American schools and "social skills training"
William Blake Jr.
are the place where people are to learn social skills and the place
where people are to learn what they need to exist in America.
I state that there is no social skill, or indeed any kind of a skill,
worth learning in a cesspool of cruelty, hypocrisy and deception, and
that the reward one gets for keeping his mind clear of such corruption
is far greater than any ugliness that he or she may learn in such a
place.
For this reason I support homeschooling efforts, tutoring efforts,
early-college efforts, teaching software and other efforts that allow
people to learn the academic material while remaining free of the
contamination they would get in an American high school.
Now when I speak of contamination that takes place in American high
schools, I speak not of sexuality; I speak of the culture of
hideousness that develops in such "places of education." I speak of
people who attack smart kids for taking academics seriously and of
people who attack beautiful girls for exercising or seeking to be their
best. I speak of the contamination of American high schools - not with
sexuality, but with something far worse: A mindset that wants to claim
that it represents real world, to which anything pure - intellectual
pursuits, artistic pursuits, beauty, excellence, passion and idealism -
are supposedly not suited. A mindset that fosters the consciousness
that the most important skill one can learn is how to screw over the
next person; mistreat anyone who is different in any way; form a
consciousness of a clique or a beehive; shunt all their sins - of which
they of course partake eagerly - on some outcast (whether it be
Southern girls having sex with black kids and then accusing them of
rape or other versions of the same); and then, with the psychological
costs of their upbringing externalized on someone they see as a shunt
(who becomes essentially an emotional garbage dump for their
hideousness), claim themselves good, morally upstanding, realistic
American citizens now protecting America from "perverts."
What they don't want to see is their own garbage floating up and
hitting them in the face.
I am acquainted with the high school experience of a white girl in a
conservative upper-class neighborhood in Virginia who was in love with
a black boy. Other girls were making rumours about how she was having
sex with all the black boys in the bathroom. With their garbage dumped
on someone who, unlike them, was essentially honest, these angelic
Christian girls went back to their parents claiming themselves their
good children. I am acquainted with high school experience of a girl in
a supposedly Democratic neighborhood who was the only National Scholar
in the history of her school. Other girls were attacking her for
supposedly being vain (for studying; for exercising; for pursuing
intelligence) when what she was is self-motivated - self-motivation
that of course was destroyed by this abuse, as well as the faith in
humanity that motivated her desire to excel. The culture of basic
hideousness, time and again, resulted in attack on anything pure - on
anything that is excellent, beautiful, intelligent and sincere. And
those, boys and girls, who were most attuned to these things, came
under the most vicious attack.
Who then become seen as problem kids or worse, when what they are is
the only sincere, honest, principled and self-motivated people in the
picture.
I posit this question: What skill conceivably worthy of learning can be
mastered in such an "environment"? How to lie? How to degrade? How to
be a bully? How to externalize psychological costs and then claim
oneself decent citizen? I do not believe that America's youth needs to
know anything of the sort. American people know that well enough;
indeed they know it too well. To learn how to navigate a morrass of
cruelty and hypocrisy teaches people nothing worth knowing; it teaches
them how to perpetuate such a morrass. What else does it do? Destroy
anything good and pure in people. Destroy their faith in humanity.
Destroy their self-image. Destroy their motivation to excel.
I have a friend who is a biology teacher. He said that all the children
in his class were afraid to be different. Now I posit this question. Is
it possible to have a free country when its citizens are Afraid To Be
Different? Or does this result in covert totalitarianism taking place
in America and shaping people's thoughts, people's perceptions, and
ultimately their Lives into Perpetuation of Itself?
Does America benefit from that taking place, or is that a blight to
America and to the Western civilization?
Indeed what takes place is a reversal of value. The good comes under
vicious attack, while hideousness perpetuates and claims for itself
moral authority. Social skill? Not any skill worthy of knowing. For
people who claim that this gives people the understanding of real
world, my response is: The world is what people make of it, through
their actions, pursuant their values and beliefs. And to give people
such beliefs and such "values," is to create a social universe that
should never have - was never worthy of - having been created. A social
universe of cruelty, greed, ugliness and corruption. A social universe
of mental oppression. A social universe that cannot stand for there to
be anything good and pure. A social universe that is a betrayal of the
civilization and a betrayal of humanity as such.
Is this what America wants to be? Is this the "social skill" that
American people are seeking to instill in their children? Is this the
kind of people they want their children to be? Is this the morals they
seek their children to learn - the ideology they seek to impart them -
the skills they want them to have - the kind of humanity with which
American people want to populate America? And then what, claim those
who rightly refused such hideousness to possess criminal personality?
Claim those who came in with self-motivation, faith in humanity and
desire to excel to be inferior to the kind of people who make rumors
that a girl is having sex in the bathroom with everyone, and the people
who are afraid to be different and create social dynamics that make
them afraid?
I repeat, What skill worth knowing is learned in a cesspool of cruelty,
hideousness, deception and mental oppression? What Character worth
Building is created in such a place? A character of honor? A character
of principle? A character of integrity? A character of liberty? Or a
character of dishonesty, cruelty, hypocrisy, degeneracy, oppression and
malice?
Indeed I would argue that people whom such people regard as - ahem -
"dangerous" - are the only people worth knowing; for they are the only
ones that could possibly be conceived as (to whatever degree) not being
complicit (or not being completely complicit) in this crime against
humanity and as such not being contaminated or not being completely
contaminated by their participation in it.
And then the perpetrators of this crime against humanity -
perpetrators of thought totalitarianism and feeling totalitarianism
wedded to cruelty, nastiness and deception - now all grown up and
endowed with some kind of supposed ethical mission to purify America,
go on claiming teenage girls who cut in order to deal with the
hideousness around them as being mentally defective? Claiming people
who rightly refused to partake in this hideousness as sociopaths? I'll
tell you this: I would rather be surrounded by a thousand so-called
sociopaths than be acquainted with a single "nice" "normal" citizen
shaped by this malignancy and complicit in its perpetuation. "Cruelty"
of supposed "sociopaths"? Nothing I've seen done by any supposed
sociopath, from K.E. to Edmond to David to Jonah to Layo, remotely
matches the cruelty of people indoctrinated into such "social
covenants" or the attack dogs that serve them. And when the cruelty
does come out, as it did in the case of David, it's out of the belief
that he is serving society - or whatever little gang he is claiming to
be his version of the same.
This the place where forms American character? This its "normality,"
its "sanity, its "realism," its "morals"? This is its "liberty,"
with everyone being made afraid to be different while indulging
completely in abuse and false accusation? This is indeed what gives
argument's force to religions that claim that man's only nature is sin.
I stand here to say that my nature is that of someone who pursued
excellence and sought to achieve for the sake of humanity until I found
out what humanity around me was. I've met more worthwhile people
afterwards, and my motivation came back to me. Either they were
survivors of horrible things at the hands of "normal" Americans, or
they saw through this deception at one time or another and then took
charge, while focusing on something truer and higher, and thus
leapfrogged their way out of the swamp and into a place worthy of being
had.
Let me ask this. What would someone sincere, motivated, and good of
will do when surrounded by hideousness? Would he take its supposed
"values" seriously, or would he see their blatant hypocrisy and
vileness? Would he then take the supposed social morality, shouted by
the same perpetrators of this degeneracy, seriously?
Would he become a man of ethics and principle? Or would he revolt
against this and all other forms of social deception and either derive
whatever morality he ends up getting from someplace better and
different (and of course rightfully hostile to this abomination), or
become one of the so-called sociopaths and go through life without
ethics out of the mistaken but understandable notion (given the actions
of people around them) that all ethics are lies?
So I repeat once again: What possible skill worthy of knowing can be
built in a morass of cruelty, nastiness, hypocrisy and deception? Not
any skill worth teaching one's kids, if one is at all serious about
one's kids possessing any kind of principle or sincerity. And to the
people of any kind of sincerity, who either have children of that age
or children about to turn that age, I say this: If you want them to
continue excelling and to have any kind of purity, keep them away from
the swamp of hideousness that are American high schools. Homeschool
them, hire tutors, have them skip grades and go on to college. Have
them learn "social skills" that are worthy of knowing, in an
environment worthy of teaching them. And keep alive their motivation
and their sincerity and their faith in humanity, until they find people
(and become people) who are in fact worthy of such a faith.
Ilya Shambat.
Jack C Lipton
issues w/ regular vs home schooling w/r/t to
social skills, to which I remark:
The social skills that regular schools provide
is a "thick skin" when dealing with others.
A child who does not learn how to cope with
the cruelty of their peers (yet hopefully does
not choose to emulate this behavior) will not
be able to function when they finally have to
interact with others.
Should social cliques and anti-social behavior
be tolerated, much less encouraged?
No, it shouldn't, but finding a way to break
the cycle of abuse may be a bit tougher.
One of the problems we have in what passes for
general society is a tolerance for "pranks".
Pranks are often not seen as criminal though,
to the victims, they are criminal acts. When
we, as a society, tolerate these, the line
moves and more "becomes tolerable" to those
who've not yet been victimized.
The problem is that tolerance of people's
differences are needed but, at the same time,
an agreed-upon "minimum level of politeness"
must be taught and enforced along with various
checks and balances.
IOW, our schools need to teach "civilized
behaviors" in such a way that adherence is a
requirement before one can progress.
Finally, "civilized behavior" *must* include a
basic distrust for any/all "authority" figures
in such a way that people learn to observe and
weigh as many factors as possible.
Sadly, our current governmental structures
would rather turn out people ready to become
slave labor...
--
Jack C Lipton | cupasoup at pele dot cx | http://www.asstr.org/~CupaSoup/
"As much as we _value_ pleasure in life, *pain* sets the exchange rate." -me
Matthew Russotto
William Blake Jr. <ibsh...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>There are many people who are of the opinion that American high schools
>are the place where people are to learn social skills and the place
>where people are to learn what they need to exist in America.
Oh, no. American high schools are the place where people are to
practice their social skills. If you ain't learned 'em by then, your
place is as a practice dummy.
>I state that there is no social skill, or indeed any kind of a skill,
>worth learning in a cesspool of cruelty, hypocrisy and deception,
I dunno, sounds like a good preparation for much of the world at large.
(rest of the Ilyaspew deleted)
--
There's no such thing as a free lunch, but certain accounting practices can
result in a fully-depreciated one.
Matthew Russotto
Jack C Lipton <cupa...@peElMe.cx> wrote:
>A child who does not learn how to cope with
>the cruelty of their peers (yet hopefully does
>not choose to emulate this behavior) will not
>be able to function when they finally have to
>interact with others.
The problem with this thesis is that many of the coping mechanisms
which can be used in the real world are unavailable in schools.
>Finally, "civilized behavior" *must* include a
>basic distrust for any/all "authority" figures
>in such a way that people learn to observe and
>weigh as many factors as possible.
Given the quality of school authorities, you'd think that schools
_would_ teach distrust for authority, inadvertantly. Mostly, though,
they don't; maybe it's related to Stockholm Syndrome.
Larisa
Jack C Lipton wrote:
> Ilya Shambat, using another name, remarked on
> issues w/ regular vs home schooling w/r/t to
> social skills, to which I remark:
>
> The social skills that regular schools provide
> is a "thick skin" when dealing with others.
>
> A child who does not learn how to cope with
> the cruelty of their peers (yet hopefully does
> not choose to emulate this behavior) will not
> be able to function when they finally have to
> interact with others.
Interact with whom? With a whole bunch of random people of the same
age whom I can't escape? Sorry - I've never been in such a situation
as an adult. Now, if I were in a mental hospital or a prison, I'd be
very grateful for the social skills I learned at school - those are
similar environments (one is completely powerless, one's life is ruled
by authority figures who are above the law, one is thrown in with a
bunch of random people with whom one has to interact - that's an
institutional situation).
The only social "lessons" I learned at school were survival tactics;
always follow a grownup when walking home from school (otherwise "they"
will get me alone), never enter a staircase alone (or someone will push
me or spit on me from above), never turn my back on a crowd of boys
(you never know...), don't expect authority figures to help (they never
did), never speak to anyone, never relax, always look for potential
escape routes - etc, etc etc. I learned those the hard way - by seeing
what happened when I didn't follow those rules. I'm lucky that I did
not end up permanently disabled or dead from some of the "fun" my
classmates had with me. Social skills? Sure. If I'm ever in prison,
I'll be able to survive. But in the "real world"? None of those
skills are applicable.
When I interact with others as an adult, first of all, I do not have to
put up with physical abuse. If a coworker or a client hits me, I have
considerable recourse, ranging from simply leaving the workplace to
suing them for assault. I also know that the authority figures I
appeal to, if I do appeal to authority figures, are going to be
considerably more impartial than the authority figures I had as a child
(who did not like me and showed their dislike every chance they got).
Also, I can choose the people I interact with, to some degree. As a
small business owner, I can (and do) choose my clients. I choose the
people in my social circle. I can't always choose my acquaintances,
but I do have considerable latitude in avoiding unpleasant people.
That is not a skill taught in school, because a child has no such
opportunity.
I acquired what little social skills I have as an adult, not as a
schoolkid. And it took me the longest time to *unlearn* the "social
skills" I learned in school.
LM
Denny Wheeler
wrote:
<major snippage>
>I acquired what little social skills I have as an adult, not as a
>schoolkid. And it took me the longest time to *unlearn* the "social
>skills" I learned in school.
This makes me wonder if perhaps the "social skills" you had to unlearn
are what caused you all the trouble in the first place.
--
-denny-
"Do your thoughts call ahead or do they just arrive at your mouth unannounced?"
"It's come as you are, baby."
-over the hedge
sewiv
Denny Wheeler wrote:
> On 8 Nov 2005 22:15:08 -0800, "Larisa" <purple...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> <major snippage>
>
> >I acquired what little social skills I have as an adult, not as a
> >schoolkid. And it took me the longest time to *unlearn* the "social
> >skills" I learned in school.
>
> This makes me wonder if perhaps the "social skills" you had to unlearn
> are what caused you all the trouble in the first place.
"Blame the victim", Denny?
--
Sandy
StealthGoth Pan
> I posit this question: What skill conceivably worthy of learning can be
> mastered in such an "environment"? How to lie? How to degrade? How to
> be a bully?
Why take only the negative tack? Why is there no mention of those that
learned just the opposite - along with how to DEAL with lies, degrading
and bullies? THe world, as Matthew has already pointed out, is full of
all of this and my going to an American high school has prepared me to
deal with that and deal I did. If I didn't go to high school my first
step into the Real Worlk [tm] would have resulted in a pure niavete
that would have easily found me roasted the moment the door behind me
closed.
