It's been a while (almost six decades) since I was a victim of public education. With its emphasis on athletics--School Spirit!--and me the 90 lb weakling as seen in the Charles Atlas ads. As in when choosing sides "...okay, we'll take the girl, and you guys get [name deleted].
I was forever being called into the student counselor's office. Like Holden Caulfield, it seems I was not "applying myself." Hated math, just took the easiest subjects I could get by with. My main (non-prurient!) interest was amateur radio; got my license at age 15. Blessed with a scarcity of legal tender, had to build my own transmitter and receiver from components cannibalized from old radios, TV's, and bargain-price WWII surplus gear. What I learned by designing, constructing, and troubleshooting my ham radio equipment allowed me to pass the FCC First Class Commercial Radiotelephone License exam, and go on to a rewarding career as a broadcast engineer.
But I digress.
So here's a topic you might want to get your teeth into:
Campbell Brown used to be an anchor at CNN. Campbell Brown is now married to Dan Senor, the former official prevaricator for the Avignon Presidency's excellent Mesopotamian adventure and a mysteriously popular television commentator on events far out of his depth. Campbell Brown also has taken it upon herself to be the latest rich and (semi-) famous person to parachute in and destroy the idea of public education. (And when the history of the Obama Administration is written, its willingness to go along with charter-school grifters at the behest of Arne Duncan is going to be a very big debit on the ledger.) Campbell Brown would like the Democratic candidates to come to an event she's having and debate about education. So far, as Peter Greene reports via Diane Ravitch's most excellent blog, the Democratic candidates have told Campbell Brown that, sorry, we all have unbreakable oral surgery appointments that night. Brown blames the teachers unions, which is not a surprise. She blames a teachers union every time a cloud passes in front of the sun.
http://www.esquire.com/...?
Full disclosure: I have a cousin and an uncle, both union, having taught school at the same medium-sized Wisconsin high school. Fortunately they both retired long before the Walker regime.
I have mixed feelings about public education. The rePublican War on Education is way over the top, but there is room for improvement in certain areas.
As a single father, I began homeschooling--or to be more accurate: "unschooling"--my son in the middle of grade five (at the end of 2006). I do credit the public school for teaching him to read and write. But the math was his (likely inherited) stumbling block. (For insight into our reasons, Google educator Jerry Farber [click on the LINK below].) No set curriculum: like me, he just studied what interested him. And still does. In fact, he has attained the title of my Computer Guru.
http://search.myway.com/...
UNSCHOOLING