Saturday, March 7, 2009

I finally get it

Wow two posts in one day for me...I am on a roll.
My friend Tami's cousin Melissa has a blog: http://www.afarmwifeslife.blogspot.com/
This woman is amazing. She has seven children, homeschools them all, and has a great attitude toward life. Recently she wrote a post about home schooling vs. public schooling. I didn't agree with everything, and another poster who I don't know wrote things that I really disagreed with. Typical Bonnie offered her two cents.
Thad has been a police officer or detective for almost 12 years. Since he began that job, I have watched him get upset too many times to count because people bash cops. They are jerks, pigs, out to ruin everyone's life, etc. Some cops are jerks I remind Thad. I also tell him to blow it off. He was likely the same way once upon a time.
Until today though, I had never heard anyone really speak out so adamantly against public schooling--my job. The shoe was on the other foot. I found myself getting angry at this stranger who was bashing government education. Why you ask? I was taking it personally.
You don't often hear or read about people who think public or private schooling is not good. It hurt. It hurt because this man who I don't know was criticizing what I do for a living. He was saying what I found to be unfair comments about my passion, my life, and much of what I stand for.
Thad, I now get where you are coming from. I work my tail off to make the world a better place, open the eyes of my students, and share good things with them. Like you Thad, my goal is to help, assist, protect, encourage, and enlighten.
You never really know what it's like until you are truly in someone else's shoes.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bonnie you are a wonderful teacher. I know this because I know of your passion for teaching. You LOVE your job each and every day, and not a lot of people can say that about their jobs. In fact I bet that you don't even think about what you do every day at school as a "job". Keep doing what you do so well!

Tami

Anonymous said...

Another thing. I feel that teachers are so important! They have such an important responsibility! They are there, and have chosen to be there to guide the children that they have in their class. I feel so blesses that my children have had such wonderful and nurturing teachers from preschool, and now into elementary school, and also their Sunday school and Bible school teachers. It takes a special person to be a teacher, and they have me deepest respect!

Tami

Anonymous said...

My comments on the other blog are not meant to be an attack on you. I am just giving you my thoughts. Iam sorry you took it as such. I believe everyone does there personal best based off how they think. I am sure there are people who don't think very positively about my choice for an income. Please have a wonderful day.

Matt Schweitzer

TBRKO said...

Matt what do you do for a living if I may ask.
No offense taken, but thank you for saying that. I think that we all get a little defensive when our 'calling' is judged.
My friend Ryan (i know you will read this Ryan!) is a chiropractor. I am sure he has heard his share of people disagreeing with his profession too.

Anonymous said...

I am in marketing and promotion of the wellness industry. I also have a small organic dairy farm (18 cows). I have 5 children a 10yr old son, 8 yr old daughter, 6 yr old son, 2 yr old daughter, and a 3 week old daughter. I would like to meet you, if that is ok with you? It might be a while but we will someday get back up to see Dennis and Missy again. Have a wonderful day.

Matt Schweitzer

Anonymous said...

Do you live by Dennis and Missy?

Matt Schweitzer

TBRKO said...

No I live next door to her cousin, but not too far apart. Enjoy your precious little one. They grow too quickly. I feel like it was yesterday we had our last, and now he is five months old...

Dr. J said...

Bon, it's late, do you really want me to wade in on this? ;)

I'm one of the biggest critics of our school system here in the U.S. but this (and I've told you this before) has almost nothing to do with teachers and has to do with the SYSTEM. You and other great teachers like you are always going to do their best. What I want is for you to be able to do your best in a better system.

Lastly (I can't help myself), you're correct that there were more shootings before Columbine but specifically over the last 20 years overall crime and violence in schools has risen quite dramatically.

~Ryan the quack

Melissa said...

Hi Bonnie,
Wow--this ended up to be really quite something, didn't it?
You don't need to apologize (you commented on mine about "taking over" my blog--I don't think you did).
I really feel we had a free exchange of ideas.
I want to clarify something, though. Your post says that my post was about "homeschooling vs. public schooling".
I invite you to re-read my post, because the post itself was not written that way.
The comments were written that way.
None of them were from me.
My post was written as a sort of "when does education begin?"
My main points were about how ALL of my children are homeschooled, not just the "school age" ones.

I also want to say that your friend Ryan makes a very good point. It is the system as a whole that I cannot be a part of--it is not because of individual teachers in my experience.

I have much more that I'd like to say, but I'm going to need some time to put it all together.

Thanks for reading my blog. I really appreciate that everyone remained civil even when we are so passionate about our views.

Let's keep reading...

TBRKO said...

Good point Melissa! And, you are right, I think I was referring more to the comment section.
We all as parents begin teaching/educating/etc our kids from day one.