High school isn't the only place with those kinds of people. And my
high school days sucked, as some A.G.'ers will tell you from past
postings, but I am grateful that it taught me that the world ISN'T
nice...because I wouldn't have had the knowledge and ability to handle
it that I needed to make a small corner of it that IS.
===>StealthGoth PAN
Who is nice even when you're watching, sometimes.
Brenda
"William Blake Jr." <ibsh...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1131466090.9...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
That's it. That's the ticket. Home schooling will really teach them the
social skills they need to survive in the world. Good plan. NOT
Sometimes Ilya, you remind me of someone ready to take a gun and shoot at
everyone. It must be awful to hate the world so passionately. I do feel
sorry for you.
Panurge
> Why is there no mention of those that learned just the opposite -
> along with how to DEAL with lies, degrading and bullies?
Because there aren't that many of them?
I got *plenty* of advice all through my high school years, all of it
well-intentioned, all of it seemingly wise, and most of it useless. (I
kept interpreting "Don't let it bother you" as "Don't let them know it's
bothering you--hold it all inside". And I didn't appreciate, as I saw
it, being told I was wrong to feel the way I did.) What I needed to
hear was, "It's *their* problem, and feel free to let them know that.
Why are you even wasting your time trying to get someone like that to
like you? You're better than that." No one ever told me that, and by
the time I figured it out for myself, I was years out of high school.
American schools provide "social skills training" in the same sense that
farmers teach their children to swim by throwing them in the pond. Is
it the kids' fault if they drown occasionally?
One problem was that I thought there was something wrong with me unless
*everybody* liked me--something I still go through sometimes. I'd be a
totally fun person to pick on even if I didn't have the oddball gene.
Eventually I just got tired of my own tendencies, though they still
bubble to the surface occasionally. And I think a big part of me still
thinks I'm in high school. This is not good, and it ought to be called
out, irrespective of how it affects me. It's right to know how to deal
with jerks, but it's also right to call for reformed social structures.
(Question: Is this just an American thing? Is it really any worse here
than in other countries?)
> The world, as Matthew has already pointed out, is full of
> all of this and my going to an American high school has prepared me to
> deal with that and deal I did.
Heh. I never learned in time. Now I'll never know for sure whether I
learned anything or not.
> If I didn't go to high school my first
> step into the Real Worlk [tm] would have resulted in a pure niavete
> that would have easily found me roasted the moment the door behind me
> closed.
I've found the Real World [tm] to be a good deal nicer than high school
(or even grammar school), even if it's not perfect. I suppose most of
us (even the popular kids) grow up eventually. But just how much should
any of us have to take?
--
"There is no excellent beauty which hath not some
strangeness in the proportion." --Sir Francis Bacon
Jim Ledford
>
[....]
> > Homeschool
> > them, hire tutors, have them skip grades and go on to college. Have
> > them learn "social skills" that are worthy of knowing,
> >
> >
>
> That's it. That's the ticket. Home schooling will really teach them the
> social skills they need to survive in the world. Good plan. NOT
be kind of difficult to learn how to deal effectively
with that mean little girl who was always putting bubble
gum in my hair.
if I was going to say something good for home schooling
it'd be about the food since it's always been real tough
for anyone else to beat mama's cooking.
:)
Denny Wheeler
No.
Kara
wrote:
>"StealthGoth Pan" <mar...@legendsmagazine.net> wrote:
>
>> Why is there no mention of those that learned just the opposite -
>> along with how to DEAL with lies, degrading and bullies?
>
>Because there aren't that many of them?
One of the most important social skills I learned was how to deal with
people like this, along with hot to do well while keeping my head
down. Norway is the 'land of equality' and one of the worst things
you can do is be better than anyone else.
>I got *plenty* of advice all through my high school years, all of it
>well-intentioned, all of it seemingly wise, and most of it useless. (I
>kept interpreting "Don't let it bother you" as "Don't let them know it's
>bothering you--hold it all inside". And I didn't appreciate, as I saw
>it, being told I was wrong to feel the way I did.)
Yes, I got that one to. 'Ignore them and they will stop'. Being a
girl I unfortunatl also got 'They are only flirting with you' a lot.
I tried to explain to the teacher that I did not enjoy this form of
'flirting' anf would appreciate it if it stoped. But she just thought
it was cute.
What I needed to
>hear was, "It's *their* problem, and feel free to let them know that.
>Why are you even wasting your time trying to get someone like that to
>like you? You're better than that." No one ever told me that, and by
>the time I figured it out for myself, I was years out of high school.
I was quite lucky in that I figured it out at 14. One of my best
friends started hanging out with the 'popular' crowd, so I got to tag
along a couple of times. They were idiots, and the stuff they did was
boring. I then found a couple of good friends of my own, and from
there things really started looking up.
>One problem was that I thought there was something wrong with me unless
>*everybody* liked me--something I still go through sometimes.
I went through a few years of hoping *somebody* would like me (other
than the librarian, as that was where I hid out most breaks), so I
tend to be happy with the ones I get. I have unfortunatly gone to the
other 'You don't like me? Fine, I don't like you either!'
>> If I didn't go to high school my first
>> step into the Real Worlk [tm] would have resulted in a pure niavete
>> that would have easily found me roasted the moment the door behind me
>> closed.
>
>I've found the Real World [tm] to be a good deal nicer than high school
>(or even grammar school), even if it's not perfect. I suppose most of
>us (even the popular kids) grow up eventually. But just how much should
>any of us have to take?
I'm looking to step out into the Real World (tm) (as soon as someone
gives me a job!), so nice to hear it's not as bad as school. Though I
have met enough people that didn't seem to manage the 'growing up'
bit.
sewiv
Denny Wheeler wrote:
> On 9 Nov 2005 06:51:51 -0800, "sewiv" <thes...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >Denny Wheeler wrote:
> >> On 8 Nov 2005 22:15:08 -0800, "Larisa" <purple...@yahoo.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> <major snippage>
> >>
> >> >I acquired what little social skills I have as an adult, not as a
> >> >schoolkid. And it took me the longest time to *unlearn* the "social
> >> >skills" I learned in school.
> >>
> >> This makes me wonder if perhaps the "social skills" you had to unlearn
> >> are what caused you all the trouble in the first place.
> >
> >"Blame the victim", Denny?
>
> No.
What else could you have meant?
--
Sandy
Kate Gladstone
> people who attack smart kids for taking academics seriously and of
> people who attack beautiful girls for exercising or seeking to be their
> best ...
One should not forget (as Ilya forgot) a third category:
people [students OR TEACHERS] who attack the smart-though-unbeautiful
"for exercising or seeking to be their best" (as in "How DARE that nerd
even dare to [wear popular clothes / try out for a sports team / write
an essay that gets accepted for the school magazine where only the
'right' children should have their creative works accepted / finally
bring up her grade in the only two subjects she found hard?!?!" -
_____ fill in the blank _____ )
Kate Gladstone - learn.to/handwrite - global2000.net/handwritingrepair
StealthGoth Pan
> Why is there no mention of those that learned just the opposite -
> along with how to DEAL with lies, degrading and bullies?
The Panurge said:
> Because there aren't that many of them?
Good point, I suppose it is a fact that there are more that come out of
the hubub radically changed for the worse than for the better. I have
a strange feeling though that if we were to poll alt.gothic you'd find
a much larger assortment of the "changed for the better" varieties.
Panurge then said:
> Is it the kids' fault if they drown occasionally?
Absolutely not, but there is a strong argument for Darwinism here.
Maybe that's a bit of a jaded response on the whole, but maybe a.g
would agree to some extent - if you can't hack it...?
Eventually you did learn it though. Some learn it while there (myself,
Kara), some a while later (yourself). But would you have learned it at
all had you not had the experience of high school? Though I admit it
would have been better had someone added the "If they don't like it..."
analogy to it. That's something I somehow figured out on my own,
though it did cost me a lot of heartache during the
personality-formulating years during and following. On the one hand -
I've made it out in the end. On the other, who's to say that my
supposed "bipolar disorder" and manic depression that still to this day
affects me on occasion can't be said to be a result of it, at least the
antisocial parts that feed it?
Panurge stated:
> I've found the Real World [tm] to be a good deal nicer than high school
> (or even grammar school), even if it's not perfect. I suppose most of
> us (even the popular kids) grow up eventually. But just how much should
> any of us have to take?
I've found that most areas of the Real World [tm] are nicer - but when
you find one of those not nicer patches it's particularly degenerative.
After all, kids can be malicious because they're kids - so it is
argued - but grown-ups have a means to their viciousness. Seeing that
viciousness show up in the "adult" Real World [tm] is especially
distressing because, for some reason, I tend to think that grown-ups
SHOULDN'T do that as they're supposed to KNOW better.
Additionally, the high school experience with that type of thing more
prevelant makes you have to guard from it on a near-daily basis while
the Real World [tm] experience makes it not as necessary, but those
times when it does tend to steam up I think I might have not been able
to handle it without the HS experience where I was forced to. I
wouldn't have the skillset, so to speak - the ability to walk away on
my own terms. For example, with what went down at my soccer club when
they forced me from coaching there, if not for knowing how to deal with
it and letting them to whatever beliefs they had about me and knowing
it really didn't matter - to me - I was able to walk away. My timely
resignation opened the doors to coach elsewhere, where instead I would
have still been biting after the whole thing at the original club, and
not doing what I wanted to do in the first place - coach. Without the
strength high school gave me to be able to say, "Well ok, I'm a loony."
and walk away without wanting to fight such an innocuous idea, I would
still be fighting it to this day.
I'm not quite sure if there's a going limit on how much you're supposed
to take in all this - but I'm willing to bet I've crossed mine sometime
in my junior year. My high school history teacher telling me that I
wouldn't graduate because, directly quoted, "People like you don't
graduate." was the icing on the proverbial cake. But obviously I never
reached the breaking point - at least not long term speaking. That I'm
aware of anyway...
Denny Wheeler
How are your analysis skills?
"social skills" (so-called) from school that she had to un-learn.
Suggestive that the "skills" in question aren't all that much 'social
skills'.
Note also that I said 'makes me wonder if'--
Or is that too difficult a concept? WONDER IF--sort of like 'this is
a possibility'
As to 'blame the victim'--you want to work on fixing the blame, feel
free. I prefer to try to fix problems.
Larisa
Kara wrote:
>
> I went through a few years of hoping *somebody* would like me (other
> than the librarian, as that was where I hid out most breaks), so I
> tend to be happy with the ones I get. I have unfortunatly gone to the
> other 'You don't like me? Fine, I don't like you either!'
I went through that stage, too. Now I'm at the "You don't like me?
Who cares? I've got plenty of people who like me" stage, which I think
is mentally healthy.
One does get over the effects of institutionalization - it just takes a
while, and some things take a long time to fade. I still have a slight
stutter; it may never go away, or it may fade. I no longer chew the
skin off my fingertips - that went away about 2 years after I got out
of that school. I got over the mental-health issues (though they tend
to recur in times of stress). I'm able to be sociable and friendly
with strangers - I think I got over the shyness and social phobia part.
(in high school, when I'd sit down at a cafeteria table, everyone else
sitting at that table would get up and move elsewhere - that tends to
make one shy)
> >> If I didn't go to high school my first
> >> step into the Real World [tm] would have resulted in a pure niavete
> >> that would have easily found me roasted the moment the door behind me
> >> closed.
> >
> >I've found the Real World [tm] to be a good deal nicer than high school
> >(or even grammar school), even if it's not perfect. I suppose most of
> >us (even the popular kids) grow up eventually. But just how much should
> >any of us have to take?
>
> I'm looking to step out into the Real World (tm) (as soon as someone
> gives me a job!), so nice to hear it's not as bad as school. Though I
> have met enough people that didn't seem to manage the 'growing up'
> bit.
My first foray into the "Real World" was a wonderful experience - no
comparison with school. Everyone was pleasant, friendly, willing to
help, willing to accept help from me - it was wonderful. I took my
work seriously, I did a good job - but the psychological part was just
as important, I think. I was the only person who could get along with
the local grouch, the local feminist wacko, the local slack-off, and
the local bigot - when others needed anything from either one of the
above, they asked me to go talk to them. Even though this office was
very much a male-only domain, and women engineers are still rather
uncommon creatures, I had no problems with sexism - even from the local
bigot. I don't know if I changed, or the situation changed, but
something did - everything finally "clicked" into place.
LM
Lots42
Kara wrote:
>
> I'm looking to step out into the Real World (tm) (as soon as someone
> gives me a job!), so nice to hear it's not as bad as school. Though I
> have met enough people that didn't seem to manage the 'growing up'
> bit.
The Real World has it's own lessons to learn. Snarl a little at work,
so the jerks don't try and take advantage of you. Mark your territory.
Manage your bosses, they are like puppies and if not watched, will pull
down the plants and pee in the dirt.
Jack C Lipton
> As to 'blame the victim'--you want to work
> on fixing the blame, feel free. I prefer
> to try to fix problems.
"Blame is for those who prefer to live in the
past; taking responsibility in building the
future, however, is the more interesting
choice." - me
(laughs maniacally)
"Define interesting..."
"Oh God, Oh God, we're all going to die?"
--
Jack C Lipton | cupasoup at pele dot cx | http://www.asstr.org/~CupaSoup/
"I ... am a stand-up Philosopher. I coalesce the vapors of human
experience into a logical and viable comprehension."
"Oh! You're a bull-sh1t artist! Did you bullsh1t last week?"
Lots42
Matthew Russotto wrote:
> Given the quality of school authorities, you'd think that schools
> _would_ teach distrust for authority, inadvertantly.
I learned to take authority's word with a grain of salt after some bomb
scares at my middle school. We sat in the -same- spot we did for fire
drills. Which was about thirty-forty feet from a brick wall. This, with
acres of playing fields.
Can we say shrapnel, boys and girls? Hurray!
Matthew Russotto
michaela
> people [students OR TEACHERS] who attack the smart-though-unbeautiful
> "for exercising or seeking to be their best" (as in "How DARE that
> nerd even dare to [wear popular clothes / try out for a sports team /
> write an essay that gets accepted for the school magazine where only
> the 'right' children should have their creative works accepted /
> finally bring up her grade in the only two subjects she found
> hard?!?!" - _____ fill in the blank _____ )
Just so's I know, is this satire or do I have to read the OP
for context?
