There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with having a classroom of students being taught a curriculum. It’s effective even if it’s inefficient. The execution is lacking for sure, but to suggest that none of it is good for students is a little dramatic.
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.
youre being a bit hyperbolic with the ‘nothing’, no reason to double down
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.
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.
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.
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.
