Don’t you wish you had a nickel for every time you heard someone say that public schooling is necessary for “socialization”?
Incredibly, a hundred years ago, it was the teachers’ unions who stood up to the crackpot “education” theorists and protected America from “educational” experiments–like training kids to hate their country, just to name one of the more popular ones that’s still ongoing. How times change.
Again I ask: are we sure we want our kids back in public school?
My parents strived to maintain a very wholesome environment in our home. The family was of modest means, but my parents used proper language and avoided colloquialisms, not to mention vulgarities, etc. When I first went to kindergarten, I was shocked. I had limited contact with other kids in the neighborhood before that time, but I was quite limited in my exposure to children outside the family. When I heard how they talked, I was appalled.
I learned a lot of bad things in my school years. At one point, I ended up in a rough school where, even 50+ years ago, there was a form of gang activity, violence, drugs and pornography. The teachers didn’t try to fight it, they turned a blind eye to things which should never have been allowed. In retrospect, they probably were every bit as scared of the badness as I was. Amazingly, in that septic environment, I met three of the nicest people I would ever meet. One remained a friend for many years.
Even at that time, I wondered why I had to go to school. If learning had been the point of it all, I could have easily learned at home, probably in 2 hours per day, or less. Had I been able to pursue my interests in the time left over, I would have been able to learn practical skills from an early age. As it was, I was dissecting lawn mower engines and tinkering with motorcycles by the time I was 12 or so. Had I access to training materials, I probably would have been able to focus those interests into marketable skills at an early age.
To be fair, I did learn some useful things in school and among the desert of boredom, there was the occasional oasis of actual learning, but I wish that I could have apprenticed at something useful, from an early age. I would have loved, at that age, to work on motorcycles. Where that’s concerned, I would probably enjoy that even now. I would have made a dandy electrician, and I have enjoyed the occasions in which I wired buildings for my own use (which makes it legal). If I had it all to do over again, I think I would love to have become both an electrician and an electrical engineer. Had I apprenticed as an electrician and been able to take core courses on the side, I probably could have accomplished that and been ready for a good career at an earlier age.
One thing is for certain, the “socialization” of the school system came at a high price. How much better off would I have been had I not been exposed to some of the bad things that happened in school?
My age-group peers rarely exhorted me to do anything that wasn’t bad or stupid.
Likewise.
The public education system has failed. Kids are getting dumber by the moment.
And “conservatives” wanna send ’em back to public school!
I never realized this until now: conservatives are stupid. They engineer their own defeats.
You make a very good point about the negative aspects of “socialization.” My youngest son is naughty enough without further encouragement from his equally naughty peers. Ha ha. On a completely unrelated note, I saw you described in your News with Views bio as a “horror novelist.” Now, I’m curious. What have you written in the horror genre?
Four horror novels, from way back in the 1980s and 90s. They’re still on amazon.
I’ll have to look them up!
Well said, Lee. Home schooling is the best for Christian parents – it is worth any sacrifices that are required. Thomas Sowell has a new book out about his research on Charter Schools. He is very high on them but warns about how the Teachers Unions are making politicians add more and more restrictions on them. As has been said on this Blog: Liberals ruin everything they touch.