- Michaela
Leigh
(Gods, this is long. I didn't mean for it to be this long. Or this
rambling, but
it's too late at night to edit it and I think I'm making a couple
points....)
*
*
*
OTOH there was the report on Primetime tonight about proactive reactions to
school shooting scenarios.
Before the tv team showed up they'd been doing the same old same old:
hide in designated classrooms behind locked doors and hope the shooter
doesn't get in.
So the Primetime crew put in all sorts of cameras and stuff and brought
in two
security experts to play the shooters (using flashlights on the ends of
stick-rifles), and
recruited 100 kids and some teachers and school security to 'play' in it,
and the kids reacted as they had been taught to, even when there were
escape routes
available to the outside.
A lot of the kids 'died' in the scenario and a couple of the teachers
did too
before the cop assigned to respond to the school (who was waiting at the
PD) could show up.
Oh and the kids who did get out of the building ended up sitting across
the road where anyone with
a rifle could shoot at them through a window. That was brought up too.
So they talked to the kids and went through the videotapes of what they
did and suggested
they think about what they did and where they went and then they would
do the same scenario
again.
Except this time they 'sealed off' the front doors that a bunch of kids
had left by to make it a bit
harder (criss-crossed it with yellow security tape so that if there was
a real emergency they could
be used...).
A lot more of the kids lived in this iteration. Even managing to get
out through 'unobvious' exits
(emergency doors down side corridors that kids forget about because
they're not supposed to use
them normally for example).
And the security expert had a couple valid points. Anything can be a
weapon in this situation
and a lot of things can be used to break your way out too. (the guy
through a PC tower through a
window as an example....)
Of course this doesn't quite help the average HS kid because most
schools would rather have
the students act as sheep and let the teachers lead, and then they don't
teach the teachers to
act proactively/effectively in an emergency (the recent incident in
Tennessee notwithstanding).
This got me thinking about the high school I went to. 10 seperate and
discrete buildings
(well, 8 if you count the ones jointed together as one unit) on a very
open campus with, at the time
I went there, 3 security guards to cover the whole space (which probably
explains why the football
and wrestling teams (mostly the same guys) were sort of deputized (mind
you this only worked
because they were genuinely nice levelheaded guys who didn't let it go
to their heads. I don't know
what the school is doing now...or if the current crop is decent or have
become idiotic BMOCs)).
But back then the worst physical incidents that could be imagined was a
fistfight that turned ugly.
Yes, some people did carry knives onto the campus, but mostly it was
understood that you didn't
pull them on someone unless they pulled one first (and it was the
fastest way to get expelled and
the 'alternative school' was, well....pretty much just a prison where
they let you go home to sleep.
Nobody, not even the true idiots, wanted to end up there. And that's
not even mentioning the
criminal charges....). Guns, and they were available, was something one
simply did not bring on
campus even though there was a really good chance that you wouldn't get
caught (no metal detectors
and nobody searched anything or anybody that I heard about the 4 years I
was there).
And like I said, it got me thinking. If (for reasons I could not being
to come up with) an organized
attack on the school occurred, in most of the buildings, most of the
kids inside would be out of luck.
We're talking buildings with 1 central corridor and stairs at either
end, 3 or more stories high.
No secondary corridors in most of the buildings at all, nor any nooks
and crannies to hide in.
Sure the kids on the first floor of each building could get out through
the windows, but the rest? Sitting ducks.
No locks on most of the doors, no fire-escapes, and damned few
protrusions so you couldn't climb
down, at least not easily, if you were willing to try that.
About the only thing that might save you (unless you went out the window
and dropped and didn't
break your legs or some other body-part on landing) would be to attack
the attackers.
And the program suggested that too: fire extinguishers apparently make
decent 'smoke grenade'
effects. And you can throw them.
Most desks (especially the ones where the desk and chair are one unit)
are too unwieldly, but
there are always books and other items that can be used.
But the problem would be getting the kids to realize they had the option
of fighting back.
And the school culture in this country pretty much teaches you not to
fight back, not to question,
not to take responsibility for your own safety. School teaches you to
be a sheep.
Which is what happened in the first scenario on Primetime.
Which brings us back to the herd/us vs the other (where 'other' could be
anyone who isn't part of your group)
mentality. I'm with Larissa (although I'll extrapolate from what she
has previously described as well
as her posts in this thread). It isn't just the 'in crowd' or the
bullies or the daily degredation done to you
by your so-called-peers, it's the adult indifference or outright
hostility to those kids they see as a 'problem'.
And not just because the kid is a 'troublemaker'. He/she could be too
smart, ask too many questions, or
even be just 'dumb' enough not to understand the material in the way it
is presented. And that doesn't
even touch on the teachers who are outright bigots (of whatever stripe).
And it is true that, in order to make the entirety act as sheep, the
administration (and this includes the teachers,
aides and anyone else who might be considered to be 'in authority') tend
to 'beat down the nails that stand up',
on top of the individual teacher's antipathy or hostility toward any
individual student.
My high school was different from the norm because for the most part
everyone was there to learn
and there were enough programs offered that even if you were not
academically oriented you could still
find something you liked if you hadn't just gone to one of the technical
schools. And most of the teachers
were pretty reasonable (there were a few exceptions, but overall they
were okay). And the atmosphere was
not 'you are mandated to be here until you turn 16 or you die or get
expelled' but rather 'we are here to
help you learn and explore and discover what you want to do with your
life' which is a completely different
vibe, I gather, than what is the atmosphere of most high schools (most
of whom SAY they are there to
help you grow but in reality have absolutely nothing to recommend them
beyond the average juvie detention
facility's offerings).
No, the 'has nothing to recommend it beyond the offerings of the average
JDF' was my junior high school.
I had liked school up until then. Even when I was having problems
academically (math, mostly) I had
not felt as if I was beating on the wrong side of the glass and people
on the 'right side' of the glass couldn't
hear me or see me. But I did there. With two exceptions it was the
worst 2 years of my academic life.
Mind you it pales in comparison with Larissa's experiences (and I'm sure
some others here as well), but
between the idiotic rules (worse than elementary school!) and being
picked on by kids I'd never seen
before in my life, and the utter and apparent lack of interest in the
subjects by the teachers (who mostly
seems to be rejects from the rest of the system and who were just
waiting for retirement), and their
attitude that anything between students was not their problem (not even
if the only agreement the two
students could come up with was that they wanted someone to adjucate
their argument), and a fairly
arbitrary and draconian vice principal (in both the 'cold blooded' and
'severe' senses) who seemed to
enjoy sending everyone involved in something stupid to detention even
when all witnesses were saying
that one of the parties was being victimized (either was not fighting
back or had not done anything to
instigate whatever had started the altercation), and... well, you get
the picture.
At the end of those two years I was willing to throw in the towel. I
didn't care anymore, if this was the
stuff I had to look forward to until I graduated high school.
And then 9th grade happened. HS: an open campus, a sense of school
spirit (not in the rah rah
football games and school booster sense, but the atmosphere itself),
teachers that actually seemed
like they wanted to be there, and lo and behold I was mostly in classes
with the same bunch of idiots
(in the affectionate sense) that I had been with since 4th grade (I was
in classes with them in JHS too
but it was like we were all locked in our own private hells...). I
think if I had gone into a 'normal'
high school I probably would have dropped out at 16, but here I was in a
school with a tradition going
back to 1854 with a large core of former students who had come back to
teach, with a student body
most of whom could say 'my mom/dad/grandparents/etc went here', and with
probably one of the most
utterly cool and laid back security teams on the planet (no, seriously.
Ozzy was the most reasonable
of them, but the other two acted like everybody's aunt and uncle who you
didn't see too often...not
too 'cool', but not too severe either. They knew everybody and
everybody knew them and knew if you
went to them with a problem it would be handled quietly and without any
fuss. One of their main
mantras was 'any paperwork is too much paperwork' so if they didn't
actually have to write something
up by simply talking to a kid about their behavior it was all good).
And our principal at the time was
unique. For one thing he walked around before school started talking to
kids at random, listening
to the things they had to say and actually implimenting stuff based on
those conversations.
Once school was in session you had to get past his secretary (motto:
'none shall pass!'),
which was impossible, but before first bell he was completely
accessible, and anything he saw
going on then was 'officially ignored' unless someone was getting hurt.
Surprisingly this fostered a sense that
'this guy is pretty okay, maybe we need to listen to him'. He also,
prior to my attending the
school, had actually gotten a couple of the local gangs together and
basically had them agree to
leave their outside crap at the door which is why the worst that ever
happened there was a
fistfight that got out of control. He didn't care what you did when you
weren't in school, but once you
stepped on campus you were one of his kids. And, well, the shorthand is
'and siblings don't fight'.
I don't know what she's like now. They have another principal and a lot
of the teachers I knew have
retired (which is what happens when you've been gone for over twenty
years), and things have changed.
But I took a look at the school's homepage and the important stuff
doesn't seem to have gotten lost.
OTOH, as I suggested above, they don't (or didn't when I went there)
teach kids to think outside the box
when confronted with the unexpected (like other students deciding to
'Columbineize' the school...)
and the buildings are not designed to thwart any such attack.
But on the other-other hand, going there is generally a good experience,
so the chances of students
shooting up the place is dramatically lowered, although outsiders would
find it easier to infiltrate than most
schools....
--Leigh
Denny Wheeler
wrote:
>Denny Wheeler wrote:
>> As to 'blame the victim'--you want to work
>> on fixing the blame, feel free. I prefer
>> to try to fix problems.
>
>"Blame is for those who prefer to live in the
> past; taking responsibility in building the
> future, however, is the more interesting
> choice." - me
>
>(laughs maniacally)
>
>"Define interesting..."
>"Oh God, Oh God, we're all going to die?"
Old Irish curse:
May you live in interesting times.
Ken Ward
<den...@TANSTAAFL.zipcon.net.INVALID> wrote:
>On Fri, 11 Nov 2005 03:45:04 GMT, Jack C Lipton <cupa...@peElMe.cx>
>wrote:
>
>>Denny Wheeler wrote:
>>> As to 'blame the victim'--you want to work
>>> on fixing the blame, feel free. I prefer
>>> to try to fix problems.
>>
>>"Blame is for those who prefer to live in the
>> past; taking responsibility in building the
>> future, however, is the more interesting
>> choice." - me
>>
>>(laughs maniacally)
>>
>>"Define interesting..."
>>"Oh God, Oh God, we're all going to die?"
>
>Old Irish curse:
>May you live in interesting times.
1. I thought it was a Chinese curse.
2. From my somewhat limited knowledge of Irish history, this is
pretty much true all the time.
sewiv
Denny Wheeler wrote:
> On 10 Nov 2005 06:39:52 -0800, "sewiv" <thes...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >Denny Wheeler wrote:
> >> On 9 Nov 2005 06:51:51 -0800, "sewiv" <thes...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >
> >> >Denny Wheeler wrote:
> >> >> On 8 Nov 2005 22:15:08 -0800, "Larisa" <purple...@yahoo.com>
> >> >> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> <major snippage>
> >> >>
> >> >> >I acquired what little social skills I have as an adult, not as a
> >> >> >schoolkid. And it took me the longest time to *unlearn* the "social
> >> >> >skills" I learned in school.
> >> >>
> >> >> This makes me wonder if perhaps the "social skills" you had to unlearn
> >> >> are what caused you all the trouble in the first place.
> >> >
> >> >"Blame the victim", Denny?
> >>
> >> No.
> >
> >What else could you have meant?
>
> How are your analysis skills?
> "social skills" (so-called) from school that she had to un-learn.
> Suggestive that the "skills" in question aren't all that much 'social
> skills'.
The "skills" were learned in response to the problems. How could they
possibly have caused the problems?
--
Sandy
snowflake
' that I made true friends. I was never in one of the groups at school, I
was always a bit of a misfit and didnt do all those things that teenagers
are supposed to do! But I wouldnt change those school years for the world!
Looking back it made me realise early on that you have three choices,
conform, be miserable, or say to hell with it. As soon as I said to hell
with it at around 15 years of age I suddenly found my niche in life.
I would never consider taking my children out of school. My youngest
daughter (10 at the time) was in tears for nearly a week after school last
year. Her little group of friends were bickering amongst themselves and she
felt torn between the two warring factions. I asked what she wanted and she
said to be friends with all of them. I told her to be friends with them all,
they would soon accept it! This year the two groups are still formed and
still fighting between themselves. My daughter stuck to her principles and
this year had both groups at her birthday party, telling them to behave and
no fighting (everything went very smoothly). Where else would she have
learnt to stick to her guns and choose her friends for herself?
The desire to wrap your children up in cotton wool does nothing for their
self esteem or ability to cope with the real world. They have to learn all
aspects of life not just the easy option! Home schooling cocoons the child
in my opinion, leaving them unable to make their own decisions in life when
they only have their parents as role models.
To be an individual requires the knowledge and experience to see what is on
offer, not just what the parents decide is best for them. To the same degree
that I took my children to church when they were younger so they had an
educated choice on whether Christianity was for them or not, the choice they
have made is theirs....not mine!
Part of growing as an individual is to make the decision for yourself on
what is right or wrong, without experiences, whether good or bad, this
decision cannot be made.
The skill to be learnt in such an environment is that of being yourself! The
skill is to go through school, or life, being true to yourself and not
dragged in to anything you know to be wrong for yourself or for the society
you wish to live in.
My eldest child is a maths geek (I use the term fondly), in the top group
and taking exams early. At the same time she dresses (as she has always
done) in the way she feels expresses herself the way she wants. She laughs
that she didnt have a stage being goth as some kids do, but had a stage
being normal! To all extents and purposes she should be an outcast, but her
ability to accept herself and not conform to others has in fact made her
highly popular.
What skill has she learnt at school? To stand up for yourself, to be
yourself, to love yourself and all others will follow. Imagine a school
where all those ready to be themselves are excluded, the stepford wives
springs to mind.
Or am I just lucky my children go to school in England?
Snowy
the Danimal
> To be an individual requires the knowledge and experience to see what is on
> offer, not just what the parents decide is best for them. To the same degree
> that I took my children to church when they were younger so they had an
> educated choice on whether Christianity was for them or not, the choice they
> have made is theirs....not mine!
Did you also expose them to other religions? And to rational thinking,
something every religion systematically rejects?
> Part of growing as an individual is to make the decision for yourself on
> what is right or wrong, without experiences, whether good or bad, this
> decision cannot be made.
