With homeschool it was hard for me since I liked sports and when you are homeschooled your not able to play for the school sports teams. Also you miss out on the interaction with all the other students.

The good thing about it was that I was able to spend good quality time with my parents and brother and sister. I also got to wear whatever the heck I wanted and was able to do school work around life situations that come up.

The good thing about public school is it teaches you more about interaction with others. You are also more disciplined I think because you have to abide by the same rules as thousands of other of students. Also you get to participate in the sports.

In each you have field trips and activities but with home school these field trips are your only interaction with other homeschooled children.

I think the education you get is about the same but with home school you do more school work than public school.

Homeschoolers not having socialization is a myth. They certainly avoid the plague of bullying that goes on in the public schools. They have many clubs and social activities. Most homeschoolers have associations that create dances and events for the kids.

Where things can go bad is that homeschoolers are usually phonics based. Phonics is very good but it has its problems when the student advances. It is difficult to explain in a forum.

The worst thing can happen if the parents are incompetant at teaching. Then you have a big problem.

The best place to homeschool children is in Texas and the absolute worst is California.

It is a sore subject with my public school collegues who fall in line with every bit of propaganda that the NEA puts out.

If you want a quality education for your child with the best chance of development, then ship him or her to public school

However my fundamental education came from Parochial and Public Schools. I’m talking reading, writing and math.

Looking back, I think Plastics Shop with Mrs. Artran was the only Middle and High School class that did anything for me on a practical basis.

Since I could do better than a D in Algebra I was denied advance courses like Chemistry, Physics, Statistics, so I had to learn them on my own.

I’m taking an on-line Organic Chemistry course right now by Dr. Wintner. So far I’m finding it requires what high school was about, roting a whole bunch of stuff into my head. Learning the Isomer orders. The tane orders. I had a friend who was a chemisty and he could write that out on paper including the Benizine rings at the drop of a hat.

Roting was my weak area in school. I don’t memorize well, but I do learn things and then know how to use them.

The problem I see with the education system and someone may need to explain it all to me, is I go to the math section here and see a problem and I solve it as the crow flies and just put down the answer.

I give you some gobbly cook

2N +5 = 7- 1/2N

And I’ll just do the Arthemetic in my head and slove straight for N

But it don’t work like that

You have to simplify

Change the dual sided equation into a bracked one with the N issue and the + and – issure resolved

And then you simply some more

And then you get the answer I gave you

But if you DON’T DO THOSE STEPS you get a D

So, math is NOT about correct answers but KNOW THE SECRET HANDSHAKES AND DANCE STEPS you have to do before you can give the answer.

Math is being introduced to a girl

Asking her out

Talking with her

Asking her a second time

I just put my arm around her waltz her to to dance floor and thank her with a kiss

But that’s now how MATH works in school

You have to LEARN a ritual for some strange reason

Now I program computers. Remember I got a D in Algebra one, never took Geometery, Trig

Programming is all Algebra, using Geometrical and Trig operators.

Drawing a circle is about radius and using SINE and COSINE to find pixel points to activate to draw a circle in the form of an intense polygon.

Radius, circles and polygons are geometrical

SINE and COSINE is trig

It’s an angle and if you want to be techical the pixel point that is formed is done on the Tangent Angle.

Since you are drawing a polygon (a multi sided figure, which by the way is how Organic Chemistry based as we call them BUTANE PROPANE HEPTANE HEXtane, OCtane we are looking at a geometrical polygon of the evoltuion of complex Carbon and Hydrogen bonds) what better way to look at it as drawing a TANGET ANGLE at a location in space that is very small, like the facet of a diamond.

So, enough rambling.

My mother taught me touch typing at age 6-7 at home using the think system (hand, row, finger = letter or vice versa letter= hand, row finger). That got me an A in middle school 8th grade typing 1.

One of the few As I got.

Had had a chemistry set since age 8 with microscope.

I learned about litmus and PH paper.

I had tape recorders since I was 10, 8mm moive equipment since I was 11, a telescope since I was 12. I learned on these things and wrote and researched and read.

