to build a house or crack a skull, manipulating the people around you is something you do everyday whether you realize it or not. (Of course the people that realize it are usually much more skilled )

Btw, totally off topic but your 'honest rape' comment made me think of something I saw the other day. Tickling: It's like rape with laughter. I haven't been able to tickle anyone since.

 

[tspesh]

I don't entirely disagree with you, I just think that there is value to spending time with peers and I don't think that the negatives you speak of about public school are as prevalent as you make them out to be. A lot of home schooled kids the peer-to-peer interaction through other avenues. A lot don't.

Well of course there are repercussions for your actions, but in a public school setting the entire classroom is punished because a few kids are being dipshits, if anything it teaches them socialist-oriented values because everyone has to pay for the fuck ups while they slide by.

Most of the class is trying to get engaged and learn something, young people naturally want to learn and find their passion, but the idiots who's parents didn't discipline them properly at home carry their bullshit over into the classroom and ruin it for everybody. If you single them out and try to correct it fairly you get shit for it, 'no child left behind' after all, so everyone gets treated like an idiot in the name of 'fairness'.

The difference is that in college you can get left behind, so you either pay attention or waste your tuition, it weeds out the idiots that couldn't hack high school.

But I feel like we're getting a bit off track here. I applaud OP for allowing his son to pursue his interests, his young age is an advantage, not a barrier. If he loses interest at some point, and he probably will, let him change direction and learn about something else for a while. He'll come back to coding/computers/websites if it's meant to be.