The Horrors of the Public Education System

[TheWanderling]

“School sucks.”
Most students will agree, and many have voiced their disgust concerning this abomination we call public education. They spite the good students who obey like little sheep, frown at imposed conformity, and laugh at the hypocritical nature of the system.
The same will be done here, but there is a big difference between these defiant students and me, the author. I was one of those good little sheep. I graduated high school with a 4.0, perfect attendance record, two years of student council under my belt, and a host of top scholarships to get me through college. Teachers loved me, students both feared and respected me, and the principal knew me better than I knew him.
It’s enough to make you sick. I know it made me sick. So here I am, biting the hand that feeds because it’s been feeding nothing but propaganda and sour grapes.
I’m not writing this article because of envy or spite against system-indoctrinated valedictorians, nor am I trying to put blame on my school for all my academic failures. In fact, I cannot because I was that valedictorian and had few if any academic failures.
I’m writing this article because the system itself is messed up. Having been to many different public school systems over the past 15 years, I have more than adequate credibility to make this claim.
What is taught is random, useless, and meaningless
In class, too much time is wasted on useless topics. The quality of education has been sacrificed for quantity, and as a result, academic inflation and the devaluation of information has turned intellectual ambition into apathy and bright minds into gray mush.
In an effort to be multicultural and ecclectic, class curriculi have become shallow and disorganized in their effort to teach students a global viewpoint. Topics are taught piecemeal, and never do teachers spend time to help students integrate the pieces into a coherent picture that can be used or built upon. And even if within a class the ideas are put together, between classes the grand education still remains compartmentalized.
For example, both geometry and physics can be mastered by the average student, but the connection and communication between the two often are not. When physics is taught in a junior high or high school physics class, it involves only the most elementary of geometry concepts, and vice versa. Without synthesis of the two, each remains without purpose or effectiveness.
Such synthesis between topics is neglected in the school curriculum, and consequently one’s experience in the public education system becomes a vague memory of random, meaningless, and useless facts, just as a disassembled engine is just a junk heap of random metal parts.
Most school subjects themselves aren’t even real knowledge. History books are full of purposely engineered inaccuracies and distortions for the sake of corporate gain and political correctness.
Much of school is wasted time
The purpose of education is to make one an independent, competent thinker, one who can make a difference in the world for the better, and one who has the best chance for survival and success in the world.
So what the hell are we doing with such profundity of pep rallies, football and basketball games, proms, crazy hair days, sex education, death education, quiz bowls, and student council meetings?
Sure, without them, school would be dull. But, school is supposed to be an incubator of young humans to prepare them for excitement in the real world. School is doing more than it’s supposed to and has instead become a surrogate provider of such excitement, turning it artificial and socially harmful. Is your vacuum cleaner also supposed to do the dishes, trim your hair, balance your checkbook, and be your friday night date?
So much in school concerns extracurricular activities that time which could be spent on real world activities is instead being wasted in these trivialities. The effect is the amassing of students dependent upon the system and isolated from the real world. Social, financial, and academic dysfunction result. Once again, quantity over quality has prevailed, because there is no profit for the supplier in quality. Quality only helps those in the demand, but when consumers of education have themselves been dumbed down to primal levels, discernment and appreciation of quality disappear.
Despite these problems, almost everyone is happy.
Parents are happy. Moms get to watch their soap operas and dads get to work while their kids are being babysat. They don’t have to worry about teaching morality or ethics to their children because it’s being done for them in school. They don’t have to entertain them or spend genuine time with them because these children are too busy being entertained in school functions. Moms just have to drive their girls to soccer practice, and dads toss the football a few times. Perfectionist parents keep their child competitive not by guiding them and helping them on a daily basis, but by yelling them once a school quarter when report cards come out.
Teachers are happy, as they have a secure job from 8 to 5, and the more they work, the more they get paid. The more school programs there are with federal or state funding, the more money they get. The more schools have the programs, the more funding and perks they receive from federal benefactors.
Everyone is happy, that is, except for the students. But who cares? Who are they to complain? Those with the gold make the rules, and all students have is some pocket change for cookies and milk.
As is well known, in school, you spend more time learning how to obey and what to think, instead of and how to think and think for yourself. Fact of the matter is that at least 3/4 of the time spent in school is waste.

