:iagree::iagree::iagree: How about if I give someone a glass full of raw sewage to drink but add a few drops of purified water? Would they drink it? I mean, come on, I realize the majority of it is filth but there is SOME good water in there, right? How about if you drink the glass down but just spit out all the filth and keep only the "good parts"? Sound reasonable? :glare: I swear if I see one of those books I will set it on fire.

:grouphug::grouphug:

What would be really funny is to wait six months then post to this thread again. :lol::lol::lol:

My dh takes xanax. It seems to work well for him but gives him nightmares. Sorry I don't have better suggestions as Lunesta is the only thing that ever worked for me.

I think the parents should beaten, starved, and left to die of hypothermia. Whether or not the Pearls get prosecuted in this life is up for grabs but I take a small measure of comfort in knowing that they WILL ANSWER TO GOD and I hope I am standing right there and I get to watch. That wasn't very christian-like for me to say, was it? :glare:

All of that and more. Ambien gave me wicked nightmares! The only thing that worked for me was Lunesta. I wish I could get it here. :glare:

:iagree::iagree:

I love this.

1. The single most important factor in the success of a child's education is parents/home life/family attitude regarding the importance of education. 2. Teacher prep programs are pathetic. 3. Entrance requirements for teacher prep programs are even more pathetic. All you need is a pencil. 4. Teacher tenure should be abolished. All it does is protect lazy teachers. 5. Good teachers should be paid and paid well. Bad teachers should be fired. And even with all that... There will still be much failure until all parents step up and stop leaving the entire burden of education on the schools... Until all parents value education for their children as much as they do watching Real Housewives of New Jersey. As far as Detroit is concerned, that system is irrevocably broken. I worked there. I know. They can hire the best of the best superintendent and it still won't get any better.

Well how about this one... I am the PRINCIPAL at my kids' school and I am a bad school mom!!!! :lol::lol: I am a great principal and I hold the parents of my students accountable for all the things that I do NOT do well myself... like remembering permission slips, or signing their homework books, or making them do their homework, etc. etc. And I am always checking up on what is going on in their lessons to see if I approve. It takes everything I have in me NOT to scoff at some of their homework assignments in front of my kids. I am awful. Dreadful. Terribly embarrassed. But it is true. :tongue_smilie:

:iagree::iagree::iagree:

:lol::lol:

My ds will eat anything that doesn't eat him first. :D He would have loved those soups!

:iagree:

No change at 4000 ... Much to my dismay! :D I think the next change is at 5000 but I can't remember for sure.

OK, don't laugh but I had no idea that one might be "philosophically opposed" to deoderant?? I had no idea that it was a controversial topic. :tongue_smilie: I wear it every day because I do not want to stink. My ds started wearing it when he started to smell (when puberty hit at about age 12). I wish people here would wear it more often as the body odor is often OVERWHELMING.

I used to but I no longer go. I can't afford it, most of the items are cheaply made, and I think the prices are a rip-off.

I don't remember what was taught in elementary school. But in junior high my teachers drilled grammar HARD with loads of sentence diagramming. THis was in the mid-80s. When I first started teaching in 1994 they had almost stopped teaching grammar completely (going for this weird "holistic" approach that didn't work). Now we are swinging back towards grammar. At my school I brought in Voyages in English for grades 1-5 and Easy Grammar for grades 6-9.

An excellent book on this topic is Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung. It changed my entire perspective on this topic. I cannot recommend it highly enough. http://www.amazon.com/Just-Do-Something-Decision-Without/dp/1596448687/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1317123917&sr=8-4

Thank you ladies so much for responding. I think I now have a handle on what it was that is bugging me about this whole thing... The idea that we want kids to do these group projects but we don't TEACH them HOW to work in a group. We just stick them in a group and expect them to figure it out on their own!! My son's most recent group project involved him (an outspoken introvert if that makes any sense) and two very quiet, non-confrontational Asian girls. He got so frustrated because he couldn't get the two girls to make a decision. They were just very meek and wouldn't give their opinions. So he took over. His teacher then said he was getting marked down in his participation grade for being too bossy and not working collaboratively. But no one gave these kids a role in the group or talked to them about what working collaboratively looks like (and what being too bossy looks like). I still don't know what we will do for next year but this has helped me to talk with the teachers I am in charge of about what GOOD group projects look like.

So my ds homeschooled exclusively for k-5. Then in 6th grade we came here and he has been doing school part time and homeschooling part time. Now that he is in 8th grade he is down to only two subjects at home and the rest is at school. The plan was for him to go to school full time starting next year for high school. But He hates it. Well, not exactly "hates" it... it's just that group learning isn't his "thing" so mostly he is irritated by it. :tongue_smilie: The school is VERY big on "cooperative" learning so they do all these group projects. In his social studies class he spent about 4 weeks working on a project for the "European Fair" which ended up being one of those big tri-fold boards with info about Norway (the country he drew randomly with his partner). 4 weeks on NORWAY?? No offense to any Norwegians on the boards but really? There is so much he could learn about European geography and history but he didn't "draw" those other countries ... he got Norway. And really he's just an introvert. He said to me today: "If they stopped all the group work, cutesy activities, and the turn-to-your-partner-and-discuss stuff we could be done with school by noon. I just want them to give me the stuff they want me to know. I will read the books, do the work and teach myself and if I need their help I'll ask for it." He goes through the motions of school but honestly, he would rather not. So I am thinking I should just let him take online classes and study topics on his own, etc. rather than continue on with regular school. IOW, go back to homeschooling. But people say to me "But he NEEDS to learn to work on group projects! That is an important skill for life!" But my thinking is Really? Maybe he ends up going into a field where his work is more solitary???? He does do other things in group settings...hobbies, sports, etc. I am rambling... I guess my questions are: Do we NEED to do group projects? Do we NEED to learn in a group so we can function in society? Will I be doing him a disservice if I give in to his introverted-ness and let him take online classes instead?

My dd is Dec 26. One ds is in Feb. Another is in May. In terms of presents, we do the exact same thing for my dd as we do for my ds. The closeness of the date to Christmas has no relevance for us.

Sounds like it is time for another game of MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS And the McDonalds cashier gets to go first! :D:D:D

That sounds like the math we teach at my school in elementary. Our 1st graders can tell you all about acute and obtuse angles and find perimeter. Our 2nd graders start learning multiplication. Our 3rd graders are balancing equations and solving for X. And we use an American math curriculum by Houghton-Mifflin. So I guess the standards are different than when I was in school but the kids don't seem to think this math is very hard. They pick it up pretty easily even in a classroom setting. Math IS different than when I was in school but I think it is better and I bet your child picks it up even better than you hope. :grouphug:

I saw.... Past tense I seen???? UGH. :001_huh: