Obviously, he had absolutely no need to spend his evenings wading through my juvenile ramblings...but he did. I will be forever grateful.
But you could argue that this merely makes him a great person, irrespective of whether he was a teacher. He could just as easily have been a family friend, or librarian, or scout leader, or a member of a creative writing group, or a neighbour who enjoyed writing. I dare say if you had been locked up in a prison instead of a school, there would have been a friendly prison guard who liked your writing. I'm not belittling what he did for you, just questioning whether you had to go to school for it to happen.
Here is pretty much what I said in my earlier deleted post, minus a few personal details I was asked to edit, and was happy to do so. Their removal in no way affects what I wanted to say... Okay, last word on this from me.
Mincey, you will do what you will do, and I wish you well with whatever you decide on the home-schooling front.
This is the bit that doesn't seem to get through to you though. It is absolutely NOT necessary for you to grind the current education system, schools and teachers into the dust in order to justify your decision (and it is your decision, not your children’s) to go for home schooling. Whilst some of us have tried to put forward our own perspective and opinions about the pros and cons as we see it, I don't recall seeing anyone trying to paint home schooling in the same light you appear to be determined to paint schools and teachers; as being a complete waste of space and time. That may have been your experience, and I'm sure you are not unique in that, but as you've read from many of us here, it is certainly not the experience of us all. Some of us look back fondly to our school days, and recognise their value, both educationally, socially and emotionally, and are more than happy to credit them with helping to shape the good side of who we are today.
You don't need to try and convince us we're deluded, looking through rose-coloured glasses, or that we'd have been infinitely better had we been taught by our parents at home. We don't need to hear that, but you seem to need to reinforce it in order to justify your choice. You don't need to do that. Some of us liked our schools, our teachers, and the friends we made at school, many of them for life.
And some of us may have had close connections with schools beyond our own schooling. We may even have been teachers ourselves, had kids who have been through the education system, served on school boards, or even have children who have gone on to become teachers themselves, and who value their profession greatly. I fit three out of those four categories. Your persistence in trying to rubbish what connects all of that, taints all of that.
By all means, go for home schooling. You're certainly smart enough and qualified to do so. And any children you have may even be smart enough to do it all by themselves, who knows? Good luck!
But this is one occasion where you don’t need to destroy in order to build.
Now, give it a rest, please.
