Ok, i wrote this post on my website. Some may agree or disagree with this and think I am off my rocker. I am not bashing teachers. I respect thier job and what they are doing. I am not taking shots at good honest loving teachers who truely enjoy what they are doing and playing a part in educating our young minds. Those are the ones I praise. I thank them. I empathize the word SOME when I mention teachers in an attempt to not confuse people. Anyways enjoy.

The school system.

It is just as corrupt and evil as SOME and I only mean SOME of those idiots in Washington. I respect the fact that schools educate kids and teach them important things later in life. I went through one hell of a system to get where I am now and when I left, I was not even looking back. I was glad to be out of this thing called a school system.

DISCLAIMER: What you are about to hear may be some things you do not agree on. I am not bashing teachers or the profession as a whole, just the ones who seem to ego trip and THINK they know what they are doing. Possibly doing something illegal. Putting their needs before the students. Cannot seem to help students to keep their grades up and maintain discipline. Always yelling. Coming into class with a bad attitude and probably not even suited well to teach. Regardless of these egomaniacs there are some good teachers who have done a lot of good for many students including myself. My hats go off to them. Their work will never go ignored and to this day I thank them all. We are fortunate to have some good honest teachers. So before I rant, I would like to take the time to thank the good hard working teachers at the Oswego School District and other districts across the country.

On to my rant.

Many of you are probably wondering why I am so bitter towards the school system. I think there are some problems. I was taught in college that the reason we had recess was a way for students to be a part of this system that rewards who is strong and punish those who weren't. The kids playing kickball would pick people last. Proves my point there. I was beaten up by a bully on the playground and no teacher saw it. These teachers sometimes turn a blind eye on this and shrug it off. I often wonder if these teachers are in some sort of racket with the bad kids to conspire to go after others. Then there is the favorites game. I saw it. Some teachers look down on the bad kids and trouble makers and suck up to others. As for the troublemakers, teachers fail to see any problem with these kids and ignore it. Back in the old days teachers took serious action. The differance now is Just sending the troublemakers to the office for the principal to deal with. Finally after numerous trips to the office a kid gets suspended. WOW NICE CONCEPT! KICK A KID OUT OF SCHOOL WHICH IS SOMETHING THIS KID ALREADY HATES TO BEGIN WITH!!!! That does not work, if its one thing that would work it would be keeping the kid in school longer. Here is an idea, lets make him stay in school longer. Its better then keeping him home in his room for a week where he has the luxury of watching daytime TV all day and playing PS2.

Then there are the times school starts. What is up with this? Some kids have to show up at the bus stop at 7:45AM. That means this kid is going to have to get up extremely early. Early enough that its still dark. It’s a proven fact that with all the, extracurricular activities and studying that getting up early does not help. Test scores are lower then ones that have school start later. Not only that but just recently the school day got extended a little longer. Why is this? Probably for the teachers and more pay, but more importantly more teaching time. But lets look at it this way. How hard is it to sit through a 45 minute or hour class? I find it hard as do others. That and you are making a situation of more restlessness for kids. One thing is for sure, schools are becoming more and more like prisons and more kids are hating school. These kinds of things I have mentioned can only lead to trouble.

