Hard to believe but true
posted by: michaelme
November 21, 2006
3:49 pm
Will Smith says he and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith homeschool their children because the most valuable things he learned he didn’t get from school. “The date of the Boston Tea Party does not matter,” Smith told Reader’s Digest. “I know how to learn anything I want to learn. I absolutely know that I could learn how to fly the space shuttle because someone else knows how to fly it, and they put it in a book. Give me the book, and I do not need somebody to stand up in front of the class.”
posted by: michaelme
November 21, 2006
3:51 pm
This is what the essence of home schooling...teaching your child to think...and someone from Hollywood said it. I'm not going to address "how" he is quoted, as that is often part of a larger conversation.
Michael
"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried"
"The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese." - GK Chesterton
posted by: brandimg
November 24, 2006
12:26 pm
Actually, I'm not surprised at all. All power to them! Godspeed!! That's an awesome presence in the land of Hollywood.
- Brandi
posted by: wljewell
November 24, 2006
2:14 pm
I also think that in homeschooling, the parents and helpers, so much more aware of the student children, can better make things come alive. Hence, a bit of 'awakening' can lead to years of intense, fruitful study. This is very unlikely in any classroom setting with 'this year's teacher', only dimly aware of anything about any student, doing the inspiration.
Then again, notice that Will Smith's quote, and with its inference of a close, abiding, committed marriage underpinning their family life, appears in no 'People' magazine style journal. By and large, the celebrity icon-izers don't want that kind of story.
I remain your obedient servant, but God's first,
Pristinus Sapienter
(wljewell @mail.catholicexchange.com or ...yahoo.com)
posted by: pouliot
December 1, 2006
8:14 pm
Let me ramble about a little here...
When we homeschooled I'm afraid we had no energy to make the subjects come alive. It took all our energies to keep the students awake and look alive.
Any cases where they "caught" the excitement of learning were purely the result of letting them explore whatever interested them individually, mostly outside of the classroom setting. (An exception here would be the science fairs in elementary school.)
We took them to the library, kept the TV off (actually we may not have had one, I don't recall), and spent a lot of time playing with them.
One exception to the monotony of our approach might have been a brief foray into number theory. One did go on a little in mathematics. The other, the quintessential young scientist (he nearly electrocuted his younger brother) went on in physics.
A third is a musician computer analyst and a fourth is an educator, conservationist, financial wizard, lobbyist, and I don't know what else.
But everyone is deeply into computers.
Old Sigma
posted by: wljewell
December 1, 2006
8:26 pm
COMPUTERS!!??!!
That's the flaw in your pickle barrel, right there, sir.
Forty years with them, and I'm little but an old reprobate!
I remain your obedient servant, but God's first,
Pristinus Sapienter
(wljewell @mail.catholicexchange.com or ...yahoo.com)
posted by: peppy 0304
January 1, 2007
1:34 pm
Power and kudos to you for successfully homeschooling. I homeschooled two hyperactive grandsons a few years. My daughter-in-law very successfully homeschools my 4th grade granddaughter, without the danger of having drugs offered to her at school and without the free condoms. Talk about a QUALITY education, little Ana is getting one.
I am very much FOR homeschooling.
posted by: pouliot
January 1, 2007
10:05 pm
Peppy 0304 provided an encouraging report on homeschooling:
Wonderful. Thanks for sharing.
PS for CE Moderators: The navigation options for a long thread need to appear at the top of the thread as well as at the bottom.
posted by: lpioch
January 2, 2007
10:57 am
Old Sigma,
The moderators have no control over the development of the site.
You might want to keep any and all site changes/improvements under the "New Site Migration" forum...or your comments may never be seen by the eyes of those with the code!
posted by: pouliot
March 28, 2007
5:47 pm
To: LPioch
Thank you for the advice. Contrarian that I am, I had deliberately chosen to put the request in my signature block so that it would proliferate throughout the forums. I think the New Site Migration forum is not a good place for the two reasons that it was likely intended to concern the first migration to this new site, and that there appear to be no acknowledgments of any of the good ideas that people have posted there. It is possible of course that another of my posts to the New Site Migration forum contained the plea. In any case, they made the necessary modifications and we have it now. I wish they would set up a forum for suggesting features. That may be my next flood-campaign.