For my kids the best, and stuff the rest?
As a father of three with an interest in not only their education but that of all the other kids in our society - how can I make wise choices about school education?
Should I stick my kids in the best school I can afford and stuff the neighbours who go to the State school? Enrol at the closest State school and stuff my kids if that school happens to not be best for them? Find a creative way to redefine what makes a school ‘best’? Please help me.
And as requested on this post, here is some background reading that may or may not inform your responses.
Back in 2001 Australian author (I’m not sure if he is a dad) Shane Maloney went to ‘Rome’ and decided he wasn’t going to do as the Romans do. More like Nathaniel entering King David’s court to do some uncomfortable truth telling, Maloney visited Melbourne’s Scotch College, a symbol of inherited privilege, and let rip about the entrenched inequality he saw there.
Thanks to the wonders of the internet, his speech has gained an audience far beyond the original year 11 students – so here in part is what he told them:
It is not your fault, after all, that your families decided to institutionalise you. It is not your fault that your mothers and fathers elected to place you in the emotionally distorting and educationally deficient environment of an all-boys school. It is not your fault that your parents lacked sufficient confidence in your personal maturity and ability to respond to the opportunities offered by government school education - and Australia has one of the best systems in the world, by the way, despite the relentless propaganda to the contrary by the vested interest of the private-school lobby.
Right now, you are the victims. Later, of course, society will be your victim, and will suffer from the attitudes with which you are indoctrinated here. But who knows? Just as prison does not always break the spirit of all who are incarcerated there, perhaps you will not turn out to be a burden to society.
Perhaps when you leave here, some of you will even manage to contribute to the wellbeing of this country. I certainly hope so.
Recently freelance writer and mum Catherine Deveny was inspired by Maloney to comment in our daily broadsheet about the major party’s education funding policies. She questioned why the Federal Government spent more money on private schools than it did on State schools:
Private schools should not receive funding. That’s it. We have a police force funded by the Government. If you want a bodyguard or private security, you pay for it out of your own pocket.
The same should go for schools. If you want your child to go to a school where they wear blazers so you can get over your own insecurities, or the chip on your own shoulder, you should pay for it. Every single cent.
…
The school a child attends has no bearing on their future success or happiness. I’m disgusted by parents’ nauseating obsession with the perfect school for their perfect child.Sending children to private schools seems to be less about parents doing what they think is best for their child and more a case of parents wanting their children to have something better than every other child. Education is the entire community’s responsibility and the outcome affects us all.
Melbourne writer and mum of four privately educated children Michelle Hamer didn’t like Deveny giving all private schools the cold shoulder so entered the kitchen and turned up the heat with this response:
I am a survivor of the state school system — just. I was bullied, harangued, ignored and under-educated at the “closest secondary school” back when your school was chosen purely by geography, as Deveny has decided is good enough for her brood.
It didn’t kill me, but neither was it romantically rough-and-tumble. It was just rough and horrible.
Despite this, I thought state schools would be the place to educate my children. My parents had brought me up to believe, like Deveny, that the blazer-wearing “snobs” of the private sector were all privilege and no brains.
Three short years in an underfunded, under-resourced, worn out state education system quickly demonstrated that, at least in the schools in our area, the free option couldn’t compare with the private.
Where to from here?
May 25th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
im currently thinking about where i want our son to go to school. he’s only 2 months so we have some time.
thinking back to my story… i grew up in a moderately sized country town. my primary school years were in the public institution. when it can time for high school our relatively poor family forked out the money so send me to a catholic school. they had blazers but nobody could afford them, least of all us.
the different between this catholic school and the public one was stark:
bullies were kicked out so it was safer. there were no drugs. you could leave your books on your desk and not have anything stolen.
compare this to a system were students bags have padlocks on them. fights were the norm. drugs weren’t the biggest concern for many of the teachers, getting kids to stay at school was.
honestly i am so glad i went to the private school for my latter years. i would have gone down hill at the other place. i was already heading there…
this is a very circumstantial example. i’m not saying that private is better than public, but in my case it was. only a completely arrogant nut job would accuse us of being snobs. if anything we had less because we had to fork out our own fees, which we could barely afford. the environment itself was worth the money.
so this may not help you at all. i guess all im trying to say is ‘it depends’. i think that people who try to have a private vs public debate are generalising; general rules != not specific cases. theory craft isnt that useful when you get to the point when you *actually* have to send *your own* child to school.
good luck!
