Educating at home

[Jbr]

www.guardian.co.uk/parents/story/0,3605,789867,00.html

You've got to read this article, if only to see the names of these children. I wouldn't be sending them to school either with names like that.

Wow Madonna - you seem to be posting a lot tonight, and making some interestingly 'out there' comments on lots of threads. I'm not sure what to make of you yet.

Jbr - you do have some strong views. I am starting adult education on Thursday. Not because I am uneducated - I have a long list of qualifications - but because I need to stretch my brain (or should that be 'brian'?!), after 14 months of being a SAHM. I love learning new things, and feel good to be doing something constructive for myself for once, rather than for ds and dh.

IMHO you should consider all views before you post, as you run the risk of coming across as ill-informed, and I know from reading some of your postings that you are far from that.

Madonna are you aloha?!!!

www I do hope so.
There are certainly similarities in style!

www, i think you are right, especially given the troll comment.

Funnily enough I think the same. Isn't she naughty?

yes (how do I do that grin thing?). Now who shall I be tomorrow?

We knew you wouldn't be able to stay away for long. Be Liz Hurley tomorrow.

Madonna!

Jordan?...she can ask lots of questions about her blind baby.

Be Posh! Then we can all have a go about your c-section!

I've just had a look at the info pages on this site about schools, and it's got a lot of stuff about state schools, a bit about private schools, and this is what it says about home education -

Alternatively...
Give up your career, move into a less expensive area and cancel all social engagements for the next twelve years - educate your children at home.

Hardly an understanding and impartial view of a differing lifestyle!! I really feel that if a site like this is offering information and advice to parents, they should at least do a bit of research into all the issues first. Any parent looking into education options for their child would immediately be put off home education after reading this negative and incorrect statement.

Wow Jbr, you're going to hate me! I went back to uni at the age of 25 due to having made the wrong career choice at 16. I didn't idle around for those 9 yrs, but worked very hard. I did well at school, but 16 isn't the best of ages to make lifelong decisions.

Robinw, Fionamc and Anais in particular, I like your postings and I'm with you all the way. I fail to see why we perpetuate the inadequacies of the school system just because they are 'part of life'.

Have just read the article and think you're all being a bit harsh. TBH that part of wales is full of middle-class hippy drop-out types (if we're going to categorise) so the kids' names wouldn't be considered odd! I think the HV things are a waste of time too (luckily our HV is more interested in parents' worries/concerns than the ,kids' performance)and the move from small village schools to larger local schools has caused problems.

Anyway, have to admit that I have a bit of a photographic memory for trivia and I've read about the author in Hello! more than once. Her father's an aristo-potter and she was a bit of a wild child...

Interested to see that she doesn't mention Steiner as an option as there's a thriving Waldorf school in Snowdonia.

Hi Maddonna-Troll, I think you're wonderful! Keep it up!

Jbr, what can I say? One minute you're being erudite and informative, the next, well, I can't really say. Online it is so easy to sound peevish that I really can't think of a way of expressing how some of your postings come across. Not that anyone would want to stop you - you're entitled to your opinion and its all very entertaining. It's just that I think you let yourself down sometimes.

Hell, I'm going to have to get help for this mumsnet addiction. I'm supposed to be working! DS1 only goes to the childminder one day a week now, and this it the day! What AM I doing?!

Batters, well said! And well done!

Jbr, your postings had been quite intelligent and reasonable until the last week or so, I don't understand why you have reverted to the rather hysterical, "leftwing", PC, "nonsexist" drivel that we used to get from you a few months ago, unless it's that it gets more lively responses. (Like Mrs Merton's vigorous debates!)

Have been reading all of it with increasing irritation - thought about commenting on your attack on Rhubarb on the boring baby thread but everybody else did it for me. Please read your messages over and think about them before you send them.

There's more than one way to skin a cat, u know, jbr.

I did apologise star, on another thread, but other people do react to the way we present ourselves sometimes. Jbr would get a kinder hearing if she rephrased some of her comments. Your son couldn't help being a new boy but jbr has been told many times about the way she writes and she could try harder.

Could try harder? ahhh.. I never thought I'd see the day when anyone on mumsnet would say that to another. Sounds like something on my son's school report.

Madonna and Jbr, I like the way both of you write.

Anais, you said you went to college when you are 14. That's ahead of your time. I assumed you'd got all your qualifications there, earlier than most people get them.

In general, if people don't get the opportunity, that is one thing - we still have a myth in this country about equality in education; it's never been there!

However, if people do get the opportunities and don't take them, that's not right.

It isn't sexist at all. I was referring to anyone, of any sex, being so disorganised they don't know what job they want.

I was always told to work hard. Surely nobody is arguing that you shouldn't try to do well at school?!

Or is acceptable to mess about?

jbr, nice to see someone else is having trouble sleeping tonight