[rescue] public schools

[Chris Hedemark]

On Mon, 2002-07-08 at 00:03, Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:

> I must be the only person here (and, quite possibly, the only person I
> know) that tremendously enjoyed public education.  

Quite possibly.

> Anyway, throughout elementary and high school, I came into contact with
> two types of teachers:
>   1) Horrid little people with a narrow-minded persuits, stuck in their
>      ways of "education", impossible to see beyond the tips of their own
>      noses.
>   2) Genuine academicians who chose a path in high school education either
>      to relax from more stressful positions they enjoyed earlier in life,
>      or in hopes to "make a difference" in the overall stupidity of the
>      system.

I have different types:

1) Those who give a damn, and do something about it.
2) Those who gave a damn once, but not anymore for whatever reason.
3) Those who probably never gave a damn and are just jobbers.

I could count the Type 1 teachers I've had on one hand with some spare
fingers left over.  They left a real impression on me and they were
spaced out enough that anytime I was ready to just homeschool myself at
the library or whatever, they kept me challenged.

The computer teachers were some of the most apathetic, possibly because
even back in grade school I was way ahead of the curve with them.  The
first day of class we were playing a game in the TRS-80 lab called
"Lemonade Stand".  I broke out of the game, found it was an interpreted
BASIC program, and made a few changes to it mainly to start me out with
more money or have a mysterious run of good luck if my money dropped
down much.  Back then the computer teachers were pulled from the pool of
math teachers, and usually was picked based on which one could find the
power switch first.  That particular teacher never challenged me, never
tried, and pretty much left me on my own throughout my years.  That
trend continued through high school.

The people who got me started would have made far better teachers.  The
guy who got me started back around 1976 or 1977 was a groundskeeper at a
summer camp, a retired JPL engineer IIRC.  Old Gus had some space of his
own in part of the library that they hadn't grown into yet.  He made his
own computer in a plexiglass case that was a odd mixture of IC's and
vaccuum tubes.  The thing sat mostly on a 4'x8' table and hung over the
edges.  Input was provided via a hacked IBM electric typewriter and
output was to a line printer.  This was not a terribly sophisticated
machine, but these homebrew systems were the norm back then for anyone
running computers at home.  Anyway he recognized my interest, fed it,
challenged it, and then next year when I came back he had attached a
turtle to it and had written a LOGO interpreter.  Now I could see more
effective results from my work, and was getting geometry lessons before
I started Kindergarten in a way that a child of that age could
understand.

I had a couple of other computer mentors early on that were like that,
that set aside time regularly to teach me and to challenge me.  But Gus
was retired, and my uncle who picked up on that later had to go to work
every day.  Either of these two guys would have made a fine computer
teacher.  But anyone that knew anything about computer programming was
worth at least 2x or 3x more in the "real world" than in public
schooling.  From what I've seen of current public schooling, that
pattern seems to hold true today.

> I had great fun tormenting the former (within the black-and-white
> boundaries set in the student handbook, keeping me out of trouble), and
> have confirmation that I was responsible for at least one of them
> resigning.  At some point later in life, I hope to serve on a school board
> to continue this reign of terror against morons who emotionally beat the
> creativity out of young people.

We're going to be homeschooling our kids (our only child is only 7
months so while we do try to find time for educational play it is hardly
schooling yet).  IMHO public school is a waste of my tax dollars, and is
a holdover from the industrial revolution where we needed to prepare
most of our young people to be factory laborers.  Of course the rich
kids went off to boarding school which prepared them to be managers,
owners and politicians.  Public school kids are growing up to do more
things today than we would have seen 100 years ago but you can't credit
the schools for their success.

> That said, even though I've only been out of high school for four years, I
> do not believe I would enjoy high school as much if I were to be a
> freshman in fall 2002.  High school nationwide went totally to hell with
> that Columbine shit and the terror that it put in the minds of soccer moms
> and spineless school administrators.

Oh yeah how many people here on this mailing list would have been
expelled in a post-columbine public school?  I would have been one of
the first to go.  Kids that are "different" are set aside now, and
heaven forbid if you appear dark or brooding.  Today I would have been
expelled for that, but us weird kids were responsible for some really
cool things.  For example, at my high school I created a Science Club
that went out after school and on weekends to explore science in the
field to augment classroom instruction, and we regularly had 20 to 30
kids going out on their own time to do this stuff.  If I had been
expelled for wearing a trench coat and doodling dark artwork, that path
of learning may not have been an option for the other kids.

Post high-school I learned that the oddball kids mostly grew up to make
a difference.  My best friend was a real slacker in high school, didn't
give a damn, pushed the administrations buttons, and post-columbine
would probably have been removed by police.  Today he is living in San
Fransisco, where he started one of the oldest Linux companies and has
been profitable for at least the last 4 or 5 years.  Some kids can break
out and do well DESPITE their public school education.