Public school follow-up

Wow, that struck a nerve. I've been getting emails all morning from people who were also bullied incessantly--including my sister, who got an ulcer from it in fifth grade, and at least one person whom I'd considered to be one of the cool kids. Yep, he got it, too. And someone I know got an apology based on my post! Crazy! My sister will be homeschooling her kids too, btw, for all the reasons I mentioned.

Where were the adults in all this, you ask? That's a good question. I don't remember. But my story is less about "where were the adults" than about the system in general. The current public school setup is an outdated throwback to when we were a rural farming nation. Fast-forward a century. Kids no longer need to be home at 3 pm to help with farmwork before sunset, yet schools still let out at 3 pm--this when the vast majority of parents work until 5 pm or later. Kids no longer need to be home all summer to help bring in the harvest, yet schools still close up in June and reopen in September, meaning the first two months of every school year have to be dedicated to reteaching everything that's been forgotten since June. Any number of tests have proven that teenagers need extra sleep, yet high schools still typically start classes at 7:30 or 8 am--in many cases long before the elementary schools open. The things that kids really need--plenty of exercise, good fresh nutritious food, a nurturing environment, intellectual stimulation in the form of arts, music, travel and cultural opportunities--are all the first things on the chopping block when budget time rolls around. Kids are pressganged into unnatural groupings based on age, and then punished when their grades or social abilities aren't "grade level." No one matures at "grade level." I've worked a lot of jobs in my life, and I was expected to work with people of all age groups, of all different abilities, yet I was never given that opportunity in school until college. It's no wonder that overcrowded classrooms devolve into these completely Darwinian settings. You could transplant most episodes of "Oz" into any middle school classroom in the country, and minus the orange jumpsuits, they'd be exactly the same. Why is no one else uncomfortable that schools look more and more like prisons? And that children act more and more like criminals?

I'm constantly amazed how this country can find the money to support a completely unnecessary war, but can't be bothered to educate its children. And, okay, the government has never had its priorities straight and never will, by virtue of it being a government. But I'd think local communities would make more of an effort to correct that error. No one likes paying taxes, but taxes give us the framework for society--roads, bridges, schools, DMV offices, courthouses and police officers. We can find money to build new prisons, but not to hire new teachers. We can find money to build bridges to nowhere in Alaska, but can't repair the ones we already have. Every bank and car company in the country gets massive bailouts when their business systems prove completely retarded, but libraries, public transportation systems, and schools get shafted yet again.

Here's an interesting aside: in 1948, Costa Rica abolished its military by constitutional amendment, and funneled all that money into education, health care and infrastructure. Costa Rica now enjoys universal free public and higher education, free health care, and the highest standard of living in Central and South America, and is one of the greenest, most progressive, and happiest nations on earth.

Just sayin'.