uh, climbing onto my soapbox...
Feb. 24th, 2008 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sherron0In a community I'm in here on LJ, some poor innocent touched a subject that I just feel too strongly about. A mother was asking advice for a child she had pulled from school and was going to homeschool. She had several reasons, but one of the main one was all the bullying this child was the target of. Several people told this mother that the child really needed to go back, because bullying happened everywhere, and continued into adulthood and the child in question just need to learn to take it or stand up to it. That pulling a child out of school "just because kids are mean makes no sense" Next thing I know, I'm ranting:
But since it is how I feel, I thought I should also have a record of it here, so maybe i won't have to inflict it again.
[Note: Aspie is an accepted term for a person with Asperger's. NT stands for Neurotypical, meaning, "not diagnosed with anything"]
I'm sorry. I know that my opinion is very, very colored by my experience. (mine, and my boys). And what I've seen in public schools in the South, which is, admittedly, hopefully, not the best this country has to offer. I know at least the people in Minnesota have good things to be hopeful about.
I was once a rabid supporter of public schools. Kids who went anywhere else were weird. Even private schoolers. Homeschoolers were just too fringe to even consider.
Then my kids started school, and my 12 years there all came back to me, when my kids started experiencing the same things. Not just the bullying, but the lack of true education. Not just a lack of support, (both against bullies and academically) but the actual negative input that teachers give the really smart ones. The being taught that being quiet and fitting in --at all costs-- was what was important. Forget that NO services were being offered to my Aspie, because he was "at grade level." We didn't even get very far in the special needs problems, because they just denied there were any. The ONLY accommodation my Aspie got was being allowed, for 1 hour, two days a week, to be allowed to go to the "gifted" program. Which meant that the teacher wrote his name on the board in the special corner where she wrote all the names of the special-ed kids, convincing him he must be stupid and a problem, because that was the crowd he was lumped in with. Talk about being made targets -- let's just conveniently advertise them. Oh, and by the way, my boy got no recess those days, because the hour of GT was during PE, so instead of going out to play, he went to the gym with some strange class to make up PE. The teacher actually told me, with a straight face, that it was AL law that all children must take PE every day.
But it wasn't just my Aspie they were failing, it was my NT too. He was being taught that always having the correct answer was a nuisance to the teacher. That finishing the busy work meant getting to do more! Not more challenging, just more of the same ole. He was learning how to be inconspicuous and sneaky. How to hide the book you were reading while others finished, etc. I pulled the guys out in self defense. They were actually making them go BACKWARDS from the bright, eager to learn 5yos. I'd given them. I literally went down there mid year, and said, "Give me my children, I can do this badly by myself."
After I took them home, and saw them blossom, both academically and socially, and began to see how not weird other homschooled children were, and tutored their little friends in the neighborhood, who were coming home with three hours of homework they had no idea how to even start, and watched my friends have to fight for their children still there to get basic services, and saw the district replace the roof on the gym the day after it leaked instead of repairing the years old RAT damage to the main building, and I saw my guys learn how to stand up to the one neighborhood bully because they knew they had not only my backing, but the backing of every other mother in the neighborhood, I realized that it isn't just the special needs community that the public schools are failing. They are failing all our kids. The system is sick, and I don't know that it even CAN be cured.
So, I know I'm a radical, and I know that homeschooling is just not an option for many many people, and there are a few children who thrive in that environment. And obviously millions who at least manage to survive. But to me, any excuse to pull them out makes sense. If everyone who had a sensitive, caring, or at least just non-bullytype child pulled him/her out, and the schools were left with ONLY the bullies, I wonder if that would change things? I wonder if the system would be embarrassed to learn that the sharks are really the population that they serve best.
I'm really sorry, I know I'm being offensive to many. I know that every story is different. I am not here to turn people into home schoolers, no matter how it looks. I do respect your opinions, XXX, I just disagree. (in an unbecomingly vehement way :o) Really. I promise, no more public school rants.
I'm sorry. I know that my opinion is very, very colored by my experience. (mine, and my boys). And what I've seen in public schools in the South, which is, admittedly, hopefully, not the best this country has to offer. I know at least the people in Minnesota have good things to be hopeful about.
I was once a rabid supporter of public schools. Kids who went anywhere else were weird. Even private schoolers. Homeschoolers were just too fringe to even consider.
Then my kids started school, and my 12 years there all came back to me, when my kids started experiencing the same things. Not just the bullying, but the lack of true education. Not just a lack of support, (both against bullies and academically) but the actual negative input that teachers give the really smart ones. The being taught that being quiet and fitting in --at all costs-- was what was important. Forget that NO services were being offered to my Aspie, because he was "at grade level." We didn't even get very far in the special needs problems, because they just denied there were any. The ONLY accommodation my Aspie got was being allowed, for 1 hour, two days a week, to be allowed to go to the "gifted" program. Which meant that the teacher wrote his name on the board in the special corner where she wrote all the names of the special-ed kids, convincing him he must be stupid and a problem, because that was the crowd he was lumped in with. Talk about being made targets -- let's just conveniently advertise them. Oh, and by the way, my boy got no recess those days, because the hour of GT was during PE, so instead of going out to play, he went to the gym with some strange class to make up PE. The teacher actually told me, with a straight face, that it was AL law that all children must take PE every day.
But it wasn't just my Aspie they were failing, it was my NT too. He was being taught that always having the correct answer was a nuisance to the teacher. That finishing the busy work meant getting to do more! Not more challenging, just more of the same ole. He was learning how to be inconspicuous and sneaky. How to hide the book you were reading while others finished, etc. I pulled the guys out in self defense. They were actually making them go BACKWARDS from the bright, eager to learn 5yos. I'd given them. I literally went down there mid year, and said, "Give me my children, I can do this badly by myself."
After I took them home, and saw them blossom, both academically and socially, and began to see how not weird other homschooled children were, and tutored their little friends in the neighborhood, who were coming home with three hours of homework they had no idea how to even start, and watched my friends have to fight for their children still there to get basic services, and saw the district replace the roof on the gym the day after it leaked instead of repairing the years old RAT damage to the main building, and I saw my guys learn how to stand up to the one neighborhood bully because they knew they had not only my backing, but the backing of every other mother in the neighborhood, I realized that it isn't just the special needs community that the public schools are failing. They are failing all our kids. The system is sick, and I don't know that it even CAN be cured.
So, I know I'm a radical, and I know that homeschooling is just not an option for many many people, and there are a few children who thrive in that environment. And obviously millions who at least manage to survive. But to me, any excuse to pull them out makes sense. If everyone who had a sensitive, caring, or at least just non-bullytype child pulled him/her out, and the schools were left with ONLY the bullies, I wonder if that would change things? I wonder if the system would be embarrassed to learn that the sharks are really the population that they serve best.
I'm really sorry, I know I'm being offensive to many. I know that every story is different. I am not here to turn people into home schoolers, no matter how it looks. I do respect your opinions, XXX, I just disagree. (in an unbecomingly vehement way :o) Really. I promise, no more public school rants.
But since it is how I feel, I thought I should also have a record of it here, so maybe i won't have to inflict it again.
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-25 04:53 am (UTC)Bravo to your post!!!
no subject
Date: 2008-02-25 05:30 am (UTC)Someone like you should reform the school system
Date: 2008-02-25 08:52 pm (UTC)Don't worry about ranting this one actually has a point! :)
Re: Someone like you should reform the school system
Date: 2008-02-25 08:56 pm (UTC)And I still think you should reform the school system. You know if you've got some time to spare ;)