May 25th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
I agree… I think there are so many variables in schools and in students (ie children) it’s unrealistic to make hard and fast “rules”
Postcode is a very significant variable… I happen to live in a “marginal seat” in a middle class area (well, mixed economy strictly speaking… but you get the drift… neither wealthy nor disadvantaged on average) and many of the state schools are very good. But last week I spoke with one of the mums at school who had emerged from a teaching round at a school in a poorer area. She described this as like a transplanted relic of the old Soviet block… grey, run down, poor facilities, poor morale, lots of social problems… etc. So if we talk about State schools… some are fantastic… good facilities, great morale, creative teaching, etc…. some are pretty awful.
Ditto with private schools… for example, there are some absolute shockers in the Christian school system (think small, run by one church, ultra fundamentalist)… and some good ones (tip of the hat to Emma Whale).
There are really diverse types of schools in the private system… Montessori-inspired, Steiner, Christian, Protestant denominational, non-denominational secular, Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, high fee paying, low fee paying, moderate fee paying etc.
And let’s not forget the homeschoolers…
I think most kids do just fine in most state schools. But not all kids do… and not all state schools are functioning well. So parents are left to pray about what is going to work OK for their kids and their family life.
I think the feds throw way too much money at elite private schools (Are the “Old Boys” networks major sponsors of the Liberal Party? What is this about???) and I think government funding is a separate (although related) issue. But I don’t think we can be too judgmental of individual parents and the choices they make given the school systems we now have in place.
May 26th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
I think this issue tends to be heated because people tend to be passionate about state schooling, or private schooling, or home schooling for that matter, and we generalise. I think when Bec and I got into this conversation on the other thread she realised she had ideas about “private schools” which were maybe stereotypical and weren’t at all my experience, and I had views about state education that were wrong too, and not her experience.
I had a good state education for primary, which I liked too, but went to a private school for high school. I loved it. I loved my teachers, some of whom I invited to my wedding, I loved the classes, it was great. I went through a very traumatic experience in Year 11 (assaulted by a distant family member) and my wonderful year co-ordinator cried with me, prayed with me…I’m generalising but I don’t think that would have happened at a state school. I had a great education too.
The state primary schools closest by are OK, but the high school is pretty bad beacuse there is a selective school down the road - if they giv’t is serious about not using education to stream society they should can selective schools IMHO.
So after this part of me wants to send my kids to private school but the reality is if we have 3 kids and they go from kindy we will have spent close to $100,000 by the time they reach high school. My husband had three brothers and they all went private, and they never had a family holiday or did anything because they had no money after tuition fees. (being an only child theis was never an issue for my family) He would rather do those things than spend a whole lot of money on education…at the moment maybe a compromise is the local catholic school which is a great school and very cheap. Part of me does like the idea that kids are exposed to spirituality at school, because it gives them a chance to explore their faith in an environment away from the home and the church. I really appreicated that in my later years at school. And I think the Cathos do that pretty well.
btw totally agree private schools get too much funding…if I choose a private school I should be happy to pay for it.
anyway am raving on
May 26th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
My wife and I are both products of private schools - not the so-called snobby ones, but the smaller, parent controlled type.
While Mrs is quite happy with the quality of her education, I was not all that impressed with mine. As the years went on I grew more and more angry at certain teachers and lack of subject choice etc etc.
When the time came, we had no hesitation to choose the same system that the wife went through (http://www.swan.wa.edu.au/ btw)
Why? We believe that education begins in the home and that formal schooling is an extension of that. This includes both secular and Christian training. As such, I want where my children learn, and what they learn, to reflect the values that they are brought up in at home. Our choice of school was then about finding where this could best happen.
I believe that my kids can survive at a government school, but as young and developing Christians, I want them to have the best exposure to Christian thought and values that I can.
As to government support - why not? I’m a taxpayer and a citizen so why should my children be denied their rights to support? As the Hamer article makes clear, non-government schools are way underfunded compared to government schools and if I have to pay fees to top that up, well I guess that’s the sacrifice that comes with the decision.
