In the online edition of my hometown paper, the letter of the day comes from my elementary school French teacher, Monsieur Guay. M. Guay decries the school fundraisers which are heavily reliant on the sale of junk food. He says, "Perhaps the only frustrating aspect of my many years of teaching young children was watching our schools participate enthusiastically in the process of poisoning our children with junk food." He goes on to lament: "The schools will tell you they need to do this to raise funds for special activities for which they have no money. With that argument, I’m wondering why we don’t have our children going door-to-door selling cigarettes." I think this is a valid point!
This is our first year of homeschooling. I won't miss the constant stream of fundraisers, and the pressure placed on the kids to sell overpriced, unnecessary crap. I won't miss seeing that my son barely touched his carefully packed lunch in the overwhelmingly noisy and crowded cafeteria, thus leaving him hungry and unable to focus throughout the afternoon. I won't miss the pressure from the PTO Alpha Moms to collect those damned General Mills Boxtops for education from processed, packaged foods that we don't eat. And I certainly won't miss the mixed messages sent out by the powers that be, such as rewarding children who participated in the American Heart Walk with premium ice cream.
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5 comments:
I completely agree. We have been HS from the beginning and I can't say I have ever regretted it.
I see where you're coming from on those points, and agree with you to a certain extent.
But, there are alot of other points about high school that are worth mentioning. Like, the opportunities to socialize with many other people. The special classes that are available for AP or college credit courses made available via distance learning. Extracurriculuar activites such as chorus & band that allow students to participate in special functions (and also allow parents to enjoy in them as well).
I believe that home schooling is a very beneficial environment, although so is public school.
I guess my opinion is that it's half dozen in one, 6 in another. :)
Best of luck!
Scott
As a homeschooler myself, I tend to agree with you on the subject of fundraising. I don't miss that a bit.
There are some activities that homeschoolers don't have access to. like the extracurricular activites, but many of us make it up in spades with other activites along those lines.
Rose, it's been a while, I didn't realize you were homeschooling now, that's fantastic :-) Hope all is well, stop by and say hi sometime.
Jamie Lea
http://www.xanga.com/homeschoolingthem
I'm glad we don't sell junk like that at our school. However, we do have bake sales. Most of it are homemade goodies likes cookies, cupcakes, rice krispie treats, and brownies. Also coke or rootbeer floats, and one parent in my DD9s class has a snowcone stand and brings in a few of their best selling flavors. But it's nice that these fundraisers money ALL goes to the kids and the parents just volunteer the time and goodies.
But our FFA (Future Farmers of America) do a fundraiser every Christmas and sell boxes of fruit, freshly made sausage from a local processor, and cookie dough (now, WHO can pass up cookie dough!! Yummy!!!)
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