The Mom Who Hated School by Pamela Francis
Right out the gate I don’t mind telling you that “the mom” is me. Yours truly. I hate school. I hate how its overbearing “mandatoriness” runs our lives; I hate how it insinuates itself into our children’s developmental thought patterns and behavioral expectancies. I hate how it tells us – grownups! — what to do! When to go to bed. When to get up. How to dress. What to consider important. What to believe is true.
How can that be, you ask… How can a mom, an educator, an advocate of learning hate school? It’s easy. And your kids hate it, too. Yeah, they do. For about the same set of reasons I do.
My 13 yr old son asked me, “mom, how come I hate school so much?” As though there were something wrong with him. I said, “son, you’re not so special. Everybody hates school. The only kids who like school are the ones whose home life is off-the-charts egregious. Like, there’s no food in the refrigerator, or they’re being abused at home.” For the vast majority, though, its sucksville. Then I got out my blogging pad and proceeded to jot down… Top 4 Reasons Your Kids and I Hate School by Pamela Francis
Here they are…
#1: Ridiculous Start Time
Even the morningest morning person knows ding-dang well school starts too early. This means that the wake up and preparation times also begin too early. This means that the bedtimes are also… you guessed it… Realistically speaking…? Too early.
#2: Ridiculous Attendance Structure
God made seasons three months long each. You’d think the geniuses that came up with the yearly school attendance structure might get a clue and follow suit, right? If they did, this is how it would be: September, October, November: go to school; December, January February: stay home; March, April, May: go to school; June, July, August: stay home.
#3: Ridiculous Curriculum (a.k.a. Ridiculum)
Louise Hay (google her) said it best, and I paraphrase, “of what value is it to have kids memorizing dates of historical events and names of ex presidents…?” Like are we raising a bunch of Jeopardy contestants? What if the schools actually taught the things your kids really cared about? The things that made a difference in their worlds. Radical.
#4: Ridiculous Reason for Being
I have a somewhat subversive theory about why school exists and is structured the way it is. From the car line to the after school program it all has to do with facilitating working parents (a.k.a. keeping the capitalist economy on the rails) and very little to do with nurturing and cultivating children’s minds and spirits. Dr. Laura Schlessinger (google her) went so far as to call it “an indoctrination center”, since she believed its only reason for being was to imbed societal memes into the minds of our kids. Well, we didn’t have the word “memes” when Dr. Laura Schlessinger was around, and today you may not hear a whole lot out of her (wise AND wise-assed) mouth, but I’d have to say…
CORRECT!
Tags: #Dr. Laura Schlessinger, #indoctrination centers, #kids who hate school, #Louise Hay, #moms who hate school, #societal memes, school
