this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
427 points (97.8% liked)

News

23405 readers
5106 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Isn't that about what I said? Of course the idea of children learning important topics in an organized fashion is decent. The objections I have are the forced social structures, mandatory attendance at risk of school or legal punishment, limited ability to specialize in topics or pick a curriculum, rigid schedules all day enforced with various punishments or humiliation including strict control of access to bathrooms, and in general the prison-like obsession with routines and schedules.

I'd add the fact that not everyone learns the same way, and while some people do well with lectures and note-taking, others would be better reading books alone, and others would be better in a discussion format. My experiences varied wildly. One major issue for me was that the strict scheduling and punitive obsessions didn't work well with what was going on with my health and family life, but there's little room for that. Personally I would have done much better to have not attended school at all. Each year was pretty much an excruciating review of things I learned from books 2 years before, combined with extensive peer and administration torture.

[–] Fondots 10 points 1 year ago

My high school had block scheduling, we'd have 2 90 minute classes in the morning, then "I Block" in the middle of the day which was essentially our homeroom, then 2 more classes in the afternoon.

When they first started it, I block was a pretty freeform thing, you had to check in with your homeroom teacher, but could then go pretty much anywhere in the school and do whatever, go see your other teachers to get some help or just hang out in their room, go to the library, etc.

They slowly cracked down on that, first one day a week you had to be in your homeroom for SSR (Sustained Silent Reading, you weren't allowed to do homework or anything else, you had to sit there reading silently) and they slowly cut down on reasons you were allowed to be out of your homeroom room during I block without a note or hall pass to the point that when I graduated they were making announcements at the beginning of I block that anyone caught in the halls without a hall pass would be written up for, and I vividly remember this specific wording, "defiance and insubordination"

What the actual fuck was that shit? That feels like wording they would use in an actual prison or in the military or something?

We were a relatively safe, solidly middle class suburban district, we didn't have rampant gang issues, violence, drug use, anything of the sort, the odd troublemaker or prblem child sure, but overall we pretty much kept ourselves in line, there wasn't any need to crack the whip on us.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

strict control of access to bathrooms, and in general the prison-like obsession with routines and schedules

I'd argue that this is one of the only real life situations that school prepares people for: you're very likely to be stuck living on someone else's schedule for the vast majority of your life. Your employer decides what time you have to be there and what time you're allowed to leave; when you get a break; when you can use the bathroom; when you're allowed to take a vacation. Sick for more than a day or two? Better burn some cash and get a doctor's note. Need to go to a funeral? Immediate family only, company policy, sorry buddy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

That's the thing: schooling is set up to condition people for fucked up jobs with corporations, which I guess is a realistic plan.

[–] FlyingSquid 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

strict control of access to bathrooms

They still do this. The middle school I just took my daughter out of (she was being bullied by half the school) had a maximum number of bathroom breaks per child per semester. I told my daughter that if she ran out of breaks, she should tell the teacher I either do it in the bathroom or right here on the floor. You pick.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, I hope your daughter is doing well. You seem pretty savvy, maybe home school her? Sorry if that's not a feasible suggestion.

Anyway, peeing on a teacher is not a good move. Vomiting on a non-reasonable teacher is a power move.

[–] FlyingSquid 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thank you. She's not better yet, but this was like 2 weeks ago. We've put her in online schooling for now. We might try sending her to another middle school next semester. The online school is run through the school corporation, but it's too hard for her to do by herself. She's lucky I'm on FMLA right now. But it's ridiculous, they bought the cheapest education package possible from whatever corporation and all the English texts are public domain 19th century texts. 7th grade is way too young to be able to read an O. Henry story about a safecracker with an ironic twist ending or an H. H. Munro story about English Edwardian manners and understand what the fuck is going on. So basically I have to sit with her, read the text for her because she can't figure out how a lot of the words are pronounced, while we stop every few sentences so I can explain to her what it means. We've looked up the texts and most of them are at least a 10th grade level. The English teacher they have assigned to this program has been very unhelpful and not very responsive.

I feel sort of trapped, because what if she has the same issues in the next middle school? She is very independent in terms of not conforming with the other kids (she was the only one who wore punky clothes and jewelry) and she does have psychological issues that make it harder and make her act less like the other kids, especially when she gets stressed and has to let it out, which is basically middle school code for 'bully this child.' The entire school called her a furry because she wore studded leather collars. To her credit, she kept wearing them despite that bullying, but eventually we got her up and ready for school one day and she completely broke down and said there was no way she could face another day of it. What's especially awful is that while every kid in the school piles on her, every adult she meets thinks she's awesome, although them telling her so isn't enough for her self-esteem.

We did less structured and ultimately badly-done online schooling during COVID. It was bad in other ways, but more importantly, I don't know how long we can survive on a single income again and that's what will have to happen if we keep her in online school.

Sorry, had to vent.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

youre being a bit hyperbolic with the 'nothing', no reason to double down

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

they're not even the person who said that. Neither of squiblet's posts even contains the word "nothing". Drink some coffee

[–] andros_rex 1 points 1 year ago

The control of bathrooms is about vandalism and vaping. Vapes are endemic in public schools. Students will also try to rip out sinks, cram things in toilets - also a convenient place for gang initiations. It’s not about being cruel, it’s about making sure that the hallway isn’t flooded with piss and shit because these kids are out of control.