Ideally speaking

Public school does have potential. I have never disagreed with that. I also don't believe unschooling is for everyone (to be honest, I think what you've described, Rena, would be isolating rather than invigorating). There are tons of kids who prefer the social environment that school offers. Kids that prefer a teacher to a book. So there should be public schools. Everyone should have fair access to education, an easy way to learn whatever they'd like. What I think needs to change is the definition of a public school. The core of what it really is.

My mom once told me about a group of kids who went to an alternative school, ages 9-12, who had never formally learned math before. They decided that they wanted to learn it all (the K-6 math basics) and though their teacher tried to dissuade them, (what??) they were determined. Their teacher said to show up at 11am twice a week for a half hour class. If anyone showed up five minutes late, class was cancelled and if it happened twice, there'd be no more math classes.

And they did it. Tuesdays and Thursdays all the kids showed up on time for half an hour of learning math. And they learned it. This is a quote from a speech that mentioned this occurrence by David Albert:

 In 20 contact hours, every single one of the kids knew the material cold. No slackers. No failures. No one “left back.” No “math anxiety.” No boredom, frustration, embarrassment. No shame or humiliation. No competition, “achievement, “failure,” or “success.” No prizes. Just 'rithmetic. The students held a party to celebrate.

How? How did a group of dedicated students learn six school years worth of math in 20 hours? Because they cared. They weren't doing it because their teacher told them too. They wanted to learn math and so it was 100% easier for them to focus as a class and get it done.

One of my issues with compulsory education is the compulsory part. When something is forced on you, it's usually less appealing, whether it's broccoli or multiplication tables. If no one told kids they had to learn to read, don't you think they'd still want to learn? Don't you think that a kid who decided to learn to read on their own is going to have an easier time than a kid who doesn't even care to try? And if that child decides that they don't need to know how to read just yet, do you think they're going to be illiterate for the rest of their existence? I think not.

So what if we didn't force learning on kids? What if we said they didn't have to come to school for the whole day and that it was their choice. What if we gave the learners the choice of what to learn. And I don't mean a choice on what to write your essay on. I mean a student directed curriculum.

Some people will say that if you let kids choose whether or not to go to school, they won't go. They'll sit home and watch cartoons all day like an eternal summer vacation. But I think those people are wrong. I think we are naturally curious, creative and eager to learn, as humans. I think that if it's a choice, kids would love school even more. Vita and Rena have both recounted their amazing experiences from school. Wouldn't that have been even more awesome if it had been your choice to go? If you had gotten to choose between learning to type and learning to play the recorder? If your friends and your class were all personally invested in the subject matter because you were the ones that chose it?

I think it could make all the difference.

High schools are a little bit different. I believe that if you put the steering wheel of elementary school in the students hands they would all leave with the same skill sets, only it would have meaning to them. If the kids bought into the decision of what to learn they would own it and care. And maybe they'd know more about the  solar systems than long division but if it had been up to them, I think that's better in the end.

Back to what I said about how the definition of school needs to change. Yes. I think high school needs to stop resembling a prison where students hear a bell and are ushered from class to class. I think a high school should seem like more of a center of learning and less like a holding cell. There is a ton of value to be found in learners coming together and being taught by passionate mentors but I think we're missing that choice that allows a person to take ownership of their own education.

Maybe school should start at 11am and should only last for three hours a day. Maybe there should be field internships and mentoring and modelling and general doing rather than lecturing and reading from textbooks. Maybe there should be discussions instead of tests. Maybe there should be departments where students can wander at will, with classes that are open to students of all ages and absolutely nothing compulsory. Maybe there should be a democratic system, and a board of learners, rather than bureaucrats.

And yeah, you'll get teenagers who just want to stay home, but overall, I think you'll get learners rather than students who care about their coursework and are interested in going to school. So yeah, I think there's quite a bit of potential there.

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.)

In Defense of Public Schools (Mostly the Elementary Ones)

I was born shy and got progressively less so with every passing year. The first few years of my life were overshadowed by a crippling reservedness that didn't allow me to visit my next-door-neighbor's house until they'd lived there for a year - and those were people I eventually came to be best friends with for a good five years of my childhood. As such, the doors of my preschool were the gates of Hades to me; the other children I didn't mind so much, but the main teacher was too abrasive for four year olds and her assistant was too coddling. I dreaded those three hours per day, three days per week. Naturally, I wasn't too excited for kindergarten - school every day? What twisted adult came up with such a child-hating scheme?

