I hope you had a wonderful visit to So Cal (weather couldn’t have been nicer!) and all was well at home. I know you’re not “a believer”, but, fwiw, you’ve been in my thoughts and prayers over the past few weeks.
I’ve written countless comments that I end up deleting, so I don’t remember what I’ve posted and what I’ve deleted at this point, but are you familiar with the School Sucks Podcast? I started listening to it back in 2010, when it was first getting started, and I learned SO much from it! The host, Brett Veinotte, has spent his entire adult life in a variety of functions within education, and he came to the same conclusion as we have--school sucks! Though it came to an end in 2021, he’s currently re-editing/remastering some of his best/most important work conducted over the past decade.
If anyone is interested in the history of schooling, the following is a good episode to try. It gives—among other things—a *fantastic* overview of Outcome Based Education. (If the link doesn’t work, search you podcast platform for “School Sucks: Higher Education”, Ep. 9, “Who Controls Our Children”):
We leave for our trip next week and I'm so looking forward to it! It's been a bit, but I was an avid listener of the School Sucks podcast and definitely followed Brett Veinotte for some time. He and I share a great deal in common. I'll check out this episode to see if I've heard this one. Thanks for sharing!
“...that I was “smarter” than my classmates because of how quickly I sped through the colors of the SRA reading program. Algebra and geometry? What I learned in my high school algebra class was that I hated math; in geometry, I developed my social skills by convincing the kid behind me to let me cheat off his work so I could avoid my creepy perv of a teacher’s hand on my waste when I went up to his desk to get help. What do you remember learning in school?”
This. Is. Me. (For perspective, I was born in ‘68.)
“Honey! Put your book down, it’s time for school!” I was the first 10 year old in our library who had written permission by my mom to check out ANY book(s) I wanted, from any section. I read wildly inappropriate books far too young: Judy Blume at first, then Harlequins I traded with the mean middle school math teacher. I quickly moved on to Roots, VC Andrews, Stephen King, Sidney Sheldon, Rona Jaffe, Jacqueline Susann... The librarian would shake her head and chuckle. “Well, we have it in writing,” she’d say.
I, too, went to the “big kids class” for reading and zoomed through SRA (see https://omigods.com/11-tiers-of-frustration-what-the-sra-reading-levels-really-meant). Later, in 10th grade, I ran away because of being constantly grounded by my dad for my poor grades in Algebra and Geometry. Turns out, I had raging, undiagnosed ADHD. Who knew?
So, what did I learn in school? I learned to do as little work as necessary to garner the greatest return. That being “cool” was THE most important thing. “Not caring” = “cool”. I learned to cheat, lie, ditch, and give blow jobs. And I learned how to do drugs.
Thank you for sharing this comment! We're certainly on the same page. Children are wired to uptake the culture or to be "socialized". We're always learning; I think most don't pause to understand just what children are learning through compulsory schooling.
Thanks for sharing the SRA link--hilariously painful! And btw, I was born in '69.
I hope you had a wonderful visit to So Cal (weather couldn’t have been nicer!) and all was well at home. I know you’re not “a believer”, but, fwiw, you’ve been in my thoughts and prayers over the past few weeks.
I’ve written countless comments that I end up deleting, so I don’t remember what I’ve posted and what I’ve deleted at this point, but are you familiar with the School Sucks Podcast? I started listening to it back in 2010, when it was first getting started, and I learned SO much from it! The host, Brett Veinotte, has spent his entire adult life in a variety of functions within education, and he came to the same conclusion as we have--school sucks! Though it came to an end in 2021, he’s currently re-editing/remastering some of his best/most important work conducted over the past decade.
If anyone is interested in the history of schooling, the following is a good episode to try. It gives—among other things—a *fantastic* overview of Outcome Based Education. (If the link doesn’t work, search you podcast platform for “School Sucks: Higher Education”, Ep. 9, “Who Controls Our Children”):
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/school-sucks-higher-education-for-self-liberation/id326517856?i=1000565043213
We leave for our trip next week and I'm so looking forward to it! It's been a bit, but I was an avid listener of the School Sucks podcast and definitely followed Brett Veinotte for some time. He and I share a great deal in common. I'll check out this episode to see if I've heard this one. Thanks for sharing!
“...that I was “smarter” than my classmates because of how quickly I sped through the colors of the SRA reading program. Algebra and geometry? What I learned in my high school algebra class was that I hated math; in geometry, I developed my social skills by convincing the kid behind me to let me cheat off his work so I could avoid my creepy perv of a teacher’s hand on my waste when I went up to his desk to get help. What do you remember learning in school?”
This. Is. Me. (For perspective, I was born in ‘68.)
“Honey! Put your book down, it’s time for school!” I was the first 10 year old in our library who had written permission by my mom to check out ANY book(s) I wanted, from any section. I read wildly inappropriate books far too young: Judy Blume at first, then Harlequins I traded with the mean middle school math teacher. I quickly moved on to Roots, VC Andrews, Stephen King, Sidney Sheldon, Rona Jaffe, Jacqueline Susann... The librarian would shake her head and chuckle. “Well, we have it in writing,” she’d say.
I, too, went to the “big kids class” for reading and zoomed through SRA (see https://omigods.com/11-tiers-of-frustration-what-the-sra-reading-levels-really-meant). Later, in 10th grade, I ran away because of being constantly grounded by my dad for my poor grades in Algebra and Geometry. Turns out, I had raging, undiagnosed ADHD. Who knew?
So, what did I learn in school? I learned to do as little work as necessary to garner the greatest return. That being “cool” was THE most important thing. “Not caring” = “cool”. I learned to cheat, lie, ditch, and give blow jobs. And I learned how to do drugs.
You know, I was “socialized”.
I’ll be in touch. 😉
Thank you for sharing this comment! We're certainly on the same page. Children are wired to uptake the culture or to be "socialized". We're always learning; I think most don't pause to understand just what children are learning through compulsory schooling.
Thanks for sharing the SRA link--hilariously painful! And btw, I was born in '69.