The major problem with the school system is that being elite and thinking you are better then the other guy is good. When shootings like Columbine and other happened, it raised many questions. Sure the parents should have taken more responsibility for their loose cannon sons, but I believe the structure of the school is a factor and ONLY a factor. I am saying this so you do not think it is to blame, it is just a factor and I will only say this once. Picture yourself, a 17 year old boy. You like to listen to other forms of music. You hate DMB and prefer Goth music like Marilyn Manson. You like to dress in black. Keep in mind that Columbine is an affluent area and all the talk is the Denver Broncos, football, golf scores, what’s in style and who is hot and who is not. So it comes to no surprise that a kid running around the halls of Columbine is different for wearing a trench coat instead of say a North Face, Denver Broncos or Nike coat like everyone else. The kids become seen as only different and only perceived as to how they look. Once again the elitist attitude comes into play and even the teachers start to follow this too. When the kid is made fun of for being different it angers him. He wants to be seen as someone who is just a human being. So the teachers and other students do this as well by showing off how elite they are. Students constantly show off how well off they are and some teachers go on and on about how great they have it. The kid is frustrated and does not know how to deal with this. He does not want to talk to anyone. No one said being a teen was easy and they will make rash decisions and no one will be there for them. Heck some of our priests have turned into monsters. Soon enough the Columbine school yard is turned into a warzone. So when I see these shootings and other forms of violence like the recent hazing that happened in Illinois, it once again shows how people want to feel elite against others. The Trench Coat Mafia wanted to feel elite and thought that by shooting up their "enemies" (AS THEY SAW THEM) and teachers it would end that. I am not sympathizing them for this, it was a sick and demonic thing to do and it was a very bad decision on their part. This has traumatized a lot of kids. Security has increased too. The violence that once only was a problem in the inter cities is becoming a problem in the heartland and in the suburbs. The more security makes schools look like a prision as opposed to where I work.

A powder puff game ending in a barbaric way like it did in Illinois shows an effort by the seniors to be elite in action. This is the last time the seniors felt they could show it to the juniors. So what happens? THEY BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF THEM AND HUMILIATE THEM. Here is real kicker too. PARENTS CONDONE IT EVEN. There is evidence that parents provided the booze, feces, pig guts and fish intestines in this act. So we got parents welcoming this behavior. Meanwhile some seniors seeing how they think they are still better then the juniors regardless if they won or lost the game still want to flex their muscles and show the juniors who is boss, one last time. What they do is give the juniors a beating like out of a movie. Broken bones, split skulls and other injuries caused many to be rushed to the hospital. In this situation the parents and kids thought it was suiting to show how better they were then the juniors and they were willing to allow a savage beating of their underclass. This was no hazing at all. I have a feeling there is something much more then this. Several students were suspended for this. My hats go off to the school for this. But now those parents of the kids suspended are suing the school citing that it is unconstitutional. In the end that lawsuit will be canceled out when the kids who were beaten up sue them. Once again being elite is seen. Seeing that the parents of the kids suspended want to show their last bit of wanting to be better they go as far as to sue the very school that they support in taxes. By doing this it shows how they have no remorse at how they could cost others their education in the process just because they want to feel so much better then the school. After all we all know how schools spend and manage their money. Which brings me to my next rant.

I am under the impression that the people in the school system cannot balance a checkbook. I can do better then them. We were taught and yelled at in class the proper way to add and subtract and manage money, so isn’t it a bit ironic that the very people who taught us this, cannot seem to comprehend it too? Sports programs and other extra curricular activities are good and have a long tradition. But every year it seems like no matter how much residents pay in taxes and what gets cut, there is still a deficit and school districts fail to make proper cutbacks. I look at it this way. What is more important, academics or extracurricular activities? What is more important, if the football team made it to sectionals or if SAT Scores are high? These are questions I ask myself. Call me an evil jerk for thinking cutbacks are the answer but at this point it looks reasonable. School districts can spend over a thousand dollars on a new football field and then turn around and have the nerve to say to the parents who have kids in special education classes they cannot find more room or have enough money for better materials. Why? Because the school went and spent so much of it on making the football field better, and that tells me their priorities are messed up. I think it is messed up that while some classes were out in a trailer the students with special needs were confined to taking their required extended time on tests in a small green houses. I did and I think its pretty crappy how some areas of the school have it better then others. This needs to stop.

