I'm sexual but...

[Traveler40]

4 minutes ago, 123383 said:

It's unnatural for children to be courageous; not one in a million would have.

I disagree with this completely  having witnessed quite the opposite. 🤷🏻‍♀️
 

Anyhow, since it’s revisit thoughts moment, I was thinking about the discussion on honesty: I suspect there’s a bit of meaning memory dichotomy there. There is nothing worse than telling the truth only to not be believed. 

 

In any case, I suspect honesty as a base value was never taught in the first place. Trustworthiness is something we’ve focused on instilling.  When our children speak, teachers know it’s truth. The benefits of that can’t be overstated.

[ryn2]

1 hour ago, CBC said:

Looks like Snao and I killed this thread talking about Wish and Twitter. 😢😂

Nah, I just don’t have Wish so I had nothing to add.

[Traveler40]

1 minute ago, ryn2 said:

Nah, I just don’t have Wish so I had nothing to add.

Ditto, and it’s crap. I have zero use for crap...

[ryn2]

1 hour ago, Anthracite_Impreza said:

We had a teacher called Mr Bates briefly. I suspect briefly for a reason.

We had Mr. Hickey!

[Traveler40]

We had Glasscock.

 

That deserved some boldage. 😂

[Traveler40]

OMG - our car guy was Hung Dong!

[ryn2]

26 minutes ago, 123383 said:

Don't be. It's unnatural for children to be courageous; not one in a million is.

 

5 minutes ago, Traveler40 said:

I disagree with this completely  having witnessed quite the opposite.

While the truth doubtless lies in the middle, courageous kids (in the defending-against-bullying sense) were in short, short supply at my school!

 

Courage in the face of illness?  Sure.

[ryn2]

When I worked in an ambulatory practice we had some patients with hilarious names, but HIPAA...

[Traveler40]

Perhaps times are changing? My kids are in a school that teaches them to stand up against crap like that. It’s amazing that if it’s taught, modeled and expected, the kids tend to do it. Not all, for sure, but quite a few. 👍🏻

[ryn2]

6 minutes ago, CBC said:

My gran went to school with a boy named Harry Dick. 😐

Gotta wonder what those parents were thinking.

 

I went to school with Mary Christmas and my high school bf’s dad worked with Paul Paul.

[ryn2]

2 minutes ago, Traveler40 said:

Perhaps times are changing? My kids are in a school that teaches them to stand up against crap like that. It’s amazing that if it’s taught, modeled and expected, the kids tend to do it. Not all, for sure, but quite a few. 👍🏻

That’s a good-sounding model but from what the parents amongst my local friends and coworkers describe the public schools here are just like they were when I attended.

[Traveler40]

Mary Christmas. That’s horrifying. 😱

[ryn2]

Just now, Traveler40 said:

Mary Christmas. That’s horrifying. 😱

Right??  I bet she couldn’t wait to get married.

[Guest]

Nothing here.

 

[Traveler40]

So yeah, public school. It’s a totally different animal. My kids live in a bit of a bubble. 😬

[ryn2]

Just now, 123383 said:

I was being hyperbolic in case it wasn’t obvious.

I’m guessing you both were, a bit.  

 

I hope times do change!

[Anthracite_Impreza]

I can say this cos she's long dead and is not a security question; my mother's mother was Marge Simpson.

[ryn2]

1 minute ago, Traveler40 said:

So yeah, public school. It’s a totally different animal. My kids live in a bit of a bubble. 😬

One of the private schools here tries to teach more tolerance; the other one is worse than the public schools.  But, yeah, not an option in my family anyway.

[Traveler40]

Public schools in my state:

 

1. DEFUNDED science a few years ago.

2. Gave Special Ed classes to Regular Ed teachers and vice versa so as to mainstream to the max.

3. Float above 30-33 kids per class

4. Suck if you don’t live in a wealthy neighborhood, and even then, I wouldn’t put my kids in the system. The PTA advantages to those schools in wealthier neighborhoods continue to offer advantages most can’t access. The divide grows.

 

The billions that go to education are being eaten up by the bureaucracy. It’s a sad state of affairs. If you can afford it, public school is to be avoided.

[ryn2]

Yeah, public schools in poor districts are definitely at a significant disadvantage academically where I live as well.  My parents were lower-middle-class children of working-class parents, though, so if it wasn’t free it wasn’t happening.  We did live in a wealthier district, hence a lot of the bullying.

[Guest]

50 minutes ago, 123383 said:

Don't be. It's unnatural for children to be courageous; not one in a million is.

Yeah especially not when you yourself are friendless have been bullied mercilessly every day of school since you started, it's each person for him/herself in that kind of situation. 

 

And hey maybe you were running around defending kids against the asshole bullies (and if you were, good for you!!) but most of us were just happy when it wasn't being directed at us.

 

Also in my experience, it's often not fear when you don't defend a kid against a bully (it wasn't in my case), it's that you're not even registering it as bullying. What I was getting daily was, in my mind then, much worse than what Nicholas (who also came from a very wealthy family, while I didn't even have shoes to wear to school) was getting on the bus, so it literally just seemed funny - not like bullying at all. I didn't register until much later (when I was an adult) that Patrick was being a dick at all to Nicholas, whose financial situation didn't mean he somehow couldn't be bullied as I believed at the time as a bullied kid living in poverty.

 

 

[Guest]

Nothing here.

 

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, 123383 said:

Isn’t this by design, to entrench the disadvantage of the poor by denying them education?

