Public schools...

[breakingcontact]

Good discussion. Just as I won't go to most churches I wouldn't send kids to most church schools. I agree the #1 thing whether in a $20,000/year private school or trapped in the hood, is parents giving a care, making education a priority and modeling the right things.

 

[TX69]

As someone on the inside of a public school building, I wish parents would stop blaming me and my colleagues for their kids' lack of perseverance and morals, and do the hard work of family building long before they make it to my door.

There are certainly things we teachers can improve upon, but the door swings both ways.

I firmly blame parenting as the key problem. My mother took it to me when I screwed up and sided with the teacher.

 

[benenglish]

...what percent of your schooling was a total waste, taken up by filler or disrupted by your crazy classmates?

90% or more. And the disruption came not just from crazy classmates but idiot teachers, too. I had some gems, some just OK, and far too many who seemed to do the job just because it was a mechanism whereby they could get off on bullying little kids and get away with it.

Did you work at the pace you were capable of or at the average pace due to being in a class of all abilities?

Somewhere in between. What that means is that school held me back. And that's a shame.

 

[benenglish]

I don't think high school and football should go together.

I grew up in central Texas. Even though we weren't as batshit crazy as some of those west Texas clowns of the sort depicted in Friday Night Lights, if I had actually verbalized such a thought when I was a teen I feel sure I would have been burned at the stake.

Or at least beaten to a pulp, weekly.

You don't insult the National Religion of Texas without great risk. You're either a highly principled, truly brave man or you're nuts.

 

[Younggun]

Lol.

What good are principles if you not willing to stand up for them.

Probably a little nuts too.

 

[Rogue]

I remember pretty well as a child when some middle school student was stabbed by another in front of Watson Jr. High in west Houston (Bear Creek). My parents put the stone to the grinder and made every dollar stretch in order to send both me and my older brother to private school when I was in third grade. Graduated the same private school in 2002, and I know the education I received was at least two times better than I would have in public schools.

Example: Freshman year of High School, my school taught World History (with World Geography included). I failed with a 69.4, because I thought I could just skate by with my basketball coach as the teacher. I retook the same class in public school during the summer. The public school only taught geography in the class. I made a 98.

It was an hour and a half drive each way, but I believe I ended up better off for it.

 

[benenglish]

My parents put the stone to the grinder and made every dollar stretch in order to send both me and my older brother to private school...

My parents did the same for me, starting in kindergarten.

I was bored to tears. The other kids went tearing around the playground playing games that didn't seem to have any rules. I preferred to sit on the ground and stare at the gravel between my legs, contemplating the relative relationships in distance between them, controlling for size, searching for patterns. I didn't find any but that game was a lot more fun than screaming like a baboon and pulling girls hair.

We did some painting with watercolors once. The teacher said "Paint anything you like." I went to work. No one else did; they just sort of stared at their easels. The teacher encouraged them "Paint anything. Paint your house if you like." Sheesh, I couldn't remember how long it had been since I had painted a box house with a stick figure family standing out front and a little yellow quarter-sun up in the corner. I did a semi-abstract of fireworks exploding in a sky.

When we were all done, we all stepped back. I had a lovely sheet of paper covered in blended colors. Every other easel in the room showed a box house with a stick figure family standing out front and a little yellow quarter-sun up in the corner.

The whole scene was absurd...but everybody was staring at me like I was an alien.

As I said, I was bored to tears.

About two weeks into the term, I was escorted by my teacher to the principals office where my parents were waiting. Right in front of me, the principal handed them a refund check for my tuition. He told them they simply had to accept that their son was mentally retarded and would need "special" care for his whole life. He talked about me like he didn't realize I was right there and could hear every word.

They escorted me out and we went to IHOP for lunch. Best day of kindergarten, ever. Seriously, I remember that long walk down the empty central hall with my parents, headed to the car, like it was yesterday; it's one of the happiest memories in my life.

Moral: "Private" doesn't mean "competent".

PS - I shudder to think how many drugs would get shoved into me if I were 5 years old in 2013.

 

[breakingcontact]

Lots of bad private schools just like lots or people do homeschooling wrong.

Public school pushes the ADD/ADHD and associated mind altering drugs.

 

[pistolpadre]

A very important thread.. this is the number one issue for the future of America.. a 50% drop out rate.. we all know what that will lead to. Our daughter is a teacher.. and i can tell you she's super serious, but uninformed on so many things it scars me.. i know it can't continue with "dress up day" FOX reported this Tuesday.. the kids wear "each others" cloths. yep boys in girls.. etc.. not sure how creditable, but again Fox.. WWII great granddad is introduced to the HS assembly.. as being from world war eleven.. horror stories.. almost to many because we lose sight and digress ..

Religion .. or at least belief HAS to return.. and something has to be done before the system fails.

 

[breakingcontact]

Oh religion is full and present: the religion of the state and consumerist economy.