What does all this mean? Well I think what has happened is that the school system is ego-tripping. SOME and I mean SOME principals, teachers and school board members are self serving and manipulative to get what they want. Some teachers enjoy feeling elite. So if it means kicking the kids with special education out of their class just so it makes them feel better and gives them something less to worry about because they are lazy, then by golly they still are not elite. Because they have failed to prove how elite they really are for being patient and helping the kid. I went through this. Some teachers looked down on me like this. Some even wanted to just sit back and watch me fail. So if you were yelled at constantly and bullied around, I believe chances are it was someone who felt they wanted to be better, brought on by other peers, even some of the teachers. As long as the feeling of wanting to be self serving, selfish, ignorant and elite exist, then I do believe that the school system will always have some problems and cause others to go through what I went through. What I went through was torment by the school being ignorant. Being confined to many schools and teachers because their own school could not accommodate or help me. Being bullied by many kids. Riding the "RETARD" bus as it was called. These were just some of the things I had to deal with because of the feelings these people who were ignorant or wanting to feel big and bad. Its still going on. Some teachers are looking down on those diagnosed with conditions like A.D.D/A.D.H.D. Even though laws protect those with this conditions in schools. Some schools are still flexing their muscles and wanting to feel elite and not deal with this. The feeling elite attitude that is allowed by school boards, teachers and acted out is the problem with our school system and leading to budget problems, violence in schools and teachers getting into trouble. I hate to see all this.

I place the budget problems squarely with the politicians, and the citizens, who do not strongly support more funding for schools. Schools should be a place where children can get into a multitude of extra-curricular, artistic, athletic, musical, or other creative activities. Unfortunatly, the view is that only the academic courses are important. They don't even emphazise foreign language often, and don't seem to think the performing arts, or the arts in general are important. Just math and science and reading and writing, that will not make a human fully develop. Out schools could be the center of human development, outside the home, and provide a richness of experience to all our children, thus avoiding the trap of sending these kids to prisons later, or paying their welfare bills later, or seeing them homeless and paying their medical bills, and living in an unjust society. The schools could be the great equalizers, giving every single person a chance to do what he/she wants to do in life.

Instead, they are like prisons, as you say. It is so unfortunate. I wanted out of school so badly too...hated it, until i took a chance and went to college. There I loved school for the first time in my life.

Capitalism is a great thing, but it is sad when the populous cannot convince the senators to build 10 less nuclear bombs, 10 less stealth bombers, 10 less egotistical statues, 10 less tax subsidies to industries that don't need our subsidies, 10 less tax cut presidential candidates, 10 less massive governement buildings, 10 less escoteric scientific grants, 10 less 5000.00 toilets, 10 less 1000.00 hammers, 10 less all expense paid trips to Hawaii on "official wink wink business", 10 less 300.00 dinners at tax-payer expense, 10 less multimillion dollar residences in NY city for diplomats, 10 less trips to Mars, ....until they have enough money to educate every kid properly. Bombs before education, right?

Did you ever notice that you can hardly find an American occupied in the highest positions at research universities? That is because few Americans ever get that high a degree of education, and we have to import the brains from other countries. This is a sad statement about our investment in our children and our schools.

As for discrimination against anyone, with or without disabilities, it happens in the school as part of our culture, and it is detestable. Out entire culture has to be looked at, not just our schools. Our value system is in question.

Jon

Have either of you read any of Thom Hartmann's work?

His book Thom Hartmann's Complete Guide to ADHD: Help for Your Family at Home, School and Work has a great section about the school system.
http://www.addforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=183

I am just trying to rasie some awareness to how flawed the very thing we are teaching our future leaders are doing. The point I am trying to make is that I am fed up with a school system that is not helping others effectively like it should. Some educators blame all the low state stanardized test scores on the fact that those with A.D.D and A.D.H.D are the reason for this. You can blame some of the parents for this. I think the factor is biased tests. If they require time, that puts those with special needs at a disadvantage as well as the wording of questions. I have seen one teacher blame low test scores for this and put the blame on the parents. But what about the good parents who have a kid struggling in school and with tests? How do you explain that? COMMON EDUCATORS EDUCATE US BETTER AS TO WHY THIS IS HAPPENING SO WE THE PARENTS CAN HELP!! Unfortunatly some would get a piece of mind if they were not in thier class. SOME and i only mean SOME educators would probably feel better knowing they had no students with A.D.D or A.D.H.D in thier class.

