} intellectual growth. One of the main cautions for parents
} considering home-schooling is that their children must somehow be
} exposed to situations in which they must negotiate disputes with
} other children, and learn to assert themselves, without the
How does the weakest boy in the class negotiate with a pack of 8
apparently intent on beating him up? That was part of my childhood. I
dealt with it by running away very quickly with the help of adrenaline
-- normally I was the slowest boy in class as well. I also learned to
look all around me all the time, which allowed me to walk around the
playground instead of cowering by the monitor all recess. Not a bad
habit for physical safety, but not socially useful.
} humans need to learn to deal with it early in life. Developing the
} quality of courage, based on the success of prior experiences of
} standing one's ground, will help prevent some of the future
Tossing your children into public playgrounds gives no guarantee that
they will learn how to "stand their ground". If it's a choice between
doing that and hoping they come out okay, and keeping them at home and
exposing them to civlized adults, I'd recommend the latter.
} potential incidents. And, in addition, that strength will carry into
} other areas of life and allow that person to face future adversities
That seems rather too glib. Skills should be as important as
'strength', but the skills public school gave me were connected with
surviving physical combat, not threading my way through civilization.
I don't think a chance at learning combat survival for an hour every day
(about my recess time) is worth suffering conventional education,
especially in most public schools. If adversity training is that
important find some other playground or something with a low adult-kid
ratio. Or hell, drop them off at the playground of a public school
during lunch. Then your children will have the additional handicap of
being strangers just popping in. Mmmm.
Merry part,
-xx- Damien R. Sullivan X-) <*> http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix
Language and its absurd conjunctions;
Constellations and crustaceans rhyme.