no_hypocrisy
no_hypocrisy's JournalConsequences of "home schooling".
I've been the legal representative of a mother. All her children were removed three years ago by Child Welfare. One of the allegations is educational neglect. She may lose her parental rights and the kids adopted by the foster parents. We're in trial right now.
Because she kept her three eldest children out of public or private schools. The eldest couldn't go beyond "J" in his ABC's at age 8. Fortunately once the kids were in enrolled in school by social services, they not only caught up in months, but have continued to excel in their grades.
It's debatable how much culpability can be attributed my client as she lived under the thumb of her husband-abuser and was a victim of domestic violence. Whatever her husband said or wanted became the law. The kids watched television (including educational television) most of the time and she read them books. She wanted the kids to go to school and there were options. Although client and her husband withheld vaccinations on "religious grounds", the public school would have accepted the kids and they were poor enough to qualify for financial hardship scholarships at the local Catholic School. The father/husband/abuser just wanted to control the kids. (More likely he didn't want the kids in school to reveal the abuse going on in his house.)
Does my client regret her role in keeping the kids out of school? Sure, she does. The kids have been remediated and she'd put them in school if they are returned.
BTW, my client moved to another state 18 months after the children were removed, to escape her husband and go into hiding from him. She's gone to counseling, therapy for the DV. She's completed school herself and has received two certifications, one advanced, as an EKG technician. She was top of her class gradewise. And she's days away from getting a final divorce judgment from her estranged husband.
I'm not defending her per se as much as explaining what happened.
Dying Rutherford man throws a party to say goodbye
Alan “Big Al” Note couldn’t have asked for a better last day on Earth.
'Big Al' Note died hours after this photo was taken at a party he planned to celebrate his life. With him were his niece Jackie and her husband, Woody. There he was at the Rutherford Elks Lodge on a Sunday afternoon, surrounded by 130 people dear to him.
His two brothers and sister-in-law. Nieces and nephews. Old friends. Those in Rutherford who shared his zeal for civic involvement. His Ramsey High School teaching colleagues and former students.
All had been invited by Note himself, and all heard him announce what most already knew: that Note, a non-smoker, was dying of lung cancer.
-more-
He was my history teacher in high school. He's one reason why I'm here on DU.
http://www.northjersey.com/topstories/ramsey/031312_Dying_Rutherford_man_throws_a_party_to_say_goodbye_.html
I scored a big enamel turkey roaster pan with cover at Macys today.
Original price: $29.99
Reduced to $14.99 and 40% off that price.
Used my Macy's sale card for another 15% off.
Final price: $7.64
Saved nearly $24 (nearly 75% off original price)
Martha Stewart surplus, you can't beat it.
Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill
In my career as a psychologist, I have talked with hundreds of people previously diagnosed by other professionals with oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, anxiety disorder and other psychiatric illnesses, and I am struck by (1) how many of those diagnosed are essentially anti-authoritarians, and (2) how those professionals who have diagnosed them are not.
Anti-authoritarians question whether an authority is a legitimate one before taking that authority seriously. Evaluating the legitimacy of authorities includes assessing whether or not authorities actually know what they are talking about, are honest, and care about those people who are respecting their authority. And when anti-authoritarians assess an authority to be illegitimate, they challenge and resist that authority—sometimes aggressively and sometimes passive-aggressively, sometimes wisely and sometimes not.
Some activists lament how few anti-authoritarians there appear to be in the United States. One reason could be that many natural anti-authoritarians are now psychopathologized and medicated before they achieve political consciousness of society’s most oppressive authorities
-snip-
Many people with severe anxiety and/or depression are also anti-authoritarians. Often a major pain of their lives that fuels their anxiety and/or depression is fear that their contempt for illegitimate authorities will cause them to be financially and socially marginalized; but they fear that compliance with such illegitimate authorities will cause them existential death.
-more-
http://www.madinamerica.com/2012/02/why-anti-authoritarians-are-diagnosed-as-mentally-ill/
Profile Information
Member since: 2003 before July 6thNumber of posts: 46,094