Yes and no. Experience is a good teacher, but humans have advanced
beyond the animal stage by also being able to learn from the
experiences
of others, without necessarily having to experience everything
firsthand.
For example, I have never electrocuted myself, but I trust the
experiences
of others to tell me this is something I should try to avoid.
There are many similar examples, suggesting that perhaps one of the
best lessons you can teach a child is how to learn things without
experiencing them.
Do you expect your daughter to learn the drawbacks of becoming an
unmarried teenaged mother by actually becoming an unmarried teenaged
mother? Do you think this is a decision that cannot be made without
experiences?
> The skill to be learnt in such an environment is that of being yourself!
Nonsense. You might cripple your children if they believe that, unless
by some stroke of good fortune they happen to be what others want.
The key to getting along with others is to show people what they want
to see, and to tell people what they want to hear.
Psychologists have found that the most popular people are generally
the most skillful liars.
For example, if you see someone who looks like shit, you will not
ingratiate yourself with that person by saying "You look like shit
today," even though that's what you think. That other person is not
interested in having you "be yourself." Instead that other person
wants to hear that he or she looks nice, regardless of what you
really think.
Similarly, if a man sees a strikingly beautiful woman, it tends to
backfire if he tells her how strikingly beautiful he finds her, because
most people have similar notions of beauty so she's probably tired
of hearing it and wants to be appreciated for something she's not,
such as intelligent. Therefore, the clever man will not call attention
to
her trait which gets all the intention, but instead find some way to
credibly praise her where she is deficient and craves approval.
It's only safe to "be yourself" when you are alone. Accordingly, by
teaching your children to "be themselves," you are teaching them
the habits of solitude. If they are comfortable being loners, that's
cool, but not everyone considers it ideal to live as a recluse.
I should point out that computers should steadily increase our
ability to "be ourselves," by increasing the scope for customizing
our own personal environments and reducing our need to interact
so much with other humans. Perhaps someday each of us can
live in our own largely self-sufficient virtual reality, surrounded by
artificial companions who not only tolerate our endless quirks and
eccentricities, but actively encourage them.
> The
> skill is to go through school, or life, being true to yourself and not
> dragged in to anything you know to be wrong for yourself or for the society
> you wish to live in.
Yes, if your goal is to be a Jeremiah, denouncing every evil and
progressing from an Angry Young Man to a Grumpy Old Man.
But fortunately for most people, they can easily rationalize getting
dragged by the various majorities into anything they know to be
wrong for themselves and for the society they idealize.
For example, most people claim to deplore terrorism, but they
gleefully support terrorism by driving automobiles, because everybody
else does. If people really had any sort of absolute moral sense, they
could hardly function in society.
> My eldest child is a maths geek (I use the term fondly), in the top group
> and taking exams early. At the same time she dresses (as she has always
> done) in the way she feels expresses herself the way she wants. She laughs
> that she didnt have a stage being goth as some kids do, but had a stage
> being normal! To all extents and purposes she should be an outcast, but her
> ability to accept herself and not conform to others has in fact made her
> highly popular.
If she is popular, it is because she (somehow) conforms to what others
want from her.
The formula for popularity is simple, for teenagers. For girls, it is
enough
to be pretty and fashionable. For boys, the currency of popularity is
to
be tall, good-looking, and good at sports. There may be a few other
angles to work (for example, the short unathletic boys might excel
as musicians who can play the latest musical styles being marketed at
teenagers), but not many.
I can assure you, your daughter is for the most part a conformist. She
speaks, behaves, and dresses much more like her peers than, say,
the average teenager from Botswana emulates your daughter's peers.
Humans naturally conform to the norms of their relevant peer group.
That is why humans have "culture." If everybody did their own thing,
remaining "true to themselves," then the world would have no distinct
cultures. You wouldn't have most people in China doing their
stereotypical Chinese things, while most people in Norway are doing
their very different stereotypical Norwegian things, etc. Instead the
reality is that China is very different in many ways from Afghanistan
etc.
It's funny how humans are so relentlessly egotistical that we fancy
ourselves as bold individualists when 99% of the time we are
slavish emulators.
> What skill has she learnt at school? To stand up for yourself, to be
> yourself, to love yourself and all others will follow.
What about people who love themselves and all others do not follow?
For example, suppose your daughter was a homely obese glutton.
Being herself might mean gorging frequently on doughnuts. Would
that earn her the admiration of her peers?
Or suppose your daughter had a fondness for compulsive gambling,
or torturing housecats, or shooting up with heroin. Would you want
her to be true to herself if those things were her true loves? Or would
you rather that she learn to deny herself, so she could win society's
approval?
> Imagine a school
> where all those ready to be themselves are excluded, the stepford wives
> springs to mind.
It all depends on what "being themselves" happens to be.
The very fortunate happen to already be what others want. The rest of
us must learn to fake it.
> Or am I just lucky my children go to school in England?
William Gerald Golding's "Lord of the Flies" suggests your children
are lucky to remain in England, and not be marooned by themselves
on a tropical island. Granted, it's a work of fiction. But there's
something
oddly convincing about savagery with an English accent---it keys into
an ancestral fear we Americans harbor.
-- the Danimal
Ree
I think Denny is talking about a situation like mine. I am quite
emotionally volatile and when I was younger, my mother taught me, by
example, to have a fit whenever something went wrong. So when the kids
were mean to me, I would get upset and cry, which would make them do
more since they knew they could make me cry. It would then continue to
escalate. It's taken a long time and a lot of miles between me and
where I grew up to get away from the people who are in the habit of
being nasty to me just because they can. Once you get known for being
easy to hurt, even when you get past the really easy hurts, they just
keep going to the bigger attacks because they know you'll break.
Ree.
--
"But Martha, the deputy's job could be dangerous!"
"Hell, Spencer. Women get beaten up by enraged husbands, gang-raped by
drunken
good ol' boys, and hunted like deer by serial killers. Being a woman is
dangerous.
I'm just asking you to give me a gun, and more money to make up for it."
From "She Walks These Hills" by Sharyn McCrumb.
Lots42
teach kids to think outside the box
when confronted with the unexpected (like other students deciding to
'Columbineize' the school...)
and the buildings are not designed to thwart any such attack.
But on the other-other hand, going there is generally a good
experience,
so the chances of students
shooting up the place is dramatically lowered, although outsiders would
find it easier to infiltrate than most
schools....
--Leigh
----
My LJ friends tend to talk a heck of a lot on what they would do if a
zombie horde attacked their workplace.
Maybe they should be a creative writing exercise for kids. Nobody likes
imagining some teenager shooting up the place, but one can get kids
thinking how to escape if need if you talk about zombies. Because
zombies are cool.
I could have gotten out easier if my high school was shot up because,
in my freshman year I did a 'Weird Spots Of The School' as a creative
writing assignment. Of course, everyone thought I was a big weirdo.
Because I was.
snowflake
"the Danimal" <dmo...@mfm.com> wrote in message
news:1131724365.3...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> snowflake wrote:
> > To be an individual requires the knowledge and experience to see what is
on
> > offer, not just what the parents decide is best for them. To the same
degree
> > that I took my children to church when they were younger so they had an
> > educated choice on whether Christianity was for them or not, the choice
they
> > have made is theirs....not mine!
>
> Did you also expose them to other religions? And to rational thinking,
> something every religion systematically rejects?
Yes I have exposed them to other religions...without prejudice may I add.
Also, to add to my conviction that school is better than home, they are able
to meet people of their own age and different cultures etc via school, that
they would not be able to do if home taught as my own social circle does not
extend to people of other religions.
>
> > Part of growing as an individual is to make the decision for yourself on
> > what is right or wrong, without experiences, whether good or bad, this
> > decision cannot be made.
>
> Yes and no. Experience is a good teacher, but humans have advanced
> beyond the animal stage by also being able to learn from the
> experiences
> of others, without necessarily having to experience everything
> firsthand.
I agree that experience does not need to come first hand. But my daughter
has a friend that self harms, through the experience of association she has
made the decision NOT to join her!
>
> For example, I have never electrocuted myself, but I trust the
> experiences
> of others to tell me this is something I should try to avoid.
>
> There are many similar examples, suggesting that perhaps one of the
> best lessons you can teach a child is how to learn things without
> experiencing them.
>
> Do you expect your daughter to learn the drawbacks of becoming an
> unmarried teenaged mother by actually becoming an unmarried teenaged
> mother? Do you think this is a decision that cannot be made without
> experiences?
Yet again the experience of association with those in her own peer group has
more meaning than someone of my age telling her it wasnt the best thing to
do! I personally know no unmarried teenage mothers to introduce her to!
>
> > The skill to be learnt in such an environment is that of being yourself!
>
> Nonsense. You might cripple your children if they believe that, unless
> by some stroke of good fortune they happen to be what others want.
>
> The key to getting along with others is to show people what they want
> to see, and to tell people what they want to hear.
>
> Psychologists have found that the most popular people are generally
> the most skillful liars.
>
> For example, if you see someone who looks like shit, you will not
> ingratiate yourself with that person by saying "You look like shit
> today," even though that's what you think. That other person is not
> interested in having you "be yourself." Instead that other person
> wants to hear that he or she looks nice, regardless of what you
> really think.
>
> Similarly, if a man sees a strikingly beautiful woman, it tends to
> backfire if he tells her how strikingly beautiful he finds her, because
> most people have similar notions of beauty so she's probably tired
> of hearing it and wants to be appreciated for something she's not,
> such as intelligent. Therefore, the clever man will not call attention
> to
> her trait which gets all the intention, but instead find some way to
> credibly praise her where she is deficient and craves approval.
I beg to differ. I have heard all my children on occasions telling their
friends the truth rather than a 'white lie' to keep the peace. I do the
same with my friends. Maybe I associate with a more truthful group of
people than you do. I personally would rather know my butt looks big in
those jeans than make an idiot of myself strutting around in them. And
yes, my daughter did tell me my butt looked big....the jeans were not
bought! Come to think of it, my mother isnt averse to telling me I look
like shit when I do!
>
> It's only safe to "be yourself" when you are alone. Accordingly, by
> teaching your children to "be themselves," you are teaching them
> the habits of solitude. If they are comfortable being loners, that's
> cool, but not everyone considers it ideal to live as a recluse.
There is a major difference between being lonely and being alone. My second
eldest daughter is fond of her own company. On no occasion do I frog march
her down from her bedroom and tell her to socialize with the rest of the
family. She is happy on her own, as am I, but also happy with her friends.
Being comfortable with being alone does not mean an inevitable move to being
a recluse.
>
> I should point out that computers should steadily increase our
> ability to "be ourselves," by increasing the scope for customizing
> our own personal environments and reducing our need to interact
> so much with other humans. Perhaps someday each of us can
> live in our own largely self-sufficient virtual reality, surrounded by
> artificial companions who not only tolerate our endless quirks and
> eccentricities, but actively encourage them.
You see my point then? If you do not socialize or experience for
yourselves, you are just living a virtual life! If everybody were to
conform the way you seem to think is the norm, humans would be little more
than automotons. At which point in your argument is there any room for
individuality? Do you actually believe there is any room in society for
people to express an opinion of their own?
>
> > The
> > skill is to go through school, or life, being true to yourself and not
> > dragged in to anything you know to be wrong for yourself or for the
society
> > you wish to live in.
>
> Yes, if your goal is to be a Jeremiah, denouncing every evil and
> progressing from an Angry Young Man to a Grumpy Old Man.
I have quite a fondness for grumpy old men, at least they say what they
think!
>
> But fortunately for most people, they can easily rationalize getting
> dragged by the various majorities into anything they know to be
> wrong for themselves and for the society they idealize.
>
> For example, most people claim to deplore terrorism, but they
> gleefully support terrorism by driving automobiles, because everybody
> else does. If people really had any sort of absolute moral sense, they
> could hardly function in society.
Yet again you confuse me. Are you actually saying it is good that people
are unable to make their own moral decisions and follow like a pack of
sheep? I personally prefer to think that there are people out there that
are individual enough to make up their own minds about such things and stick
to them!
>
> > My eldest child is a maths geek (I use the term fondly), in the top
group
> > and taking exams early. At the same time she dresses (as she has always
> > done) in the way she feels expresses herself the way she wants. She
laughs
> > that she didnt have a stage being goth as some kids do, but had a stage
> > being normal! To all extents and purposes she should be an outcast, but
her
> > ability to accept herself and not conform to others has in fact made her
> > highly popular.
>
> If she is popular, it is because she (somehow) conforms to what others
> want from her.
She is popular because others have accepted (and like) her for what and who
she is.
>
> The formula for popularity is simple, for teenagers. For girls, it is
> enough
> to be pretty and fashionable. For boys, the currency of popularity is
> to
> be tall, good-looking, and good at sports. There may be a few other
> angles to work (for example, the short unathletic boys might excel
> as musicians who can play the latest musical styles being marketed at
> teenagers), but not many.
What an old fashioned notion!!! God help your kids if you have any. Why
dont I just send my daughters to finishing school so they can practise
fluttering their eyelashes and signing cheques? Is this honestly how the
high school system works in America?
>
> I can assure you, your daughter is for the most part a conformist. She
> speaks, behaves, and dresses much more like her peers than, say,
> the average teenager from Botswana emulates your daughter's peers.
>
Unfortunately the average teenager in Botswana has more to worry about than
what is their favourite band of the moment. My children are lucky enough to
have that advantage in life!
> Humans naturally conform to the norms of their relevant peer group.
> That is why humans have "culture." If everybody did their own thing,
> remaining "true to themselves," then the world would have no distinct
> cultures. You wouldn't have most people in China doing their
> stereotypical Chinese things, while most people in Norway are doing
> their very different stereotypical Norwegian things, etc. Instead the
> reality is that China is very different in many ways from Afghanistan
> etc.
>
> It's funny how humans are so relentlessly egotistical that we fancy
> ourselves as bold individualists when 99% of the time we are
> slavish emulators.
I would rather see that 1% raised to 2% by encouraging the individualism,
than roll over and expose my neck in the way you seem to prefer.
>
> > What skill has she learnt at school? To stand up for yourself, to be
> > yourself, to love yourself and all others will follow.
>
> What about people who love themselves and all others do not follow?
>
> For example, suppose your daughter was a homely obese glutton.
> Being herself might mean gorging frequently on doughnuts. Would
> that earn her the admiration of her peers?
Im sure she would find a friend who enjoyed doughnuts as much as she did and
conform away with her.
