A response to Jesse Scaccia’s assertion that homeschoolers are arrogant in our assertion that we understand how the public school teaching profession works.
This is how public education works:
A bunch of previously ideological “teachers” get a captive audience of “students” (compelled to attend by force of law) to whom they must “teach” a set curriculum that may or may not suit the needs of said incarcerated children, may or may not hold their attention, and generally grinds out any sparks of curiosity and interest in life that the children had.
Said ideologues grow jaded and burned out. Said ideological teachers are so burned out on even the idea of learning that they must, themselves, be forced into “continuing education,” because they wouldn’t otherwise do it. (And, sadly, every continuing ed class I’ve been in that was a subject I wanted to study, was clogged with teachers just grinding out required credits and bogging down those of us who were there by choice).
Said prisoners (both students and teachers) stop yearning to be free.
Bureaucrats and legislators throw more and more money at the “problem” while simultaneously increasing the length of the school day and the length of the sentence. (And, should you think that “doing the time” isn’t the point of this incarceration, let me point you to any number of stories about the inmates having to make up missed time: graduated seniors, doing time in “Attendance school”, new draconian attendance policies, and the school from a few weeks ago whose calendar SNAFU (scheduling too many teacher prep periods) put them over a month behind in attendance).
Like prison, the focus is on doing the time.
It’s no wonder the guards are burned out.
It’s just surprising how few of them see it for what it is.
Worse, still, is how few of the guards or prisoners yearn to be free. It’s lost. Stolen. Gone.
This does explain quite a bit about our society, though.
Our founders would be horrified at our docile acceptance of a childhood stripped of constitutional rights. They would be repulsed at our destruction of the family. They would revile us for trading liberty for security. They would cry out against our training our children to trample the Constitution.