My Daughter the High Schooler

Oh my poor little neglected blog, it's been so long since I've been here.

Life has been crazy lately. It's funny, because people always ask homeschoolers how they do it, how do they have enough time, not go crazy, etc., etc. I'm now wondering how people survive with their kids IN school!

My eldest daughter (Carley) started high school August 24th. We haven't done the school thing since she was in 2nd grade. I forgot how tiring it is. Getting up, making lunches, getting to school on time, getting picked up and to other activities, doing homework, getting to bed, starting all over again the next day. Yuck, I hate it. But she seems to be liking it, at least that what she's telling us right now. She doesn't like the kids, but she really likes the classes. At least most of them. Even gym class. It's only been a few weeks, so the novelty hasn't really worn off yet, but time will tell I suppose. She knows she can quit whenever she wants, I'd really rather have her at home. I miss her. And so does her sister, but she'd never admit it.

I know this is a good experience for her, she needs to be out in the world a bit more. But the false reality of a high school just sends shivers up my spine. It's not that I hated high school. I liked some of my classes, I loved seeing my friends, but I hated being told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. By senior year I hated being there so much I went on the work release program. I was done with school by 11:00 am and I was able to leave and go to work. Like a real person. Not a subject forced to remain in servitude to the establishment until they ok'd my release.

But I know it's not about me now, it's about her, and what she wants. Maybe because she hasn't been forced to be in schools all these years she has a greater appreciation for education, and she's willing to put up with the nonsense to get what she wants out of the experience. I hope she continues to enjoy it and I hope she can learn in spite of the nonsense that is the institution. I just hope I finally adjust to the changes in my life and routine. Right now it's giving me a headache ; )

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing worth knowing can be taught.
~Oscar Wilde~
"The Critic as Artist," 1890

John Taylor Gatto

I just finished reading John Taylor Gatto's newest book " Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling". As usual, it was an excellent book that reiterated things I already knew as well as enlightened me about things I didn't. (If you'd like to read a summary, click on the link.)

He has written several other books, all of which I have read. Having been a public school teacher he offers a unique insight to the problems in our schools. I have my own issues with public school, mostly from my experiences in them or from tales I have heard told by others. It is enlightening to read the perspective of a man who not only attended public schools, but taught in them for 30 years as well. His "Underground History of American Education" (which you can read online if you click the link) is just epic. It is a huge book which explains exactly how the public schools came to be the way they are. If I believed in such things, I would make it required reading by all Americans. As I don't believe anyone should be required to do anything, I strongly suggest everyone read it.

Here is something else interesting he wrote about what he "taught" as a teacher:

"The first lesson I teach is: "Stay in the class where you belong."
"The second lesson I teach kids is to turn on and off like a light switch."
"The third lesson I teach you is to surrender your will to a predestined chain of command."
"The fourth lesson I teach is that only I determine what curriculum you will study."
"In lesson five I teach that your self-respect should depend on an observer's measure of your worth."
"In lesson six I teach children that they are being watched."
"The seventh lesson I teach is that you can't hide."

Frightening isn't it? But think back to your own schooling (if you went to public school). Doesn't it apply?

I hope maybe I have inspired someone who has never read Gatto to look him up. And if you have read his books, definitely get his new one.

I leave you with some of my favorite quotes, (one of my favorites is in my sidebar).

"I've come to believe that genius is an exceedingly common human quality, probably natural to most of us... I began to wonder, reluctantly, whether it was possible that being in school itself was what was dumbing them down. Was it possible I had been hired not to enlarge children's power, but to diminish it? That seemed crazy on the face of it, but slowly I began to realize that the bells and the confinement, the crazy sequences, the age-segregation, the lack of privacy, the constant surveillance, and all the rest of national curriculum of schooling were designed exactly as if someone had set out to *prevent* children from learning how to think and act, to coax them into addiction and dependent behavior."