> Or suppose your daughter had a fondness for compulsive gambling,
> or torturing housecats, or shooting up with heroin. Would you want
> her to be true to herself if those things were her true loves? Or would
> you rather that she learn to deny herself, so she could win society's
> approval?
The words 'mental' and 'health' spring to mind.
>
> > Imagine a school
> > where all those ready to be themselves are excluded, the stepford wives
> > springs to mind.
>
> It all depends on what "being themselves" happens to be.
>
> The very fortunate happen to already be what others want. The rest of
> us must learn to fake it.
>
> > Or am I just lucky my children go to school in England?
>
> William Gerald Golding's "Lord of the Flies" suggests your children
> are lucky to remain in England, and not be marooned by themselves
> on a tropical island. Granted, it's a work of fiction. But there's
> something
> oddly convincing about savagery with an English accent---it keys into
> an ancestral fear we Americans harbor.
At last we find the answer, a morbid fear of the English accent! Lets face
it, those kids survived when others would die, maybe its what they learnt at
school that helped them along the way!
>
> -- the Danimal
>
My sympathies go out to you as your own individuality seems to have been
drowned under a sea of political correctness. Be careful not to walk on the
cracks in the pavement...its just not the done thing you know!
Snowy
Pete Turk
Danimal <dmo...@mfm.com> writes
>
>William Gerald Golding's "Lord of the Flies" suggests your children
>are lucky to remain in England, and not be marooned by themselves
>on a tropical island. Granted, it's a work of fiction. But there's
>something
>oddly convincing about savagery with an English accent---it keys into
>an ancestral fear we Americans harbor.
>
>-- the Danimal
>
Was there an accent? Funny that ... I never heard one! ;)
Pete Turk <Pe...@ragtag.demon.co.uk> ICQ# 11981084
RFA President and Moonshadow
--
May your doorstep ever be dirty.
-- Romany blessing
Pete Turk
yhaven.fsnet.co.uk> writes
>> dragged by the various majorities into anything they know to be
>> wrong for themselves and for the society they idealize.
>>
>> For example, most people claim to deplore terrorism, but they
>> gleefully support terrorism by driving automobiles, because everybody
>> else does. If people really had any sort of absolute moral sense, they
>> could hardly function in society.
>
>Yet again you confuse me. Are you actually saying it is good that people
>are unable to make their own moral decisions and follow like a pack of
>sheep? I personally prefer to think that there are people out there that
>are individual enough to make up their own minds about such things and stick
>to them!
>
>
>
Hi Snowy,
Think of Danimal as writing advice for those who wish
to _travel the path of least resistance_. He's pointing
out that, of the two stances, yours and his, his will
meet the lesser number of exceptions. Yes, his way is
belly-to-earth, dishonourable, not conducive to a
John Wayne, but there it is.
I used to think of his country as _the_ home of rugged
individualism, but that was when I'd watched cowboy
films at Saturday morning pictures. Now of course it's
all too obvious what it was/is about that country and
ours that Vietnam war objectors were objecting to.
But maybe Danimal is secretly trying to sting his
countrymen out of their apathy, as George Orwell did
when he wrote 1984. If so, my hat's off to both:
'In the past, at any rate throughout the Protestant
centuries, the idea of rebellion and the idea of
intellectual integrity were mixed up. A heretic --
political, moral, religious, or aesthetic -- was
one who refused to outrage his own conscience. His
outlook was summed up in the words of the Revivalist
hymn:
Dare to be a Daniel
Dare to stand alone
Dare to have a purpose firm
Dare to make it known
To bring this hymn up to date, one would have to add
a "Don't" at the beginning of each line.[...] "Daring
to stand alone" is ideologically criminal as well
as practically dangerous.'
-- George Orwell 'The Prevention of Literature' 1946
Brenda
"Jim Ledford" <jim...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:4372A6FE...@bellsouth.net...
LOL
A lot of people home school for a number of reasons but few do it because
they see schools as Ilya does.
Denny Wheeler
>
>Denny Wheeler wrote:
>> On 10 Nov 2005 06:39:52 -0800, "sewiv" <thes...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >Denny Wheeler wrote:
>> >> On 9 Nov 2005 06:51:51 -0800, "sewiv" <thes...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >
>> >> >Denny Wheeler wrote:
>> >> >> On 8 Nov 2005 22:15:08 -0800, "Larisa" <purple...@yahoo.com>
>> >> >> wrote:
>> >> >>
>> >> >> <major snippage>
>> >> >>
>> >> >> >I acquired what little social skills I have as an adult, not as a
>> >> >> >schoolkid. And it took me the longest time to *unlearn* the "social
>> >> >> >skills" I learned in school.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> This makes me wonder if perhaps the "social skills" you had to unlearn
>> >> >> are what caused you all the trouble in the first place.
>> >> >
>> >> >"Blame the victim", Denny?
>> >>
>> >> No.
>> >
>> >What else could you have meant?
>>
>> How are your analysis skills?
>> "social skills" (so-called) from school that she had to un-learn.
>> Suggestive that the "skills" in question aren't all that much 'social
>> skills'.
>
>The "skills" were learned in response to the problems. How could they
>possibly have caused the problems?
You're assuming.
Denny Wheeler
Actually, I was trying not to.
> I am quite
>emotionally volatile and when I was younger, my mother taught me, by
>example, to have a fit whenever something went wrong. So when the kids
>were mean to me, I would get upset and cry, which would make them do
>more since they knew they could make me cry. It would then continue to
>escalate. It's taken a long time and a lot of miles between me and
>where I grew up to get away from the people who are in the habit of
>being nasty to me just because they can. Once you get known for being
>easy to hurt, even when you get past the really easy hurts, they just
>keep going to the bigger attacks because they know you'll break.
>
>Ree.
--
Denny Wheeler
wrote:
>>Old Irish curse:
>>May you live in interesting times.
>
>1. I thought it was a Chinese curse.
Probably even an old Urdu curse.
>2. From my somewhat limited knowledge of Irish history, this is
>pretty much true all the time.
At least since the English invaded under that roundheaded scum.
sewiv
Denny Wheeler wrote:
> >> >> >> On 8 Nov 2005 22:15:08 -0800, "Larisa" <purple...@yahoo.com>
> >> >> >> wrote:
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> <major snippage>
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> >I acquired what little social skills I have as an adult, not as a
> >> >> >> >schoolkid. And it took me the longest time to *unlearn* the "social
> >> >> >> >skills" I learned in school.
Right here: "Social Skills" learned in school. In amongst the <major
snippage>
is the description of those "skills", which were learned in response to
things
happening in that school.
> >> >> >> This makes me wonder if perhaps the "social skills" you had to unlearn
> >> >> >> are what caused you all the trouble in the first place.
No, see, just above, it says the they were learned in school, and in
the <major
snippage> that they were learned in response to the problems
themselves.
Simple causation. B cannot cause A if A is invented in response to B.
Time
flows forward.
> You're assuming.
No, I'm reading the entire original post, not just the parts that I
feel like reading.
--
Sandy
Pete Turk
<inv...@invalid.invalid> writes
Hi Brenda,
I'd expect that few _Americans_ would see their schools
as Ilya does, because Ilya's not seeing it through the
eyes of most Americans, and I get the impression that
_getting an education_ for the post-immigration generations
is simply less important than it was (is?) for us.
In Russia AFAIK there's a huge priority given to learning,
as there is in France, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Scandinavia,
and elsewhere in Europe.
I remember the American boy in my class. He was way behind
in every subject and had to drop a year to get by. In his
turn, he was bewildered at us. He didn't seem to grasp
that it was the urgent, once-in-a-lifetime chance to gain the
skills and knowledge that would shape our lives one way
or another.
Which it did for Grammar-School me. It taught me to learn,
especially things that weren't known then (e.g. computing).
Also, it taught us to critique then reject much of what was
then taught, the grossly distorted geography and history and
the farcical RI (=religious-instruction).
My ideas of how Americans were educated came from films
like 'Blackboard Jungle' -- something I thought was
quite exceptional -- till I read what Ilya says, so I'm
now not so sure.
So I'd really like input from someone who's experienced
both American High Schools and their British equivalents
-- Comprehensives and can make valid comparisons.
Mike Meyer
> My ideas of how Americans were educated came from films
> like 'Blackboard Jungle' -- something I thought was
> quite exceptional -- till I read what Ilya says, so I'm
> now not so sure.
You can't have a single characterization of "American"
schools. American schools are funded and generally controlled at a
very local level. The experience varies widely from school to school,
even in the same state. California, for instance, has high schools
that range from day care (my parents moved my stepbrother from his
mother in CA to my HS in Germany to get him into a better school) to
some of the best school in the country (I knew people that had taken
all the AP courses available in a subject; the HS sent them to the
local college for more courses).
And we haven't even touched on the issue of private schools yet.
> So I'd really like input from someone who's experienced
> both American High Schools and their British equivalents
> -- Comprehensives and can make valid comparisons.
For the record, I spent my three years of high school attending a
school run by the DoD in Germany. It was run specifically for the
children of employees of the US Government stationed overseas. There's
a bunch of them - we played football against each other. Life was
mostly pleasant; we *didn't have* problem students. If you became a
problem student, your family was shipped back to the US. And, just for
grins, my diploma is a DoD document.
<mike
--
Mike Meyer <m...@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.
Jim Ledford
> Jim Ledford wrote:
> > Brenda wrote:
> >>
> > [....]
> >> > Homeschool
> >> > them, hire tutors, have them skip grades and go on to college. Have
> >> > them learn "social skills" that are worthy of knowing,
> >> >
> >> > Ilya Shambat.
> >> >
> >>
> >> That's it. That's the ticket. Home schooling will really teach them the
> >> social skills they need to survive in the world. Good plan. NOT
> >
> > be kind of difficult to learn how to deal effectively
> > with that mean little girl who was always putting bubble
> > gum in my hair.
> >
> > if I was going to say something good for home schooling
> > it'd be about the food since it's always been real tough
> > for anyone else to beat mama's cooking.
> >
> > :)
>
> LOL
that and my duck tape bailing wire repair holding
together until the job was complete made my day.
thank you Brenda. :)))
>
> A lot of people home school for a number of reasons but few do it because
> they see schools as Ilya does.
I have not been in a grade school or high school
environment in a long long time and more than likely
I'm totally out of touch with the reality of what all
goes on there.
back in 2004 I took several college classes in the area
of chemistry and agriculture in order to better prepare
myself for the state board of examiners test so I could
procure state certification for the application of chemicals
pertaining to the lawn care industry as well as to meet the
new requirements for farmers wishing to purchase certain
chemicals. anyhow, the culture of those 19 and 20 year olds
at college was a big shock to this Country Boy. based on
my experience with a return to college I recommend that old
people, such as myself, really ought to go back to college
if for nothing other than the wake up.
have a nice weekend,
Jim
Kate Gladstone
> is this satire ... ?
No.
Kate Gladstone - learn.to/handwrite - global2000.net/handwritingrepair
Kate Gladstone
have one like the latter part of yours instead of one like the former
part of yours.
Wesley Struebing
<den...@TANSTAAFL.zipcon.net.INVALID> wrote:
>On Fri, 11 Nov 2005 03:45:04 GMT, Jack C Lipton <cupa...@peElMe.cx>
>wrote:
>
>>Denny Wheeler wrote:
>>> As to 'blame the victim'--you want to work
>>> on fixing the blame, feel free. I prefer
>>> to try to fix problems.
>>
>>"Blame is for those who prefer to live in the
>> past; taking responsibility in building the
>> future, however, is the more interesting
>> choice." - me
>>
>>(laughs maniacally)
>>
>>"Define interesting..."
>>"Oh God, Oh God, we're all going to die?"
>
>Old Irish curse:
>May you live in interesting times.
That and the (what was called by those who taught it to me...) Jewish
curse - May you marry and have children!
--
Wes Struebing
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America,
and to the republic which it established, one nation from many peoples,
promising liberty and justice for all.
Lots42
snowflake wrote:
> I beg to differ. I have heard all my children on occasions telling their
> friends the truth rather than a 'white lie' to keep the peace. I do the
> same with my friends. Maybe I associate with a more truthful group of
> people than you do. I personally would rather know my butt looks big in
> those jeans than make an idiot of myself strutting around in them. And
> yes, my daughter did tell me my butt looked big....the jeans were not
> bought! Come to think of it, my mother isnt averse to telling me I look
> like shit when I do!
I hope you don't expect this level of honesty from males. To men, butts
do not look bigger simply because the female has changed clothing.
Lots42
Pete Turk wrote:
> My ideas of how Americans were educated came from films
> like 'Blackboard Jungle' -- something I thought was
> quite exceptional -- till I read what Ilya says, so I'm
> now not so sure.
A vital life-skill is to NEVER trust, by itself, anything that comes
out of Hollywood.
Jim Ledford
that which comes out of hollywood or as preferred
unholywood is of the devil. driven by lust, greed
and the lies of satan the devil for the purpose of
stealing, robbing and dealing out confusion to the
unknowing so as to seal their fate into an eternity
of death.
some machines such as unholywood breed death. turn it off...
an inevitable and often adverse outcome, condition, or end
that need not be.
michaela
> Michaela asks:
>
>> is this satire ... ?
>
> No.
Are you saying you're a victim or have I missed the context
of your post?
- Michaela
Jack C Lipton
> Ken Ward wrote:
>>> Old Irish curse:
>>> May you live in interesting times.
>>
>> 1. I thought it was a Chinese curse.
>
> Probably even an old Urdu curse.
>
>> 2. From my somewhat limited knowledge of
>> Irish history, this is pretty much
>> true all the time.
>
> At least since the English invaded under
> that roundheaded scum.
I have a friend from Austria living in Ireland.
One day while IM'ing she complained about how
irritating the Irish were, so I commented:
"So, they're arousing your ire, huh?"
The next day she told me:
"I had to look up ire in the dictionary.
The English named this country well."
--
Jack C Lipton | cupasoup at pele dot cx | http://www.asstr.org/~CupaSoup/
"As much as we _value_ pleasure in life, *pain* sets the exchange rate." -me
Cindy Wells
<snip and headers trimmed to a.c only>
> back in 2004 I took several college classes in the area
> of chemistry and agriculture in order to better prepare
> myself for the state board of examiners test so I could
> procure state certification for the application of chemicals
> pertaining to the lawn care industry as well as to meet the
> new requirements for farmers wishing to purchase certain
> chemicals.
<snip>
Was that a Commercial applicator's license? My parents both have
their private applicator licenses and mom didn't do any prep for
it. (Dad's a chemist; he was not going in cold in the way mom was.)
