Topic: My wife is a hero: mom shoots intruder 5 times, saves kids - page 2. (Read 9438 times)

I have to admit, this didn't happen in my school, and for the most part neither did the kind of bullying that seems to happen too often these days.  There was, literally, no drugs or weapons within my school when I went there.  And I attended a private, all boys, high school as well; suit, tie and black leather shoes required.  We didn't have weapons there either (drugs, probably; but it certainly wasn't blatant) but we didn't consider a pocket knife a weapon at that time either.  My high school had a dedicated faculty position called the "disciplinarian" who was second only to the principal himself.  I'm sure you can imagine that any such behavior incidents were handled in a completely different manner as compared to the public school systems.  No one was ever 'suspended' from my school, and if you were expelled, it's a fair chance your parents wept for your lost future.  In my grade school prinicpal's office, she kept an old paddle on the wall, mostly to intimidate the students.  In my high school, the disciplinarian kept a horse whip on the wall.

Not exactly an ideal environment for low stress learning either, in recollection.

Look at it another way:

No wealth falls from the sky; to pay for public schools, the public is taxed; ergo, public schools are entirely paid for by the public.  If public schools are paid for through taxing the public, and no extra money is being injected into schools without the help of the public, then this means that schools are being paid for with private funds.

Remember, the state is not magical, and does not generate wealth; the state has but two functions: get money, then allocate money.  So if the state collects money, then places that money in schools, it should follow that people are entirely capable of paying for schools voluntarily, as they are already paying for schools involuntarily.  A public school is no more expensive than a private school, except when regulation is enforced.

Of course, when I say bigger problems, I refer to the major divide where few entities suck up the wealth like a magnet, thus leading to an effect making the rich richer and the poor poorer, but, beside all that...

School is kind of a non-essential nowadays since people no longer need human beings to teach them, we've had libraries and now the Internet for a while now; if a person wants to learn, they'll of course do it, but if they do not, now we're faced with an important question: is it moral to force a person to learn in the way we want them to?

The average public school district budget nationwide was about $12K per year per student, K through 12.  Many private schools (particularly Catholic or Baptist elementary schools) are well under that number.  However, many private schools are much more than this number.  Decades ago, my parents sent myself, my sister and my brother to a private elementary grade school that charged $8K per semester.  It could easily be twice that now.

Logicly speaking, if we can afford the public school now with taxes, we can afford it without the taxes and paying for it privately.  That's a mathmatical truth.  However, we can't really afford the public schools' budgets anymore, and that is a major contributor to municipal debt and insolvency today.  So one can take that both ways.

You're welcome to it, but I would recommend that you correct my letter salad. I can tell I'm getting tired.

Not sure I catch what you're trying to say... are you trying to say that we can afford public schools without being taxed? If so, that is absolutely not true. Even with taxes, public schools have been having to cut out more and more extra curricular and elective classes. If you're trying to say that you should be able to afford a private school if you can pay tax to public schools, that isn't true either. The amount that you spend on taxes to public schools is miniscule in comparison to the significant majority of private schools. Even in grade school, many private schools charge upwards of $5,000 for one year of tuition, and in high school a lot of them are upwards of $10,000. Kind of ironic, I'm paying more for my high school tuition now than I will be for college in a few years.

If we can afford to pay for public schools through taxation, it should follow that we can afford them without; otherwise, we have a much deeper problem than not being able to afford schools without the aid of the wealthy.

I think you missed one important aspect, and it does teach a lesson. Not a good one. In most cases, contrary to "pop culture" bullshit, the bully is a popular kid. Often a jock. He don't get suspended. The wimpy kid does.

Yet ten years later, if the "wimpy kid" gets his anger under control and dedicates himself, he's running a successful company, and the jock is pumping gas.

Your last sentence is so spot-on that I think I'm going to put it in my sig

Good for you, but that makes you the exception, not the rule.  I'm sure that you already knew that, though.

Futhermore, homeschooling isn't expecially expensive, although it can be.  Private schools are much more expensive.  Public schools exist to provide a basic education for the middle class, which is a fine goal unto itself.  However, IMHO the system has been corrupted by personal and private interests, so that the public school districts have many hidden agendas which burden their budgets; resulting in a declining quality of education dispite a decades long trend of rising educational budgets.

