Liza Sabater

isn't 'damage' a much too harsh word for kids who had a disappointing
or even traumatic experience?
to me, 'damage' has the connotation that, no matter how much you try to 'fix' :

1) the child, they will always be somehow flawed.
2) the situation, there is always someone to blame.

how can homeschooling be about fixing anything or anybody?

/liza

gr_8_mom

Well said, Liza. I don't have any doubt the ps is really bad for
some kids but I don't think they are *damaged* beyond repair.

Katy C.
--- In Unschooling-dotcom@y..., Liza Sabater <liza@c...> wrote:
> isn't 'damage' a much too harsh word for kids who had a
disappointing
> or even traumatic experience?
> to me, 'damage' has the connotation that, no matter how much you
try to 'fix' :
>
> 1) the child, they will always be somehow flawed.
> 2) the situation, there is always someone to blame.
>
> how can homeschooling be about fixing anything or anybody?
>
> /liza

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In a message dated 7/14/02 12:08:57 PM, caclark1231@... writes:

<< Well said, Liza. I don't have any doubt the ps is really bad for
some kids but I don't think they are *damaged* beyond repair.
>>

I think "poisoned" fits a little better, and fits a variety of situations
beyond PS.
Seems like difficult times to raise kids in altogether, if You ask me.
::goes back into lurking corner::

Jessica
(Mother of 12 yr. old ds who will not be returning to ps in the fall.)

Fetteroll

on 7/14/02 10:20 AM, Liza Sabater at liza@... wrote:

> isn't 'damage' a much too harsh word for kids who had a disappointing
> or even traumatic experience?
> to me, 'damage' has the connotation that, no matter how much you try to 'fix'
> :
>
> 1) the child, they will always be somehow flawed.
> 2) the situation, there is always someone to blame.

I guess I don't have that connotation with damage. If my car is damaged in
an accident I can get it fixed.

I think parents whose kids who loved learning before they want to school and
now don't after school, or who don't know what they're interested in any
more, or see anything that looks like it might be something educational as
tainted by school would find damage to be very descriptive of what happened
to their child.

Unfortunately it isn't something that just stops once kids leave school.
They do carry the meta-lessons home with them.

> how can homeschooling be about fixing anything or anybody?

By removing them from something that's harming them, isn't that fixing the
situation? I think giving them the opportunity to heal is fixing them.

Joyce

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In a message dated 7/14/02 1:09:15 PM, caclark1231@... writes:

<< Well said, Liza. I don't have any doubt the ps is really bad for
some kids but I don't think they are *damaged* beyond repair. >>

<<> 1) the child, they will always be somehow flawed.
> 2) the situation, there is always someone to blame.>>

A flaw is naturally occuring. Damage comes from without.

There is always someone to blame. We make a choice to keep our kids home, or
to send them to school, and that leaves US to blame.

I will name two people damaged beyond compare: Charles Montoya and Alice
Laws.

Dead at the ages of 14 and 15 because school and kids were unbearable to them.

You all know they're not the only ones.

Sandra

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**I don't have any doubt the ps is really bad for some kids but I don't think
they are *damaged* beyond repair.**

Damage is a word normally used for inanimate objects. That may be why people
are reacting so negatively to it's use for children. So how about wounded?

School (not just public school) harms ALL kids, in my opinion. But since
almost everyone in this society has gone through school, identifying the harm
isn't easy unless it's more extreme than usual. Normally resilient kids can
come out okay, in relation to the rest of society.

Taking kids out of school allows the wounds to their intellect to heal, but
it's not the same as not having ever been wounded in the first place. And
some kids aren't very resilient by nature. They're slow to heal and they will
always bear scars. But most will eventually heal so you forget that they were
wounded, except for every once in a while when something brings their faint
scars into high relief.

Deborah in IL
mother of a 24yo who went to school for 6 years before unschooling, a 17yo
who has never been to school but lived in a schooled home until age 5, and 2
10yo's who've always lived in an unschooled home.