I don't have my applicator's license by choice.
> have a nice weekend,
> Jim
Cindy Wells
(Kansas private applicators license is an open-book test - and
they give you the book - that only has to be supervised the first time
you take it. At least in Kansas, you can take the test in a group and
help each other. Dad previously had an applicator's license in NJ - but I
have no idea of the hoops that he needed back then.)
Panurge
> I said:
> > Why is there no mention of those that learned just the opposite -
> > along with how to DEAL with lies, degrading and bullies?
>
> The Panurge said:
> > Because there aren't that many of them?
>
> Good point, I suppose it is a fact that there are more that come out of
> the hubub radically changed for the worse than for the better. I have
> a strange feeling though that if we were to poll alt.gothic you'd find
> a much larger assortment of the "changed for the better" varieties.
Of course, the assumption underlying all this is that most kids don't
actually go through this that much at all. OTOH, the latest research
seems to show that most kids, even the "popular" ones (i.e., the ones on
top of the pecking order), go through it somewhat. Or maybe that's just
the apprehension of the social climber.
> Panurge then said:
> > Is it the kids' fault if they drown occasionally?
>
> Absolutely not, but there is a strong argument for Darwinism here.
> Maybe that's a bit of a jaded response on the whole, but maybe a.g
> would agree to some extent - if you can't hack it...?
"Hack" *what*, though? And we're not in the state of nature; natural
selection isn't an "-ism" unless we choose to make it so, in which case
it's no longer that natural. And "fitness" (for what? The social
environment of high school which we've already established is
unhealthy?) isn't the only way a person can be valuable. No--that way
still lies blaming the victim. Civilization itself is a refutation of
natural selection.
> Eventually you did learn it though. Some learn it while there (myself,
> Kara), some a while later (yourself). But would you have learned it at
> all had you not had the experience of high school?
I might not have *had* to learn it otherwise. ...Well, I take that
back. "The experience of *childhood*" might be a more apt phrase. Even
the people ostensibly my friends subjected me to it well into adulthood.
I've even had to deal with it somewhat in the scene here (not that I'm
blameless there, though).
> I've found that most areas of the Real World [tm] are nicer - but when
> you find one of those not nicer patches it's particularly degenerative.
I can see that--and for the same reasons you do.
> My high school history teacher telling me that I
> wouldn't graduate because, directly quoted, "People like you don't
> graduate." was the icing on the proverbial cake.
Granted, I never had to deal with anything like that. (I was pretty
geeky in high school; I have this hypothesis that geeks are as often as
not freaks whose blossoming has been somehow thwarted.)
--
"There is no excellent beauty which hath not some
strangeness in the proportion." --Sir Francis Bacon
Leigh
I don't know.
If I figure it out I'll tell you.
Believe me, I would much rather have had my entire
schooling done at my HS than what I did get.
Mind you, my elementary school career was mostly okay,
just that I was pretty much bored (or confused, depending
on the subject).
I think the main thing was that all the teachers, admins and staff
wanted to be there. Most of them would go the extra mile for just
about anybody as long as it was obvious the person was trying
and they pretty much left their egos in their cars.
I mean, they pushed pretty hard. You couldn't just skate by sort of
half-listening in class because everything was not in the book. And I
remember most nights having 5 hours of homework (this is not necessarily
indicative of the average time spent because it includes time woolgathering
and finding a good radio station and the snack runs to the kitchen.
You know, the important stuff).
Mostly it was the atmosphere, and that was a combination of the
principal and
the fact that a lot of the faculty were former students.
There's history (and oral history too) going back generations that you just
don't get in most schools, and they acted like it mattered. They made
it matter
because they were passionate about it.
When the school was first proposed it was extremely academically rigorous:
only the brightest got in (I've seen a copy of the entrance exam. It
was crazy.).
Students were expected to be utterly silent between classes (and even when I
went there, the front walk was a 'silent zone'). Latin & Greek were
required.
Even when my mom was going there she had to take 2 years of Latin + 2
years of another language.
By the time I attended you had to take 2 years of a foreign language
(this was
standard for everyone), and there were seven languages to choose from.
All you needed was a barely passing grade in them, although there were a lot
of kids I knew who took 4 years or split it 2 and 2 (me? 2 years of
Spanish were
more than enough....)
This kind of stuff (knowing the past and how its changed to where it is now)
along with the 'curse of the mummy's hand' (they really do have one...),
or the
other stories about the school are what really set it apart and all of it
fosters a sense of belonging, something that was completely lacking in the
previous grades I was in, especially in JHS.
In fact, up until I got to HS it seemed as if we operated in a vacuum.
Nobody was talking about previous students or what the school had been
like before we got there (even though one of the elementary schools I went
to was one my mother had attended and she told me some stuff they had done
back then. But it just didn't resonate because nobody else seemed to
think it mattered).
So, maybe that's it.
Maybe that's the secret.
Hire people who want to teach, foster a sense of history that ties the
current crop of
kids in with the ones who have gone before, strict but fair inforcement
of reasonable rules coupled
with a willingness to go the extra mile individually and collectively
for students who doing their
best (and a firm but loving kick in the pants for those who aren't), and
offer a challenging
curriculum whenever possible.
Of course in this current climate of 'teaching to the test' a lot of the
sort of stuff that keeps
kids interested gets pushed to one side in the headlong race to meet an
arbitrary goal
I'm not saying that it's a bad goal in and of itself, but the
implementation is completely screwed.
But there are just not enough hours in the day, nor are all kids able to
handle it without a lot of one-on-one
tutoring, something that there is no money for in a lot of the cases
where it is utterly
necessary for the child to succeed.
Uh... Why'm I being nudged by this soapbox...?
--Leigh
Denny Wheeler
Clearly, you made up your mind without bothering to think about the
content of what Larisa (one of my favorite Patrons, btw) said. Or
what I said.
<shrug>
Your privilege. Next time, don't bother asking me, ok?
snowflake
"Lots42" <lot...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1131755652.9...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
I am well aware I have the man in a million that does tell me the truth on
this matter also :D He is indespensible on shopping trips for all the
girlies in the house (there are five of us altogether) as we know he will
tell it like it is!
Brenda
"Pete Turk" <Pe...@ragtag.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:g1k0rIAL...@ragtag.demon.co.uk...
Pete, are you seriously suggesting getting an education isn't important
to American students?
Ilya is seeing American schools not through the scope of getting an
education
but from a social sphere. He tends to be negative about anything that
doesn't fit
in with his experiences and his concepts of the world.
>
> In Russia AFAIK there's a huge priority given to learning,
> as there is in France, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Scandinavia,
> and elsewhere in Europe.
>
> I remember the American boy in my class. He was way behind
> in every subject and had to drop a year to get by. In his
> turn, he was bewildered at us. He didn't seem to grasp
> that it was the urgent, once-in-a-lifetime chance to gain the
> skills and knowledge that would shape our lives one way
> or another.
So you make your assumptions based on ONE person?
>
> Which it did for Grammar-School me. It taught me to learn,
> especially things that weren't known then (e.g. computing).
> Also, it taught us to critique then reject much of what was
> then taught, the grossly distorted geography and history and
> the farcical RI (=religious-instruction).
>
> My ideas of how Americans were educated came from films
> like 'Blackboard Jungle' -- something I thought was
> quite exceptional -- till I read what Ilya says, so I'm
> now not so sure.
And how many movies about England do you feel give a true representation
of society there.
Here's what I do know. America tries to educate everyone, even those with
special needs where they're shunned in many societies. We don't always
succeed but it's darn well not because education isn't important in the US.
Pete Turk
<inv...@invalid.invalid> writes
Certainly not, Brenda -- just that I'd have been happier
if Ilya's impression had been supported/opposed by those of
several more contemporaries.
>
>Ilya is seeing American schools not through the scope of getting an
>education
>but from a social sphere. He tends to be negative about anything that
>doesn't fit
>in with his experiences and his concepts of the world.
>
>>
>> In Russia AFAIK there's a huge priority given to learning,
>> as there is in France, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Scandinavia,
>> and elsewhere in Europe.
>>
>> I remember the American boy in my class. He was way behind
>> in every subject and had to drop a year to get by. In his
>> turn, he was bewildered at us. He didn't seem to grasp
>> that it was the urgent, once-in-a-lifetime chance to gain the
>> skills and knowledge that would shape our lives one way
>> or another.
>
>So you make your assumptions based on ONE person?
No assumptions -- only that I was a long long way from
the whole story, then and later.
As it happens, Mike Meyer's post gave me a lot (thanx Mike!)
>
>>
>> Which it did for Grammar-School me. It taught me to learn,
>> especially things that weren't known then (e.g. computing).
>> Also, it taught us to critique then reject much of what was
>> then taught, the grossly distorted geography and history and
>> the farcical RI (=religious-instruction).
>>
>> My ideas of how Americans were educated came from films
>> like 'Blackboard Jungle' -- something I thought was
>> quite exceptional -- till I read what Ilya says, so I'm
>> now not so sure.
>
>And how many movies about England do you feel give a true representation
>of society there.
Certainly not 'Blackboard Jungle' as far as America's
concerned, Brenda! (I'd reasoned back then that the whole
point of that film was that the very sensational and box-
office effect guaranteed that VERY few, and more likely
NO schools were like it, and that they certainly would
have been highly uncharacteristic of the American scene
of the time)
ilya_sha...@yahoo.com
Brenda wrote:
> That's it. That's the ticket. Home schooling will really teach them the
> social skills they need to survive in the world. Good plan. NOT
I think it's better to wait with social skills training until the
person is in an environment where the skills he'll be learning are
about how to deal with adults and about being one.
Panurge
> Civilization itself is a refutation of natural selection.
OK, now that I've gathered my thoughts a bit better:
If getting through high school is a matter of "Darwinism", that means
that the sociology of high school is designed such that bad people
survive it while (some) good ones go to the wall. In any event, this
can only be Social Darwinism; Darwin himself only spoke about the
adaptability of organisms to their physical environment, not the kind of
people we want to see flourish in a civilization. Anything else makes
of Darwin something he himself apparently never meant, which AFAIK is
part of what gave him such misgivings about making his findings public.
Civilization isn't necessarily about the survival of the fittest; that's
begging the question. In fact, you could say it's about *creating*
environments for which it turns out people are, after all, well fitted.
Sheila Marie
"William Blake Jr." <ibsh...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1131466090.9...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> There are many people who are of the opinion that American high schools
> are the place where people are to learn social skills and the place
> where people are to learn what they need to exist in America.
>
My contention is that, if a child is properly parented, they have proper
social skills before they reach high school age and thus, has nothing to
learn except academics when they reach high school. By high school, the core
of a person's character should be, IMO, well developed through the aid and
guidance of parental units at home. The problem is that more and more these
days, people are relying on the school system to teach their children
everything from the "three r's" to morals, values, politics, and social
skills. Of course when you allow a system to raise your children they become
mechanical and are afraid to be different, that's what brainwashing does.
The problem isn't with the schools, it's with more people relying on the
government to do everything for them, including raising their children
rather than taking on the responsibility themselves. That's just bad
parenting.
Sheila Marie
ibsham...@hotmail.com
Sheila Marie wrote:
> The problem isn't with the schools, it's with more people relying on the
> government to do everything for them, including raising their children
> rather than taking on the responsibility themselves. That's just bad
> parenting.
Do you think that the authoritarian WWII generation-style parenting was
better?
siani
> Panurge <pan...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Civilization itself is a refutation of natural selection.
>
>
> OK, now that I've gathered my thoughts a bit better:
>
> If getting through high school is a matter of "Darwinism", that means
> that the sociology of high school is designed such that bad people
> survive it while (some) good ones go to the wall.
why? this does not in any way follow. if getting through high school
is a matter of social darwinism, then the most socially fit people will
get through and the least socially fit will fail. are you placing a
moral value on social skills?
siani
--
\\||//
- oo -
-|--|- (hedgehog)
Panurge
> if getting through high school
> is a matter of social darwinism, then the most socially fit people will
> get through and the least socially fit will fail.
Fit *for what*, then?
> are you placing a moral value on social skills?
Why not?
Larisa
Panurge wrote:
> siani <si...@velvet.net> wrote:
>
> > if getting through high school
> > is a matter of social darwinism, then the most socially fit people will
> > get through and the least socially fit will fail.
>
> Fit *for what*, then?
>
Institutionalization. In a mental hospital or a prison, those same
people would be at the top of the social hierarchy.
This is why many "popular" high school kids end up less than "popular"
in real life - their social skills work fine in an institution, but not
so well in the real world. Vice versa, too.
LM
Tiny Human Ferret
> Panurge wrote:
>
>> Panurge <pan...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Civilization itself is a refutation of natural selection.
>>
>>
>>
>> OK, now that I've gathered my thoughts a bit better:
>>
>> If getting through high school is a matter of "Darwinism", that means
>> that the sociology of high school is designed such that bad people
>> survive it while (some) good ones go to the wall.
>
>
> why? this does not in any way follow.
I see that it might, if you'll consider the aphorism "the good die
young, whilst the terribly evil grow horribly old".
> if getting through high school
> is a matter of social darwinism, then the most socially fit people will
> get through and the least socially fit will fail. are you placing a
> moral value on social skills?
I can't really see the reason to take this particular rhetorical tack.
For example, conspiracy to backstab is unquestionably more of a survival
skill -- at least in the short term -- than could be the position of a
lone, but just, actor. "Just" being defined as "not into doing any of
that underhanded sort of thing", if you would. You _might_ place a moral
value on social skills, if they're a certain kind of social skills,
perhaps on the sort that eschews simple conspiracy by preferring to do
open discussion and perhaps on a constitutional and juristic basis.
Which is the more effective social skill, then? Constitutional juristry
or a bit of underhanded conspiracy to make sure it never comes before a
jurist and with the remains never to be found? In highschool, I'm rather
sure it's the latter; someone who brings the matter before the court,
unless it's the unseelie court, is often seen as the loser merely for
having brought it before the court. The unseelie court, of course, is
the same as the kangaroo court, with all conclusions foregone and done
with the accused guilty as charged, it's only a formality in highschool.
The only real darwinism attaches to whomever may somehow avoid being
noticed, for to be noticed is to be accused.
I suppose I'm suggesting that "social skills" could be a terrible
criterion for estimation of success, especially if the skills valued by
that society or subculture are anathematic to standard concepts of
Justice or Utility.