 

[TheWanderling]

Students are not at fault
But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that public schools not only have a crappy curriculum, they actually oppress their students by forcing them to participate in it. It is one thing to offer a profundity of shallow assignments, and quite another to make students do them.
Simply put, students are forcefully occupied with junk to prevent them from learning something useful.
Almost everything important I have learned, I learned on my own time outside school. During junior high, the assignments given to me were few, and I often completed them in class. This left me with enough time to go to the library to begin my study of metaphysics and the paranormal, to learn truth on my own and experiment with what I had learned to confirm the nature of absolute truth.
But as I progressed through high school, increasingly useless assignments were given to me which taught me nothing (and believe me, I searched for something useful in them), but occupied my time nonetheless. What was being taught to me was compartmentalized, full of holes and errors, shallow, and politically correct to the point of nonsense. Was it my duty to integrate the parts and learn the material well enough to be applied? Sure, but the sheer quantity of homework prevented me from finding time to do just that. Quantity over quality once again.
Now I am in a state college, and it’s no different. The oppression continues, except now I’m getting wiser and have caught onto their tricky scheme to graduate robots instead of humans.
I wish I had more time to do research related to this site, to learn true physics and history, to continue writing music, and make a difference. But this time is erroded by the wasteful components of the school curriculum.
Students, except for a few genuine slackers, are not at fault when lagging in critical thinking skills. They are not being held back by their own laziness, but by direct oppression from a system with the power to punish them or put a bad mark on their transcripts if they don’t give up their individual pursuits of knowledge in favor of hollow schoolwork.
Overloading creates dysfunction
There are multiple consequences to this program of quantity over quality. Children are under a lot of stress nowadays in schools due to this, and as a consequence they shift into a survival mode.
This survival mode consists of taking shortcuts and getting by with the least amount of effort possible, but even this small amount of effort is too much and applied toward futile ends. Grades become an ends to a means, and the true goal of education is detached from daily work. Studying is only applied toward taking the test, but not for retention thereafter. Escapism takes hold and watching television, taking drugs, engaging in delinquent behavior, and oversocialization result. This further detracts a student from learning what’s truly needed.
Under such stress, the student body splits into two groups: those who conform and those who fail.
The ones who conform learn the rules of the game, no matter how illogical they are and play the game to the satisfaction of faculty. They become detached from reality, from what truly matters, and are stifled in their potential as they are stripped of their inspiration, creativity, and originality. Quantity over quality matters as part of the survival mode, and there is no profit in overdoing quality when the profits of doing so are decades away in the reaping. Due to this survival mentality, thinking that far into the future is neglected. The ones who conform become roboticized and are respected for how well they fit the mold. What was once innate curiosity to discover the world is turned into neurotic attempts to escape punishment.
The ones who do not conform fall behind unless they are clever enough to find another source of education that befits them. Their grades are mediocre as they are disillusioned with the system and no longer care about pleasing it. Chances of graduation and pursuing higher education is slim, and most of these either drop out or graduate and immediately acquire low paying jobs. The price of refusal to conform is rejection into substandard wage earning.
Either way, those entering public education leave either as robots or peasants, hyperbolically speaking.
The system itself
Teachers are not to blame either. They are like soldiers in the trenches fighting a war to educate the public, taking orders from their superiors who have no idea what the current conditions are on the front lines.
Teachers are overstressed, underpaid, and restricted in their ability to respond to what they perceive in the classroom. Due to political correctness, threat of legal action by parents, and contrite schoolboards scared of disapproval by a vocal minority with big political clout, teachers are confined to a tight curriculum they are forced to follow.
They are forced to teach some things, and not allowed to teach others, such guidelines set by a panel of nodding puppets with no clue as to what the truth is, let alone initiative to spread it should they know the truth. These puppets are those who design the school curriculum, who despite once being teachers themselves, are for the majority removed from the classroom feedback mechanism.
It’s the little things that contribute to an oppressive atmosphere in schools. Not withstanding the social atmosphere, teachers on a strained school budget worry about saving paper, staples, or tape. When my high school received thousands of dollars of funding from the community, it used that money to expand its inventory of computers that weren’t even needed just to keep up with the politically correct trend for schools to be technologically current. That money should have been used for the little things, such as office supplies.
Disruptive students are put in the same class with well behaving ones, creating academic socialism whereby equality is maintained by dragging up the idiots at the expense of the smart ones. Separating students on the wrong criteria leads to incongruities and a breakdown of the system and its components. Putting them into grades by age, when they should be instead separated by level of knowledge and skill, results in academic entropy whereby the smart become dumb and the dumb learn how to waste other’s time.
Teachers spend more of this time teaching children how to shut up and sit still than to pay attention and think. Because they are very limited in their methods of discipline, teachers and students suffer as the idiotic and delinquent minority ruins it all for the rest.
Friction within the system from misplacement of resources induces hatred among its components, as each is suffering and blaming one another instead of blaming the system itself. In fact, the system is set up such that the components feed off one another in a long term downward spiral.
Teachers have contempt for the students, and often make an effort to take out aggression upon them, seeing them as the enemy and cause of their own stress. Students see authority as something to be defied, unless they are already broken by it. Teachers make up illogical rules to test how well students obey, such as making them walk a certain way through the library, or not enter or leave certain exits at certain times, and other minor things which irritate students and allow faculty to feel good when they exert their powers. This tension between student and teacher shatters trust between them, and any teaching and learning between them enters the domain of negative reinforcement. Instead of them loving and respecting one another, they hate each other but do what they are supposed to, to avoid consequences if they do otherwise.

