If we are going to have public schooling, especially compelled public schooling, we must take care of the human needs of children.

[The Sage of Main Street]

Very helpful.


Exactly.


That's the secret. Let it be known that you are not to be messed with before the bullies become 'roided up football players.

Unfortunately, I am not allowed to give that obvious advice. That's where parents come in.

Little League Is a Substitute for Grade-School Baseball. No More School Teams!

It would be fitting to gang up on and ambush a jock bully and injure him enough so that he loses his chance for a college athletic scholarship.

 

[Unkotare]

Little League Is a Substitute for Grade-School Baseball. No More School Teams!

It would be fitting to gang up on and ambush a jock bully and injure him enough so that he loses his chance for a college athletic scholarship.

Why do so many of you weaklings assume bullies are all athletes?

 

[Jarlaxle]

Fairness Is for Fairies

In other words, don't fight back. Then you will grow up to be a pushover for the totalitarians.

If you want to be free, fight the bullies by ganging up on them, by using pepper spray, kicking them with steel-toed shoes, etc. In every way, go the opposite of the advice lisped by this Groomer blog.

But misfits deserve to be bullied and should change the way they are that brings this on.

You belong in a mental ward.

Little League Is a Substitute for Grade-School Baseball. No More School Teams!

It would be fitting to gang up on and ambush a jock bully and injure him enough so that he loses his chance for a college athletic scholarship.

The second-best way to deal with a bully is to put him in the hospital

Why do so many of you weaklings assume bullies are all athletes?

Probably because most are.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

First, let me state that I am both a public school teacher and a person who is libertarian. As a libertarian, I would not object to public schools being phased out completely. I am confident that, in the absences of public schools, I would earn a far larger salary than my district determined scale. Point is that the "if" in my statement is sincere.

Since the answer to whether we will have public school is an overwhelming "yes," that the Twoparties agree on, we have to take a realistic look at what a child needs in order to learn in a public school.

A hungry child will not learn.
An exhausted child will not learn.
A sick child will not learn, if his sickness makes him too uncomfortable to concentrate.
A child who cannot see the board will not learn, in the absence of special accommodations.
A child who dreads the weekend due to abusive or negligent parents will learn perhaps Mon - Thurs, but will not learn on Friday.

My fellow/sister teachers often complain and lament that "we have to parent" some kids. They are right, that is exactly what we often have to do. We parent the kids, because the parents won't. That's what the welfare state has taught them is the way to behave.

If I were to suggest that we simply allow those kids to stay home, those same teachers would sputter with outrage. Because those kids have a "right" to a public school education. Because public school is the great equalizer. But is it?

A child experiencing any of the above is not getting an equal education to a child with an identical demographic, parental education and socioeconomic background whose parents provide the care the students needs, and appropriate time and location in which to study. If we are to be the equalizers, we must find ways to close those gaps.

When I taught at an elementary school we ran "Grizzly Bear Camp," which was an after school program that let kids study and do homework in the library for 90 minutes after school, followed by play time and a snack in the gym, and a bus ride home. It was a great success. In Junior High, they have after school "tutorials," but they are more a case of "You're behind in your work, so you are assigned to after school tutorials." Not nearly as helpful to kids with inadequate parenting.

If a child has a visual impairment severe enough to be classified as a disability, the school will spare little expense in providing equipment for that child to be able to access materials. If a child needs glasses and can't see the board, but the parent is too lazy to provide them, they kid is just out of luck. Why? Any schools budget can easily absorb the cost of prescription eyeglasses.

We feed the kids free breakfast and lunch and continue that into the summer. That's good. Our counselors will provide school supplies and a backpack to kids whose parents will not buy them. Good again. But we should be providing any other needs that arise as well. Let a committee decide who has the need, since educators insist on committees. But get the kids taken care of, don't chastise them for not being ready to learn.

Many of the programs you just mentioned are already in place in the schools where I taught middle and high school.

Eyeglasses are provided. The breakfast and lunch programs continue through the summers and holiday breaks. I am shocked that you are unaware that your school is not the only school in this country.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Still true for the large majority of children. I see children from impoverished homes whose mothers crossed the border to have them and never taught them a syllable of English go through a three-year bilingual program and end up in PAP English by 7th grade.

The difference from now and the past is that we don't expel secondary students who misbehave and we don't encourage failing students to simply drop out and become auto mechanics and whatnot. We keep every student in school, whether they thrive there are not. This in the name of equality. That's the main reason schools seem to be failing. We are failing the same students that we used to get rid of. Getting rid of them was its own kind of failure, I believe you would agree.

That is a strong argument for ending the public schools, not for neglecting public school children once they are forced to attend.

Public school will always be a mouthpiece for someone's political agenda, that's the nature of giving people a captive audience. In my school days, the agenda was pretty basic American patriotism, combined with a reasonable level of concern for the flaws in our history. No one much objected to that. What has become so outrageous is that now it is the woke agenda that is being pressed. Almost no one wants that, but that's what happens when we turn kids over to the state.

Clearly. Best decision we ever made was to keep our young children away from video games. I had played this game in the seventies as a teenager:

View attachment 657475
Just little electronic dots for players, but it captured my mind, took it off fishing, talking, reading, or anything else. No Nintendo for the Flops kids, even though my mom refused to baby sit them if they couldn't play video games. /rant

Yes, they should. But a percentage of them will not and I know of no way to change that.

Then we must end public schools.

What do you propose we do with poor students if we were to end public schools?

You would simply be creating more criminals to prey upon society.

My father dropped out of school in the 5th grade to support his family. My mother only attended through 7th grade, because that was all there was at the time. My father was a factory worker for General Electric when I was growing up. His paycheck was never enough so he worked another full time job during the day and worked my grandmother's farm on the weekends. If you ended public school, how would I have ever gotten out of poverty?

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Yeah, sure, plebe.

I was never a plebe, so STFU nimrod!

 

[Jarlaxle]

I was never a plebe, so STFU nimrod!

You're damn sure not an admiral, plebe.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

You're damn sure not an admiral, plebe.

I was closer to being an admiral than you. That is all you need to know.

Now, let's discuss your stupid username, shall we? The last time I checked, jars don't have axles.

 

[EvilCat Breath]

Universal boarding school. Like in Cuba.

 

[Jarlaxle]

I was closer to being an admiral than you. That is all you need to know.

Now, let's discuss your stupid username, shall we? The last time I checked, jars don't have axles.

Jarlaxle Baenre is a character in a book series.

And unlike you, plebe, I don't claim to he an admiral.

 

[SweetSue92]

What do you propose we do with poor students if we were to end public schools?

You would simply be creating more criminals to prey upon society.

My father dropped out of school in the 5th grade to support his family. My mother only attended through 7th grade, because that was all there was at the time. My father was a factory worker for General Electric when I was growing up. His paycheck was never enough so he worked another full time job during the day and worked my grandmother's farm on the weekends. If you ended public school, how would I have ever gotten out of poverty?

Teachers are quitting and retiring early because we are expected to now raise children.

We are not equipped to do that. It's burning us out.

The answer is obvious but it's too much to handle and so it's never addressed. To repeat: as society craters, we expect public schools to pick up every bit of slack. We can't do that. We're not parents.