And turning back to the topic of the thread, sending children into a forced social situation in order to learn to manage hostile personalities (what advocates might call, "toughening up") would be considered child abuse under any other context than education. I am of the opinion that the 8 year old "wimpy kid" learns nothing of lasting value by being exposed to an age peer bully; instead learning (at best) conflict avoidance or submittion to authoritarian personality types.  These are skills that can be taught as easily in a high school controlled environment, if they are really needed.  I, for one, have never had the experience of getting into a fistfight as an adult, particularly at work.  If you get beat up by a bully in school; you get to be suspended for a time, and get to see that same bully when you both get back.  Teh same experience as an adult in a workplace gets one of you fired and/or arrested while the other gets a lawsuit settlement for the "promotion of a hostile work envirnment".  School social envirnments don't translate well to the adult world, unless your adult world is a penitentiary.

On topic, I'll just say that there has never been a mass shooting at a private school.

Also, I have to correct myself, as you pointed out. It was someone else who had mentioned teacher's pay scale at private schools, and I got mixed up. Your point is noted and acknowledged. Charter schools didn't exist when I was in public school, so I actually have no opinion on their efficacy. I do object to being taxed for them, but I object to the existence of tax. I am an anarchist. Nevertheless, as far as it goes and given the world we live in, I have no experience of charter schools.

I will say that both statistically and in my own experience, your results are atypical. While high school does to some extent prep a person for college, it does nothing for your real world life. I would go so far as to say that the vaunted "socialization" that seems to be the only remaining fallback of those who object to homeschooling is detrimental to your real world life. It's the socialization of a prison. You are FORCED to interact with people who you have nothing in common with, and that's the least worse part of it.

If you are a geek, or any other "marginal" grouping, you WILL be bullied. I experienced this in EVERY school I went to. (My dad is an electrician. We traveled like military people do)The only "positive" I could derive out of this is that I learned very young how to fight for my life. So, from my experience, the only thing I got out of this vaunted socialization is the ability to kill with my hands. Is that really what the social engineers want? Granted, it's a valuable skill, but they overtly discourage any sort of self defense, so obviously they are either lying, or this is an unintended consequence. By the time I got out, I was convinced that being in a group larger than five people was likely a deadly peril. I went from being a friendly, if somewhat awkward, kid to an angry outcast who HATED my species. Took me a number of years to get over that. You can keep your socialization. There is no way my morals will allow me to inflict it on my children.

As to the rest, Moonshadow Ninja'd me again, so I'll leave his words to stand for me as well.

OK, I'm not going to say that a public education is BETTER than a private/homeschool one, because that obviously isn't true. What I am trying to say is that going to a public school isn't some kind of sin, and it's not as if going to the public school automatically results in a "dumber" child. That is a myth. Plus, what if your family cannot afford to homeschool or send you to a private school? My dad worked an 8-5 job and my mom worked from home on her own graphics business. We didn't have enough money to send me to a private school, and neither of my parents had enough time to homeschool me. It didn't matter though, I still got an excellent education at the school I went to.

To a point, this is true enough.  However, the environment that a child is expected to learn within has as much as an affect on his/her outcomes as the motivation of the 'rents.


I don't need to look. The public school system, and even a few of the private schools, have repeatedly contacted my wife & I to get my kids into their "gifted & talented" programs.  That may be an experience unique to us, however, I can't be certain.  I know my own parents were offered similar conditions if they would remove me from the private school I was in, and put me into the public school.  I would have jumped at least one, and maybe two grades in the move.  My dad said no.  I was bitter about the whole thing at the time, but now I understand.

Public schools need the stats, private schools need the prestige that successful graduates bring.