– John Taylor Gatto

"By preventing a free market in education, a handful of social engineers - backed by the industries that profit from compulsory schooling: teacher colleges, textbook publishers, materials suppliers, et al. - has ensured that most of our children will not have an education, even though they may be thoroughly schooled."

– John Taylor Gatto

"Children and old people are penned up and locked away from the business of the world to a degree without precedent: nobody talks to them anymore, and without children and old people mixing in daily life, a community has no future and no past, only a continous present.

~John Taylor Gatto

"Schools and schooling are increasingly irrelevant to the great enterprises of the planet. No one believes anymore that scientists are trained in science classes or politicians in civics classes or poets in English classes. The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders.

~John Taylor Gatto

Teacher Abuse

If we don't stand up for children, then we don't stand for much.

~Marian Wright Edelman~

Some disturbing things are coming to light in the schools recently. In most recent news, a Kindergartner brought a tape recorder to school, placed in his pants pocket by his parents, so they could hear what was really going on in their child's classroom. It certainly enlightened them to the verbal abuse their child was suffering.

Locally, there has been a case going on involving a substitute teacher who decided to duct tape the arms, legs and mouths of two Special Ed. boys who were acting up. And then he duct taped them to a chair.

Then there's the one with the teacher who decided to have her class vote another student out of the class. The students even got to take turns telling him what they didn't like about him. This teacher takes the cake, because she got her students in on the abuse.

I've read other cases in the past. Teachers verbally abusing students. I'm sure many of us have our own stories to tell about abusive teachers from our youth. If you link to the articles, what I find most disturbing of all are the comments from people who side with the teachers. Some of the comments are downright sickening. Some people think the children deserved to be treated that way. When does a 5 year old ever deserve to be talked to that way? Even if the boy has some behavior problems, how in the world does emotionally abusing him help to solve those problems? When does a child deserve to be voted out of his class? When does a child deserve to be duct taped to his seat?

Parents entrust their children to people they don't really know for 8 hours a day 5 days a week. That's a lot of time and a lot of influence. How many parents don't have any idea what is going on in their child's classroom? How many parents don't believe their children when they come home and say their teacher is mean? My children don't attend school. I don't think anyone's children should attend school, personally. No one can care for or love my child the way I do. Ever heard the phrase "children learn what they live?". Well, they live school. They learn school. What sticks in their heads is what is told or taught to them day after day sitting captive in a classroom. So if a teacher is constantly telling them they are trouble, they are pathetic, they are not worth his or her time, what is that child going to believe? And when immature teachers actually enlist the other students to join in, then it really must be true because everyone is saying it. Ouch. And we wonder why so many kids commit suicide.

Words hurt. Really hurt. Children's developing psyches are fragile things. Kindergarten is a time when some children get their first view of the world outside their home. When they are hurt by that world, what do they take away from that? Not to trust, not to care, not to try or believe in themselves. That they are worthless.

I am sickened by how our society treats it's children, as is evident by the comments section of these articles. There are of course a few voices who stood up for the children, but unfortunately there were far too many for the other side. IT IS NEVER RIGHT TO HURT A CHILD! NEVER, NEVER, NEVER! Children are not little adults. They view their world in an entirely different way than we do. They process information differently and they have fewer realms of experience to pull from. They need to be shown how to be compassionate, kind, loving. They need to have someone spend time with them and show them the way. If they struggle, they need help with their struggles, not shame and ridicule. We would never allow an adult to treat another adult that way in the same setting. The adult wouldn't put up with it. Adults can stand up for themselves, children can't.

I'm not sure how to solve this problem. Obviously people aren't pulling their children out of the schools (although I wish they would). I have a feeling that these adults, who treat children like this, probably were treated poorly themselves as a child. They figure that they survived it, so what's the big deal? The big deal is that they didn't survive it, look how they grew up. Look how they have learned to treat their fellow man. If a teacher is burned out, then they should leave the profession. If they cannot control their mouths or emotions, then they should not be allowed in the classroom with children ever again. Of course the institution itself doesn't help the situation. But that's a whole other can of worms for another time.

We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.

~Stacia Tauscher~