I don't usually resort to "tu quoque" fallacies on this blog, but it's my blog and I'm cross and I'm anyway not so much resorting to this fallacy as pointing out that whenever my children take a class that involves anything other than home educating children and parents, the standard of behaviour is so consistently worse and so much worse, that I cannot imagine that these are isolated instances. I'm not talking just about the pupils, mind. I'm talking about the way the adults treat the children too!
Yesterday DD, who has only just turned seven, in her usual art class and tired after an afternoon of sitting on pony on a wet and windy Welsh hill, put her head down on the desk. She was shouted at by a bossy teacher whom she's has never liked and told to sit up. DD's HE friend defended her and told the teacher that DD had been riding and also that she had had a jippy tummy very recently. Teacher hurrumphed, not used to the fact that both children are well aware that they are there solely because they want to be and can walk when she doesn't perform.
But before DD had a chance to leg it, a schooled boy rounded upon her and said "What the f**k are you doing riding today?" Dd, usually a fairly strong-minded and confident child, replied: "I am home educated, so I can do what I want to do..." to which schooled kid replied "you m*****rf****g b****h, f**k off."
Dd had, by this time had enough, and decided to walk. Against instruction from the teacher, she went upstairs to the animation class to find her brother who immediately saw that she was upset and gave her a big hug.
DD has decided to give that teacher's class a miss from now on. She's not the first HEor to choose to do this. It strikes me that schools would improve very rapidly if more children did what she chose to do.
The only time we ever come across similar behaviour from children in the numerous HE groups we attend is when a child has recently come out of school. I have never seen any HEing adults behave so disrespectfully.
Sorry to hear. But I'm sure you would impress the LA with all those posh classes the kids take.
ReplyDeleteNot sure the classes are very smart really. The art and animation classes get some form of external sponsorship because they are in a very deprived area, and as for the riding...ah well, scrumbling around in mud and wind on very energetic ponies that are usually ridden by a child who is up for the National team could be seen as posh, I suppose. Just doesn't feel AT ALL priviledged when one is actually doing it. It is usually freezing and terrifying by turns.
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