May 26th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Whoops, the link should be http://www.scea.wa.edu.au/view/.
My html skills have suffered a blowout today.
May 26th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
I went to a Catholic School … it was great. Although I did not think so at the time!
May 26th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
ha ha. My brother-in-law who was a bit of a rebel at school and bucked authority fairly regularly now is very much wanting to send his kids to a private school run along very similar lines! In fact one of the teachers he swore at is now princiapl of the school he wants to send his kids to. Maybe we all appreciate our schooling more as we get further away from it
May 27th, 2007 at 12:07 am
The issues with private v public…
As Janet says depends a lot on the post code and also the principal for private.
The trend in Aussie now tends to be I think if you can pay for it send’em to private unless the state school has a really good rep - e.g. Rossmoyne in WA - house prices have been traditionally higher in part there because of the school. Otherwise the vibe I get is that public seems more and more to be “left” to those who can’t afford the alternative. Is this a fair assessment?
From a Christian perspective I support public schools in principle but in practice believe private has sucked a lot of the resources out of public. My kids go to private schools because it simply wouldn’t have worked for them to the public schools near us - may be that’s a convenient myth - but I don’t think so.
Question: do we as Christian parents have the “right” - I use that word advisedly - to make our stand for public schools by sending our kids there even if on balance of evidence those schools are not much chop, if we have a reasonable alternative?
Question: do we send our kids to private Christian schools to ensure they have similar values instilled in them, because we are scared they might fall under “bad influences”?
As Emma noted this was discussed in the “Damn women” thread a bit a few weeks ago.
Cheers
MN
May 27th, 2007 at 8:54 am
My wife and I have decided that we’ll be sending our kids to a public school (we currently have just 1 child - and he’s 10 months old), even if it means that he’ll get an education that is something less than the best. A lot of the other children at our church go to one of the large Pentecostal Christian schools in Brisbane … but this means that there are less and less kids from Christian homes attending state schools.
How do kids learn to communicate with non-Christians if they spend their formative years in an environment where all of their friends and teachers come from Christian homes? Where have all the missionaries gone?
Although I can certainly understand why some parents want their children to attend schools that reflect the same values as they have at home, we feel that it’s better for our son that he learns early on that not everyone goes to church on Sunday. We can help him to understand how to reach out to his mates at school, developing positive habits that will hopefully stay with him through to adulthood.
We are also concerned about how some kids will cope in the “real world” after going through a Christian school, attending youth group on Saturday nights and church on Sundays. Do some of them come out the other end with the view that non-Christians are those people that we should avoid, lest we be corrupted by their evil ways?
As others have indicated, though, the education of one’s children is a personal decision …
May 27th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Just Nigel, I really like the way you’ve phrased the questions - they’re far more useful and productive questions than a simple “public or private” (which obscures to many nuances, imho). Darryl, your post captures many of the answers I’d give to JN’s questions.
May 28th, 2007 at 8:36 am
It is time to give my musings and not just my ‘well-phrased’ questions (Thanks bec).
I share Deveny’s repultion described here: “I’m disgusted by parents’ nauseating obsession with the perfect school for their perfect child.”
It is idolitry. Parents idolising their children - or their dreams that they project on their children - is repulsive. It damages kids and parents. But both Deveny and Maloney imply this is a problem with private schools per say. I don’t agree.
It is not purley a public Vs private Vs homeschool problem. To make it so would imply there was some law that we could follow (only consider State schools or only consider parent run schools etc) that would remove responsability for our other choices.
It is a problem with a deep rooted and largely socially acceptable sin and it can happen in private and state schools.
I am a leader in my local State primary school and I see it at work there. I wonder about the motives of parents who visit 20 different primary schools when looking for a school for their child. I wonder at the parent who begrudges the poorest kids in the school getting subsidised care at the afterschool school care (where they are fed healthy food, adequately supervised, and stimulated in ways they may well not be at home). I wonder at the parent who demands their child to have more of the teachers attention in class.
Conversely such idolitory does not have to be the basis for a parent’s choice for private education. Deveny and Maloney overplay their hands if they say it is (although I note Maloney was talking about only one high fee paying school - and one that had been in the news frequently at the time for some unfavorable reasons). Although I do believe that there is a particular temptation towards this idolitry with private schools. The so-called ‘Uniting Church’ school in Melbourne that ‘poached’ a whole sports team from another school in the region just so it can have the status of being the best at that sport?? O please!
