Do you think public schools in your country are designed to make kids docile, obedient workers for the upper class?
Finland, various schools 1983-1996: Yes.Why:The Finnish education system is a descendant of the popular Prussian education system which was originally designed to do just that.This is how it was for me just 34 to 21 years ago:No autonomy: -Children are made to sit down in a crowd, be still, shut up and work on a task. Then after a predetermined time (45 minutes) break concentration, stop working on that task and start working on a different predetermined task.No choice: -Do everything or flunk, and if you ask what's so bad about flunking, the answer is "you won't get a job without the papers", and as the job is the most important thing in a typical Finnish parent's life, you will assume you need the papers and a job and that you have no choice.Pushing obedience further with arbitrariness: -Pointless obligatory subjects are taught over better options without explaining why: religion, cursive writing, Swedish language, how to do arithmetic on paper, geography. All should have been optional or at least replaced with something more general purpose: philosophy, typing and editing, linguistics, mathematics or computer science, geology.Competition: -Children are made to compete against each other (OECD PISA, most sports) much more than to collaborate with each other. Most collaboration was done during breaks (toy car track building with sand, rainwater rerouting with dirt in unpaved yard parts, snow castle building in plowed snowbanks).Nationalism: -OECD PISA, singing the national anthem and some war songs in music class.Establishment of classes: -Children are made to spend all their time insulated from other age groups to prevent knowledge and culture from spreading and evolving organically.-Perpetuates social class segregation by not teaching essential life skills. They only teach work knowledge and skills, so the graduates whose parents couldn't teach life skills will fail in life.No independence from big corporations and government:-Not taught how to live happy and healthy, alone or with others, and the common failure modes in living and their risk management and troubleshooting. -Not taught general problem solving.-Not taught scientific research (unbiased knowledge building).-Not taught how to manage your own large projects.-Not taught entrepreneurship.-Not taught team work or crowd work.Fresh out of the system, I was very obedient, but not a good person. I'm still docile and a worker. Lately also depressed because of my ineffectiveness as an entrepreneur.
What do you think of public schools today?
I think they are being starved of resources so that certain legislators can show they are failing. This means they can starve them of resources, which means they will fail. Repeat.Why? They want the money, #1. There are $billions in education that they want for themselves or their own pet projects.Secondly, they want poor people to be unable to get a decent education. If they are uneducated they are more likely believe whatever Faux News tells them. After all, it *IS* their fault they are poor, right? I have heard many times that poor people *want* to be poor because welfare is an unlimited gravy train. Natch!Private school vouchers will be given to students who don’t need them in the first place so we will have state support of private schools, many of which are religious in nature. So much for not “making a law respecting an establishment of religion.” (separation of church and state)School vouchers given to poor students will be largely unused because they are for tuition only. No school bus is coming to take them to the new school several miles away. It also will not include all the book and technology fees. Good luck, poor people. It will be the rich kids, who could pay private tuition anyway, using the vouchers and pocketing the money.And screw unions. Teachers use MY tax money. They are lucky we pay them at all! It is just glorified babysitting anyway.Hmm…so lessee here. $5/hour (low babysitting wages) per student per day. 30 kids per classx6 hours per day (we all know they are just smoking weed and assaulting students those other several hours)=180 student hours x$5. That makes $900 per day. Uh, OK let’s not pay them babysitting wages. ;)I have just one question for those who support privatizing education. When the middle and lower class students cannot afford to be in school, where do you think those kids will be all day while you’re at work?
What do you think about holidays celebrated in public schools?
celebrate MORE everyone should have a tolerance for everyone elses culture.. taking that away makes us bland and like machines that don't celebrate... i dont UK and US... having ethical problems with holidays like Christmas... you dont see the same thing happening in any other country lol... I think it's just a cop out to make us study more, work harder, and get less holidays inevitably... I lived in brazil 6 months and every week they have a holiday to some saint or another... To be honest I'm surprised at the lack of holidays americans get... Britian gets it better but, without any celebrations, life just becomes dull and we become more unaware and probably less tolerable of eachother.
WHat do private school boys think of public school girls?
The only concern most private school boys would have about public school girls, is that the private school boys have no extra time, every hour is taken up by homework, sports, community service, etc. The work load is much heavier at most private schools. So a public school girl might have a lot of free time and be wondering why her boyfriend can't even text her, much less call her or visit, even on the weekends. And then starts the drama, which the boy doesn't have time for. But as far as attending a different type school, private school boys and girls don't really care. My son attends private school, most of his friends do, but he also has public school friends. I've never heard anyone say that they wouldn't date a public school kid or that they were better then them. There is actually less drama at private schools, they don't have time with all the work! The reason private school kids, especially at single-sex schools, date kids from other private schools is because single-sex schools have brother and sister schools, schools they socialize with. There are many social events with their brother and sister schools, like dances, meet ups, dinners, athletic events, etc. In fact, the single-sex schools seem to have more social events with the opposite sex than my son's coed prep school has. So for single-sex schools, the social life is kind of built in with school events. What is the reason that you feel you don't fit in at your school? That might be a reason the guy wouldn't be interested. Generally, kids are kids, private or public school, and it wouldn't matter where one went to school as to if they fit in. Many kids have gone to both types of schools with the same social experiences. Good luck!
What do private school students think about public schools?
I can’t speak for everyone, everywhere, but I went to a Catholic school through eight grade. In that school, we were told repeatedly that we were sooooooooooo lucky that we got to go this school cause public was sooooooooooo bad and the teachers soooooooooo didn’t care and the classes were too big and no one cared about you. I know for the most part we, the students, didn’t believe this but it did make us wonder. Once I got to public it was a bit of a shock, the class sizes were bigger, a few of the kids were meaner (the druggies) but overall, it was the same as the Catholic school.
Do think think that public schools should be allowed to administer vaccines?
Yes. It was an awesome thing our school in Arkansas did, when they offered the flu shot. They asked parents’ permission first, but they had huge participation because the shots were free or completely covered by insurance. We were one of the school districts that missed ZERO days due to flu outbreaks those years. There were other districts that didn’t offer the shots and had to close school for one or more days because so many students were out sick with the flu. I loved our school district!
Do you think that public schooling destroys the true meaning of education?
Public schools are tough places for kids and teachers, but people are pretty resilient. The schools reflect the values and consciousness of the community. Schools do prepare students for the world we live in as it is, not as we wish it to be. It is a proving ground to facilitate and discover your strengths, and expose your weaknesses. It is beautiful, loving and cruel at the same time.It is very teacher dependent on how effective and beautiful the school experience is. A great teacher produces a great experience. A great principal allows a great teacher to do their job. A great society creates the conditions for great people to emerge and grow and thrive. The schools are where all cultures meet, and learn just how similar we all are. That my dreams are very much like your dreams. The story we just read of the hero that struggles, that is my struggle. The beauty of a sunflower in a painting of Van Gogh that is thick with paint. We all love the same things. We all feel the same things. We all have the same desires, regrets.God bless our schools and all the teachers and all the students and all those who support a free and open education because if not for the schools, our children would not know how my struggle is not that different from your struggle, and when a child goes to school, there goes the hopes of all parents, there goes the hopes of all neighbors, and all communities. Even the sun gets up in the morning just to light the path of a child on their way to being who they will be. And with the child, the child carries the whole society in their book bag, and when a teacher puts their head down at night, they sleep the sleep of one who has the world on their shoulders.