Posted on 06/18/2007 12:21:52 AM PDT by LibertyRocks
Edited on 06/18/2007 1:15:58 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
I was just watching Ebert & Roeper and would like to report to my fellow homeschoolers that the guest host taking Roger Ebert's place tonight, Robert Wilonsky, made a very disrespectful and rude comment in relation to homeschoolers...
While reviewing the upcoming movie "Nancy Drew" Roeper made a comment that Nancy was a 1950's girl in relation to what she thought constituted a birthday party. When Roeper said that this would be a good movie that would be liked by 12-year-old girls, Wilonsky replied, "Maybe Homeschooled 12-year-olds"...
I found this to be a very ignorant and disrespectful comment, and I am left wondering what Mr. Wilonsky thinks would be better suited for 12-year-old Public Schooled/Private Schooled students to be watching (Sex, Drinking & Drugs???)?
I would like to ask my fellow homeschool parents to write to both Ebert & Roeper (Buena Vista Entertainment) as well as Mr. Wilonsky himself, and express your displeasure with this disrespectful comment.
Here is how to contact the show & Mr. Wilonsky...
Ebert & Roeper Show: http://bventertainment.go.com/tv/buenavista/ebertandroeper/ Use the "Feedback" link at the top navigation bar to submit a comment.
Mr. Wilonsky: I could only find one email address online for Mr. Wilonsky (he also writes at RottenTomatoes.com, as well as the Village Voice, L.A. Weekly, and the Phoenix New Times). Here is his email address through his employer the Dallas Observer:
Robert.Wilonsky@dallasobserver.com
In my comment to the Ebert & Roeper show I requested not only that they do not bring Mr. Wilonsky back for any more co-hosting gigs, but also that they issue an on-air apology to all homeschooled students.
You’re kidding, right?
Disrespect is a verb. We often make nouns into verbs and this process is still active in American English.
If you want to get upset about something, try "gender" used in place of "sex."
About something as important as the correct use of parts of speech? Surely you jest?
I don’t think it’s an insult. It’s just stating that most 12-year-old girls in the public school system are more interested in watching something related to too-early sex and glamor, while homeschooled kids are more wholesome. That’s a good thing, right? So Wilonsky was not insulting you or homeschoolers.
Sometimes when one is discriminated against a great deal, it’s easy to see more discrimination where there is none. But if you write an outraged letter to Wilonsky you’ll just confirm his preconception that homeschoolers are humorless prudes. Go easy.
bump
“To me the scary thing about this mindset is that Wilonsky seems to think todays 12 year olds aren’t and shouldn’t be innocent.”
I think you’re right on target here. This movie reviewer’s nastiness speaks more about his own shortcomings and those that may exist in his own household, then it does regarding home-schoolers across the nation, who are more obviously and very publicly proving that allowing a child to be a child is much more healthy for the child and the family than otherwise.
I couldn’t care less what some talking head on tv thinks about what would make my 12 year old happy. What I do care about is whether or not the Good Lord is pleased with what I’m doing and how I’m raising my children.
For a nation that likes to speak with pride about rugged individualism I am always privately amused by the numbers of people who react viscerally against home-schoolers. It’s rather pathetic on their part. It serves to expose the Communist gulag mentality they feel comfortable with.
” Lighten up. If school were just about education, I’d have a lot of sympathy, but you’re missing a huge chunk of social development (as the lack of sense of humor in this post shows). I’ve known many home schooled kids in my day, and I’ve yet to meet one of them who wouldn’t have been better off with a real Public/Private school upbringing. How was your Prom? “
My 3 nieces are homeschooled in Maine. I’ve gotten to know them and the kids in their homeschooling co-op, which pools resources to do a lot of things together, pretty well. Their educational levels are all far superior to that of their peers in public schools, and, to a one, their social development is not only equivalent to that of their public school friends, but years ahead of them. They are comfortable in their own skins, gregarious and considerate, polite, and able to defer gratification. The only discomfort they experience with public schooled kids their age has to do with the immaturity, selfishness, and laziness of the public-schoolers.
