Tuesday, September 18, 2007

I just don't belong.

Have you ever sat in a crowd of people and known that you were peculiar? That happened to me last night when I took our oldest daughter to soccer practice. The parents sitting around got off into the troubles their children and children of their acquintance are having in public schools. I did add some comments when I just couldn't take any more. The comments had to do with the "process" of math as compared to getting the right answers. I finally piped up that I wanted my car mechanic to get the right answer to the problem and I really didn't care about the process he uses to get there. My car mechanic was in the crowd and seemed to get a big kick out of that. Now we have our reasons for homeschooling and some people might agree or be agin them. That is all fine. This whole conversation bothered me extremely because the teacher in the group made the point that since they switched to the new math they didn't have any discipline problems anymore. As a disclaimer, I am all for switching curriculum if it doesn't work for students. We have done that three times now with spelling. The underlying thing seemed to be that answers don't matter as long as we are all happy on the way. What if we applied that to our medical professionals, car mechanics or law enforcement? What if the dr. couldn't diagnose your cancer or do anything about it, but you both enjoyed the process and felt good about it? What if your car mechanic fixed the wrong part of your car and you and your family were in a horrible accident because of it? What if the police came and arrested you because they thought you were a horrible criminal, but if they had made the right connections it would have been your neighbor? I mean seriously, we don't apply this logic to real events. Why do we apply it to classroom logic. We have a whole generation of children we are just raising to be another brick in the wall. Days like that and I am so aware that we are not bricks in that wall. We are strange and peculiar. That is okay because we are being built into the temple in which God will dwell.

2 comments:

Karen said...

I just can't think on my toes like that...I wish I could, but I'm just one of those people who either jump in and wish I hadn't or I sit there disagreeing silently and don't think of a single intelligent thing to say until 20 minutes too late. It's quite frustrating. I'm impressed that you both jumped in and had something significant to say.

I'm also glad that I don'thave to face the frustrations that public school parents do...talk about feeling helpless...

All thanks to God, who DOES prepare a better place for us.

Rebecca said...

I will come sit with you again and you will always fit in with me. Maybe this next time we should get our own picnic table and then we could actually have some one on one. How about Friday???