 

[TheWanderling]

When you see a student, what you’re really seeing is someone low on ambition and initiative, but starving for recognition and self-esteem. This is a symptom of a system that is antilife, anti-individualism, and anti-spirit. Compressing a wonderful human into a precise block to fit perfectly into cubicle induces the survival mode of life. Knowledge, having been made into the source of his distress, is put at the bottom of his list of priorities, as he has to do whatever is possible to regain his self esteem, recognition, and peace of mind. However, he must do so within the confines of the system.
Dysfunction results. Instead of individualism meaning thinking for oneself and seeking one’s own truth and sense of morality, individualism becomes wearing freaky clothing, having funny hair, and garnering attention via infantile vulgarity no matter if it is for fame or infamy. These superficial methods are all that are still legal within the system. The true human spirit, however, is suppressed.
Those who are broken follow the teacher’s illogical rules and learn to trust authority over their own potentials. In this, they become a cog in the wheel. Breaking orders is taboo to them, something they get very nervous about when it happens, and they certainly don’t do it willingly. They become neurotics and unstable perfectionists who stand high on shaky foundations.
Once their individuality is broken, they become robots very good at their tasks. Many go on to college, absorb what’s fed to them well, and become academicians with a groovy little niche and nice income in their fields of research. But however wonderful that sounds, they are robots and nothing more. Or to make another analogy, they are cows.
They don’t know that being the best cow still doesn’t make you a cowboy.
The straight track
We hear stories of entrepreneurs who strike it rich after dropping out of college and pursuing their dreams. We hear stories of those who go from rags to riches, of those who defied convention and revolutionized the world.
But what do we hear in school? We hear that these people are the exception not the rule. That is certainly true, but what the system is implying is that you are the rule, not the exception, so don’t even try to deviate from the straight track.


The straight track is what students are being taught by the system, concerning the course of their lives. The straight track told to high school students goes as follows:

You need to do your assignment to get a good grade. When you get good grades, your transcript will be favored by employers and colleges. You might even get scholarships to go to a good college. If you’re good in college, you’ll get a degree and have good chances of getting a good job. And with a good job you’ll have a good wife, good kids, and a good life.


