Reply #101: What are you talking about? [View All]

[LooseWilly]

What paranoia about public schools? The only people paranoid about public schools are A) the very wealthy who would never consider them (not you, because you do "actual work in poor neighborhoods"), or B) people who have actually worked in/attended public schools in the "inner city".

If you've never worked in these schools, but you spend time in "poor neighborhoods", why are you on about "paranoia about pub schools"?? I don't get it!

I attended public schools in the suburbs... because my mom fled the bussing scene in Oakland when I was a kid. Having now gone back and taught in those schools some, I mean to arrange a seance to communicate to her, in her grave, that all the attitude I gave her on the subject was merely ignorance on my part... and to apologize to her ghost in general on the subject.

And on the subject of "doing actual work in poor neighborhoods", mixed in with the months I endured teaching, I also spent 10 years driving a taxi in Oakland CA. I can assure you I have done work in poor neighborhoods the likes of which would make many blanch. When one gets to the point where one knows where the drug corners are, and what sorts of hours the dealers on various corners like to keep... one has truly done "actual work in poor neighborhoods".
As a matter of fact, one day when I was teaching, I came out of the school to find police tape across the street, and an ambulance loading what looked like a body into the back...
I tell you, the problem with these schools is, more than anything else, the fact that all effort has to go toward discipline... rather than actually educating. While teaching I had a student tell me: "fuck you, and your test"... and ironically, that was one of my better students who was just having a bad day.
I gave up teaching when I had a 4'6" 7th grader try to call me out for calling him on breaking half a dozen pencils I'd provided him to take a test with... he jumped up in my face and startled me and I nearly punched him in the face.
"paranoia about pub schools"? What paranoia, exactly, are you talking about? And, if I may ask you in your infinite wisdom, why exactly should Barack Obama, while he tries to tackle all the big-ass looming problems of the day, reward his family by subjecting his daughters to this kind of shit??