Far from being concerend only with the future of my precious ‘perfect’ children, I have a responsability for all the children in our society. I don’t believe that responsability is even (I am most responsable for my kids, and more responsable for my neighbors in Melbourne than kids living in say Chicago) but it is still there.
That is why my kids - and not just the kids but their mum and their dad too - are part of the local State primary school. It another way we seek the welfare of our city.
Jeremiah 29.7: “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”
May 28th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
JN, great post. I don’t have anything to add, other than the fact that you capture the primary reason why I struggle with the concept of private schooling.
May 28th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
CHRISTIAN WOODSTOCK
On a sub-related topic, how about these questions -
Are your teenaged daughters recieving their sexual education at a Australia’s largest “Christian Music & arts Festival?”
&
Are you naive thinking that just because an event is “christian”, that your teenaged daughters are experiencing anything less there than they would at a secular festival?…
Because….uh…..looks like the people at Blackstump have finally acknowledged there are currently teens & early twenty-somethings walking around that were concieved out of wedlock as a result of their festival
http://www.blackstump.org.au/forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1249
May 28th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Word is, more than one church has completely pulled out of the festival, refusing to send a group & frowning on anyone from their congregation attending…..
Funny thing, Christians don’t need gays to be theologically split over, heterosexuals do just fine on their own…
;o)
May 28th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Oh dear…I couldn’t stop giggling after reading that title. Blackstump Babies, hey?
I’m glad someone’s raised the issue, but I find it disappointing that it’s couched in terms of the attendance of ‘non-Christian’ kids at the festival. ‘Cos Christian kids are soooo different to non-Christian kids. :banghead:
May 28th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Christians never sleep together out of wedlock!!!
Ever!!!
If they do they aren’t real Christians!!!
So therefore we can easily say it is all the non Christians crashing our parties that are dirty fornicators!!!
Whew, that one was close.
rev
May 28th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
May 28th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Can you IMAGINE condom venders at Blackstump? It could be someone’s ministry!
They could walk around the festival with sandwich boards on with text like:
“We’d prefer you didn’t interfere with the purity of our daughters, but….if you must, please use one of these HOLY SPIRIT RUBBERS!”
Seriously though, take hundreds of hormonal youngsters, let them mosh & mud-wrestle & errr……..pray “privately” together in their tents & there are natural & unaviodable progressions, i think. As if it it could really be any other way.
That said, any likely lad thinking of going near the Rev’s daughters should order a coffin & a plot first.
;o)
May 28th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Yeah, I have taken a vow of celibacy…
for them
rev
May 28th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
well as rev describes himself as hellboy minus the red skin and tail I don’t think he even needs the threat of the coffin plot, he must terrify their boyfriends by answering the door!
btw that is so funny about blackstump, when I went I was a bit young for boyfriends etc but the older kids in the youth groups seemed to go for the purposes of “hooking up” and every year hearts were broken when it came time to say goodbye.
May 29th, 2007 at 7:50 am
Reve, well I gues it relates. I mean if we didn’t make babies we would never have to choose a school for them.
May 29th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Education is a huge issue for parents, I am the product of state school. I have wrestled with the question of where to send our children to be educated many times now. I currently have children in both systems. My husband was private and state educated. Our older children have graduated and moved on to both privaye and public tetiary education.
There are no hard and fast rules. No best schools, the best you can try to do is place your child in a system that meets their needs. And that is where so many parents struggle to recognise the difference between their needs and that of their children. Yes, in an ideal world we could all put our children in Christian schools because we hope in an ideal world we would all be christian. But there is no ideal, there is just the stuff all life is made of, flawed people doing their best (or maybe not, even teachers have families and bad hair days).
It helps to know your child,- not your idea of who they are or who you want them to be, but who they ARE and that is not easy. Rose coloured glasses are implanted on parents at birth.
It helps to remember your own childhood (minus the romance of time) and think about who you were and who your parents wanted you to be. I am sure you will find a lack of congruence in that picture. Usually there still is.
If we are to follow Jesus model we should not isolate ourselves from the world but rather go out in it and be witnesses. If no chrisian children have contact with nonbelievers then we are not obeying the commandment of Jesus.
