Sunday, September 26, 2010

Smarter than a homeschooler ?

The answer to that is No. I am not smarter than a homeschooled child. This fact was brought to my attention when a recent "Agri-Tour" was conducted by yours truly. A group of moms and their homeschooled children came to South Pork Ranch to see what it is we do. After telling the kids a bit about our Red Wattle Hog herd, one bright chap named Patrick asked "So regarding these RED Wattles...do they see things in color ? "

Hmmmmm. Sorry chap, I said, I have no clue. He accepted my ignorance quite readily. Perhaps he had been earlier warned about my simpleton ways. The conversations only improved from that point on. "What does castration mean ?" and "If you leave the calf on the mother cow but it only drinks for 30 minutes four times a day, how much milk is left for you to drink with your cereal ?" Now I know who writes those "If train A leaves the station at 10 am and Train B leaves Chatsworth at 10:10 am how long until it derails alongside route 24 ?" type of questions.

Brillant. These kids were brillant. And brave, as not one of them hesitated to try our fresh raw milk. (With informed parental consent of course) One little girl even drank the leftovers of several other kids. Wild little risktaker that one. Oh, one more thing. They were excellent listeners. When I said "everyone go climb on the old tractor for a picture" what do you think they did ?  They did this.

So to all you moms and dads out there who do so much work to educate your children at home, I salute you. And to all you agricultural types out there who complain that kids don't know anything about farms anymore I challenge you to do a few "agri-tours" of your own. The more youth we can send home with milk mustaches and dirty shoes, the better.

4 comments:

  1. You and your simpleton ways are brilliant as well.

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  2. Oh Thanks! I needed that plug on a Monday morning to go teach my 5 kiddos! Your writing always makes me smile:))))

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  3. Professors at college use to ask our daughter in amazement, "How do you know that?" To which she replied, I learned about that at home from our agricultural hobbies. I sware the most important lesson in life can be learned in the barnyard. Yes, I home-schooled for fifteen years and it was one of the smartest things I ever did. Wish I was allowed the priveledge with our grand kids but alas, their poorly educated father sees things differently.

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  4. I remember back in college how all the home schooled kids all hung out together. To me, it seemed they were not prepared for the social aspects of dorm life. Then when I went to bootcamp, there was one kid that was home schooled and he was well...our special recruit. Always talking out of turn, always trying to kiss the Division Commander's ass. Then it was the same in the Police Academy. The home school recruits were always such kiss asses to those in charge. Once is a coincidence, but three different phases of my life all resulted in the same outcome: Home school kids were the wierd ones.

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