Monday, August 10, 2009

The disconnect of teaching and socialization

By Sarah Fine -- Why I Left Teaching Behind: "But there is more to those numbers than 'burnout.' That term is shorthand for a suite of factors that contributed to my choice to leave the classroom. When I talk about the long hours, for example, what I mean is that, over the course of four years, my school's administration steadily expanded the workload and workday while barely adjusting salaries. More and more major decisions were made behind closed doors, and more and more teachers felt micromanaged rather than supported. One afternoon this spring, when my often apathetic 10th-graders were walking eagerly around the room as part of a writing assignment, an administrator came in and ordered me to get the class 'seated and silent.' It took everything I had to hold back my tears of frustration."

Is it not clear enough that schooling and education are not the same thing and have no business being discussed together?

Schooling, particularly public schooling, is all about "being seated and silent." It is all about creating worker drones. Socialization, the only objection people raise to homeschooling, is not practiced in schools. Schools have evolved to completely smother the creative spark that all of us have.

Even if you are good at something they care about they suck the life out of it so even if you are good at it you can no longer find joy in doing it. How stupid and sad is that?

Get your kids out. and just realize that they will never make good worker drones, train them to be a business owner, an entrepreneur or maker of something. That may be the only way they can become happy, truly happy doing what they are best at.

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