The new school year started a couple of weeks ago for my children. I have four of them, one boy and three girls, and three of them are now in school. My oldest, the boy, was transitioning this year to the middle school as a sixth grader and his mother and I were having serious reservations. The middle school here has a very bad reputation. The word from most parents is that the school is run like a prison and the staff, principal and teachers included, are rude, obnoxious, and seem to care little about the students.
The atmosphere of the school and the tone of the administration was a bit worrying. The children could not talk at anytime save for lunch, during which they are allowed to talk very quietly. When moving between classes they were only allowed to move "clockwise" through the school building. Even if his next class is the next door down, counter-clockwise, he still had to go all the way around the building to get to it. The school said that this was done to prevent bullying.
What? All students have their education turned into a robotic, unsocial and unstimulating experience because a few students cannot control themselves?
I guess I should not have been too surprised. When my son was in fourth grade he was bullied extensively on the school bus by an older and much bigger fifth grader. After several complaints to the school the bus driver decided that the best solution was to force my son to sit by himself in the front of the bus, away from his friends, to "protect" him from this bully. The bully, however, was allowed to keep sitting in the back of the bus with his friends where they continued bullying the other smaller students on the bus. When I heard about this I made a visit to the principal of the school. She never like me very much after that visit for some reason....
After talking things over with my wife we decided to pull him out of the middle school and home school him before he got too far into the new school year. Especially since the main reason for sending him to the public school - socialization - was completely missing from the environment.
So, we embarked on our first home schooling experience. The first thing my wife did was to test him to see where he was at. As I expected, he tested a full grade ahead in language arts - he was always a good reader. His math skills were not quite that far ahead but it was hard to tell for certain since the test we were using contained math for the 5th Grade level that my son had never seen while in the fifth grade. He also seemed to be emotionally struggling more with this test. He was complaining more and acting like he just could not understand simple directions on the test. Things that we knew were not above his understanding. We sat him down and asked him what was going on. His answers were all childish, nonsensical arguments about the test and why he could not understand it. My wife and I were totally baffled. Finally, my wife asked him if he was acting this way because he wanted to go back to the public school.
"No!" he insisted and, after a brief pause, tears began to stream down his face. The underlying frustration in him was obvious. He started towards his bedroom, he did not want his sisters to come in and see him crying. I stopped him and looked to wife and mouthed "privacy" as I headed towards our bedroom with him in tow. She shook her head yes and quickly followed us in, shutting the door behind her.
Without going further into the ensuing conversation it turned out that my son was having trouble simply asking for help. He did not want to leave any of the math questions unanswered since they were supposed to be 4th and 5th grade questions and he was now a big 6th grader. He could not stand the idea of not being able to understand some of the 4th grade questions and many of the 5th grade questions and wanted help - mainly on the meaning of certain terms that he was not familiar with.
Now, here is the amazing part. He told us that he had learned that he had to play dumb while in elementary school in order to get help!
He was always considered to be one of the "smart" kids since he could read on a third grade level in kindergarten, was in the special "PACE" classes for exceptionally bright children, and was always on the "A" honor roll ("A&B" honor roll in 5th grade). The teachers, thinking he was so exceptionally smart, ignored his request for help in class and spent their time helping the children that they thought needed it the most. So he learned that if he acted dumb then the teachers would give him more help when he truly needed it!
This, in a nutshell, is what happens when the schools cater to the lowest common denominator. School children get dragged down to that level rather than the slower children being lifted up. Our schools should be challenging the students, all of them. The liberals believe that no child should feel bad and all children should feel equal. Although I understand the basic feelings that are behind this their methods of achieving it are completely wrong and detrimental to our children.
Conservatives seem to think that the school voucher program is the best way to go. With a school voucher system parents could send their kids to any school they wanted to. They could send them to a "better" public school or even a private school. According to conservatives this would stimulate competition and force bad schools to improve. The thing is, the school voucher program would only be useful for a few select families. I am physical conservative who usually votes republican but I am by no means wealthy. I am not struggling to pay my bills but it is nearly a paycheck to paycheck existence. I cannot afford to drive my children back and forth everyday to the next nearest school. The cost in gasoline alone would be staggering. A school voucher program would be useless for me and many others, I'm sure.
What we need is greater freedom within the schools. Freedom "from" intrusive school boards that think they know what is best for our children. Freedom "from" administrators with condescending, know it all attitudes. Let’s give the parents of the schools real power. Freedom from the federal and state government telling us exactly what our children "need". We could give real power to the parents - like the "PTA" but with actual authority. If parents knew that the PTA had actual voting power, power to change the way the school is run and the freedom to involve themselves in the daily school process as needed then we might actually begin to see some changes.
It would not be a lovely bed of roses overnight but eventually new methods of teaching our children would evolve that would shine above the rest. The parents, seeing those other methods working elsewhere, would quickly bring those methods to their schools. Parents would work much faster than the bloated bureaucracy of our school systems. And, just maybe, future students would find school to be an enjoyable and stimulating experience.
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