--
The incapacity of a weak and distracted government may
often assume the appearance, and produce the effects,
of a treasonable correspondence with the public enemy.
--Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"
Tiny Human Ferret
Damned good point! Pleased to meet you, from news:alt.gothic
Larisa
Tiny Human Ferret wrote:
> Larisa wrote:
>
> >>Fit *for what*, then?
> >>
> >
> >
> > Institutionalization. In a mental hospital or a prison, those same
> > people would be at the top of the social hierarchy.
> >
> > This is why many "popular" high school kids end up less than "popular"
> > in real life - their social skills work fine in an institution, but not
> > so well in the real world. Vice versa, too.
>
> Damned good point! Pleased to meet you, from news:alt.gothic
Thank you. :) I guess this is being crossposted everywhere - I'm
reading this from alt.callahans.
LM
Larisa
Sheila Marie wrote:
> My contention is that, if a child is properly parented, they have proper
> social skills before they reach high school age and thus, has nothing to
> learn except academics when they reach high school. By high school, the core
> of a person's character should be, IMO, well developed through the aid and
> guidance of parental units at home. The problem is that more and more these
> days, people are relying on the school system to teach their children
> everything from the "three r's" to morals, values, politics, and social
> skills. Of course when you allow a system to raise your children they become
> mechanical and are afraid to be different, that's what brainwashing does.
>
> The problem isn't with the schools, it's with more people relying on the
> government to do everything for them, including raising their children
> rather than taking on the responsibility themselves. That's just bad
> parenting.
The problem is that unless you want to homeschool the kid, they *will*
spend all their waking hours in school or working on homework - high
school kids are so busy that they have no time for anything. I tutor
kids in math, and the high school students I tutor are all so busy and
so overtired that they're half-asleep by the time they get to me, and
still have 5 hours of homework to do after their lesson. They have no
time to talk to their parents about morals and values.
Moreover, this sort of overwork is applied to smaller and smaller kids
- a high schooler's core character may be developed, but not an
8-year-old's. And the 8-year-olds are already going to school and
spending most of their waking hours at school - they are required by
law to be "raised by the system".
This, incidentally, is why I'm in favor of homeschooling. The
homeschoolers I tutor are raised by their parents - as kids should be.
But not everyone has the time or money to homeschool.
LM
Larisa
Brenda wrote:
>
>
> A lot of people home school for a number of reasons but few do it because
> they see schools as Ilya does.
I know that if homeschooling were possible in Russia at the time I was
growing up, my parents would have done it, for precisely the reason
Ilya mentioned.
The homeschoolers I tutor are homeschooled for different reasons (most
are competitive gymnasts who have no time to go to school), but I've
taught a kid who was taken out of school for reasons of "unpopularity"
- namely, bullying. They do exist. And if a kid is especially
susceptible to bullying for some reason, it's better to take them out
of school before they commit suicide or shoot their classmates. Both
have been known to occur.
LM
snowflake
"Sheila Marie" <ssu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:MOKdf.2468$dT3....@tornado.tampabay.rr.com...
>
> My contention is that, if a child is properly parented, they have proper
> social skills before they reach high school age and thus, has nothing to
> learn except academics when they reach high school. By high school, the
core
> of a person's character should be, IMO, well developed through the aid and
> guidance of parental units at home. The problem is that more and more
these
> days, people are relying on the school system to teach their children
> everything from the "three r's" to morals, values, politics, and social
> skills. Of course when you allow a system to raise your children they
become
> mechanical and are afraid to be different, that's what brainwashing does.
>
> The problem isn't with the schools, it's with more people relying on the
> government to do everything for them, including raising their children
> rather than taking on the responsibility themselves. That's just bad
> parenting.
>
> Sheila Marie
>
reason my two daughters (age 5 and 8 at the time) were not sexually abused
by a family member who abused their cousins, was because he KNEW that the
girls would stand up for themselves and tell him it was wrong!
This continues to be the case when I expect them to stand up to bullies, not
only for themselves but even acquaintences and they have done so.
In the UK schools (and teachers) have had most forms of discipline taken
away, parents are more likely to complain about a child being disciplined
than support the school. If a child is not aware of what is right and wrong
by the time they reach high school, what hope do teachers have?
Acceptance of others is one thing I have always pushed for. Maybe I am
lucky in the fact my children have formed friendships with peers as open
minded as I would hope them to be. I am proud of the fact my daughter
thinks nothing of friends that are gay, coloured etc, they are just her
friends. Would she have met this eclectic band of people if she were home
schooled?
Snowy
Marcus Pan
> why? this does not in any way follow. if getting through high school
> is a matter of social darwinism, then the most socially fit people will
> get through and the least socially fit will fail.
It's backwards, really. The most socially fit tend to get through high
school ok, but they haven't learned anything beyond social skills. A
lot of them are going to be working at garages and gas stations for the
rest of their lives. The "socially unfit," had to try harder, learn
more and usually end up moving on to other things. It's the old story
about running into your old high school tormentors as they bag your
groceries at the local Foodtown.
The problem is with high school putting so much emphasis on social
skills, the education itself sometimes takes a back seat to surviving
the cliques. Few within high school itself ever stop to realize that
Darwinism reverses on them once the Real World [tm] is entered - what
impressed the cheerleaders won't impress the interviewer nearly as
much.
===>StealthGoth PAN
Marcus Pan
> This is why many "popular" high school kids end up less than "popular"
> in real life - their social skills work fine in an institution, but not
> so well in the real world. Vice versa, too.
Well stated, I might have not bothered to respond as you've hit on the
head here. Should have read the thread first rather than add to what's
already been said, heh.
===>StealthGoth PAN
Jennie Kermode
> they would soon accept it! This year the two groups are still formed and
> still fighting between themselves. My daughter stuck to her principles and
> this year had both groups at her birthday party, telling them to behave and
> no fighting (everything went very smoothly). Where else would she have
> learnt to stick to her guns and choose her friends for herself?
I can well understand encouraging your daughter to stay and
stand up for herself in that situation, and it sounds like you got good
results. :) This isn't the only kind of situation which upsets kids at
school, however. I'm sure you've seen items in the news recently (though
perhaps our foreign readers haven't) about the girl who was stabbed five
times with a pair of scissors whilst waiting in her school dinner queue.
One of the blows struck her eye; fortunately she needed only minor
eyelid surgery and has not lost her sight. Three girls are being
questioned over the incident. Now, this may sound like one of those rare
occurences which is impossible to predict, but the girl's father said
that she'd been bullied for years. Two years ago she was struck over the
back of the head _during_ _class_, knocking her unconscious; on another
occasion she was beaten up by a gang from the school when in the town
centre. He still plans to try and persuade her to go back to school; but
if she were my kid, I'm not sure that I could. It's one thing to try and
teach a kid to handle stressful social situations and the petty politics
which exists in such environments, but quite another to place that kid
at risk of life and limb.
The above case is extreme, of course, but physical assaults
with the potential to cause serious harm are not really all that
unusual. Earlier this year, a girl suffered facial scarring after she
was slashed; last year a boy was murdered by a classmate in the school
dinner hall. I expect that most of us know kids who were badly beaten in
school, even if we weren't in that position ourselves. My mother teaches
primary school kids in England and, over the years (working supply, so
visiting lots of different places) she's removed all sorts of weapons
from them, including knives and iron bars.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
the Danimal
> My mother teaches
> primary school kids in England and, over the years (working supply, so
> visiting lots of different places) she's removed all sorts of weapons
> from them, including knives and iron bars.
So basically you're saying English schools must handle children
much like maximum security prisons handle their inmates? Removing
all metal objects which can be made into "shanks," etc.
I read about the "Supermax" prisons in which each cell has a
bed and toilet made out of concrete, with no exposed metal
or moving parts. Experience with hardened convicts has shown
that the metal flush handle on a normal toilet can be removed and
sharpened into a makeshift knife. Metal bedframes are similarly
excellent raw material for knife-smithing.
-- the Danimal
Larisa
Jennie Kermode wrote:
> It's one thing to try and
> teach a kid to handle stressful social situations and the petty politics
> which exists in such environments, but quite another to place that kid
> at risk of life and limb.
> The above case is extreme, of course, but physical assaults
> with the potential to cause serious harm are not really all that
> unusual.
Sure; I was struck on the head with a full backpack during class, with
the teacher watching (and presumably approving - she didn't try to stop
it). Fortunately, I have a very thick skull, and did not suffer any
lasting damage.
When I broke my left arm in an unrelated accident and had to wear a
cast, my parents kept me out of school for the duration of the healing
- they knew that I would not be able to defend myself with a cast on my
arm, and that the bullies would take full advantage of the opportunity.
LM
Larisa
the Danimal wrote:
> Jennie Kermode wrote:
> > My mother teaches
> > primary school kids in England and, over the years (working supply, so
> > visiting lots of different places) she's removed all sorts of weapons
> > from them, including knives and iron bars.
>
> So basically you're saying English schools must handle children
> much like maximum security prisons handle their inmates? Removing
> all metal objects which can be made into "shanks," etc.
The question is whether children should be in institutions at all -
institutions breed the same kind of behavior, whether they are schools
or prisons or mental hospitals. And violence is part of that behavior,
and making metal objects into "shanks" is part of the violence.
Now, I understand that criminals should be in prisons - it's the most
efficient way to keep them away from the rest of us. Mental patients
should be in mental hospitals. But why keep normal, healthy children
in institutions? Should children be kept away from the rest of us?
Are children as dangerous as armed robbers or violent schizophrenics?
LM
Tiny Human Ferret
Easily, if not properly supervised, and placed in close proximity in
numbers in the hundreds or above a thousand.
The problem here in the States is that there is a requirement of free
and compulsory schooling to age 16. The States and local governments
unfortunately have opted to the least-cost solution, which attempts to
use "economies of scale", which as we can see creates its own set of
problems.
It would be far better to have many more and much smaller schools, with
the majority of instruction amounting more to tutoring and Socratic
Method, than the present system of megaschools and "semi-autonomous
programmatic learning".
William Blake Jr.
Larisa wrote:
> The problem is that unless you want to homeschool the kid, they *will*
> spend all their waking hours in school or working on homework - high
> school kids are so busy that they have no time for anything.
You have a Russian name. You are talking about kids in Russian schools,
right?
I certainly did not see anything like that in America.
Maybe in some elite schools. But even my younger brother, who went to a
school for gifted kids (graduated a year and a half ago) and got all
A's while also doing tons of athletic stuff, had all kinds of free time
& spent a bunch of it on computer games. He's busy now, but that's
because of the college program he chose.
William Blake Jr.
Larisa wrote:
> I know that if homeschooling were possible in Russia at the time I was
> growing up, my parents would have done it, for precisely the reason
> Ilya mentioned.
>
> The homeschoolers I tutor are homeschooled for different reasons (most
> are competitive gymnasts who have no time to go to school), but I've
> taught a kid who was taken out of school for reasons of "unpopularity"
> - namely, bullying. They do exist. And if a kid is especially
> susceptible to bullying for some reason, it's better to take them out
> of school before they commit suicide or shoot their classmates. Both
> have been known to occur.
Thank you.
Cheers to my compatriot!
Ilya Shambat.
Larisa
William Blake Jr. wrote:
> Larisa wrote:
> > The problem is that unless you want to homeschool the kid, they *will*
> > spend all their waking hours in school or working on homework - high
> > school kids are so busy that they have no time for anything.
>
> You have a Russian name. You are talking about kids in Russian schools,
> right?
No.
> I certainly did not see anything like that in America.
I'm seeing it all the time; I run a tutoring agency. Every high-school
student I tutor is totally exhausted. Every middle-school student I
tutor is totally exhausted. And it's not the extracurricular
activities making them exhausted - it's homework. They're not all in
elite private schools, either - a lot of my students are in public
schools, and if anything, they get more homework there. It's mostly
just useless busywork, too - nothing with any real educational value.
One of my students, a 6th grader, had to do 84 pages (yes, eighty-four
- not a typo) of math problems in one week (about 12 problems per
page). It wasn't 84 pages of the same stuff, either - it was all over
the place, and it had nothing to do with what they were actually
studying in class. The poor thing was staying up till midnight trying
to finish that, in addition to the project they had in social studies
(make a model of North Carolina out of papier-mache), the project they
had for literature (I forget what it was - but something equally silly)
- and there's no way that any normal person could have finished all of
that.
Now, if a kid wakes up at 6am (as most of my students do), goes off to
school, comes home at 4 or so (as most of my students do), grabs a bite
to eat and spends all the rest of their time on homework, when are the
parents supposed to impart those "moral values"?
> Maybe in some elite schools. But even my younger brother, who went to a
> school for gifted kids (graduated a year and a half ago) and got all
> A's while also doing tons of athletic stuff, had all kinds of free time
> & spent a bunch of it on computer games. He's busy now, but that's
> because of the college program he chose.
Schools for gifted kids tend to be a bit more focused and
goal-oriented, and don't waste their students' time on busywork with no
educational value. Public schools don't care if their students
actually learn anything - so they assign busywork.
LM
Dag
>
> It would be far better to have many more and much smaller schools, with
> the majority of instruction amounting more to tutoring and Socratic
> Method, than the present system of megaschools and "semi-autonomous
> programmatic learning".
This is one thing I've been meaning to ask whenever I hear these
highschool horror stories. Since I was 13 I've taken a proactive
interest in which school I want to be sent to and there's always been at
least a few choices available for me to evaluate, and I've always gone
up the school I ended up choosing. Fortunatly I've had parents who
where supportive of this quirk in my behavior. Now I realize that this
is odd behavior for a 13 year old, but at least by the time you're
looking att the last couple of years of school before university you
should have at least some idea of what you want out of school.
Certainly when I was at that point in my education I looked into a
number of schools both in the area where I was living as well boarding
schools. I considered a number of factors including what I, at the
time, thought I wanted to do with my life. After much back and forth I
picked a school and had a generallt happy highschool experience. I
guess what I'm asking is why don't more people do this? If you're
really that miserable where you are, why not try something else?
Do people really have no options when it comes to highschools? Is it
simply a case momentum and lethargy? Or is there something else I'm
missing?
Dag
Larisa
Tiny Human Ferret wrote:
>
> It would be far better to have many more and much smaller schools, with
> the majority of instruction amounting more to tutoring and Socratic
> Method, than the present system of megaschools and "semi-autonomous
> programmatic learning".
