My novel, THE UNWANTEDS, just hit the New York Times bestseller list

[vesta111]

I stopped reading right there.  Your Bouncy's are worse than those of your brethren at the DUmp.

How sad, you grew up with no interesting ideas, such as can a boy use a pillow case as a parashoot to jump off the roof ???

Your parents were lucky,  My boys got a Chemistry set from well meaning grandparents and -----Well we all survived that.

I had no brothers or sisters and had few kids my age living near me.   When I began to breed children of a different sex then myself, Male people, and even the females were born into a different time I had to try to understand what the heck was going on with the kids.

Had we lived close to relatives things may have been different, but I married and moved far away from both their fathers family's and my own.   Their father gone to sea for months at a time and I was in charge of teaching the boys how to pee in the toilet.    Small thing  yes but for one that sits a problem to teach how to do something they must know as a MAN.

What to do as a woman when you find a 3 year old and a 5 year old boy outside chasing the dog around peeing at him ???   Poor dog, both boys with delight on their face yelling --look Mom as the dog tried to back off.    May say they loaded the gun and I somehow taught them how to use it for fun.  I just thank God it was the dog they attacked and not their sisters.

How to raise a human of another sex while the father is away, a female can only go so far into the mind of a male child , Why do they climb 100 foot trees or make it amusing to to fart ?????

Female children are easier to understand, they want to go with the fads of today, seldom do you find one in the cellar making a smoke bomb.    Those Lord awful litter bottles with a small firecracker inside , lit and capped.  Opened the smell drives the family out of the house followed by dogs, cats and mice.   The Girls do not stand about and giggle as the boys will do.

TX as a kid did you NEVER do anything that caused your mother to fear for your life or to run about thinking you were as mad as a Hatter ?   Have you never been a Boy Scout and made a farticuliter.   If so did you expect the females to understand this and laugh ???

Boy children are a mysterious person to those that raise them with fathers far away, even with a father on scene the male child child is in some ways   is strange to their fathers as to their mothers.  

Two brothers way back when who eked out a living repairing bicycles decided to they could find a way to fly above the clouds.

Dumb shits what did they know, they spent the family money on this crazy crap and today I can look up to see the Navy's Blue Angles flying in formation.  

The ideas of the young ignorant leads to tomorrows life style that is normal.   No bouncy here my Friend ,  who knows a child labeled as a problem child may some time in the future become a master of what he  is is taught.

Pissis me off when all these kids are labeled  with learning disorders, it it not the child but the teachers that have not the the   dedication to their job or just get into into this a pay check.

[delilahmused]

But naturally the subject matter has been used for years as it is all so true.   Think back in your life as a kid when you became creative, and were scolded for stepping outside the box.

Mom has a framed color drawing I did in Kindergarten in the 1950's.  

She tells me as I do not remember this myself, it was around Christmas time and she was called to the school.  My teacher was upset with me, she had given out pictures of Santa Clause to her class to be colored in with crayons.   The other students pictures were tacked to the wall but mine was handed to Mom with a reproachfull look.    Mom took one look and says she burst out laughing, my Santa wore a bright green suit, not the Red kind.  

Fast for ward to the 1980's, I am called to my sons 9 Th grade class because he would sneak in early and draw caricature's of the teacher on the black board. My son has a born talent to do this art work,  the work was so good the teacher was having a nervous break down.       I listened to her complaint  more about her problems and what not going on in her life.  My complaint was she had not taken a Polaroid of the upsetting pictures.  

All kids do some of the darnedest things, the problem  is when a child works out side the box using their curiosity and imagination,
As Albert Einsteins teachers told his Father---Your  boy will never amount to anything.

It is not so much the  potential locked into the mind of a child, this can remain there for life with out the proper unlocking of a teacher.   All these children with Learning problems and anger issues, ideas bouncing about 24/7 with no release, these children are our future and they need people able to understand and give their thoughts free wing to fly. Channel their ideas to where they are comfortable and can go on to what interests them under their own steam.

Parents are not educated to understand these things but teachers are suppose to be trained to do so, why else pay them to do no more then babysit.  This is what a Mentor is for,  to open the mind of a student and guide them.  

Every child has a brain that has potential, be they handi capped physically or  unless in a coma.     Blind and deaf from birth, then unlocked by a teacher ex trondear  Helen Keller gives hope to parents around the world of what can be one with an extraordinary teacher.  