 

I understand; this was my circumstance too. I am not critical of you, only saying you shouldn’t feel morally blameworthy decades later.

Oh yeah totally, I could see we had that similarity in having both experienced it. Must have sucked starting school at such a young age like that though (now, we have kindergarten for kids ages like 2-5 which is where they go before starting school. It must have been awful not being able to do that!). At least I was the same age as most of the kids who bullied me so I had a fighting chance, you were way smaller!

 

I feel morally blameworthy for so much that happened back then though. My brother was getting so badly bullied that mum took him out of school and homeschooled him, and I still kick myself to this day that I didn't just fess up about what was happening to me as well so I could be taken out of school too. Because of that, I blame myself for everything that happened to me, and the pain it caused me (suicide attempts etc). Just a bitch of a situation and I was too cowardly to tell mum the truth about it. Stupid. I don't even blame the bullies. They can't help what they are. Sigh.

[Guest]

Nothing here.

[Guest]

 

9 hours ago, Traveler40 said:

2. Gave Special Ed classes to Regular Ed teachers and vice versa so as to mainstream to the max.

Thanks NCLB *sigh* This is the issue my job is having because legally they cant deny a mainstream education unless there is a significant safety issue with them being in gen ed. It's not fair on the ESE kids or gen ed kids. None of them get a good education that way. Trying to teach a severely ESE kid that needs structure to not melt down in a gen ed classroom where a lesson may evolve with the students during the lesson is just hard and means the lesson either cant evolve or will be disrupted by all the adults shifting focus to the kid that cant handle the sudden change in schedule so starts throwing chairs or screaming / punching. So no one gets a quality education all around. 

 

[Traveler40]

7 hours ago, Serran said:

the lesson either cant evolve or will be disrupted by all the adults shifting focus to the kid that cant handle the sudden change in schedule so starts throwing chairs or screaming

So, I volunteer to teach in public schools through a foundation on occasion. True story:

 

I was doing a series of classes in a poverty stricken elementary school. There were 32 kids in class and one severely compromised kid we can call Johnny. Every so often, Johnny would melt down. The answer? All other 31 kids were made to go outside and stand against the wall while they got Johnny under control. This happened every time Johnny freaked out, no matter how often. The other 31 kids basically had no rights.

 

In wealthier neighborhoods, parents are more involved and would challenge this situation. Additionally, some schools are Special Ed campuses on purpose to lure these families with “additional services” in order to group them up and away where possible. That’s a double edged sword as there are still a boatload of kids in those schools that don’t need special Ed but have more kids in their classes that do.
 

The bureaucracy on both sides of the aisle have killed education. Money can’t fix it as it’s being absorbed by the folks making all of these downright stupid decisions. Until sanity prevails, the education system will continue to deteriorate and the divide will grow
 

Ceebs, back in the day over 30 was still tough, but there was a better and bigger separation of challenged kids to get the help they need. Parents have fought hard and successfully to put their kids with special needs in with the “regular ed” group which then challenges everyone else. It wasn’t like that back in the day.
 

Thankfully, my kids aren’t touched by this madness. The advantages are real and will only grow with time. I contend many public school bound parents don’t really understand what’s happening or they would rise up and fight for theIr children’s rights. Also, the tracking has an effect that is sobering depending on how a kid tests. All of that nonsense is nonexistent in private schools. 👍🏻

[Traveler40]

In thinking about numbers, consider our closest friends:  Their child and our youngest were in pre-school together. They went the public school route as they live in one of the best districts in our county. Their child had 35 kids in kindergarten split into 1/2 day education. On the other hand, our child had 12 total classmates in a full day program. Our child was reading chapter books by the end of the year, finished addition and subtraction math facts and had started multiplication. That’s KINDERGARTEN.
 

You can’t substitute the beauty of so few kids, focused on success in learning, and no special ed in the mix. It’s just education elevated.

 

In other words, how it should be. That is, every child getting educated in a good environment at the level they can handle.

[anisotrophic]

3 hours ago, Traveler40 said:

Every so often, Johnny would melt down. The answer? All other 31 kids were made to go outside and stand against the wall while they got Johnny under control.

In a private school, Johnny gets kicked out of the school.

I know a well-to-do family whose son was kicked out of private schools. So now he's in the public school system. (It's a top notch public school, because the usual stuff – neighborhood, PTA, strong synergy with a local community center.) He's not special needs level, but some kids have more behavior issues than others. Private schools get to avoid a lot problems instead of solving them.

[Traveler40]

2 hours ago, anisotrophic said:

In a private school, Johnny gets kicked out of the school.

*nods* and I’m totally ok with that. Johnny needs help and services that he won’t get in a private setting. Many parents just want the problem removed so they can get on with learning for their child. I not only understand that, but agree. You don’t need to compromise in the private setting. 
 

EDIT: To be clear, I’ve seen this occur twice so far and felt the school kept the children longer than they should have. It’s not a fast and heartless expulsion. Schools try to help, but some kids just need more than a particular setting can or will provide. To help one at the expense of many isn’t how a private school functions or flourishes.  That’s where the public schools step in.

[Traveler40]

2 hours ago, CBC said:

I do think private schools can... brush a lot of things under the carpet though, so to speak.

Yes - and that’s what you’re paying for. It’s not a bad thing imho.

 

I do think private school kids live in a bubble. Therefore, as a parent, seeking to expose them to a harsher element is important. Otherwise, the kids can grow up thinking life is somewhat gentler than in reality.