I Probably Should Make My Blog Public again

That principal has some growing up to do.

Teen pregnancy = heartbreaking. This is one of the reasons I homeschool my daughter, to avoid "teenage wasteland." People ignorant of the homeschool culture always worry about socialization - *this* is the sort of socialization I want to avoid.

Great run today, Tracy.

I agree with that. Well said.

I used to teach at the public high school and the year before I left there were almost 30 pregnant girls in a school of roughly 700. It was heartbreaking.

That's why I'm sending my kids to private schools. I don't want my kids to be ignorant of what goes on in the outside world, but I don't want them to live in it. I never understood home schooling or why my parents made me go to private school (I was the third kid, so I didn't complain, but I still didn't see the big deal) until I started teaching. I'm sure a good educational foundation is to be had at many public schools, but a lot of the "education" is about how to be morally and ethically lax.

We are really lucky in that homeschooling works well for our daughter's learning style and that I am able to stay home to do it. Not everyone can. I agree with you - the public schools are not "the real world." More like Lord of the Flies sometimes. If there are parents reading this who have no choice about public school, bless your heart and do what you can to nurture your kids through it.

I could go on and on about this, but I probably should just say that the problem with public schools is NOT the schools themselves. It's the fact that a lot of parents rely on schools to teach their kids morality instead of teaching those important lessons themselves. So the morality kids get from schools is twisted because they are learning "morality" from each other.

But I know that *I* am the primary educator of my children.

And I know that in the schools I will send my kids, the majority of the parents share that mentality.

Sigh. I really have no choice but the public schools. I am fortunate that the public schools in my area are good and the school population is fairly good, though not perfect, of course.

I feel like we (that is, the Mormons) mitigate the problems of the public high school somewhat by sending our kids to seminary every day before school. They start out every day in a moral, religious environment and they get to be friends with the other LDS kids and by and large, those are the kids they hang out with the rest of the day. My second son is a faithful seminary attender and has had a good experience at the HS this year as a freshman. My older son has chosen to reject religion and doesn't go to seminary. Still, he is a good person with a good moral background. His peer group is mostly the orchestra kids and the kids in AP classes. He's had a good experience at the HS as well.

I guess we do the best we can with what we have.

You're right that a lot of school problems are lessened when kids have good, solid friendships. That is key. You've done a good job encouraging your kids to be in solid peer groups.

I live in a weird town where half the town is comprised of fine, upstanding citizens and the other half is migratory and uninterested in community involvement. It's because we used to have an Air Force base and after it closed there was so much leftover base housing. Some became Section 8 housing. We also get a lot of kids who come down to live with their grandparents because they got into trouble in Chicago schools.

I will not send my kids to schools there because I want to have a little more control over my kids' influences.

In homeschooling, children learn morality in many ways - for my daughter it happens on a day to day basis by talking to me and my DH, by discussing situations that come up in books and movies, and (perhaps most importantly) by her watching me handle every day situations. I also give her somewhat limited glimpses of my warped and treacherous teen years, though very censored at this point. We talk about right and wrong all the time, and we are beginning to talk more about self-respect in terms of relationships. She is still so young, but time is moving quite fast now that she is 12.

She interacts with school kids at 4H and at gymnastics and I think she gets to see it all through the lens of logic and security that she gets from home life. Every now and then I go to tell her about something and she says, "yeah, I know." Really? Ok.

Interesting discussion, friends. Thx.

BTW, Tracy. Did you or your kids ever read "A Year Down Yonder." Your comment about Chicago kids made me think of it. Such a great book! One of our favorites.

One of the things I'm reading now is called A Hope in the Unseen--about an inner city kid that really wants to make it out. It's nonfiction, so I know he eventually ends up at an Ivy League college. It's an interesting read, one I'm toying with having students read. The only problem, of course, is some of the language. So I have to finish it before I can figure out if it's worth some of the language.

I read voraciously, especially over the summer. I'll check that one out because I'm looking for a new one to read now. What's the book about?

Richard Peck writes stories about rural Indiana (ETA - and Illinois!) in the early 20th century. This one is our favorite. During the depression a fifteen y.o. girl from Chicago has to go live with her grandmother in a small town. The audiobook is great too! Read by Lois Smith. We actually purchased it to keep in the car, we love it that much. Target audience is YA, but fun for the whole family.

stumbled on your blog and interesting discussion- just wanted to add that my mother is from Decatur Illinois and went to school with Richard Peck and is still a close friend of his, a small world

As for academic administration, you are dead on right about the reward system there. I say, stay with the kids in the classroom if you can, they are a lot funner anyway!! :-)

Hey Red! That is a small world! We adore Richard Peck.

Why would you want to be an administrator???? No seriously...I'm going to school to be an elem teacher and I was just curious.

I sub in Indiana and I had to have the 7th graders watch a sex video...it didn't even finish the bell rang and they all ran away. So what no time for questions or discussion? It was ridiculous that the teacher would have planned it that way. It was a Friday and tha tfollowing Monday the students would be in home ec or something.

I grew up just outside of Chicago and we had a day care in my High School...

April,

Hopefully the teacher that you subbed for will decompress when the kids get back. I'm sure she just wasn't really thinking when she made her plans.

I've been teaching almost 10 years. I do well in the classroom, but I'm looking into a change. I don't want to be in admin anywhere but the school I currently teach. My husband is a dean at one of the high schools in Champaign and he sees a lot...just another reason I will never send my kids to public school. Anyway, I don't want to deal with what he deals with.

Part of the reason I want to be an administrator is because I want to help get my school (still a new school--almost 10 years old) headed in the right direction. I want people to send their kids here because it's a great school, not because they want to escape public schools. I can only do so much as a teacher.

What high school did you go to? I grew up in Riverside.

In Indiana they switch their specials on a 5 week rotation and that was the last day of health class...so no decompression!

I can see how you would make a bigger difference as a dean rather than only teaching.

Did you go to RB? I went to Morton East in Cicero. I use to belong to the Riverside Presbyterian Church...my parents were married there a million years ago and they started going there again (lots of drauma as to why we had stopped going there)