This is a myth.  One that is not improved by the common name of "homeschooling", since it's a misnomer.  It's a rare day that my kids stay home.  My daughter has cross country practice four days a week right now, and an all day coop class on Fridays. Coop is an elective school, wherein the students take classes from other homeschoolers' parents.  I've taught Praxeology, (Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? and Whatever Happened to Justice?) and am considering offering a course on investing stradgeties (Rich Dad, Poor Dad; What the Rich Teach their Children that The Poor Do Not and The Clipper Ship Stradgedy) or Cognative Programming (How to win freinds and Influence People).  While some private schools do offer courses like these, I've never even heard of a public or charter schol offering anything like this, and that is another point at which you are at a disadvantage to private or homeschooled children with your education.  While it's possible for a child with truely invested parents to get a very good education in a public school, it's not possible for anyone to receive a complete education, simply because there isn't enough time.  Since all public schools, and most private schools, must focus on a general education; they can't really commit time or resources to the kinds of elective education that homeschoolers can.  If your father was an economist, it's more likley that you will be an economist or a businessman in a related field of work, because children really do learn from their parents and their parents friends.  As a homeschooled parent, I can introduce other children to the particular skill sets that publicly educated children generally don't have access to.  It's not as if the 1% is actively keeping this information to themselves, it's the very nature of publicly funded education that limits your educational opprotunitities.  Honestly, which is more likely to offer you an advantage in a career as an adult; Algebra 2 or Praxeology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxeology)?  Now, be honest with yourself.  And think about this, we teach all children mathmatics; why don't we teach all children Economics?

I would recommend any and all of those books, BTW.

EDIT: I forgot to mention my eldist son's electives.  He's much more of an academic then his sister, but still has a weekly bowling league. In the past, he's attented regular groups such as Choir, Music Theory, Karate, he has been in several church plays as an actor and backup singer.  My son is the introvert, like myself; so he really isn't 'into' social things; nor is he nearly the athelete his sister is (which isn't to say she's some kind of star, either), but has competed on a rifle team with his 22lr Marlin adn want's a competition class youth recurve bow for his upcoming birthday, so he can shoot in an archery team that is near our new house.  He will probably be taking a piano class soon, but we have to wait until I can get my father's baby grand moved into our new home.  That piano has been in my father's family for four generations at least, and looked rough when I played under it as a tot.  Yes, I was born into the 1% and I'm not ashamed of the fact that I was born with advantages that my family could provide.  As mentioned, my brother fell out of the 1% years ago dispite all his gifts, and has no visable prospects of returning by his own efforts.

The way we're going, the majority of homeschooling families (who have meetup groups) will be in poverty if they aren't already, and associating with homeless children.

There were two times that I suffered violence at public schools. And thank luck that these were the worst of it.

In 5th grade I was playing touch football on asphalt, and the goal line was a shallow drainage ditch. My memory generally sucks that far back, but I think I committed pass interference on the receiver and bumped him into the ditch and over into the dirt past it, as I was trying to intercept or block the ball. He didn't seem bloody or unable to stand afterward, or in verbal agony, so I thought he was okay, and after I said sorry and we helped him up, I walked off and knelt down to tie my shoe, and he screamed "I kill you!" and pushed me flat on my face. Knees and hands scraped, and "I kill you!" became the catchphrase of the rest of the year. I'm pretty sure he got checked out and didn't have any internal injuries or broken bones, otherwise he probably wouldn't have been able to have his swift revenge and I would have been in a lot of trouble. No hard feelings, I think we were friends before and again sometime after.

As an aside, the "bad kid" of my elementary school years was Jesus Pulido, and he fought with any adult he could many times, maybe a few of the scrappy kids, and jumped the back fence running away from school in the middle of the day at least once, also through the back gate when it was left open. I don't think the district ever knew what to do with him; maybe compulsory education meant he couldn't be expelled because there was no other place for him to go, and there was no "bad kids' campus" like the local high school district had. I wasn't able to find him easily on Google.

The second time was my last year, at the highschool with the wide open back gate. There was a kid there who seemed not to know his own strength/that it wasn't appropriate to punch people in the shoulder that hard multiple times, even if he tried to explain it away as jest/that I could yellow card him, as I was the music department head's teacher's aide (and TAD to the other faculty). No hard feelings there either, I just felt sorry for him.

You're gonna be forced to deal with people in the future. You can't just hide from interaction you don't like forever. And, I'm not just talking about interacting. Sure, if you're homeschooled you get that easy. I'm saying, at the school I went to, there was a majority of families in poverty, and even one kid who lived in the park next to our school. It's that kind of interaction that you most likely won't be exposed to.

This has always been a weak arse argument that pro-mandatory education people make, with the way the education system works children are forced to interact with each other they don't interact with each other by choice and that is always going to lead to conflict much like as if they were in a prison environment. Then there's the fact that if they defend themselves in any way in my experience they almost always find themselves getting in trouble because it makes the schools look bad, social interaction should always be by choice and some people don't learn well in a classroom environment particularly when they've got someone being an absolute cunt to them every single day.