1. I was NEVER punished for thinking outside of the box. I was punished for many things, but never that, not at home or school. My artistic side has been nurtured.

2. Thinking outside the box is the only way new things are discovered. Did you and your family grow up in a wasteland or something? Schools may have perfected ways of dumbing kids down, but before we started homeschooling I had a never ending supply of refrigerator art my boys brought home. Never once were they criticized. Had a teacher withheld one of my child's art projects and called me in because she was "concerned", it would be the last time she'd ever do it.

3. Without the proper unlocking of a TEACHER? Where do parents fit into your world? Have you never sat and colored or drawn with your children? Done simple kitchen science projects? Read stories together? Taken nature walks? Children are natural, joyful learners and their best learning, the kind that sets the foundation for the rest of their lives, is the early learning they do with their parents.

4. This is offensive beyond words! If this is true, how is it that homeschooled kids (on average) outperform public school kids? How is it that back before there were no schools below the university level in the 18th century where children learned from their parents and mostly (gasp) from the Bible, literacy rates were almost 90%? Parents don't need to be "trained" to HELP their child learn and make discoveries. In fact, this is the best way learning happens.

Cindie

[txradioguy]

How sad, you grew up with no interesting ideas, such as can a boy use a pillow case as a parashoot to jump off the roof ???

Did that.  used my toybox and two chars plus a couple blankets to make a tent.  Slept in it with my two imaginary hunting dogs.

I had all kinds of interesting ideas and was allowed to think outside the box...encouraged even.

Probably explains why I'm a Conservative Republican and not a Democrat.

Your parents were lucky,  My boys got a Chemistry set from well meaning grandparents and -----Well we all survived that.

I got a shotgun from my grandfather for my 8th birthday.

[Splashdown]

I got a shotgun from my grandfather for my 8th birthday.

Bitter Clinger!


 

[txradioguy]

Bitter Clinger!


 

AMEN!!! 

[Scoobie]

1. I was NEVER punished for thinking outside of the box. I was punished for many things, but never that, not at home or school. My artistic side has been nurtured.

2. Thinking outside the box is the only way new things are discovered. Did you and your family grow up in a wasteland or something? Schools may have perfected ways of dumbing kids down, but before we started homeschooling I had a never ending supply of refrigerator art my boys brought home. Never once were they criticized. Had a teacher withheld one of my child's art projects and called me in because she was "concerned", it would be the last time she'd ever do it.

3. Without the proper unlocking of a TEACHER? Where do parents fit into your world? Have you never sat and colored or drawn with your children? Done simple kitchen science projects? Read stories together? Taken nature walks? Children are natural, joyful learners and their best learning, the kind that sets the foundation for the rest of their lives, is the early learning they do with their parents.

4. This is offensive beyond words! If this is true, how is it that homeschooled kids (on average) outperform public school kids? How is it that back before there were no schools below the university level in the 18th century where children learned from their parents and mostly (gasp) from the Bible, literacy rates were almost 90%? Parents don't need to be "trained" to HELP their child learn and make discoveries. In fact, this is the best way learning happens.

Cindie

So very well said, and a HUGE H5! 

[formerlurker]

But naturally the subject matter has been used for years as it is all so true.   Think back in your life as a kid when you became creative, and were scolded for stepping outside the box.

Mom has a framed color drawing I did in Kindergarten in the 1950's.  

She tells me as I do not remember this myself, it was around Christmas time and she was called to the school.  My teacher was upset with me, she had given out pictures of Santa Clause to her class to be colored in with crayons.   The other students pictures were tacked to the wall but mine was handed to Mom with a reproachfull look.    Mom took one look and says she burst out laughing, my Santa wore a bright green suit, not the Red kind.  

Fast for ward to the 1980's, I am called to my sons 9 Th grade class because he would sneak in early and draw caricature's of the teacher on the black board. My son has a born talent to do this art work,  the work was so good the teacher was having a nervous break down.       I listened to her complaint  more about her problems and what not going on in her life.  My complaint was she had not taken a Polaroid of the upsetting pictures.  

All kids do some of the darnedest things, the problem  is when a child works out side the box using their curiosity and imagination,
As Albert Einsteins teachers told his Father---Your  boy will never amount to anything.

