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Public School Horror

By Jen Garrison Stuber (playing off Quinn Cotton's original--which was
every bit as ignorant)

You know how there are fascist states throughout the world? Well, in
my country, we have numerous "public schools" humming in the cities, the
country, and suburbia. They're almost as scary as the fascist ones in
some ways -- and they definitely have some traits in common with them.
When we first moved to North Carolina, the houses next to us, behind
us, and diagonally across the street all contained children who
mysteriously left home each day, and mothers with glazed expressions on their
faces
who piled into cars, disappearing from sun up to sun down. The whole
set-up of moms driving off with their infant, toddler, and school-age
kids to give their care and education over to strangers gave me the
willies, and that was before I even had one of my own.
Middle class areas seem to be magnets for little suburban public
schools. Even though there are magnet schools all over North Carolina,
somehow I don't picture your basic Ballantyne babe risking breaking a
nail on a chalkboard while substitute teaching, or skipping a tennis
set for an educational excursion to the sewage plant as a chaperone.
Likewise, I doubt many Belmont moms miss a beat packing those kids off
to public school. It's the middle class that gets suckered into the
myth that mothers and older children cannot survive being together all day
without somebody being strangled.
What's scary is that a lot of the public school faithful are as fueled
by a fanatical, state-based belief in their mission as fascists, and
seem to be just about as brainwashed. Sometimes I even wonder if
they're a manufactured race along the lines of the Stepford wives in Ira
Levin's book, but assembled in schoolhouses instead of family basements. Like
the Stepford robots, they're programmed to send their children into
the arms of strangers, only in this case it's their role as the Ultimate
Working Mothers.
Other times I feel like the heroine in another famous horror story by
Levin, Rosemary's Baby, at that chilling moment when she puts together
the anagram "All of Them Witches" and realizes it refers to her
seemingly harmless neighbors. Some of the public school moms (PSMs)
are kind of witch-y, with the professionally hair and the dry-cleaned
skirts because pants on females are not business attire, but the description
that really applies to this coven is "All of Them Followers."
They're not only fascist in their conviction that their calling is
state mandated, public schoolers also often have a broad one-size-fits-all
streak. Rather than convince their neighbors that the school provides
a superior education, though, they commit legislation, sacrificing their
own freedoms, and those of their neighbors, to teach their kids. I've
known one or two to go to private schools as an excuse to get out of
public school hell, but the true martyrs keep right on sending their
children to windowless buildings with violent children, drugs, sex,
and alcohol.
Historically, children are just not meant to be separated. It's
unnatural. Keeping the kids at home worked in the Stone Age and right
on through to the past 100 years, but cave women hadn't been convinced by
"experts" that they "weren't qualified" to teach their own children
life, and they had a broader range of skills not afforded women who
train in a specialized area.
Kids need their parents to be adults, and to take responsibility for
their educations. They don't need to be sent away to institutions
where sexual predators, homi/suicidal kids with guns, and drug dealers have
access to them and they have no escape. Were you in the group of cool
jock kids? No? You were a studious child who was picked on for being a
"nerd" when the stated reason for going to school was to learn? How'd
that go? Like _Lord of the Flies_? 'Nuff said.
All young animals must be exposed to adults modeling adult behavior.
Believe me, I'm aware that public school families get their children
together, since there's a zillion minivans on the road between 3 and
8, and on the weekends, but being with a few kids from across town once a
week doesn't do the trick. It takes serious community for developing
humans to catch on to the nuances of adult behavior and to have a
chance
to make enough friends. I just can't see public school providing
adequate socialization, when children are sequestered away from anyone
who isn't within 8 months of their same age.
One of my neighboring former PSMs sent her two kids to public school
through eighth grade, then took them out when the they were threatened
at knife point in the john. The boy ended up opening his own business,
and the girl got her PhD at 22.
Yes, I know that public school kids have joined the National Honors
Society, but for every public schooler who aces a spelling bee,
there's some poor child being "instructed" by a "teacher" who's barely
literate herself, and only teaches "to the test." Teachers in the public
school
system are required to have certification and college degrees, but
none of them are required to actually teach their charges anything.
What's really scary about public schools is what it can do to the
sanity of a child and parent deluded into thinking it's their civic duty. No
child was ever meant to be trapped in a windowless school all day with
other children old enough to spell "homicide."
So if new neighbors move in next door and you notice that the kids
leave don't return until after dark and mom carries a brief case, be afraid.
Be very afraid.
--Jen


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

jimpetersonl

She wrote a retraction, too:


Dear Editor,
I would like to retract my earlier revision of Quinn Cotton's
"Homeschooling Horror." Reading more of her work, I stumbled upon the
below.

I did not realize earlier that she finds her child to be "bratty,
berserk, annoying" and "a major hassle."

She must not have realized that those of us who homeschool don't need
to practice offensive parenting, trying to undo the pathologies that
7-9 waking hours of institutionalization creates in children.

It stands to reason, then, that of course she wouldn't understand that
most homeschoolers find our children to be delightful human beings
(often--gasp--more delightful than our former colleagues).

--Jen


http://charlotte.creativeloafing.com/2004-02-04/news_cotton.html

"Come on, we know what these teacher workdays are really for, and it's not
just to catch up on the grading. They exist because the teachers want a
break from our bratty, berserk, annoying kids -- but the problem is, we
parents do too, and we're paying major bucks for it in the form of either
taxes or tuition. We're the employers here, yet the employees get to
set the
schedule in another reverse twist from most professions, and we're
supposed
to just go along with it.