People being homeschooled can easily learn how to interact with people, it's called going outside, I do it every day and I'm technically homeschooling and not going to university, sure, everybody I meet isn't necessarily my age and in some cases I'm bloody grateful for that ( The amount of times I was close to getting into a fist fight with those twats was ridiculous and it was because I was forced to deal with them ) it also means you get to deal with a wider range of demographics rather than the surly arrogant prick of a teacher who just wants their pension or the gaggle of douchebags that belong in a mental hospital rather than a school.

You don't get to learn how to interact with people being cramped up in a classroom all day while having to ask permission to take a dump when you need to, if you really think that you haven't been out in the real world properly and I'd also like to point out that I've met much more interesting and unique people on the internet, particularly here that I can even get along with well than the people I've met in my hometown.

You're implying the home school is a dungeon? BS. All my friends' homeschooled kids have spent plenty of time on extracurricular/social events, and while I did independent study (closest thing you can get to homeschool without leaving the public school system) from 8th grade until 1-year-early graduation, there was no lack of offline interaction, as I could choose practically anything at any school or organization for electives (including PE, such as a dojo, swim class, sports league, etc); I just needed a supervisory adult to sign off on my attendance and performance. From what I know of actual homeschooling, those same choices are available, and encouraged, by all non-isolationist/cultist-type parents.

And to bring this back on-topic (self-defense), there's something that I noticed as an independent study student (and reminded me of when I was full-time in public schools from K-7), and which anyone else should be able to see, is that public schools (and maybe private and charters too, I never experienced them) are about as secure as putting yellow tape around a baby in the middle of a prison of baby rapists. So many open points of access, not controlled by armed security at all times, gates, holes in fences, short fences that you barely have to put any effort into climbing over... it's a wonder there isn't a massacre at least once a year at every single "gun free" public school in America (save the extreme statistical outlying amount of schools that are secured properly).

IIRC, I was only ever challenged once (by an unarmed faculty or staff member, who must have been posted there for a specific one-time threat) at the back gate of one school I was taking electives at, and another time by a lady behind the lobby desk, after I graduated and needed to take pictures of a performing arts event there during school hours for the local paper (as a professional, I chose to be an overt interloper despite knowing I could get in the back). The rest of the time, there wasn't even the slightest difficulty to getting in and out, through that wide-open back gate. At another high school, all I had to do was open the unlocked door to the music room, right off the street. Need I go on about the amount of weapons I could have brought in my rolling briefcase, instrument cases, the multitool with a blade I carried in a belt pouch both pre- and post-9/11... my adult appearance and maturity when I was 16 would have only been a mitigating factor IF SOMEONE ACTUALLY WAS THERE to see me, and try to stop me. Except for those 2 instances of little more than human shields, there never were. Scary stuff.

If the right to self-defense is only going to be half-ass protected only in the home, by SCOTUS, then the home is going to be the safest place of learning. You take your chances once your kids step past your fenced curtilage and you're not able to protect them without breaking some "gun control" law that only ever controls innocents out of being able to legally defend ourselves.

In the Philippines, it is against the law to own or possess (much less carry) a firearm without a proper license (and that includes registration.)

That does not stop entire regions from being fully armed, both concealed and openly carrying. The only people who die are either criminals or rebels fighting against government forces.

These people have been carrying a weapon since the Spanish invasion and colonization a few centuries ago. They've just upgrade from sticks, to knives, to guns. For some reason, the 1911 in .45 ACP is still very popular despite the proliferation of 9mm glocks and other firearms.

I personally just have a single stacker with me everywhere. (And it's legally covered.)

I was going to reply the public school issue, but I got pretty well Ninja'd by Moonshadow. While my circumstances are not the same, my conclusion is.

I graduated early via the California High School Proficiency Exam. Supposedly, it was indicative of what you should have learned by 12th grade. I have NEVER taken an easier exam, on anything, including the laughable written tests that pass as driver exams. That was 2 and a half decades ago.

I have worked in food service most of my life, which can be cause for ridicule, but it also put me in close contact with the results of the public education system. It has gotten HORRIBLE. 18 year old children in today's America don't have a skill set, unless you count texting... badly. They are not fit for ANY job upon exiting high school. As a manager in that field, you pretty much have to start with basic reading comprehension and what would have been third grade maths when I was in school. And it was awful then.

