School: A Proposed Happy Medium

I'm going to start by saying I have been and always will be jealous of ANYONE who gets to wake up at 9 in the morning and stay in pajamas while writing.

So much that this is what I have been doing all summer, including RIGHT NOW. It's kind of fantastic.

BUT the public school system is also fantastic. It does not condition us for boredom. There was a time when we attacked everything with curiosity and eagerness, lead on by teachers who taught those things by example.

There was a time when I thought the coolest thing ever was subtracting with Roman numerals, because I understood, and no one else did and I was praised by my teacher for it. I still remember her and my class and other trivial memories like the mural in the staircase leading down to the lunch room that always smelled like hot dogs and watered-down cleaner and Hi-C punch, and the time I lost my left front tooth on the back of a boy's pants.* (What the hell, I'm even not going to make you wait for a footnote, because if I were you that wording would distract me from reading the rest of this blog post, and as the author I'd like this to be read. Simply put: TAG X-TREME. I--accidentally--shoved him into the woodchips, stated falling, snagged my mouth around the metal button on his back pocket, and hit the ground with a bleeding hole in my mouth, which I quite enjoyed because it made me look "tough".)

Though not pleasant, or even indeed important, these are the things that shaped us. That comraderie and passion only left us when school became bigger, more daunting and *GASP* recessless. This being a generalization, of course. Sixth (and seventh, we were lucky enough to have the same teacher and classmates for two years) grade English was memorable and interesting, although I sense this was only because--playing to Alex's point--the class size was small, and we were treated as individuals. It was less like learning what 15 other people were learning and more like collaborating with 15 people.

So, I propose a combination: Education would still be compulsory in some way until 17, and public, group education compulsory until 11. This teaches social skills and breeds the necessary thirst for learning, and then before that excitement dulls to routine and inevitability, letting them learn whatever they want. Math/English/all that jazz would still be necessary, but could be completed over the Internet and with the specific interests of that student in mind. I realize this is idealistic and would require things like parent consent and whatnot (public secondary/middle/high schools would still exist in the event these are not obtained...wow, the more I seriously think about this, the more it seems plausible), but I still think it should be an option, provided the transition to online courses and whatnot (why do I keep using that word? I know there's more to it that I'm not thinking of but am aknowledging...) could be made easier/more accessible to the public-school-accustomed.

Thoughts? (Like I said, this is becoming plausible to me, but it may never exit the realm of utter brain crack.)