I wrote my first book in the 3rd grade at a Lutheran School and I read it for the class and everyone loved it including the teacher you usually hated me. They all encouraged me to submit it to the talent festival where it GOT PANNED

I was about a space flight to the planets and it got panned because it “didn’t glorify God”

Mmmmm. Let me think on that. God created the HEAVESN and the EARTH and I write about goiong there and see the beauty of Saturns Rings, but that doesn’t GLORIFY GOD.

MMMMM

But it was crushing to a 9 year old kid.

Anyway, I made up for it with my Lunar Eclipse observations that got me Published in Sky and Telescope.

Now, while the Elementary school system helped me with reading and writing, it was my mother who taught me to type and my own unschooling that taught me observational astronomy.

That got me published at age 16

Because of my inability to learn Algebra with a C or better I was then destined to Non COllege major which often put me into STUDY HALL, which was the library and I’d read whatever I wanted to.

Often it was the Encylopedia about movie processes. Anamophics, which I was dealing with in my 8mm work, the Techicolor process.

All this paid off in later life when I wrote article for Moving Image, Technical Photography and other publications.

You’re getting this one for free, so it’s an off the cuff first draft.

My assessment is

Some kids naturally do well in school, the school of roting and doing homework and learning how to be ready for college which is where they start teaching you to think.

Some kids naturally do not do well in such an environment.

I wasn’t in to memorization. I was in to thinking, learning, knowing why, undestanding how it works, taking it apart, learning what I can do with it.

I sit down at Visual BASIC and I say, I’m going to design a tool that will let singers, musicians and others make covers for their CDs and DVDs with no graphic experience by giving them some simple tools AND I’m also going to make a separate tool to index the contents of a CD so they can see a table of contents.

And I figure out how to do it. Decide what tools to make.

It imports a picture, helps you size it. It allows you to put two logo 1″ at bottom left and right corner, two lines of bold title. It lets you use all the fonts on your system in all sizes and colors.

It also designs back covers with up to 20 song titles, producer credits. More pictures and logos.

It was one of my best sellers.

I also produced documentary films, television commericals, provided pre and post production support and shots for every producer in Hollywood.

I produce sevearl albums and singles which got international airplay.

I play guitar, bass and keyboards, all self taught. My mother homeschooled me in music theory at the age if 17. That allows me to change keys for singers on the fly in 5 minutes I have a new chart ready in their key.

Another segue.

My mother was a professional musician for 30 years. She took private conservatory lessons. She taught me the essentials of sheet music at the age of 7 or 8.

In public school the teacher wrote things on the board and asked us to identify them. I raised my hand and said:

“G cleft”

Her sponse was a VERY LOUD:

“Wrong!”

Now go look it up in a dictionary or encylopedia.

There are G Clefs, C Clefs and F Clefs commonly used in popular and classical music.

She called a Treble Clef, which is an alternative. But you can’t escape the fact music instruction books also call it a G Clef

She did not say

“Partially correct”

Nor did she say

“Not exactly what I was looking for.”

She said, LOUDLY

“Wrong!”

And she had a BA in Music and Teacher Credentials

And that’s your lesson in the Public School system and the Parochial school system that BERATES attempts at writing and defining using valid work, because it doen’t meet their NARROW MINDED POINT OF VIEW.

That stigmatizes.

If that’s what Brick and Mortar school is about, it’s time we RAIZED the education system!

Oh, a COLLEGE lesson. TRUE STORY.

I worked at a film archive and we just got some Alice Guy-Blache 1911 Solax films she produced/directed and we were pitching them to every Cinema History professor out there.

Everyone bought in to her, penciled her in and selected a film to screen EXCEPT one of the top 5 Ivy League schools whose professor said

“I don’t have time to change by syllubus!”

He waited two years before including her. So the College of Staten Island (a two year JC) was teaching about Alice Guy Blache and this Ivy League school wasn’t!

It was NOT HARVARD nor YALE, they both booked her and penciled her in. Your third choice is probably the school in question!

And that’s you look at COLLEGE education!

Remember, I got D in Algebra and majored in Study Hall.

Since the system didn’t have the desire to educate me I was forced to educate myself.