[extropy-chat] it's all understandable, except

[Joseph Bloch]

My wife (a professional teacher) and I (who have experience as an adult 
educator) have discussed homeschooling our daughter. We'd do it, if the 
economics work out right, and I can pretty much guarantee that there'd 
be no "young Earth creationism" or other such whackjobbery in that 
particular curriculum...

People do mention the socialization factor, and it is something to 
consider. But socialization can take place in lots of venues (martial 
arts, dance, non-school-sponsored-sports), and we've already got her 
involved in such things.

Although I must say that I, personally, choose to avoid fluoride. The 
damn stuff's toxic if ingested, and over the course of decades, I'd 
rather not risk it if I have a choice. I avoid alumnium-based deodorants 
for the same reason. There're enough toxins out there that I can't 
choose to avoid, I might as well choose to avoid the ones I can. If it's 
good enough for Ray Kurzweil, it's good enough for me.

Joseph

Ben Goertzel wrote:

>>Homeschooling is an excellent idea, in theory. In practice, there's
>>the problem of wingnuts, who tend to homeschool in order to protect
>>the poor young'n's from nefarious indoctrination (and fluoridization,
>>which corrupts their precious body fluids).
>>    
>>
>
>Homeschooling worked well for my kids for a few years...
>
>Unfortunately, I can't do it anymore due to having gotten divorced and
>having only 50% custody of the kids ... these day, homeschooling would
>require cooperation of my ex, which is unlikely to happen....
>
>But while it lasted, it was pretty good.  The kids learned more, and
>had more fun, and most critically their spirit of creativity and
>independent exploration was encouraged rather than discouraged...
>
>Now, my oldest son is at a good college; my middle child is in a
>middle school that he really hates and learns litlte from; and my
>daughter is in a magnet elementary school that is pretty academically
>intensive but does little to allow let alone encourage independent
>thought....  Of course, my kids will all grow up as creative and
>independent thinkers anyway -- they spend a fair bit of their
>non-school time reading, and doing creative projects....  But I still
>think it sucks that they have to spend such a significant fraction of
>their time in such a boring, mind-numbing environment.  I did it too,
>during my childhood, and I thought it sucked at the time.  It is
>survivable of course ... but why should this sort of ordeal be
>necessary?
>
>BTW, David Deutsch, the quantum computing pioneer, is a very radical
>advocate of home schooling and children's liberation in general...
>
>-- Ben G
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