But children are impressionable, they need to be moulded and formed, but if you have not impressed your values on them by school age, you are leaving it too late. If you have, then you need to support those values no matter what school they attend. Even christian schools have nonchristians attendees, and drugs, sex, immoral behaviour, bad language (usually not until after infants school LOL).
The main difference is in the tolerance of such things and the way it is dealt with in the school community. And school policy and discipline varies from state school to state school, christian school to christian school and private to private school etc. Know the school, the teachers, especially the principle, the policies and most of all know your child. Not just their educational needs but their social, emotional, spiritual, mental and physical. Education is not just about their IQ and academic ability.
As for who pays for it….. There are a lot of misconceptions about private and public school funding. Basically the state schools are funded by the state government which are funded by state taxes, fees, duties and by the federal government (GST reciprocation).
The state love to point the finger at private schools and cry poor but they have more money in their coffers than any private school. Private schools are partly funded by the federal government, (usually no state funding) but largely funded by the parents. So what does that mean to us - the parents and taxpayers.
Well we get to pay
1) GST (which is levied by the federal government but returned to the states), car rego, payroll tax, stamp duty and all the miriad of other state government charges and
2) still pay for our children to attend public schools. Yes we pay a small contribution less than $1000 usually to go to state school.
We pay for public education twice, so to speak.
The picture is worse if you have children in private schools, you get to pay
1) income tax and other federal taxes/duties,
2) then you get to pay all the state taxes and duties
3) just to then have to pay huge school fees to send your child to “A private school” - usually $5-15,000 per year per child.
Yes thats right we pay for our childrens education three times, twice by taxes and once by fees. Seems fair to me. And all while paying the taxes that pay for the students to be funded in ALL the state schools.
And no - we are not wealthy, not rich and like so many others, we make huge sacrifices for our children to attend a non-government school.
The state loves to point the finger at private schools because it takes the heat off them and difficult questions like what did they do with all those taxes.
A friend of mine is a caterer that subcontracts to the state government, I have worked in many business that contract to all levels of government and we have all seen the waste. I don’t think any of us would think it necessary to have a $50 per hour chef cook sausages on a BBQ at a function, when a kitchen hand could do the same job for $16.50 but that is what the state government does. And I wont go on about the overcatering that leads to bins full of waste. Or the trips etc. And it happens at all levels of government. Anyway I digress..
As to the difference in one state school to another state schools, it has little to do with marginal seats or state funds. The difference is usually in the amount of money available in the local community and how it is resourced. More affluent areas are more able to raise extra funds from extra fundraising than less affluent areas. The difference can be up to $250,000 a year. My daughter attends the local state school and my nephews attend a neighbouring state school in a less affluent area. My brother was whinging about the renovations at our school (my brother and I had attended the same school my daughter attends, and it had not been renovated since we were there). The issue had been hotly debated in the press by the local polies. When I explained to my brother that actually the funds for the renovations were raised through our school finance committee (which is a volunteer parent body) he said his sons school had no such committee. No surprise they were not having renovations. Interstingly the press had not once addressed the school or any of the parents about this issue, it would have got in the way of a good but false story beatup.
And please remember it is all up to the parents to make an informed, educated decision as where is the right place for their children. No matter what choice you make someone will always find fault with it, but know your heart, know your mind and know your child. Most of all know your answer, far too many parents leave it to the year before their little darlings start school to decide. It is too late then. Most non state schools have waiting lists for Kindy enrolments, so that avenue may not even be available if you haven’t done your research. Even the state schools sometimes cannot accept students, so do the prep work and don’t be caught lacking.
Bless you all, parenting is the most rewarding, most joyful, most tiring, most delightful, most exacerbating, most emotional experience, enjoy…..
May 30th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
How do you ballance the needs and the rights of other kids, onetrusted?
“The best you can try to do is place your child in a system that meets their needs.” … “And please remember it is all up to the parents to make an informed, educated decision as where is the right place for their children.”
I wonder if these comments lean toards the ’stuff the rest’ attitude of the title.
May 30th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
isn’t that how state schools justify selective schools?? let’s take the cream of the crop and stuff the rest? that is my biggest problem with my local high schools, it’s why the non-selective up the road is not “romantically rough and tumble” like that article said, but just “rough and horrible”. It’s not just private schools that have that attitude.
