Cliches, English mysteries, home schooling

[Tabouli]

Cindy:
> (who is pleased that one can get pretty far in life without using cliched expressions)

Ahaaaaa!  (cries the resident cross-cultural Hermione).  But did you know that the notion that cliches are "bad" is particularly Anglophone??  I presume this is a reflection of our individualism and celebration of the original and personal (which we even protect by law with copyright, to the mystification of many other cultures).  In Greek and Japanese, for example, there are a lot of set phrases designed to be used in particular circumstances (e.g. a death in the family, marriage, etc.) which are considered entirely sensitive and appropriate, even if repeated endlessly in a way only "happy birthday" or "congratulations" are in English!  Whereas any English speaker who trotted about declaring "Time heals all ills" or "Better luck next time" more than once would get their neck wrung.

Interestingly, my Malaysian Chinese fundamentalist Christian mother is positively proverbial (perhaps ancestral memories of those 4 character Chinese sayings?).  Her habit of manipulating time-worn maxims and biblical quotes repeatedly into every conversation is alternately amusing and infuriating.  Among her favorites are "One man's meat is another man's poison", and "Spare the rod, spoil the child" which I found particularly worrying when I was younger...

David:
> I looked it up in the dictionary.  It is Hear!, Hear!.

Sigh of relief.  One of my Great Mysteries of the English Language solved at last.  Now if I can just figure out what the adjective for "integrity" is, whether "toward" and "towards" are interchangeable in the direction sense, the correct way to use the possessive "s" with names ending in S (Klaus'?  Klaus's?), and whether French words used in English still agree with their subject (e.g. blond man, blonde woman, blonds men, blondes women (?), nouveau/x/nouvelle/s rich/e/s)...

More David:
> People here are often mildly hostile to home schooling on the grounds 
that it removes children from important social contact.  

Ooo, another of my favorite subjects for speculation!  After my own experiences being a clever, half-Chinese child in an Australian lower middle class state primary school, I have long mused on how I might prevent any future children of mine enduring such a fate.  I got social contact at primary school, all right - other children chanting songs about Buddha and Ching Chong Chinaman and pulling their eyes slanty at me, telling me to go back to my own country, physically threatening me, socially excluding me, alternately exploiting and jeering at me for being "brainy"... mmmm, just what every child needs to develop social skills and good self-esteem.  I was utterly withdrawn and silent in primary school, and had very few friends.  On the other hand, outside school, playing with other children in my street (none of whom would go near me in school for fear of damaging their image), I was comparatively talkative and social.

I suppose times have changed a lot in Australia since then (these days it's the Muslim children who are getting teased and beaten up), but I am still very wary of the horrors the school environment can visit on children who don't fit in for one reason or another.  Where do you draw the line between wrapping them in cotton wool and thrusting them into the firing line?  It's all a bit premature, given that I have no children and do not look likely to have them in the near  to medium term future, but I have definitely mused on the possibilities of home schooling, what I'd teach and how, and so on.  When I met some people who *were* home schooled, I quizzed them extensively!

A friend of mine who had similarly vile school experiences has a daughter who is attending a Steiner school, and it all sounds fascinating.  I have my reservations about some of what I've heard (the lackadaisical administration and, in particular, no reading until 7), but a lot of it sounds like an improvement on my own primary education.  My postgrad supervisor attended Preshill, an alternative, anti-competition school (not sure what breed of alternative school it was, but anyway), and she is highly intelligent and successful and sent both of her own children there as well, which should say something.

Amy Z
> IMO, spending 6 hours a day with one's own age cohort and almost no adults or older and 
younger children, while very rewarding in its own way, lacks many of the benefits that come from spending those same hours engaging with members of the community of all ages, one's family, etc.  (...) There are lots of opportunities to learn to interact 
with others besides the schools.

A point I have long perused myself.  Once I had got used to the post-school multi-age world, I remember feeling stunned when I talked to schoolchildren and realised how limited their world was.  Even having a friend more than a year older or younger than oneself was considered suspect!  I'm sure that a responsible home-schooling parent could easily arrange for his or her children to get social contact elsewhere.

Hmm...

Tabouli.


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