The radical agenda of schools overall is 100% true. I had occasion to be in a public school recently...noticed this wall of posters about "stop the hate" that the kids had made on some promotional materials from the ADL (anti defamation league). So I looked into it as all of rainbows were odd. Well the ADL has this whole curriculum they have wedged into the schools. Conveniently buried in there is a bunch of lessons to teach middle schoolers to be open minded and accepting of LGBT people. Screw that. Should I accept polygamists? Islamists who oppress their wives? Accept drug addicts? Accept a guy who has 5 baby mammas? You can believe something is wrong without hating people. In a liberals mind you can't but as an adult i can acknowledge wrong without hating the person doing wrong.

 

[Southpaw]

Oh religion is full and present: the religion of the state and consumerist economy.

The radical agenda of schools overall is 100% true. I had occasion to be in a public school recently...noticed this wall of posters about "stop the hate" that the kids had made on some promotional materials from the ADL (anti defamation league). So I looked into it as all of rainbows were odd. Well the ADL has this whole curriculum they have wedged into the schools. Conveniently buried in there is a bunch of lessons to teach middle schoolers to be open minded and accepting of LGBT people. Screw that. Should I accept polygamists? Islamists who oppress their wives? Accept drug addicts? Accept a guy who has 5 baby mammas? You can believe something is wrong without hating people. In a liberals mind you can't but as an adult i can acknowledge wrong without hating the person doing wrong.

Thank you for saying that.

I don't go for this BS that everyone can do anything and everyone is on equal footing with each other. I say if you want to be at a certain place in life then you need to work for it, especially if it doesn't come naturally to you. Some people aren't going to make it in this life due to their natural abilities and a myriad of circumstances and and that's the nature of existence.

I just can't stand that it's wrong in today's world to point out that someone is different!!! To me it makes no sense whatsoever to not recognize those facts.

This is a sore subject for me, sorry if I rambled a bit.

 

[ATX_Shawn]

You can believe something is wrong without hating people. In a liberals mind you can't but as an adult i can acknowledge wrong without hating the person doing wrong.

Class.. are we taking notes?!?!

 

[breakingcontact]

Just bringing the real talk. It's bad enough the left is bulldozing through our social institutions. But then when otherwise reasonable people just watch it happen, not wanting to offend, not wanting to judge...just wanting to be single issue voters (talking at you my fellow gun rights family) don't jump in on the right side and engage in this culture war it really angers me. Do you really think that a brain dead society uneducated in government , doped out of their minds with prescription or illegal drugs, fat from all the consumerist animalistic over eating to kill the pain, raised in broken homes, told their hedonistic lifestyle is valid and good, animal rights loving, string of baby mama havin onto the next one, no job working, government hand out taking, moral relativists....you really think this society is going to value and protect your 2nd amendment rights? Think they're going to elect good leaders? Good judges? It's naive and selfish and I'm sick of it. Unless people get onboard and politically active you'll be able to enjoy your gun rights for one or two more generations. The society that you sat by and watched devolve while saying "you live your life, I live mine, who's to judge?", they're going to turn on you.

 

[ATX_Shawn]

I'm ecstatic with how this conversation has developed...

I understand how parenting could definitely prevent our kids from becoming parasitic crooks or mindless and subservient sheep. But I still take issue with schools, and the agenda they are forcing upon our children.

I'd really like to be face to face with the men and women that decided "trying is winning" and the idea that we must apologize to those who find our opinions "offensive".

 

[Younggun]

I'm ecstatic with how this conversation has developed...

I understand how parenting could definitely prevent our kids from becoming parasitic crooks or mindless and subservient sheep. But I still take issue with schools, and the agenda they are forcing upon our children.

I'd really like to be face to face with the men and women that decided "trying is winning" and the idea that we must apologize to those who find our opinions "offensive".

The whole "everyone's a winner" concept is the reason there are people in this country who can have a sense of pride for living off good stamps and welfare with 5 kids from 5 different mothers.

Instead of raising a kids self esteem by letting them get good at something and be proud of it they just teach them it ok to suck. Just don't try cause your gonna get a pat in the back anyways.

It's not "trying is winning" anymore. It's just "be a drain if you want, you can have some credit from somebody else's hard work cause your just as good a then".

 

[Kyle]

As soon as I get a chance to sit down I'm adding to the Convo. I have the benefit of having gone to public schools in the north and the south and there is a VAST difference...

 

[ATX_Shawn]

As soon as I get a chance to sit down I'm adding to the Convo. I have the benefit of having gone to public schools in the north and the south and there is a VAST difference...

Please do!

 

[breakingcontact]

Shawn, PM sent. Danger close!

 

[Stukaman]

Lots of bad private schools just like lots or people do homeschooling wrong.

Public school pushes the ADD/ADHD and associated mind altering drugs.

I had more drugs forced down my throat from 7th grade to 12th grade than you could possibly imagine, I'm still jacked up by them and socially ackward sometimes cause I was so doped up :-/

 

[ATX_Shawn]

California school holds toy gun exchange | Fox News

And again...