Home Schooling

Home schooling has much to offer in terms of educational opportunity.  Home schoolers will tell you it is the better way to go for a variety of reasons.  I agree.  A child will have a better learning environment, more individualized teaching.  All of that is true and valid.

What they don't tell you is that you will go bonkers if you home school your kids.

In a traditional school setting some poor slob gets paid to put up with children who have the same learning disabilities you did.  Oh yes.  I said it.  Children have learning disabilities.   The single biggest one is LBD.  The second biggest one is they are children.

Kids instinctively know that some things are "funner" than others.  This is because they are children and haven't succumbed to the evils of delayed gratification.  They know that playing on the swings (which is what mine are doing right now, that's how I got 15 blissful min of blog time) is more fun than multiplication.  Long division? Ha!  There are bikes that need riding.

I repent in sack cloths and ashes over the way I treated my teachers when I was a kid.  One guy named Donahue had a drinking problem.  We called him Drunkahue.  Do you know why he drank?  That's right kids.  After 10 years with a roomful of teenagers you'd need a little nip in the afternoon to help make it to happy hour too.  After 20 years you need a nip in the morning, between classes, and a good slug with your morning coffee.  It's not alcoholism, its dedication to getting to retirement.

Do you know why teachers have tenure and unions?  They need them.  No one in their right mind spends that much time with kids in an institution.  Who wants to be institutionalized?  Nobody.  Have you ever been around a women who spent 24 years teaching the 1st grade?  Five words: "Good Moorning booys and girrrrls".  You heard a certain half crazed voice in your head when you read that, didn't you?

Crazy.  That's what kids make you.  That's just the kid portion of the dementia.  You can't forget about LBD.  LBD was first discovered by Adam and Eve, at least that's the rumor.  In more enlightened times the issue of LBD was addressed in the classroom by the board of education.  By board of education, of course we mean the paddle.  By paddle we mean a 2x12  solid oak board with a two handed reinforced handle and holes drilled in it to make it more "aerodynamic" and leave lots of red hickeys on the butt of the victim student.

The teachers of yore were wise.  They knew that LBD (Lazy Butt Disorder) was best addressed by applying the board of education to the seat of learning.  They also knew that beating the living tar out of a kid could keep you from going insane.  There is no historical documentation to back this up, but logic dictates that several stiff drinks right before administering the beating does help the recovery of the teacher.

I don't know if you know this or not, but you can't randomly beat your children anymore.  You didn't know that?  My dad sure didn't.  If I came home from school and he even suspected LBD, I got a whooping.  That's because my dad knew he didn't want me getting kicked out of school.  Back then they figured if you had LBDD (Lazy Butt Disruptive Disorder) they'd kick you out and you'd have to spend your day with your parents.  My parents didn't want that, so they beat me.

Then someone, obviously not a parent or a teacher, got the bright idea that we shouldn't beat kids with LBD.  At least they didn't take away the keys to the liquor cabinet.

After spending 4 hours combating LBD and WLG (whiney little girl) you can't send them home, because you homeschool your kids.  That's right.  They are already home.  There is no escape because you are the primary care giver.  You can't go anywhere to get away from them because you've already pulled your hair out, your clothes are a mess from the art project, and you are afraid the cops will take your license for good if they catch you driving after homeschooling again.

They will know too.  Last time they caught you during a traffic stop.  They snuck up to the window and when you weren't looking and saying "DAAAAAD" in a nasally voice.  They knew right then from the twitching and involuntary convulsions that  you were operating a car after homeschooling.  The dilemma is you can't drive to the liquor store.  You can't walk there either.  The cops don't look kindly on the imaginary conversations you have with yourself.  Apparently the neighbors complain when they see you walking and yelling things into the air. "You have to learn your multiplication tables, because I say you have to learn your multiplication tables". 

Maybe a couple of shots of Nyquil to steady up.  I'm out.  I think I still have some rubbing alcohol around here someplace.