I do agree that politicians are the least bit concerned about things relating to the schools. But if these school boards are aware of this, how come they are not doing thier job.

I see all this money going to schools and as a concerned citizen I am seeing it wasted and not used right at all.

Why am I so bitter? Because the other day as part of a news assignment at my television station I work at, I went to a place where special ed kids are bused too. It sucks how the school just solves its problems by putting pressure on parents to medicate thier kids and have them be bused. Sure this helps for some, the only thing I find objective is the exclusion. The labeling is bad because it has some long term effects on social life.

I must say that it brought back some very bad memories of things I went through. I videotaped a kid going through physical thearapy with Autism. All I could think about was how these kids were bused to some alternative class because they could not conform to the public school. I see a class system here. I knew a kid whose own mother was a teacher and this jerk is calling me a retard. He is also telling me jokes about those with disabilities. When he played football i prayed he broke his leg for saying this. Where do you think hes getting that from? HEY TEACHER IS THIS THE RESULT OF BAD PARENTS??? I would not be surprised if it was his mother. I had to deal with teachers like this and if a budget vote comes up and to this day I vow I will vote "NO" if we have teachers like that working. I do not support this corruption at all. Educators can argue with me and say "Oh but you are not concerned about the kids, you are being ignorant and evil." Then again they have been too so I do not feel that bad. They were being ignorant and evil to me too. After years of this crap I do not support this at all.

Much of my bitterness comes from years of torment. Once I was diagnosed with A.D.D. The school jerked me and my parents around for a year while I struggled and failed in the first grade. The teacher in that class from day one did not want me in her class. She even told me to go back to Kindergarden on the first day. She said I was out of control, had problems with my brain and gave up on me and watched me fail while her and other teachers in that school used to harpoon me for my difficulties. I was later bused to alternative schools for two years. I was held back for first grade. The first school i went to I was bused 10 miles from home with others. Second grade i was going to a private school with a "special" class for those struggling with what I had. Later I was bused to a public school across town where i delt with some pretty ignorant teachers at first but latter gave in thanks to pressure from my parents. Unfortunatly I was being bused to another school across town from where I lived because this was the only public school that had the proper accomodations and I was singled out for having to go to alternative "Special" classes and physical thearapy because the school recomeded and made me do it. The class and teacher would laugh and embarress me about this when I was late from going to physical therapy. Reason why is because the bus driver who picked me up and drove me back to school sucked. So what did I learn from all this, that the school system looks down on those with disabilities and sometimes no matter how many laws are passed, still get shafted.

Since it is school budget time, even if people who were fed up with the system in thier district voted "No" school boards would not be that stupid to short change kids. This would be a way of sending them a message. Even voting yes, I am convinced it is still doing no good. We got horrible spending habits and for some reason I am convinced that the money is truely not being invested in the STUDENTS. The money only seems to be centered more towards the administration and they seem to go on a spending spree worse then my sister with a credit card at the mall. The bueracracy in the school system is insaine too. People are watching each others backs no matter what. The power they hold is dangerous. There are some things people in that system are getting away with that would cause me to lose my job if i did the same. Its the result of a system protecting them no matter what. I was shocked to find how a teacher who finds a kid with drugs, gives the contra band back and does not go about the proper procedure to handle it. The shocking truth is, she kept her job. Now I ask you this, is this the kind of person you would still want working and sending your kids to school with? The people who pay for this school system have no say in the matter which is wrong. Same goes with the teachers making out on a school field trip with students present and still kept thier job. They can go after kids in school doing that but they do it themselves and get off scot free. I see a double standard here. We go back to ego tripping again. Some teachers see themselves as bullet proof and find ways to keep thier jobs. Quite frankly it sickens me that we got some sickos we send our kids to school with.

