EPTIs School Necessary? - Page 7
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iTzSnypah
United States1738 Posts
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Staboteur
Canada1873 Posts
One important thing I think blue touches on is that as long as you're of a reasonable level of intellect, you do NOT need a formal education to survive. I sure wouldn't go back in time and trust an eight year old me to guide my own education, but I can't say that if that had been the case I'd be homeless / impoverished / worse off in any actual quantifiable way. I think what blue advocates is sensible, as long as you can continue to guide the kids toward enjoying something and working at it. Work ethic and social skills are likely more applicable life skills than most specific subjects taught at schools, so as long as those are maintained I could see his kids being juuust fine. Also shoutout to blue for sticking with the discussion. A lot of red's commentary would feel to me like I was being attacked, were I in his position. Obviously that's not the truth - red seems genuinely curious - but still, myself in that position would have a hard time being as patient. | ||
Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51465 Posts
College is the opposite though it teaches you fuck all 2hours a week and the rest is spent getting "drunk" and stuff >.< stupid college xD | ||
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WGT-Baal
France3351 Posts
The thing is, not anybody can handle their kids every day, let alone have the ability to teach them correctly. Granted Advanced science is not needed for most jobs (it s an example) but it is still interesting to have some notions. Same goes for languages, history etc... I do agree that learning in a class of 30+ pupils is very slow (my languages lessons from elementary and high school were totally useless, I learnt English on Bnet because I had to, and much faster than my other comrades who only attended the class), yet it gives a certain rhythm in your life, like Pandemona said, and you get to see a broad range of topics, as well as forging friendship. In some cases, with educated parents and a good environment as well as the child's own behaviour/personality, I think being homeschooled (as in not going to school) can do well. But it is very situational and for most cases, I believe going to school is better in the long run,socially as well as for your "knowledge" (sorry I dont know how to express it differently). | ||
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McRatyn
Poland901 Posts
Part of the reason I don't want to take the poll is that for me the only criteria against getting formal education would be lazyness. It's cool that you can stay home. Never really thought about school's social interactions to be different than any other, just that is provided context, a way to meet new people and that's it. I'm also not sure how the school education is actually going to help me in real life situation (which I don't think will be very much based on my parents who don't have higher education being hardly able to help me in middle school). For me school (and university for that matter) is only a way of getting a job, a stepping stone nothing else. I hop from one to another the fastest I can and hardly look back, except seeing some people now end then. Sorry for the wall of text  | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44092 Posts
On January 09 2014 20:11 iTzSnypah wrote: How can somebody be so arrogant? Honestly, that was my first impression as well. To think that one person has the time, energy, and intellect to teach all curricula and content provided throughout primary and secondary school is a rather arrogant and ignorant thing to say, and unless the parent has a ton of connections through professional tutors and other resources (which are generally only available in the most affluent families and environments), the student is going to miss a ton of academic material, and won't even realize the subjects that he could have learned about from experts. On January 09 2014 20:16 Staboteur wrote: One important thing I think blue touches on is that as long as you're of a reasonable level of intellect, you do NOT need a formal education to survive. I sure wouldn't go back in time and trust an eight year old me to guide my own education, but I can't say that if that had been the case I'd be homeless / impoverished / worse off in any actual quantifiable way. I think what blue advocates is sensible, as long as you can continue to guide the kids toward enjoying something and working at it. Work ethic and social skills are likely more applicable life skills than most specific subjects taught at schools, so as long as those are maintained I could see his kids being juuust fine. Sure you may not need a formal education to survive, but I would hope parents are raising their kids with the intentions of providing even more opportunities and an even better lifestyle than they had, when growing up. And I think this means not restricting a child's educational opportunities simply because there are some cons to schooling. I agree with you that work ethic and social skills are also incredibly important, and I think both of those can definitely be reinforced in school alongside good parenting. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44092 Posts
