Most irritating conversation I've had about homeschooling?
Person: I don't believe in homeschooling.
Me: Okay.
P: Though, I could see why you would be tempted. I'm finding that my child is so bright that he/she is bored all the time.
M: Ahhhh...
P: It's ridiculous how they put so much funding towards the other end of the spectrum, and don't do anything for the gifted kids.
M: Ahhhh...
P: I finally had to talk to her teacher and she is providing some extra enrichment opportunities.
Boy. I wish I was that teacher.
I also wish that I had said: You jackass, it's not a spectrum with special ed kids on one end and "gifted" on the other. Many of the most truly gifted (as opposed to those who have just been products of parental hot housing) would also qualify for special ed. Besides, if you want to talk about a program that is seriously lacking funds -- it would be special ed... anyway. I didn't. I might have actually said something kind of stupid like:
"Ha. What about those poor middle children? Don't they always get the shaft... yuckyuckyuck..."
Sadly, if you take out the first line about homeschooling, I've heard this same conversation a hundred times. And I'm over it. How can there possibly be this many gifted kids in the world? And the poor loves are all getting bored, bored, BORED! And how can it statistically be possible that they ALL have annoying parents?
Click here to see the kid that I want my kids to be friends with... he seems pretty bright... and yet seems to have handled the bored thing pretty well...
A couple of tidbits:
1. I see that the video is linked to raising a scholarship fund for the kid. I think that's cool, and it got me thinking... Why doesn't some brilliant video-maker go into some at-risk schools and make little videos like this highlighting each kid (I'm 100% sure that every human being has cool aspects that could be highlighted)? I'm not sure how Caine's fund has almost hit $25,000, but I would guess that a lot of that was nickel-and-diming... This cute family watched it and donated $20, this lady decided to donate $5 instead of stopping at Starbucks, this guy was reminded of his grandson and dropped in $10... I'm just saying. Makes a difference to this starfish -- splash.
2. The designmom blog has a link to this video. That's a blog worth looking at... a repository for a million lovely parenting tidbits.
