I'm currently reading the latest of John Taylor Gatto's EXCELLENT books on schooling, Weapons of Mass Instruction. It's, as are all of Mr. Gatto's books, an excellent and mind-boggling look into the history of compulsory schooling in our nation. I found this nice piece of video with Mr. Gatto, and though I'd share it here...For those of you who might be unfamiliar with Gatto, he was a 3 time New York City teacher of the year, and also won Teacher of the Year in NY state...He retired from teaching on the OpEd page of the New York times - you can read that letter HERE
Re-familiarizing myself with John's writings always seems to give me a great booter shot in the arm when I may be having those "now, WHY are we doing this?" moments...
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Ugh, Suton, I couldn't watch more than the first few minutes of it. I am soooooo sick of school right now. I hate school. I want to yank Katie out and do it myself, but am not for various reasons (which I vacillate between believing are valid reasons and believing are just excuses).
God bless you for having the patience and endurance to take this on. I believe your kids will be better off for what you've put into this. I just hope that school doesn't ruin Katie. We have to get through the rest of this year and next year and then in 6th grade she can go to the charter school that Alex attends, and I know it'll be a better environment. It won't be easy for her, but it's a much smaller, more individualized environment.
The philosophy of 4th grade is just so opposite mine. She's a 1st degree black belt, state champ in 3 events, Little Miss of our town, reading levels and math levels in the 90th+ percentiles and she's at risk of failing 4th grade because she doesn't have "focus."
Right now our single goal is to get her to pass 4th grade without having her hate learning or feel stupid. Isn't that sad?
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