It is not so much the  potential locked into the mind of a child, this can remain there for life with out the proper unlocking of a teacher.   All these children with Learning problems and anger issues, ideas bouncing about 24/7 with no release, these children are our future and they need people able to understand and give their thoughts free wing to fly. Channel their ideas to where they are comfortable and can go on to what interests them under their own steam.

Parents are not educated to understand these things but teachers are suppose to be trained to do so, why else pay them to do no more then babysit.  This is what a Mentor is for,  to open the mind of a student and guide them.  

Every child has a brain that has potential, be they handi capped physically or  unless in a coma.     Blind and deaf from birth, then unlocked by a teacher ex trondear  Helen Keller gives hope to parents around the world of what can be one with an extraordinary teacher.  

Vesta, there is a very famous individual with autism I would like you to google - Temple Grandin.    Her mother is the sole reason why Temple is who she is now.   It is an amazing story, worth your time and the education you will receive in doing so.

[formerlurker]

Really. As a parent, I take offense to such an absurd statement.

And try telling that to formerlurker, a woman who works TIRELESSLY within her school district, at every level, to make sure that a parent's understanding of their children's potential is in fact recognized and fostered by the educators within her district's school system. A fight she fights every damn day.

Thanks Scoobie for the kind words.   They mean a lot to me.

[GOBUCKS]

I got a shotgun from my grandfather for my 8th birthday.

When I was eight, my dad promised to buy me a 12 ga. Model 12 when I grew to 100 lbs..

At that time, I was using a 20 ga. Stevens Model 94. I remember having to use both thumbs to cock it.

[txradioguy]

When I was eight, my dad promised to buy me a 12 ga. Model 12 when I grew to 100 lbs..

At that time, I was using a 20 ga. Stevens Model 94. I remember having to use both thumbs to cock it.

I got a breech load single barrel Savage 20 gauge.  Still in the rack at my parents house.

Last time I pulled it out to use it was when my now wife and I were dating and I had to go out to her place to kill a rattle snake.

[Splashdown]

I got a breech load single barrel Savage 20 gauge.  Still in the rack at my parents house.

Last time I pulled it out to use it was when my now wife and I were dating and I had to go out to her place to kill a rattle snake.

Wow. Texans are strange. In Pa, we take girls out to dinner on dates.

[BlueStateSaint]

I got a breech load single barrel Savage 20 gauge.  Still in the rack at my parents house.

Last time I pulled it out to use it was when my now wife and I were dating and I had to go out to her place to kill a rattle snake.

I've got a break-open Stevens .410 bore at my parents.  Though, killing varmints wasn't a typical date-night activity . . .

[vesta111]

1. I was NEVER punished for thinking outside of the box. I was punished for many things, but never that, not at home or school. My artistic side has been nurtured.

2. Thinking outside the box is the only way new things are discovered. Did you and your family grow up in a wasteland or something? Schools may have perfected ways of dumbing kids down, but before we started homeschooling I had a never ending supply of refrigerator art my boys brought home. Never once were they criticized. Had a teacher withheld one of my child's art projects and called me in because she was "concerned", it would be the last time she'd ever do it.

3. Without the proper unlocking of a TEACHER? Where do parents fit into your world? Have you never sat and colored or drawn with your children? Done simple kitchen science projects? Read stories together? Taken nature walks? Children are natural, joyful learners and their best learning, the kind that sets the foundation for the rest of their lives, is the early learning they do with their parents.

4. This is offensive beyond words! If this is true, how is it that homeschooled kids (on average) outperform public school kids? How is it that back before there were no schools below the university level in the 18th century where children learned from their parents and mostly (gasp) from the Bible, literacy rates were almost 90%? Parents don't need to be "trained" to HELP their child learn and make discoveries. In fact, this is the best way learning happens.

Cindie

Cindie,I am compairing today's generations with those from my and from my children's generations to  today's.

Home schooling is a  rather new idea that goes back in time to the days when teachers were few and far between.   

Example,the new math of the 1970's and the progressive ideas of those times.  California was great for that stuff. Being a military family raising 4 kids in many different school districts was a eye opener. 

Example's-----

I was taught to read by my parents and passed the love of a good book onto my kids.   This got me in allot of trouble when my oldest child in 2ND. grade was tested at reading on a 5-6 grade level.    Naturally she squirmed about in class when the teacher read to the class, she wanted to read the story herself.    I was called to the school by her teacher a graduate of Berkeley and told that the SYSTEM wanted to teach child by their methods and not the parents.