Imagine my utter befuddlement when instead of a scary child-eating monster à la The Teacher from the Black Lagoon, I was greeted by a wonderful teacher with a fabulous sense of humor who told me I was a good reader because I moved my eyes and not my whole head when I read!

Memories are as vivid as the blinking screen in front of me. The screechy lunch assistant who caused us to snicker that principals only hire supporting staff who hate children. The time an infestation of mold caused a fourth-grade class to seek refuge in the wonderfully cozy library. The glorious, wooden, castle-like jungle gym that was eventually demolished due to the sheer number of students who didn’t understand that you have to grip the pole when you’re sliding down it. The songs we sang to our home-grown butterflies as we released them in the beautifully messy courtyard. The way we slugged through the hallways on the last day of school, reluctant to leave; how, as we stepped through the archaic glass doors and felt the burning June sun on our cheeks, we forgot all about our former teachers and ran across the wide field to celebrate our freedom on the pleasantly hot swinging monkey bars. The annual back-to-school tradition of all of us eagerly lining up, anxiously shoving past each other, to find our names under our new teacher on the lists posted on the front of the school building.

And the learning, too: working through problem after problem of Singapore math, a since abandoned yet astonishingly educational math curriculum. Wrapping strands of yellow tape around our bellies as we embarked on a giggly lesson of how to measure. Milking my one-day absence for all it was worth as I turned in a report on whales three days late. Snarkily writing “if you don’t understand, you should probably read something else” in that report, only to have my teacher warn me in the margin to “be nice.” Hearing my fourth-grade teacher ask me to sign her own yearbook because she wanted to have something to prove that she taught me when I became a best-selling author. Mixing together a gooey mess of “Oobleck;” I still don't know if it is considered a solid or a liquid.

When I visit my recently rebuilt elementary school and see its reflecting tiled floors and beige-white walls, its irrationally clean rooms and orderly art displays, I'm overwhelmed by a certain nostalgia. I don't want to return to elementary school; it was great, but not an environment in which I could currently flourish - mostly because the oldest student there is maybe twelve. What I want, I think, is to gift my experience at elementary school to all the kids currently attending it.

My brain knows that the old building was way too small and old and unclean, but it was so colorful and simply bursting with personality. I want to give these kids the splatter-painted art room's walls, the exclusive "pod" of fourth and fifth grade classes that made us feel like we'd finally worked our way to the top. I want to give them the incredible feeling of being "just okay" at reading in kindergarten and suddenly having it click over the summer, and shooting to the most advanced first grade reading group. I want to give them all somebody like my parents and fourth grade teacher, who wouldn't let the system push me two grade levels ahead in math because they all knew it would stress me out way more than it was worth. I want all the kids who don't speak English to have the most amazing ESOL teacher; I want the kids frustrated by learning disabilities to still manage to find a love for learning. Most of all, I want everybody to find elementary school as worthwhile as I did. I was a reasonably intelligent and relatively privileged kid. I want everybody else to be the same. Not for them to have the same ideas, the same strengths and weaknesses; not for them to be identical slaves for the system. I just want them all to have teachers who care, teachers who can teach, parents who have time to go over their homework with them.

That’s the same attitude that should continue through middle and high school as well. It’s harder when you get older because there’s no allotted recess or finger-painting-with-shaving-cream-under-the-pretense-of-cleaning-the-desks breaks (although I do think high schools should implement an official nap time. You know, besides most history classes). It’s harder because there’s more pressure on the teachers to prepare you for this and this and this. It’s harder because counties have less money due to and think that cutting back schools’ funding is a great solution.

But at the same time, I’m not living what you’re seeing, Alex. I don’t feel like the only reason I’m in school is to pass a test. Maybe I’m biased because I love the subject, but as an example, I’ve never – not once, not even during middle school with the sixth grade teacher who actually did hate children – felt like an English class was just trying to prepare me for a test. What I loved about my English class this past year was that our teacher genuinely cared – or at least, did a damn good job of pretending to care – about what we had to say. Our class could actually have a discussion and there wouldn’t be one correct test-worthy answer.

I guess the point of this somewhat disjointed post is this: Public school has potential. I know it does, because I've lived it. Right now, especially in high schools, the learning has a tendency to get pushed aside in favor of better test scores. But there are people, students and staff alike, who fight against that, and it is possible for that jubilant elementary school attitude to be restored.

Schoolz

I don't mean for this to be a haha, you go to school and I don't blog, but if it turns out that way, I apologize.