On January 09 2014 21:26 McRatyn wrote: That discussion was really interesting, even though I can't say I can just pick one of the options in the poll. You can say that it is the first time in my life that I saw so much discussion on home education. For me being homeschooled was not ever an issue, you just go to school and that's it. Only in middle schood did I learn that homeschooling was an existing reality when my friend terribly broke her leg and had to stay at home for a semester, and then again that you can be homeschooled when you're pregnant in mid school ( 2 girls in my school, and an old friend). Part of the reason I don't want to take the poll is that for me the only criteria against getting formal education would be lazyness. It's cool that you can stay home. Never really thought about school's social interactions to be different than any other, just that is provided context, a way to meet new people and that's it. I'm also not sure how the school education is actually going to help me in real life situation (which I don't think will be very much based on my parents who don't have higher education being hardly able to help me in middle school). For me school (and university for that matter) is only a way of getting a job, a stepping stone nothing else. I hop from one to another the fastest I can and hardly look back, except seeing some people now end then. Sorry for the wall of text Yeah I tried making the poll as objective and all-inclusive as possible, but there's always the occasional exception No worries! I fear that many homeschooling families, while perhaps starting the process with the best intentions, eventually have those periods of laziness or non-education because the parent becomes busy with other things and realizes he might not be able to work two full time jobs at the same time. Hopefully professional tutors can help alleviate that problem, but not everyone can afford tutors, especially on a daily basis. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44092 Posts
On January 09 2014 19:05 Pandemona wrote: So he really thinks that the best way for a child to "learn" is to be isolated with their parents and be way more attached to them, then let them go outside the house on their own to school to socially interact with peers there own age and learn on their own? Vs a parent who might not even be the best educated in said field to teach them skills that are not useful? Ala dancing he mentions. He also only mentions two useful skills his children has learnt and that is cooking and sewing. Both of which are going to be pretty small use for a child. The biggest thing any child (imo of course) needs to learn is the ability to socialize with peers and learn by HIMSELF with just a helping hand from a teacher. By doing this and going to school your given lots of useful information from different fields of education. From history teacher to music teacher, from sports to arts, you get everything. Then from a young age the child might pick something straight away he wants to be, whether it be the next Obama or the next Michael Jordan, everyone starts their dreams as children through school (well i did). Yeah I'm not really sure how Blue thinks that his child's lack of any formal education (even formal homeschooling with tutors and academic resources) is going to help his child learn the same things as a child who receives a formal education and has outside experiences. I think it's a bit limiting and unfortunate for the child to have a parent who dictates the spectrum of incoming academic knowledge (which basically ends up being "anything the parent knows, and almost nothing else"). Many kids will miss out on opportunities presented to them by other subjects that the parent can't teach, and not every kid is capable of picking up a high school- level book and teaching himself everything. Oh and great discussion subject DPB, especially from a teacher this must of been a hard one to bite your tongue in your replies  It really was, and I was trying to remain relatively calm during the situation. I know full well that coming across as overly aggressive or dogmatically opinionated is a surefire way to kill a discussion, and I wanted to hear his arguments for his position anyway. The whole "I can teach my kid everything better than the collective society of teachers" opinion really irks teachers, for obvious reasons. | ||
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
That being said, a significant number of neighbors and stuff that I've seen homeschooling their kids (at least out in the boonies near Sacramento) are doing it so they can teach their kids that the earth is 6,000 years old and other weird shit without teachers around to contradict them with the truth. Doesn't sound like Blue is that kind of parent, but I suspect a non-trivial, maybe even majority of homeschooling comes from shit motivations from the parents. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44092 Posts