To the people fighting the school for the accomedations for your sons or daughters with special needs, fight the good fight. Show those people in the school system you are good parents and you are concerned by continuing to fight for your kids. Get your money's worth from them. After all you are paying for it. If push comes to shove do all you can even if it means calling up the lawyer, speaking up at PTA meetings, writing congressmen and going to school board meetings. I know I am going to get involved in some way. I do not want to see others struggle with inferiority complexes like I got and struggle socially like I do now because a school system was not doing its job for me like it was suopose too. Instead it was school after school and harpooning from teachers and thier class for being in the "SPECIAL" class as they call it and ride the little tiny buses on the other side of the school yard.


So when I see that kids are shooting up schools with semi-automatics and I see standardized test scores low. It makes me wonder if we the citizens or parents are getting our money's worth if this is what is happening in our schools. Let alone not doing it's job to keep students safe as well as teaching them right.

For all the teachers I have bashed who were not there for me. One special teacher I had stands out and that is my Aunt. I was her last student before she died. When I was 6 she tutored me on until grade 8. I got on the right track thanks to her and the funny thing is, this was not an active teacher still in the school system. This was a retired teacher who taught when the class size was a one room school house. It was just her and only her class. She did a fine job tutoring me and I owe it to her. I probably would not be where I am now without her. I will always keep her in my memory.

Think of the education I got. I learned it was ok to exclude people. I learned to be anti-social. Got to love that public school. I learned all that math, science and history stuff and passed. WHOO HOO.

I had some good teachers and I thank and love them for all this. The really bad teachers that taught me to feel crappy and be anti social and feel like a misfit, thank you.

anti-social or non-social?

Come to think of it both

You don't seem anti-social
http://www.addforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=52

Maybe just non-social.

Ok, I am off my rocker alright. I appologize for giving this forum a serving of wienekns.

Bringing up the old posts I never saw.
Speking of the torchers of the system!!
I had to get up at 5:30 to walk almost a mile to catch a 6:30 express bus. The bus ride was a hour or more long depending on traffic. School started at 7:45. I accepted this torcher, I am a night owl and was always sick. I was considered immuno-compromised as a kid no wonder! Our school didnt get over till 3:30. That was only 7th grade on up. I look back now and wish my mother knew then how hard it was! I would have a hard time getting into the city buses home as they were over crowded, and you had to literally fight to get on, which isn't in my abilities. I had to transfer buses as well. I wouldn't get home till 5:30 at least and my mother, didn't understand and thought I was untruthfull.
I also lugged around a violin in a rectangular heavy old fashioned case, along with school books. I have tons of neck and back problems, that started then. I went to violin after school once a week and had a bag full of music as well on those days. It was a mile walk to the teachers house, I had to be there by 4:00, all up hill. There the teacher hated me, or treated me badly. Then I went home aboout a 1 1/2 to 2 hour bus ride with 1 to 2 trasfers depending on which bus I could get on. I know this sounds like a good storiy to tell my kid when he complains about an hour of homeschool work! I might just use it one day. Anyway thanks if you read it all. One day I might even venture into the actual school day!!
Janine

there are people who make each one of these issues their lifes' work.

remember seeing a Senator who served two terms, and was leaving.

He said, "if you want to succeed as a Senator, you have to have one message, and one half message. If you try to do anymore than that, you will achieve nothing."

talk about a need for focus!

So there are people who promote the time of day that school SHOULD start for highschoolers...

and each one of the other issues. give them money or volunteer help. you can make a difference.

thats true wheel, And I'd be more apt to pay attention if we were in the school system. This the first time I recall ever reflecting on what I accepted as a normal daily routine.

I don't have the attention span to read this entire thread!

:( :( :(

Who does?

That was amazing! I started to read this thread -edu bashing in my kinda way!- but very quickly did the "ending" thing and had to laugh when the post from "waywardclam" Echoed the words in my mind : "I don't have the attention span to read this entire thread!"

Wow!

So-o-o-o, getting to the point, in a nutshell, what was it all about?

All of course mean't in good humor - (thought in my mind "I seem to be saying that a lot lately")