Check out the download speed on disc 5! That was a good feeling after today. I really am losing faith in Knox County Schools.
Day: December 11, 2006
Peeing Under Pressure
I am trying to go! I can hear the dialog now, "I said aim that soldier!"
From the mouths of babes
Tommy: "You know what dad?"
Dad: "Why yes I do!"
Tommy: *took about 90 seconds before he could speak again*
Mondays bite
This day is lost.
PC Purge – PC World writer goes 20 days no computers
I often threaten to turn off the cable, all the computers, and lock away the video games for a week or a month. David J. Lake of PC World went 20 days without a computer at his editor’s request. 20 days was not long enough to draw any strong conclusions but the experience was pleasant enough that he may do it again. I like that by day 5 his child is outside playing instead inside on video games.
Instead of playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 and cruising skateboarding-magazine sites for video clips, he actually skateboards and reads. [Source]
Homeschooling seems like a better idea
For reasons like suspending a 4 year old for sexual harassment, er, hugging (btw, that story pushed our little E TN news webpage onto Reddit.com). The child’s hugging is appropriate for continued emotional development.
Emotional Development
Most children aged four to five will:
- Still rely on caregivers, while no longer needing or wanting as much physical contact with caregivers as they received in infancy and as toddlers
- Continue to express emotions physically and to seek hugs and kisses
- Socialize with peers, begin to develop relationships, and learn to recognize some peers as friends and others as people they don’t like
- Have more opportunities to interact with peers, either through school or recreational activities, and will play with other children
[Source]
Today I get the pleasure of having a meeting at Noah’s school. I requested a meeting with one teacher and I ended up with a meeting with all his teacher’s and the vice-principal. This kind of ridiculousness makes me regret not homeschooling Noah this year.
Update: The meeting ended up being 5 women and me. The teacher and vice-principal were only interested in rhetoric and bureaucracy taking exactly the defensive posture I tried to get everyone to put aside. Btw, the meeting was called because at the beginning of the year my son lost a $9 book that my wife offered to replace and it was never replaced so while the rest of the class had books they could write in, my son had to do all his work on a loose leaf paper using a borrowed workbook. I found out about this last week. Absurd statements rolled from the primary teacher’s mouth such as "from the meeting with your wife I gathered the only reason your son is in school is to be a safety." She is a hateful person and I have less respect for her after my meeting than I did before.
This meeting also reinforced my belief that we made a mistake not homeschooling Noah for the fifth grade. One approach some friends used with their children was to home school only in the fifth grade. This gave the child some one-on-one time with the parent at a non-critical year. For instance, to do the one year in the sixth grade would potentially harm the child’s social opportunities through middle school. I think Noah would have learned more this year and had a better time at home. A home schooled child can have plenty of time for social interaction through community activities/sports, home school social networks, and home schooled group classes (that’s right, homeschooling does not imply a child locked away in a closet).
