Re: Public Education needs to be just that: Public

I guess I was thinking of fear factor in a couple of different contexts:  first, which I think has something to do with your thought about parents' remembering their own public school experiences, is that sense that “schooling” is something better left to the experts; that you have to have had years of theory/training/certification to be qualified as an educator.  I know I've met parents who feel like they will probably mess up some magic process if they interfere with the way their children are being taught.  I've also met some teachers who feel like because they have that teaching license, they know better than parents how students are to be “managed” in the classroom.  Nonsense.  Education happens in partnership.  Parents can't just hand over their children at the schoolhouse door and then sit back and wait for primed little academic parrots to appear.  What I wanted back from the schools I sent my kids to was respect for each of them as unique learners, interested in a variety of things, who processed information and formulated questions that led to more thinking, more exploring.  I hated it when I heard, “I'm sorry, but that's just not in our curriculum this year,” or “Well, every other student in the class seems to be getting it.”  I even had a teacher tell my daughter once, “I just don't know how else to explain it to you.”  Excuse me?  School should be about opening all the doors and windows, giving kids resources, teaching them to think for themselves and explore infinite options.  If it's only about testing, measurement, competition, fitting into the profiles, fitting into the system, etc. It's definitely not about learning!

The second thing that was in my mind was the fact that a good many of our schools have turned into semi-prisons, where kids have to go through metal detectors to get in; where every movement is strictly monitored; where parents have to submit ID's just to visit a classroom.  Like a great many other institutions in our society, our schools' effectiveness has been constricted by fear of attack and/or litigation.  Schools now have lock-down drills as often as fire drills.  At the elementary school I worked in, we actually had drills where kids had to crawl under the lunchroom tables and learn secret escape routes just in case a shooter got into the school.  Every visitor was suspect.  Every person from the community not known by the staff was considered a potential child molester or abductor.   Even the school nurse had to limit the comfort she could provide!  No hugging!  Rubber gloves if any bodily fluid (including tears) was involved!  No, I can't call your mom to come and get you because you've already missed class three times this term.  It's mighty hard to concentrate on instruction or enjoy activities with this undercurrent of fear adding stress and complications to everything.

Sorry to rant.  This is obviously a subject close to my heart.  I guess I'm just sick of living in fear and furious about any system that is working to close minds, make us conform, limit our freedom, turn us further into brainless sheeple.  We can do so much better.