But they can talk up the "merits" of social welfare, and various war related fantasies. And they can play the hell out of video games.

They are taught to NOT question ANYTHING. We have at least two generations of engineered morons. The few who manage to get an education usually did it by non traditional means, or just plain ignored the curriculum like I did. From third grade until I escaped, the only things of value I learned were during my (frequent) periods of detention. I quickly discovered the bias that teachers have against books. Their idea of punishing me for asking inconvenient questions was to send me to the library. Which was where I wanted to be anyway, so this was hardly "corrective" action.It did, however, allow me to self educate and find that the "exam" that had a 75 percent failure rate was the easiest fucking test every put in the english language.

Hit rewind a couple of decades, and public schools were alright. My dad learned two useable trades before he graduated high school in 1954. I graduated in 1984, and everything of value I learned was outside of or in spite of the system. It continues to get worse.

There were some good teachers, too. But they were universally hated by the establishment, hamstrung on what they could teach, and most gave up in disgust within a couple of years.

As for the pay in public schools being greater than that in private schools, I have seen no evidence of that. And I have looked. My preferred model is homeschooling, but right after that is private. Because I have some say in what and how my child is educated. They still idolize the state entirely too much, but they do at least teach some subjects of value, and teach them well.

With this I will drop the derail, as this is a subject worthy of it's own thread.

That is part of the issue.  It's not about the guns, it's about the basic human right to defense of self.  It has very little to do with a small metal object that makes loud noises.

http://www.a-human-right.com/

You're too close to the issue, and obvious to everyone by yourself, well conditioned. While it's true that most public schools actually can pay higher wages than private schools, there are mitigating factors that result in a great many of the very best teachers choosing to teach in a private school setting, or simply leaving the profession.  My wife went to public school for 12 years, and is very well educated.  I won't imply that it cannot happen.  But I went to a private school for 12 years, and have had teachers that were considered the best in the entire state in their subjects, some of which had PhD's.  Today, my wife has a BS degree in Biology, and worked for a time as a microbiologist for Proctor & Gamble; but she is a stay at home wife & mother who homeschools five children from age 13 down to age one.  I'm not required to do so, but every few years I have my older kids take standardized tests, just so that I can compare their progress against their age peers.  When my oldest daughter was 10, she tested equal to an average (nationally, not state) high school junior (second semester) across all subjects.  My oldest son (who might literally be a genius, like my brother) took the same test at aged 8 (while running two grades ahead) and rang in as a first semester freshman.  In college.  (My little brother once took a IQ test with me, that was also a application exam for Mensa.  While both of us passed; the test was geared for a young adult.  I was 18 starting my first year of college, while my brother was 11.  I just squeeked in with an IQ of 136 and a percentile of 98.5 or so.  My little brother rang the bell on that test, and maxed out it's measurable range at 160+ IQ and a percentile of 99.9.  Today, my little brother has two degrees and is working on a third; but also has a mild case of Asberger's Syndrome, and has never held a job that pays more than $9 per hour, never been on a date with anyone as far as anyone in my family is aware, and is morbidly obese with absolutely zero career ambition; while I have five kids and have earned six figures for the past 6 years straight.  Raw IQ is no indication of success in life.)

This is not to say my kids are particularly smart (which could be true, but), it's to say that a homeschooled education is the only way to get the quality of education in this country that compares on equal terms with the quality of the public education systems in most of Europe or Asia.  At least for any reasonable tuition level.  You will one day look back on your public (and private) school career and either feel like you've been cheated of a quality education, or feel like those were the best years of your life. Either outcome is sad, IMHO.

BTW, I have a mild case of dylexia, so if I start moving letters around, it's because I'm tired (and MS Internet Explorere doesn't handle long form entries well) not because I'm illiterate.  When I went to (private) school, they tested for dylexia but didn't find mine, but when my father attended the same exact school decades before I, they treated his left-handedness as a mental dysfunction, and spent a great deal of time and stress on forcing my father to write with his right hand.  It's not like modern medicine didn't already know better by that time either.  All schools are institutions, and all institutions suffer from bureaucratic inertia and entrophy.  As a homeschooling parent; however, I can change my childrens' curriculum at any time, should I learn something new or discover an error.  In fact, I do this regularly.  Google, Wikipedia and Youtube are regular contributors to my childrens' education.