If it was only my nieces, I could say it was genetic. But since it is also the rest of the group, I can’t. If it was only the religion-based homeschoolers, I could credit their faith. But my nieces are atheists (but outstanding people nonetheless), while most of the others are Jehova’s Witness members. (Interesting combo).
I went to the graduation party of my eldest niece last month. There were a lot of homeschoolers there, and a number of public schoolers. It was a dance. We had a blast. They had a blast. They have more fun than anyone I know, and they have maturity and perspective to balance it. I would stack those kids up against anybody you’ve got. And I know what would have happened to them if they’d gone to public school:
Slowest Common Denominator.
Homeschooling became “legal” only in the past 30 years. Before that, homeschoolers were harassed and even sent to jail by overzealous courts and social workers.
Homeschoolers do not take their victories over the public school blob lightly - we know what they cost in family trauma to secure.
You might want to read up on the history of homeschooling and the legal fights to secure the right to do so from the state and federal education blob before you make such a careless comment.
There is no right secured to us in the Constitution that is safe from legislatures. The recent and ongoing fight over eminent domain should tell you that, as just one example.
Did you forget the < sarcasm >??? Please say yes.
Becky
My homeschooled husband will gladly tell you how, when his classmates asked him about missing the prom, returned fire and asked how many of them went to their proms. As they were at an engineering school, the answer was not many...
I was homeschooled and I'm sure I would have been better off in public school, where I could have been picked on for being fat and nerdy, developed an eating disorder, started studying Elementary Education instead of computer science, found an abusive boyfriend and gotten pregnant at 18.
No, I am not teaching my kids that disrespect is a verb — I will admit that I have had to watch my speech patterns after living and working in west Denver for 2 1/2 years. Sometimes my grammar slips — especially when I am a little miffed about something. I do appreciate you pointing out my mistake. (o:
OK, I take back saying that I was wrong about the word ‘disrespected’! (o;
I do think I could have come up with a better title though... at least one that didn’t add a controversy! LOL
Missing a huge chunk of social development?
You mean like missing out on these wonderful opportunities?
Like being sexually abused by a teacher?
Learning to cheat on tests to pass?
Or being shaken down for lunch money?
Or having your personal belongings stolen out of your locker?
Or becoming a slave to fashion and peer pressure?
Or having your jacket sliced open on the school bus?
Or like having the boys in the back of your bus pee on your feet?
Or having them spit in your face?
Or being raped on the bus or in the bathroom or on stage?
Or being sodomized in the boys locker room?
What kind of social development is so critical for my children to learn that sending them to public schools is good for them?
Being with only their age all the time, like we are out in the real world?
Raising their hands and asking permission to talk, go to the bathroom, go to the nurse, do ANYTHING like we do at work?
Always being told where to go and when, as the bell rings?
Why would I want my kids to develop like that?
Being herded around a building you’re confined to all day is not reality and not good for social development. Jails don’t reform people, why would schools do something positive?
School SHOULD BE just about education and not be about social development, that’s what playing and working are for.
Here is what I wrote.
“Thanks so much about your comment on 12 year old homeschooled girls. You are so right. My nine year old, working on my 7th grade curriculum, will love this movie! She has been through around a third of the 175 Nancy Drew books. Pitifully, most 12 year old Public School girls are into boys butts and sneaking cigarettes.
So you are right, if Nancy is not dancing around a pole or experimenting with Bess to find her sexuality, the homeschoolers will be the only ones that enjoy it. Good thing we are a growing section of society. This movie should be a success.”
I am torn about responding to this...
My wife and I home school all three of our children. We feel strongly about our right to do so. But we also feel strongly about the culture of victimization that is so prevalent these days. Everyone seems to take offense these days...boy is that tiresome. Tolerance is a virtue that has been forgotten.
Does all of that happen at your local school? I wouldn’t let my child go there either! What kind of depraved neighborhood are you living in? I’d keep my kids inside the house 24/7 before letting them be exposed to these types of perverts.
More defilement is cool crap - ah the children spawned of the 60's.
Oh, I love it! Very nicely done. (o:
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