On January 10 2014 01:14 Blazinghand wrote: I've certainly seen homeschooled kids who have turned out fine, or needed homeschooling due to certain disabilities, and had good parents. Back when my aunt/uncle were living for a year in a shit school district in Hawaii they homeschooled their 2 sons for a year. It worked out okay, and when they were back in California their kids were ready to go back to school, and hadn't fallen behind. Yeah, I think that temporary homeschooling, when put in those similar situations, makes sense (especially when they have other resources to appeal to). They already have the study structure and it's not like it's for their entire educational career. That being said, a significant number of neighbors and stuff that I've seen homeschooling their kids (at least out in the boonies near Sacramento) are doing it so they can teach their kids that the earth is 6,000 years old and other weird shit without teachers around to contradict them with the truth. Doesn't sound like Blue is that kind of parent, but I suspect a non-trivial, maybe even majority of homeschooling comes from shit motivations from the parents. Yeah I think that some anti-educational problems could definitely occur from things like religious closed-mindedness, which only hurts their kids when it comes to engaging and living in the real world. They could be socially ostracized for believing in nonsense (e.g., a young Earth, rejecting evolution, etc.), and it could very well stop them from exploring new learning and job opportunities (in this case, not having a proper science education). Fortunately, many religious private schools (e.g., Catholic schools) aren't as overly dogmatic and indoctrinating of faith over facts as one might worry about (they still have academic standards and can be very successful), but there are surely some parents who don't want anything but the Bible taught (and those are the same parents who pray instead of medicate their sick kids). | ||
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Dfgj
Singapore5922 Posts
On January 10 2014 01:14 Blazinghand wrote: I've certainly seen homeschooled kids who have turned out fine, or needed homeschooling due to certain disabilities, and had good parents. Back when my aunt/uncle were living for a year in a shit school district in Hawaii they homeschooled their 2 sons for a year. It worked out okay, and when they were back in California their kids were ready to go back to school, and hadn't fallen behind. That being said, a significant number of neighbors and stuff that I've seen homeschooling their kids (at least out in the boonies near Sacramento) are doing it so they can teach their kids that the earth is 6,000 years old and other weird shit without teachers around to contradict them with the truth. Doesn't sound like Blue is that kind of parent, but I suspect a non-trivial, maybe even majority of homeschooling comes from shit motivations from the parents. The majority of homeschooled kids in the U.S. are indeed in heavily religious areas. | ||
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McRatyn
Poland901 Posts
but "homeschooled" in my examples meant a teacher goes to your home to teach you. I have never encountered a situation in which it's the parents that actually do the schooling, which makes it even more interesting of a topic for me | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44092 Posts
On January 10 2014 03:08 McRatyn wrote: I realised I wasn't very accurate in my post. Not that it's crucial or anything but "homeschooled" in my examples meant a teacher goes to your home to teach you. I have never encountered a situation in which it's the parents that actually do the schooling, which makes it even more interesting of a topic for me Fair enough It's hopefully a rarity! On January 10 2014 03:01 Dfgj wrote: The majority of homeschooled kids in the U.S. are indeed in heavily religious areas. Agreed. About 1-2 million American children are homeschooled, and "Parents give many different reasons for homeschooling their children. In 2007, the most common reason parents gave as the most important was a desire to provide religious or moral instruction (36 percent of students). This reason was followed by a concern about the school environment (such as safety, drugs, or negative peer pressure) (21 percent), dissatisfaction with academic instruction (17 percent), and "other reasons" including family time, finances, travel, and distance (14 percent)." ( https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=91 ) 17% of 2 million is 340,000 American students who are homeschooled because their parents are dissatisfied with academic instruction. Hopefully these students are experiencing academic success outside of schools, and hopefully the 700,000 religiously homeschooled also learn things outside of religious studies. | ||
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QuanticHawk
United States32044 Posts
the concept of children being limited by going to school hurts my head so goddamn much. limiting their outside influences by denying them access to such a place does exactly that. home schooling alone is a breeding ground for dumb, insular views on life. if you were that worried about their opporunities, you'd supplement school with whatever bs this person is teaching at home. if you think your local school is that awful, then either need to move, send your kids to a private school, or send them to a charter school. not to mention that all the vague bullshit this person is babbling on about can be accomplished simultaneously while going to get a proper education and learning how social interaction in a structured environment works. it's really quite telling that this person cant even muster up an example or two of what a normal day is like for them. | ||
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babylon
8765 Posts
