My kids have started public school after several years in the rarified world of alternative education. I’m a bit dubious about the whole thing, being a product of public schools myself (so I know just how bad they can be). Two things stood out today: First, my daughter told me that they’re not allowed to run in the school yard. I immediately thought (a) no wonder American kids are overweight; (b) no wonder they’re diagnosed so often with ADHD; and (c) kids need to run. Second, my daughter learned a song today. It’s a lovely traditional African song, and I’m enjoying listening to it. I am wondering, nevertheless, how many days (weeks?) it will be before she comes home singing a traditional American song.
UPDATE: Welcome, American Thinker readers. This is just a little tidbit that I wrote after my kids’ very first day in a public school. I anticipate blogging regularly about my (and their) experience in the public school world. In any event, to the extent my thoughts on the subject have any value, here are a few more of my posts about education (written before I joined the public school world):
Little girls are made from sugar and spice….
Throwing money doesn’t make the situation better
Just how good are they, really?
If you needed evidence that lack of money is not the problem with our schools
Indoctrination, California style; Skin color is not a value; More on identity politics; A slight retreat to sanity in California public schools (these are all grouped around a single topic)
Lawrence O’Donnell again slips his moorings
Identifying the real problem at schools
Having the temerity to teach core values
Feel welcome, of course, to check the whole blog out. I blog about politics, social issues, and terrorism, for the most part.
Filed under: Education
BW, You’d better teach her one yourself.
Ask if no running is the rule during playtime, or just the beginning and end of school with all the kids outside at the same time.
I did ask, Lea. It’s during playtime. They’re apparently not supposed to run at any time on campus, if my daughter reported things to me correctly!
I like Wimoweh as much as the next guy, but don’t hold your breath on the American song. Stephen Foster? Whodat?
American songs? Are you kidding?
Not running at recess? It’s for children’s safety obviously.
Please keep us updated on your children’s voyage through the public school system. How about a pool so your readers may guess how long it takes before you blow your top? No prizes necessary.
Make sure you see and read their textbooks and all the other material they get. I used to be on the citizens textbook committee made up of people in the community with various expertise who were asked to read and evaluate new textbooks the school board was considering. When we began questioning the material, the committee was peremptorily dissolved.
Caveat, they will take it out on your kids should you question school policies. You will have to walk a fine line between letting your kids know where you stand on things and criticizing their teachers . . . and brace yourself for your first PTA meeting.
One of the happiest days of my life was my youngest’s high school graduation. Not because my kid was a problem, he was and is a doll, but because I would no longer need to hob and nob with the people who run the public schools, teachers and librarians included. Of course, I must still the exorbitant school taxes that keep the edbiz bureaucracy fat and sassy.
CAREFUL!!
Y’all are beginning to sound like libertarians, here….
Welcome.
How so Earl?
So I guess the “no running” rule has more to do with possible lawsuits than kids’ safety?
I think you’re really brave to give public schools a try, Bookworm. In many districts, things HAVE gotten better; I hope yours is one of those!
Things are a little bit different in the Old South.
Earl might be refering to libertarians that favor private schools, without govmint control and interdiction.
Bingo, Ymarsakar…..
So many negative vibes about public schools (all of which I resonate to – the first public school I ever attended was a summer Chem course at U of Minn, Duluth [Wonderful time, by the way. Good prof, loved Duluth.] and the second was CSU in Fort Collins for my PhD – also a very good experience, overall.) made me feel like I was at one of the libertarian meetings my brother used to drag me to. I registered libertarian and vote for the party’s candidates, but I’m not a political joiner at all….boring!
That the State would take money from citizens at the point of a gun, and then offer an incredibly substandard education as well as indoctrinating the kids of those same citizens in a lot of nonsense that the parents do NOT want their kids believing in, simply makes me crazy. Even if the education were excellent, the constant attempt to turn the kids away from their parents’ values and belief system makes the whole
thing just plain wrong.
If the State is going to pay for education, let them do it the way they pay for food — Food Stamps. With Education Stamps, you would go out and find your own schools but the State would (at least help) pay for it. Check around – are there any government food stores for people who need help paying for groceries? Then why do we have essentially a monopoly government school system? THAT is the root of the problems y’all are unhappy about……you’ll never fix it by working on the leaves and the branches, I assure you.
Even if the education were excellent, the constant attempt to turn the kids away from their parents’ values and belief system makes the whole
thing just plain wrong.
One of the ways you know a society is going down is when “reeducation camps” start cropping up.
Another point I must bring up is that the Hard Science, Physics, and Math departments in pub schools have superior caliber thinkers than English, Lit, and Humanities.
Almost independent of the time scale.
I’m a big believer in that I should have a gun to balance out the gun that State has over me. In these terms, Libertarians are not militaristic enough for me, for they as a party do not support the Iraq War or produce much publicity about combining with military grassroots networks like Blackfive.
Much of the military is apolitical, and in that I include BF, Jimbo, and Grim. They ostensibly believe in the same things as the Libertarian Party, but the Libertarian Party does not adequately reflect upon the grassroots mentality.
Thus their political capital and logistics base is severely limited, and of little use to actual reformers. Thus why the allegiance of a lot of grassroots went to Bush and the Republicans. School Vouchers, and so forth.
Bureacracy has an inertial all its own. Once started, it is amazingly hard to reverse. Once you make laws taking guns away like the Brits did, how hard do you think it would be to put those guns back into the hands of the people?
Power does not transfer easily in a democracy, other than through constitutional means. Bureacracies, being independent of the US Constitution, are not bound by the strictures of democracy and pluralism. Therefore transfering power from bureacracies to the people, is not easy. While transfering power from the people to bureacracies, through Constitutional means and laws, is easy at first.