The only people who really benefit from teacher workdays are the teachers,
natch, and the students who get to sleep in. For many households, what
to do
with the kids is a major hassle, and often the solution seems to be to
either leave them home alone and pray this isn't the day they discover
matches or porn sites, or just drag them along on the job. If you look
around on teacher workdays you'll see little girls hanging out in the
grocery store aisles while their fathers stock the shelves and guys
slumped
over Game Boys behind their mothers' desks. "

~Sue

> Public School Horror
>
> By Jen Garrison Stuber (playing off Quinn Cotton's original--which was
> every bit as ignorant)
>
> You know how there are fascist states throughout the world? Well, in
> my country, we have numerous "public schools" humming in the cities, the
> country, and suburbia. They're almost as scary as the fascist ones in
> some ways -- and they definitely have some traits in common with them.
> When we first moved to North Carolina, the houses next to us, behind
> us, and diagonally across the street all contained children who
> mysteriously left home each day, and mothers with glazed expressions
on their
> faces
> who piled into cars, disappearing from sun up to sun down. The whole
> set-up of moms driving off with their infant, toddler, and school-age
> kids to give their care and education over to strangers gave me the
> willies, and that was before I even had one of my own.
> Middle class areas seem to be magnets for little suburban public
> schools. Even though there are magnet schools all over North Carolina,
> somehow I don't picture your basic Ballantyne babe risking breaking a
> nail on a chalkboard while substitute teaching, or skipping a tennis
> set for an educational excursion to the sewage plant as a chaperone.
> Likewise, I doubt many Belmont moms miss a beat packing those kids off
> to public school. It's the middle class that gets suckered into the
> myth that mothers and older children cannot survive being together
all day
> without somebody being strangled.
> What's scary is that a lot of the public school faithful are as fueled
> by a fanatical, state-based belief in their mission as fascists, and
> seem to be just about as brainwashed. Sometimes I even wonder if
> they're a manufactured race along the lines of the Stepford wives in Ira
> Levin's book, but assembled in schoolhouses instead of family
basements. Like
> the Stepford robots, they're programmed to send their children into
> the arms of strangers, only in this case it's their role as the Ultimate
> Working Mothers.
> Other times I feel like the heroine in another famous horror story by
> Levin, Rosemary's Baby, at that chilling moment when she puts together
> the anagram "All of Them Witches" and realizes it refers to her
> seemingly harmless neighbors. Some of the public school moms (PSMs)
> are kind of witch-y, with the professionally hair and the dry-cleaned
> skirts because pants on females are not business attire, but the
description
> that really applies to this coven is "All of Them Followers."
> They're not only fascist in their conviction that their calling is
> state mandated, public schoolers also often have a broad
one-size-fits-all
> streak. Rather than convince their neighbors that the school provides
> a superior education, though, they commit legislation, sacrificing their
> own freedoms, and those of their neighbors, to teach their kids. I've
> known one or two to go to private schools as an excuse to get out of
> public school hell, but the true martyrs keep right on sending their
> children to windowless buildings with violent children, drugs, sex,
> and alcohol.
> Historically, children are just not meant to be separated. It's
> unnatural. Keeping the kids at home worked in the Stone Age and right
> on through to the past 100 years, but cave women hadn't been
convinced by
> "experts" that they "weren't qualified" to teach their own children
> life, and they had a broader range of skills not afforded women who
> train in a specialized area.
> Kids need their parents to be adults, and to take responsibility for
> their educations. They don't need to be sent away to institutions
> where sexual predators, homi/suicidal kids with guns, and drug
dealers have
> access to them and they have no escape. Were you in the group of cool
> jock kids? No? You were a studious child who was picked on for being a
> "nerd" when the stated reason for going to school was to learn? How'd
> that go? Like _Lord of the Flies_? 'Nuff said.
> All young animals must be exposed to adults modeling adult behavior.
> Believe me, I'm aware that public school families get their children
> together, since there's a zillion minivans on the road between 3 and
> 8, and on the weekends, but being with a few kids from across town
once a
> week doesn't do the trick. It takes serious community for developing
> humans to catch on to the nuances of adult behavior and to have a
> chance
> to make enough friends. I just can't see public school providing
> adequate socialization, when children are sequestered away from anyone
> who isn't within 8 months of their same age.
> One of my neighboring former PSMs sent her two kids to public school
> through eighth grade, then took them out when the they were threatened
> at knife point in the john. The boy ended up opening his own business,
> and the girl got her PhD at 22.
> Yes, I know that public school kids have joined the National Honors
> Society, but for every public schooler who aces a spelling bee,
> there's some poor child being "instructed" by a "teacher" who's barely
> literate herself, and only teaches "to the test." Teachers in the
public
> school
> system are required to have certification and college degrees, but
> none of them are required to actually teach their charges anything.
> What's really scary about public schools is what it can do to the
> sanity of a child and parent deluded into thinking it's their civic
duty. No
> child was ever meant to be trapped in a windowless school all day with
> other children old enough to spell "homicide."
> So if new neighbors move in next door and you notice that the kids
> leave don't return until after dark and mom carries a brief case, be
afraid.
> Be very afraid.
> --Jen
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]