I just wanted to express how happy I am that I did not start school at age five. I'm so incredibly grateful that I haven't been conditioned for boredom. I'm not a worker, I'm a contributor. Sometimes that feeling hits me and all I can think is, "Thank you, mom. Thank you for caring. Thank you for not wanting me to go away for half of my waking hours. Thank you for letting me live."

Because that's how I feel. I feel like I've had a chance to live while everyone else has been shuffling from class to class. And I'll be the first to admit that I don't have the fullest perspective, never having been to 'real' five days a week school before but I feel like I know a few things. One of those things is that schools don't teach you how to learn, they teach you how to pass tests. I don't feel like kids graduate from high school with an open mind and a passion for learning new things. Graduation doesn't seem like a celebration of learning and curiosity, it seems like a ceremony to say, okay you've survived this far, good luck with university (or cleaning toilets if you chose not to go), go drink beer illegally and try to forget the hellish experiences you've had.

And that's not cool with me. Or Erica Goldson of Coxsackie-Athens High School, apparently. (that link goes to a real high school graduation speech where a real valedictorian talks about the school system and why is sort of sucks)

So I've spent the last three days waking up at 7:30 to get on the bus to go to school and teach English (same as I did in March, if you remember) until 3:30 when I go home and crash because I'm so tired. Perhaps it's because I haven't been accustomed to this idea of life before but I don't understand how you normal school kids can function. How do you have time for what you love? How can you manage to sit in a chair for so long every day? You all amaze/horrify me.

And so the weird girl becomes even more accustomed and appreciative of her own weirdness. She will wake up at 9 and look in the mirror at her pajama clad, bedheadedness and smile because life is good. The reason for getting out from under the warm covers isn't a chemistry test but a chapter floating around in her head for her novel, waiting to be written.

Basically, I'm trying to say I'm sad that you're all going back to school in a couple weeks and I wish you were here, experiencing life like the one I live, even if you're fine with staggering through a couple more years of high school. I guess I'm kind of sad that so many kids will accept boredom so easily. And I don't know what to do about that.

First Impressions

NOTE: I won't be cross-posting from my other (possibly dead-after-August) blog most days, but as I left this a little late and I felt like I should post something on the other one today, I'm going to spam you just this one time... sorry.

This is discussing the book Looking for Alaska by John Green, FYI. (Oh look, I know internet lingo!)

--

First impressions are silly little things. You can't possibly know a person after meeting them one time. You know that. I know that. It doesn't stop your brain from filing away the supposed personality of said person FOR ALL TIME, though.

Brains cause us nothing but pain and suffering. Why we even use them is a mystery to me...

Anyway, we open Looking for Alaska and are immediately sucked into the high-thrills life of Miles Halter: the curious teenager who accepts the dismal turnout to his going-away party without wanting to kill the no-show invitees. As he says, he's not disappointed because his low expectations are met. Still, don't you find it strange that he doesn't seem to care one bit? Proof that nobody cares about you enough to wish you goodbye?

Then again, you'd have a heart attack if you were perpetually surprised by your lack of friends.

Which leads us to the question of why - why doesn't he have any friends in Florida? He seems like your average nerdy kid. Cynics may say it's for the greater good of the plot. I think it's for the sole reason that his Floridian public school isn't his "Great Perhaps" - there's nothing there for him; how can he be invested in a place of absolutely no personal importance? When you make friends, you're giving a part of yourself away. You're saying, "Here I am! You can take this little piece of me and do with it what you want!" And if they're school friends, they're going to take that little piece of you and bury it in the fibers of that school whether you like it or not.

Once Miles arrives at Culver Creek, he wastes no time in embodying my thoughts before most social outings: planning the ideal outcome of the forthcoming event out in your head. O Miles, how truly thou doth speak. Like the trailer for most summer movies, the anticipation is so much better than the real thing.

Then, because he is hot, (wordplay wordplay hahaha!), he takes a shower, like all cool kids . [That was entirely too many commas for one sentence.]

Cool. I am cool. I am MILES [expletive] HALTER and I do what I want, goddammit!

In sashays Chip Martin (henceforth "The Colonel"), whom I have always pictured as black. It wasn't until my second reading of the book that I realized that his race is never explicitly stated. This leads me to wonder why I contemplated his skin color at all and my brain once again directs me to our first impression of the Colonel: he's "short and muscular with a shock of brown hair." OHAI, first subconscious clue - brown. I don't know what this says about me, but every time a character is described as having a hair color that is dark, the movie screen in my head gives 'em dark skin.

