re: #32 The Vicious Babushka

Pardon me while I pick a nit. “Homeschooled” does not automatically mean “Religious Homeschooled”.

While homeschooling the Older Boy, for whom no proper school really existed, Mrs. FBW found that Homeschoolers break down largely into two groups - Bible Bangers and Bean Sprouts (like us).

The latter were often credentialed teachers themselves ( like Mrs. FBW) who were dissatisfied with what the public schools provide, and/or have children for whom public school would have meant being consigned to a “Special” class comprised of children who wouldn’t fare well in regular classes - often just a place to put them that got them out of the way*.

I know you mean ‘Homeschooled’ as shorthand for the Bible Banger type, but it does bother me a bit to find my family classed with people who are polar opposites of us.

*The Older Boy was briefly put in one of those, when he reached High School age. He is exceptionally bright, but they put him in a class where everyone else was normal IQ or lower, where most of the class were Emotionally Disturbed, and the whole thing was about CONTROL. When he was unable to fit into that class, the next one they suggested was for kids who were behavioral problems - the Hoodlum Class, as I called it. We pulled him back out, and homeschooled him. He passed his GEDs with scores all in excess of the 92nd percentile, despite little formal instruction.