Then heaven help us the new math came in, the System sent home all kinds of information on it and expected us to understand and help the children to learn.   OK. I tried to muddle through it damning who ever would not change us to the decimal system as the rest of the world went by.  I at a total loss and frustrated gave the packets of information to my husband who was an instructor at the Nuclear Power School at that time in Vallejo.    Before the hand held calculators came out------he was a slide rule man.

He took the packets into work and with other instructors tried to figure the darn new method out.   They all claimed that once taught memorisation of the X tables, all else would fall into place.  But, no memorisation of anything was motioned.  These men gave up, we family's at home were in a bind, so we went on to teach the kids the  old methods that we knew and let the System teach the kids the new.

Result is today with calculators all my kids can can respond to a math problem before others have time to reach for their calculators for something as simple as the  cost of an item at 20% off.

Home school can not be done by a parent that does not know themselves the subject.  Even if they do know it takes talents and education to train another in a subject.   Home schools have 1-4 or more students that the parent knows better then a school teacher with 30+ strange children to teach.

Home school has the advantage of 24/7 learning and with little distractions as a new kid coming in, or gossip about the new young teacher that wears low cut blouses.   

Naturally home schooling is going to make the kids score higher on exams, they have the benefit of the old time one room school house.   They not only learn at their grade level but listen to the older siblings teachings and learn from them.

It takes MONEY to be able to teach at home, one parent cannot work and must be dedicated to the children  for 12 months of the year above themselves.  Will the children themselves home school their own children, who knows the call of material things, vacations and big boats, large homes and fast cars often take precedence over the children's future.

I come from a family of school teachers and find it difficult to understand how strange the public school SYSTEM can turn out graduates that cannot read above 2ND grade or cannot if the power goes down at the grocery store make change.

[JohnnyReb]

When I was eight, my dad promised to buy me a 12 ga. Model 12 when I grew to 100 lbs..

At that time, I was using a 20 ga. Stevens Model 94. I remember having to use both thumbs to cock it.

Had to work and save my money for my first gun(age 12). It was a .410 bolt action, 7 short shells or 6 long shells....Savage(maybe Stevens) I think it was. In my early 20's it got traded in a deal for a 20 ga, Remington 1100 to a fellow. To this day I regret ever doing that.

[Jasonw560]

Got a break open .410 myself when I was 8 or 9.

My parents have it, but can't find it, so my twins have been using an old .410 my FIL got from Sears when he was young.

I think they'll be big enough for .20 gauges next year.

[RobJohnson]

I got a breech load single barrel Savage 20 gauge.  Still in the rack at my parents house.

Awesome

[RobJohnson]

Got a break open .410 myself when I was 8 or 9.

My parents have it, but can't find it, so my twins have been using an old .410 my FIL got from Sears when he was young.

I think they'll be big enough for .20 gauges next year.

I have a .22 [Fully Automatic /DummyMode]  Semi Auto Rifle that has SEARS stamped on the barrell. It was my dad's first gun as a kid and the first rifle I ever shot. I had a single shot .410 that my Great Aunt used to shoot skunks that were in the hen house on the farm. Her brother just had to have the gun, so I gave it to him. A few years later, I get a letter, wanting to know where the gun was and he was one of the assholes that signed the letter.

[txradioguy]

Wow. Texans are strange. In Pa, we take girls out to dinner on dates.

 

You should have seen my wife when I pulled up to her house...sitting in the middle of the front door in a chair with her legs pulled up under her...refusing to move until I killed that snake.

[txradioguy]

I've got a break-open Stevens .410 bore at my parents.  Though, killing varmints wasn't a typical date-night activity . . .

My grandma had a .410 when she was alive...it was about all she could handle (she was 4'11")...she'd use it to kill rattlesnakes she'd find in the hay barn or that were sunning themselves on the concrete roof of my grandparents tornado shelter.

[franksolich]

My grandma had a .410 when she was alive...it was about all she could handle (she was 4'11")...she'd use it to kill rattlesnakes she'd find in the hay barn or that were sunning themselves on the concrete roof of my grandparents tornado shelter.

You know, all my brothers--the three older ones, and the one younger than me--hunted, but I never did.

It was always generally assumed that if I needed to bag an animal, I'd do with with a baseball bat.