It's the same thing with those "tall, dark, and handsome" characters. You may be referring to his hair color, but I always envision a blonde girl leading around an Eastern European man tilting his hat to cast his body into shadow.

Maybe that's strange since people often color characters with familiar traits. To be honest, I usually picture characters as being light skinned unless it's explicitly otherwise stated. (I am Polish-American on one side and English on the other, so I am pretty damn close to actually being the color white.) But... that's probably not a good habit since people aren't homogeneous.

I don't know. Race is a touchy subject. I'm going to stop talking about it now.

The Colonel is one of my favorite characters. He reminds me of Oscar the Grouch - he's, well, grouchy, but in an endearing way. And he gives Miles (henceforth "Pudge") an excellent nickname! IRONY FOR DA LULZ.


Well, this was a shamefully shit first (second) post. SORRY. What can ya do? ("Stop procrastinating," answers the voice in my head.)

I’m trying to find the right balance between straight up discussing the book and relating my own forays into human civilization. I don’t want to be like, “well, the first letter on page 32 reminds me of the time when I was asked – nay, begged – to model by no less than fourteen agencies within a time span of three hours.” Whatever my flaws may be, I’m not that unabashedly narcissistic. (And also because the only time I've ever been asked to model was at the age of eight as my mom and I were walking past a vendor on the second floor of the mall. That, dear readers, is what we call a scam.) At the same time, people don’t often like reading other people’s dissertations about The Wonders of the Elusive Motif in this Very Important Book that You Don’t Understand. Especially not when there are 30 dissertations*. All in blog form.

Of course, I did just come up with that last paragraph while trying to establish “trust eyes” with myself in front of a full-length mirror, so perhaps I’m not an expert when it comes to not be egotistical…

*I mean “dissertation” in the “formal piece of writing way,” not the “needed to obtain a doctorate degree” way; as far as I know, I am not enrolled in graduate school.

Transitioning to "obscenity"

Welcome to BEDA. I'm not sure how all the crossposting is going to work but I do love the community vibe of the Ning and how much easier to is to find and comment on other blogs... so I'm really looking forward to that. *slightly maniacal chuckle*

I'm simply going to hop right into my topic*: bad words.

When you were a kid, were there words you weren't supposed to say? I know 'stupid' was one in my house. Seems pretty tame these days. The first time I heard someone say 'bitch' was when I was maybe seven. At the park in my previous townhouse complex, there frequented a boy whose name was Jimmy and he was considered mean. Then one time he called my friend-who-wasn't-a-very-good-friend-in-retrospect Miriam a bitch. That's the end of the story.

Anyway, it wasn't okay to say these words whether they were 'hell', 'shit', 'ass', 'doodoohead', 'bitch', or, God forbid, 'fuck.' I'm not sure how we knew what the words were or what the meant (we probably didn't) but we knew that we shouldn't say them.

But sometimes we wanted to.

This could easily be a blog post about how we choose the words that aren't okay to say. Why do we have a language with 'bad words' when we created them all? But it's actually about something about as tangible. So I ask, when was that moment when I went from an innocently spoken girl to someone who drops whatever language she feels like, and is comfortable with that, even when others aren't.

After Jimmy, I had friend who introduced me to the less guarded colloquialisms of our youth. She said those words and soon it caught on and I did, too--around her, anyway. Maybe I wanted to fit in. Maybe it was just nice to be in an environment where no one would be mad at me for saying the wrong word.

Those words traveled home and somehow, saying 'shit' was fine instead of 'shoot'. I could say 'what the hell' instead of 'what the heck'. Slowly, I transitioned into the unguarded language I use today.

How the fuck did that happen?

How did I miss the moment when it became okay to say that Professor Umbridge was a bitch in front of my parents? When did it become acceptable for me to comment on how fucked up the human race is? And on the flip side, when did it become normal for my parents to drop the 'f' bomb around me (not that they do, but in theory)? What is this batshit craziness?

p.s. I don't swear liberally around my parents. It's only sparingly and when I feel it's necessary. So please don't start thinking that every other word I utter to my mom is fuck. Because it's not. I'm still a little apprehensive about that. ;)

Question: Does your language change depending on your company? Also, was there ever a time when you heard someone say the 'f' word and it seemed totally wrong coming out of their mouth?

*What? I have a topic? I know, BEDA is mindblowing, even on day 1.