Last night on Youtube we watched some people reminiscing about their first day of school. Well, that brings back memories!
We lived right next door to the school. My mother took me there the first day. And then, to my horror, she left me there. What was she thinking?
My first day in class I found both boring and stressful. Then I found out I couldn’t leave until they said so. What? You mean I’m stuck here?
The principal, my first two years, was Mr. Popke, an angel who loved children. He made the place bearable. He was succeeded by a smarmy character who excelled in tricking little kids into admitting to mischief they hadn’t actually done. He was succeeded by an angry crone who communicated by shrieking at you. It went downhill from there.
As for the teachers, my mother, father, grandparents, aunts, and uncles were all way more interesting than any teachers. What did I ever learn in school that they couldn’t have taught me? Some of the teachers I had–well, the less said about them, the better. I was a homeschooling fan before I ever heard of homeschooling. There is very much to be said for children being taught by adults who know and love them.
Later on in grade school, I had the devil’s own time trying to learn how to add up a column of numbers. “Carrying” really stumped me. The teacher couldn’t solve it. My father sat down with me one evening after supper and taught me how to do it in twenty minutes.
And this was long before public education came to be all about sex, socialism, and detesting your country. It wasn’t toxic then. Just boring. I could have learned all the material a lot faster than I did, but the teaching was geared to accommodate the slower learners.
This was before the teachers’ unions sent delegations to places like Venezuela to praise the dictator and his socialist policies and then, upon their return, teach such piffle to the kiddies.
Public schooling is an idea whose time has come and gone. Long gone.