On January 10 2014 04:50 QuanticHawk wrote: blue is an arrogant dumbass whose kids are most likely not as smart as they think and probably socially stunted to boot. the concept of children being limited by going to school hurts my head so goddamn much. limiting their outside influences by denying them access to such a place does exactly that. home schooling alone is a breeding ground for dumb, insular views on life. if you were that worried about their opporunities, you'd supplement school with whatever bs this person is teaching at home. if you think your local school is that awful, then either need to move, send your kids to a private school, or send them to a charter school. not to mention that all the vague bullshit this person is babbling on about can be accomplished simultaneously while going to get a proper education and learning how social interaction in a structured environment works. it's really quite telling that this person cant even muster up an example or two of what a normal day is like for them. To be entirely fair, sometimes parents don't have the luxury of moving or sending their kids to a private or charter school ... and sometimes the parents just don't care about education. :/ I'm sure we all know at least one person who had shit parents who didn't care about education and suffered for it despite being extremely bright. Then again, I really can't wrap my head around how such an unstructured learning environment (as proposed by Blue) would be beneficial to a kid's growth ... | ||
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KingAlphard
Italy1705 Posts
I think most of the "education" you get at high school is useless, for 2 main reasons: 1) They push you to memorize a ton of notions for the tests and nobody blames you if you forget them immediately after. I can remember about 10% of the things I studied 2+ years ago, and I have quite high marks at school. Obviously it depends on the subject too, for example it's harder to forget things in math because most of the arguments are related between each other. But generally speaking, when you finish high school, compared to all the hours you've spent studying, the amount of things that you remember (and that you will remember after 10, 20 years) is ridiculously low, and it makes you think that you've wasted your time. 2) The aim of high school should be developing into each student an interest towards one or more subjects whose knowledge can be deepened at university. But school clearly fails in this, because teachers are only paid to teach notions to students, not to make them love their subjects. It is a "bonus" for a teacher to be a good teacher, not a necessity. No one can blame a teacher because he doesn't make his subject look interesting, and as a result most of them don't care about that. 90% of my classmates after 4+ years of high school, even if they have extremely high marks, don't care at all about anything they study at school, they make an effort to learn it only for the sake of having good marks; and that's school's fault. Considering my experience, I can understand some of the things "blue" says. It can be better for a child to be teached by their parents, because a parent will always try its best to be a very good teacher, help him/her to pursue his/her interests, teach only things that are going to be useful, etc. Of course the parents must really know what they're doing and have a lot of time available. The percentage of parents who can satisfy these conditions is very small. I don't know what kind of a teacher you are, but I can probably understand why you can feel a little offended by his sentences. However, as I said before, the teacher makes a ton of difference, and I'm not saying all of them are bad. For example, I used to hate history, then my teacher changed and I immediately started to like it more. On the other hand, I've loved math since I was a child but my math teacher makes lessons extremely boring and I usually don't even listen to them. | ||
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Birdie
New Zealand4438 Posts
To think that one person has the time, energy, and intellect to teach all curricula and content provided throughout primary and secondary school is a rather arrogant and ignorant thing to say, and unless the parent has a ton of connections through professional tutors and other resources (which are generally only available in the most affluent families and environments), the student is going to miss a ton of academic material, and won't even realize the subjects that he could have learned about from experts. To be honest you're the one sounding arrogant and ignorant here >.> If you'd ever actually been in a home-schooling environment you wouldn't say that. Both myself and most of the home-schoolers I know of were taught from books, in a wide variety of subjects. In the few cases where books couldn't teach you what you needed to know (metalwork, woodwork, sewing, cooking, sports, and so on), we either were taught by one of my parents who knew the subject well, or had a private tutor (public speaking is the only one I recall, and that was just for a short time), or else met with other home-schoolers who were capable of teaching that subject. To give an example, in my high school years I studied English grammar, spelling, and literature, essay writing, book reports, public speech, calculus, algebra, trigonometry (and other mathematical fields), history, geography, physics, chemistry, Latin (boooooooooring, woulda preferred learning Korean or Spanish or something haha), piano, guitar, metalwork, woodwork, religious education, electronics, basic computing (Word, Powerpoint etc.), computer hardware (blew up a hard drive once too, that was fun), physical health, biology, some cooking, and several sports. And that's pretty normal for a home schooled person. The vast majority of those subjects were taught primarily from books designed to be used by home schooled parents who didn't necessarily know the subject at all. If you can read and you can buy books, then you can home school at a high level. From what I know of my state educated and privately educated friends, I've received a higher quality of education than any of them. Now, if you think that my education was somehow lacking (given the subjects I've listed there) then please explain how. What I had wasn't anything special by home schooled standards (in New Zealand at least, to be fair I can't pretend to know what it's like all over the world and in every house), and it's certainly not arrogant to think that you can buy books and teach your children from them. not every kid is capable of picking up a high school- level book and teaching himself everything. Most of them are, if they have been taught to do that from a young age. For the last couple of years of high school that's how I learned, as do most of the home schooled people I know. Citation needed that children are not capable of picking up high school level books and teaching themself everything from it The whole "I can teach my kid everything better than the collective society of teachers" opinion really irks teachers, for obvious reasons. With all due respect (and I do respect what teachers do and try to do), that's quite a proud statement to make. Why is it that suddenly teachers are the oracle of all wisdom, without which society cannot function? The modern institution of state education for the masses is a relatively new thing, and society functioned adequately without it. That's not to say that mass education is not a bad thing, but the idea that teachers are somehow fundamentally necessary for a healthy society seems to be quite an arrogant idea. | ||
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On January 10 2014 05:54 Birdie wrote: With all due respect (and I do respect what teachers do and try to do), that's quite a proud statement to make. Why is it that suddenly teachers are the oracle of all wisdom, without which society cannot function? The modern institution of state education for the masses is a relatively new thing, and society functioned adequately without it. That's not to say that mass education is not a bad thing, but the idea that teachers are somehow fundamentally necessary for a healthy society seems to be quite an arrogant idea. I do not believe you are addressing what you have quoted. He doesn't say society cannot function without teachers, or that teachers are the oracle of all wisdom, nor does he say that society did not function before teachers. Unless you're responding to something not in that quote, I think it's possible you misunderstood him, or are strawmanning him real hard. I don't think it's proud for him to admit that he is irked by "I can teach my kid everything better than the collective society of teachers". It would be prouder for him to say that he isn't personally bothered by it and it's just objectively wrong. Admitting that he is emotionally involved is pretty humble. This isn't to say that your points about mass education and teaching are wrong, but I dislike the turns of phrase and rhetoric you used in this particular paragraph. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44092 Posts
On January 10 2014 05:54 Birdie wrote: To be honest you're the one sounding arrogant and ignorant here >.> If you'd ever actually been in a home-schooling environment you wouldn't say that. Both myself and most of the home-schoolers I know of were taught from books, in a wide variety of subjects. In the few cases where books couldn't teach you what you needed to know (metalwork, woodwork, sewing, cooking, sports, and so on), we either were taught by one of my parents who knew the subject well, or had a private tutor (public speaking is the only one I recall, and that was just for a short time), or else met with other home-schoolers who were capable of teaching that subject. I was referring to the scenario that Blue had laid out for me about how his kids were going to become well-educated at home without actual homeschooling Your situation is clearly much different, and that's great. With all due respect (and I do respect what teachers do and try to do), that's quite a proud statement to make. Why is it that suddenly teachers are the oracle of all wisdom, without which society cannot function? The modern institution of state education for the masses is a relatively new thing, and society functioned adequately without it. That's not to say that mass education is not a bad thing, but the idea that teachers are somehow fundamentally necessary for a healthy society seems to be quite an arrogant idea. Well what professions do you consider to be "fundamentally necessary"? That seems to be a rather arbitrary line; surely we don't need teachers if we don't want to be educated by them, we don't need farmers if we want to live in isolation and hunt or gather our own food, and we don't need doctors if we're not