May 30th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
There’s a relevant opinion piece in The Age today:
The Age: http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/time-to-go-local/2007/05/29/1180205246164.html
“Steven Levitt’s book Freakonomics is a ripper read. The maverick economist quotes studies that prove IQ is strongly hereditary and suggests that children should choose their parents wisely. He found the only factors that made any impact on kids’ academic test scores were “things that parents are” not “things that parents do”.
————-
So, generally speaking, it doesn’t make much difference where we send our kids - if they’re smart enough they’ll probably succeed regardless of which school they go to.
The article also includes an interesting quote from a long-term private school teacher, who was asked if he would send his kids to the private school he works at:
“My kids? I wouldn’t send my kids there if you paid me. They go to the local secondary school. I wouldn’t want my kids to think that was real life. They’d never learn anything.”
May 30th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
I agree - if they’re smart they will probably do well anywhere. But what if they’re not academically bright? I have a feeling that in some state schools they get lost in the system (that has been osme of my friends’ experiences with their primary aged kids, and they;ve since moved them to private schools where they’re being looked after much better). again, this is my argument against selective schooling.
And I think there’s an inconsistency about this “private school real life” argument. On the one hand someone says, “oh my kids are getting a real life experience that the private schools don’t offer” and then they’re saying “well the private school kids afford the harder drugs and end up in more serious trouble and then the state school kids”. Well which is it? My experience was that my non parent-controlled christian school walked the fine line well. We were not sheltered, most of the kids I knew tried drugs or whatever, it was certainly “real life” however the teachers prayed with us, loved us, supported us, and any of this kind of behaviour which occurred at school was quickly dealt with. My friend who was at the state school found everytime she went to the bathroom there were people smoking pot in there. What exactly is “real life?” I think we can be exposed to things and not have them confront us at every turn as was her experience.
May 31st, 2007 at 12:38 am
Well done just-nigel…… or should that be niggle, take my words and paste them out of context, that’s fair treatment, well done, good call, be pleased. You would make a good reporter just the kind I refer to in my previous post.
May 31st, 2007 at 1:48 am
Oh and scripture quoted out of context doesn’t help your point either, read Jer 29 and see for yourselves…I sincerely hope that as responsible members of society we don’t all have to run and seek refuge
(”welfare” Jer 29.7, NIV..peace and prosperity, GNB “good” of the city where I have made you prisoners)…
strongs concordance….route word is shalown or shalom
(fig) safe i.e well, happy, friendly………..
(abstract) ‘welfare’ i.e health, prosperity peace
Oxford dictionary 1 well-being, happiness,health and prosperity
2 financial support given by government to those in need
I don’t see the government giving financial support meaning in the concordance but I guess if I cut a few words out here and there I can make it sound that way.
Jer 29.7 is a single verse of of whole chapter from the prophet writing to the exiled about how to cope with their exile. Is that what you propose we expect for each other and our children.
May 31st, 2007 at 2:27 am
“Well done just-nigel” - why the sarcasm? Are you upset about something?
“…… or should that be niggle” - why the making fun of my name? Are you upset about something?
“take my words and paste them out of context” - The overarching context was this conversation about making hard choices about different types of schooling. I am still trying to participate in it. I quoted some of your words becasue I wanted you to know I was responding to what you had written and I was hoping to engage you further. If there is some context that you would think would help help expand your comments and enlarge my understanding then feel free to share it. I would welcome it.
“that’s fair treatment, well done, good call, be pleased.” - Why are you suggesting I would be pleased if you were treated unfairly? Are you upset about something?
“You would make a good reporter just the kind I refer to in my previous post.” - Is this a kind of backhanded insult?
May 31st, 2007 at 2:41 am
On Jeremiah 29:
Yes onetrusted, the word welfare does have more than one shade of meaning these days and I agree that Jeremiah is talking about ‘peace, prosperity, common good, faring well etc’. That is exactly how I meant it.
I was saying that we contribute to my community being more peaceful, and good by the invovlement of my family in that school.
Still, it is interesting that you read into my comments the ‘government redistributing wealth through financial support’ sense. How do you see those two shades of meaning combining/overlapping/contrasting?