Yup; it produces better educational effects, too. The smaller the
class size, the better students learn. I can teach a kid more in a
one-hour-a-week tutoring appointment than their math teacher can in 5
hours a week - precisely because I teach the kid one-on-one, and the
teacher has 20 or 30 students to teach.
Homeschoolers outperform both public and private school students on
every kind of academic test - SAT's, ACT's, you name it.
LM
Larisa
Dag wrote:
>
> This is one thing I've been meaning to ask whenever I hear these
> highschool horror stories. Since I was 13 I've taken a proactive
> interest in which school I want to be sent to and there's always been at
> least a few choices available for me to evaluate, and I've always gone
> up the school I ended up choosing. Fortunatly I've had parents who
> where supportive of this quirk in my behavior. Now I realize that this
> is odd behavior for a 13 year old, but at least by the time you're
> looking att the last couple of years of school before university you
> should have at least some idea of what you want out of school.
>
> Certainly when I was at that point in my education I looked into a
> number of schools both in the area where I was living as well boarding
> schools. I considered a number of factors including what I, at the
> time, thought I wanted to do with my life. After much back and forth I
> picked a school and had a generallt happy highschool experience. I
> guess what I'm asking is why don't more people do this? If you're
> really that miserable where you are, why not try something else?
>
> Do people really have no options when it comes to highschools? Is it
> simply a case momentum and lethargy? Or is there something else I'm
> missing?
That if you are miserable in a school, there's no guarantee that the
next one will be any better? In fact, as the "new kid", you're likely
to be worse off in a new school than in your old school.
That said, between the 1st and 6th grade (which is when I was bullied),
I changed schools 4 times. It didn't help. The institutional
environment was the same, no matter what institution it was.
LM
Dag
> I tutor
> kids in math, and the high school students I tutor are all so busy and
> so overtired that they're half-asleep by the time they get to me, and
> still have 5 hours of homework to do after their lesson. They have no
> time to talk to their parents about morals and values.
That sounds like bizzare amounts. I went to a fairly challenging high
school and took a number of fairly advanced courses and I did maybe 5
hours of homework a week on avg. Now to be fair had I tried harder I
might have gotten a bit better grades in a couple of classes, but I
passed everything without problems and had no problem getting into the
program I wanted at my university of choice.
5 hours a day just sounds broken. Is this a new development? Is there
really that much to learn? At 5 hours a day you should be able to get
through the entire high school curriculum for a subject in a month. And
more importantly where are the parents and why are they OK with this?
If I had a kid and he was set that much homework I'd be having words people.
Dag
Ree
Well, where I grew up till I was 14 (and got out of my mother's house)
was 40 miles from town. That was the only high school available (and
still is) to anyone growing up in the northern part of Hastings County.
Kids are bused in from all around. Most places aren't like that
though; that was very much the exception. But then again, everything in
life, including school, got better for me as I got older and was able to
make more of my own choices. It still is continuing that way as I get
older, it just gets kind of scary sometimes!!! Lol.
Ree.
--
"But Martha, the deputy's job could be dangerous!"
"Hell, Spencer. Women get beaten up by enraged husbands, gang-raped by
drunken
good ol' boys, and hunted like deer by serial killers. Being a woman is
dangerous.
I'm just asking you to give me a gun, and more money to make up for it."
From "She Walks These Hills" by Sharyn McCrumb.
Ree
For me it was better when I changed schools. When I was 9, I lived with
an aunt & uncle for most of the school year. My early-learned behaviour
hadn't changed yet but there was no preconception of who I was and what
I was like. And there was a library. And you could return books and
sign out more whenever you wanted. Drool drool drool. That was fabulous!
Larisa
I think it is a new development, and I think it's seriously broken -
there isn't that much to learn, and in any case, this homework is just
mindless busywork - it's not about learning. The kids have a lot of
"projects" - instead of learning geometry, for example, they are making
embroidered doilies with geometric patterns on them. (I'm making it
up, but some of the real ones are equally silly). It wastes a lot of
time and accomplishes nothing.
One of my students described an English project she had to do, on
"Fahrenheit 451". Here's a description of the project:
- make a list of 20 vocabulary words from the novel
- for each word, find a small object that expresses the idea of that
word somehow, and stick all those objects in a shoebox
- exchange shoeboxes with your classmates and guess the words
What does that have to do with the book, or for that matter, with
acquiring a good vocabulary? It's a waste of a class session and a
whole bunch of homework time, pure and simple. Can you imagine how
long it'll take *you* to find 20 small objects that express "the
essence of" 20 randomly chosen vocabulary words?
As for "where the parents are" - arguing madly with the teacher, the
principal, etc., none of which accomplishes anything.
LM
The TheatrElf
Choosing your high school is not always an option, at least for public
(state run) schools in the US. Within a school system, there are all sorts
of conditions to be met; racial balance, class sizes, transportation, the
population of the school (in Miami, there are currently no schools at less
than 120% of their capacity).
There's also the question of districts: Miami-Dade county is a district,
and everyone who lives in the district funds the school system. So if you
decide to got to Broward county, this becomes an issue, because you haven't
paid for that system.
--
}:-) Christopher Jahn
{:-( http://home.comcast.net/~xjahn/Main.html
I like winter. I like the cold. I like the sound of flowers dying.
Sheila Marie
>
> Sheila Marie wrote:
>
>> The problem isn't with the schools, it's with more people relying on the
>> government to do everything for them, including raising their children
>> rather than taking on the responsibility themselves. That's just bad
>> parenting.
>
> The problem is that unless you want to homeschool the kid, they *will*
> spend all their waking hours in school or working on homework - high
> school kids are so busy that they have no time for anything. I tutor
> kids in math, and the high school students I tutor are all so busy and
> so overtired that they're half-asleep by the time they get to me, and
> still have 5 hours of homework to do after their lesson. They have no
> time to talk to their parents about morals and values.
>
school. If my child came home with so much home work, I'd have to have a
chat with the teacher to find out exactly why. They get paid to teach in the
classroom, not to send the lessons home for the parents to do their job.
It's almost as if there is a role reversal going on, parents teach academics
while schools teach morals; that ain't right...
> Moreover, this sort of overwork is applied to smaller and smaller kids
> - a high schooler's core character may be developed, but not an
> 8-year-old's. And the 8-year-olds are already going to school and
> spending most of their waking hours at school - they are required by
> law to be "raised by the system".
>
That doesn't sound right. Schools in the three states I've lived in have
ended their days well before 5PM, anywhere from 2 to 3:30PM at the latest
with starting times from 7 to 9AM. The problem may be that the parents are
sending their children to after school care because either they actually
need to have two incomes or they think that they need two incomes. [1] If
the school hours are longer, than the parent needs to be a friggen parent
and go raise holy hell with the school board. If the schools are over
working and over stepping their authority with the kids, why aren't the
parents protesting it?
Sheila Marie
[1] What I mean by "they think they need two incomes" are families that
could very well sustain themselves on one income, but since the parents want
a big house, big cars, and need money to get the kids the latest and
greatest to make up for not spending enough time with them, they both need
to work. Meantime, the kids are spoiled brats and don't act right and the
parent wonders why since the kid gets everything they want. BIGGEST pet
peeve of mine.
Mike Meyer
> Do people really have no options when it comes to highschools? Is it
> simply a case momentum and lethargy? Or is there something else I'm
> missing?
I think it depends on your school system. The high schools where I
went to earlier schools existed one to the town, and you pretty much
had to go to the one served by the town you lived in. There weren't
even private schools available as an alternative. As I stated earlier,
I went to a high school run by the DoD for government employees
overseas. Possibly I could have opted to go to a German high school,
but my (lack of) German would have been a real disadvantage. There was
also an English-language high school run by the local businesses that
catered to their children that I might have been able to attend, but
it would have been a battle. In any case, the DoD school system is
(was?) among the best public school system in the US, so I was happy
there.
My sons in Oaklan, on the other hand, have lots of choices. They can
choose from a variety of public schools as well as private
schools - and did.
<mike
--
Mike Meyer <m...@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.
Mike Meyer
> Larisa wrote:
>> I tutor
>> kids in math, and the high school students I tutor are all so busy and
>> so overtired that they're half-asleep by the time they get to me, and
>> still have 5 hours of homework to do after their lesson. They have no
>> time to talk to their parents about morals and values.
> That sounds like bizzare amounts. I went to a fairly challenging high
> school and took a number of fairly advanced courses and I did maybe 5
> hours of homework a week on avg. Now to be fair had I tried harder I
> might have gotten a bit better grades in a couple of classes, but I
> passed everything without problems and had no problem getting into the
> program I wanted at my university of choice.
I agree with Dag. That just sounds bizarre. I took AP and college prep
courses in HS, and the only time I had 5 hours of homework on any day
was when I put things off until the last day. Of course, I was never
challanged in HS at all.
To avoid that, my sons are going to private schools that are very much
aimed at college prep - and *they* don't do five hours of homework a
day. On a slow week, they won't do five hours the entire week.
Dark Phoenix
> Yup; it produces better educational effects, too. The smaller the
> class size, the better students learn. I can teach a kid more in a
> one-hour-a-week tutoring appointment than their math teacher can in 5
> hours a week - precisely because I teach the kid one-on-one, and the
> teacher has 20 or 30 students to teach.
>
> Homeschoolers outperform both public and private school students on
> every kind of academic test - SAT's, ACT's, you name it.
>
> LM
>
You haven't met a lot of the home schooled kids from around here.
You're getting good results because you're smart, know your subjects, and
know how to teach. So do some home schooling parents, but not all by a long
shot.
There are a large number of families that home school in our area, pretty
much all of them for religious reasons: they don't want their children to be
contaminated by evolution or stories that don't reflect proper Christian
values. I don't agree with that, but okay, that is their business. The
problem is that the parents aren't smart enough or well educated enough to
teach them! I've watched a whole cohort grow up that, with one exception,
couldn't think their way out of a paper bag if you left the end open. Their
math doesn't go beyond basic arithmetic, their reading skills are poor, they
can't hold a job, they have no curiosity. And the irony is that the parents
didn't even manage to raise kids with the morals they wanted to; between the
teen age pregnancies, destruction of public property and the DUIs starting
as soon as they can drive a car, it's a pretty sorry lot.
Admittedly, this state is tied for the second lowest IQ of the nation, but
still, these kids would have been better off even in the public schools.
--
Laurie, Dark Phoenix
dark_p...@netw.com
"Vampires are make believe. Just like Elves, Gremlins, and Eskimoes."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GothicGardeners/
Larisa
Dark Phoenix wrote:
> "Larisa" <purple...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:1132014202.1...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> > Yup; it produces better educational effects, too. The smaller the
> > class size, the better students learn. I can teach a kid more in a
> > one-hour-a-week tutoring appointment than their math teacher can in 5
> > hours a week - precisely because I teach the kid one-on-one, and the
> > teacher has 20 or 30 students to teach.
> >
> > Homeschoolers outperform both public and private school students on
> > every kind of academic test - SAT's, ACT's, you name it.
> >
> > LM
> >
>
> You haven't met a lot of the home schooled kids from around here.
>
> You're getting good results because you're smart, know your subjects, and
> know how to teach. So do some home schooling parents, but not all by a long
> shot.
Oh, I know. I've seen some of the bad homeschooling parents, too (got
a kid who is 18 and doesn't know the multiplication tables). What I'm
talking about, though, is the national average - and the average
homeschooler performs better than the average schoolkid. No
comparison. Considering that quite a few homeschoolers are, in fact,
religious loonies who don't teach their kids anything (or hippy-dippy
new-agers who hope that their kid will learn by "unschooling"), that
average is even more amazing. It means that those few kids whose
parents *are*, in fact, teaching them, are doing much much better than
the kids in public or private schools.
LM
whisky-dave
> Are children as dangerous as armed robbers or violent schizophrenics?
Yes they can kill without knowing it is wrong, at least armed robbers
known what they are doing (usually) is wrong and againstv the law,
children would not necessarily understand that.
whisky-dave
"the Danimal" <dmo...@mfm.com> wrote in message
news:1131990956.5...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> Jennie Kermode wrote:
>> My mother teaches
>> primary school kids in England and, over the years (working supply, so
>> visiting lots of different places) she's removed all sorts of weapons
>> from them, including knives and iron bars.
>
> So basically you're saying English schools must handle children
> much like maximum security prisons handle their inmates? Removing
> all metal objects which can be made into "shanks," etc.
Some of the children doing these things have done them repeatedly
before in others schools and the same school, in the UK perhaps
just England I'm not sure but the way to solve this problem is to move
the child from school to school until the problem disappears
or the child is old enough for a prison sentance.
whisky-dave
>
>
> As for "where the parents are" - arguing madly with the teacher, the
> principal, etc., none of which accomplishes anything.
>
From what I can tell most of these ideas come from those high up
in education that seem to het upgraded for comign up with really
dumb ideas.
Marcus Pan
> Yes they can kill without knowing it is wrong, at least armed robbers
> known what they are doing (usually) is wrong and againstv the law,
> children would not necessarily understand that.
Children should have some semblance of right/wrong, etc. by the time
they hit high school, so I don't agree with this. If a child gets into
school and doesn't realize that stabbing somebody is not only illegal,
but immoral, you really have to question the parenting that was done up
to and including that point.
===>StealthGoth PAN
Marcus Pan
> Now, if a kid wakes up at 6am (as most of my students do), goes off to
> school, comes home at 4 or so (as most of my students do), grabs a bite
> to eat and spends all the rest of their time on homework, when are the
> parents supposed to impart those "moral values"?
That's a very good point. I'm seeing an increase in (public school)
homework with my 14 year old right now, and she's not a very good
student in her own right, thoug she's trying hard, but it takes longer
than I remember myself spending on homework. It's hard to fit morals
and just being a family even in between 84 pages of math.
===>StealthGoth PAN
whisky-dave
"Marcus Pan" <mar...@legendsmagazine.net> wrote in message
news:1132068584....@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Whisky-Dave:
>> Yes they can kill without knowing it is wrong, at least armed robbers
>> known what they are doing (usually) is wrong and againstv the law,
>> children would not necessarily understand that.
>
> Children should have some semblance of right/wrong, etc. by the time
> they hit high school,
>so I don't agree with this. If a child gets into
> school and doesn't realize that stabbing somebody is not only illegal,
> but immoral, you really have to question the parenting that was done up
> to and including that point.
yep I'd agree with that, but when you have stabbings in classrooms
I tend to wonder why or how they don't realise it is wrong,
and these are just the things that get reported, much more goes on that
doesn't get reported..