too concerned about staying healthy... but wow do those professions make life better for society. I'd like to think that society should approach a career professional as if he was relatively knowledgeable of his practice (barring frauds, for obvious reasons). I find the dismissal of a teacher to be rather analogous to a doctor's position, if a parent chooses to ignore all medical advice and expert opinion to heal her sick child, and go with her own "gut" simply because she's gotten sick before so therefore she *clearly* has enough experience dealing with medicine and health. Similarly, many parents dismiss a teacher's job and everything that goes along with it, simply because *they've* sat in a classroom before (as a student mind you, not as a teacher), so *clearly* they know what needs to be done and how it's done. | ||
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wherebugsgo
Japan10647 Posts
One of my better friends has admitted that he was very depressed and got very poor grades in his first year at university because he was not prepared for the workload after being homeschooled and he made very few friends because of living off campus and not having the same experiences as other students. He's fine now (actually sort of a womanizer), but he told me that he failed every class in his first semester and that adjusting was particularly difficult for him. He left to work abroad after his first year and then came back; I think he needs to take an extra semester and graduate 5 and a half years after entering, as opposed to the average 4. Technically it's only a semester extra, as he took a year off. I strongly believe that it's very useful for everyone to have exposure to a wide variety of different subjects and that home schooling often does not provide the same well-rounded education that a good public education is capable of providing. Public K-12 education in the U.S. is not that great compared to other countries (and I speak from experience here) though the universities here are the best in the world, but I still think it is quite good. I personally have gone to public school in four different countries with a total of about 50 teachers, not counting university professors. I had 8 in primary/elementary school, 20 or so in middle school, and at least 20 in high school-probably more like 30, actually. I spent my entire time at one high school in the U.S. I had six different English teachers, five math teachers, two physics teachers, two biology teachers, one chemistry teacher, two music teachers/band directors (marching and jazz, first guy left in sophomore year), two Spanish teachers, one economics teacher, four history teachers, a TV productions teacher, and a tech ed teacher. In addition, a couple of these same teachers were club supervisors or coaches for the robotics team, sports, etc. that I was also involved with. To top it all off I dual enrolled during high school at community college and had another six math professors and a couple really amazing physics professors. In all there were dozens of adults who taught and inspired me during my formative years in addition to my parents and family. I certainly didn't like all of them, but very few, if any, were bad. Certainly none of them were unqualified, though one probably comes close: the worst teacher I had was probably my 8th grade social studies teacher, who did not understand how to compute area and marked me incorrect on a geographic exercise-when I pointed out her mistake she got mad and unsuccessfully asked a math teacher to sort the issue by providing a verdict, which he did not do in public view but rather pulled her aside first (I loled). Throughout all of this there are a handful of teachers I owe quite a lot-they helped me think about things and enjoy things in a way I otherwise never would have imagined. My point here is that I do not think that a homeschooled child is provided with the same opportunities as even a child who goes to an average suburban high school. My high school was decidedly average, with far less than 1000 students. My graduating class was around 160 or so. My parents definitely instilled in me a value for education, which I think was far more beneficial than the caliber of school I attended in determining what kind of education I attained. Even with that said, however, I do think that the different perspectives and inspirations, among other things, provided by dozens of different teachers of all different backgrounds were completely invaluable to me during my formative years. I'm not convinced that Mr. Blue and others like him quite understand the importance of this fact. Maybe I'm nitpicking, but he at the very least, could use some brushing up on his English-and if he is teaching his child English, then I dare say the child would be better served with an actual English teacher. This is in addition to his seemingly arrogant attitude, both in the sense that he seems to think he always knows best for his child (which is far from being true-simply being a parent does not qualify you as an expert-certainly one wouldn't expect the average parent to be able to diagnose their child's illnesses, for example) and in the sense that he thinks he, as a single source of information, can adequately reinforce and pace what his child is learning on his own. Anyway, this is all of course just my unqualified opinion. | ||
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