​

What they’re really saying is this:

Don’t worry about changing the world, just concentrate on getting good grades because that is the only measure of what you’re worth in the eyes of those you’ll serve. Go to college and find your quiet niche in the world, where you’ll be secure in your job because you’re so specialized, there’s no one else in the world who can take your place. You’ll be working to maintain the system as you’re seen fit. Focus all your energy into this specialized area and don’t worry about making an impact on the world because as long as you stay specialized and compartmentalized, we’ll clothe you, feed you, give you a good family, and bury you in a good plot of land.


​

Deviating from the track is abhored by the system. If you show initiative and take risks, you become a statistical outlier, an anomaly in their statistical models, someone who poses a threat to the system because you are a seed with the potential to overturn the mirrors and reveal the truth behind this silent war.
Defy
In this lies the point of the article. You cannot be successful, recognized, or a true human being unless you defy the system. If you only do what you’re told, you’ll be no better than average.
The system has been designed by the biggest corporation of all, the state. Public schools either turn out worker drones who serve the state and its partnering greedy corporations, or else they turn out welfare recipients who are an excuse for the state to maintain its collossal parisitic size and an idiotic consumer base to buy these corporations useless toys and poisons.
So many students are under this illusion, the illusion being that they either follow the straight track, try to be the best cow in the herd to maintain financial and social security, or else defy the system and fail miserably, ending up as a bum on the street.
You are seen as a social failure if you defy the system. If you measure your success by what the system deems is successful, then you fear deviating from the straight track because that is a sign of failure.
However, you must therefore redesign your standards of success. Would dropping out of a state college make you a failure? In the eyes of other cows, maybe, but pursuing a better education elsewhere be it independently or real world experience would more than make up for it.
How many famous people do you know who did everything they were told and nothing more, who never took risks for fear of defying the status quo? Not very many.
Conclusion
The lesson is that not only must you take risks and utilize your innate initiative, you must also get over your fear of defying the system and do so to get ahead of the herd. You are the exception, not the rule, because you have the power to be.
Now, the robots in the system are definitely needed. We still need employees, soldiers, and scientists who are specialized in what they do, but presently there is an overabundance among these. Therefore, the emergence of individualists, generalists, and entrepreneurs is encouraged.
And the only way for them to increase in numbers is for people like you to break out of the mold and fulfill your destiny as a human, not a machine.

 

[TheWanderling]

The article was taken from www dot montalk dot com (replace the "dot" with "."). Im new here so I cant post URLs until I post more than 15 posts. I just copied the text and posted here for your viewing pleasure. Happy reading and share opinions!

 

[Cerrax]

"We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control. No dark sarcasm in the classroom. Techer leave them kids alone."
-Pink Floyd "The Wall"

"I have always reminded my self to never let my schooling get in the way of my education."
-Samuel Clemmens (Mark Twain)

 

[michel]

The education system, as with every other aspect of culture and society, is bound by the rule of pendulum swing.

What you Americans call public school is what we English call 'Private Schools'.

In the sixties, my ex-Colonial parents thought they were doing me a favour by sending me to a Boarding Private English school.

Oh, there was nothing wrong with the teaching (except that the teachers were usually drunk by the first lesson of the day). The entire school was a gang land Mafia style horror chamber. Oh, sure, if you were tall, had a good British accent, and were slim, you did well.

If you weren't all of these, you were bullied like hell from Morning to evening every day of term, by the said 'British' guys. I lost on two counts; one, I was Belgian, two I was fat. And I paid for that.

When I told my parents at the end of the first term that I hated it at school, they told me it was good for my character and would make a wonderful person out of me.

Of course, I came out suffering from a nervous breakdown, with 2 exam passes (French wich was my native language, and Maths which was the only subject I was actually interested in).

From there, I went to a local State school, and passed another 4 or five exams, in various subjects. Just to show how important the school environment has, in the process of learning. Of course, in those days, we were caned for having our hands in out trouser pockets, answered when spoken to and called all the teachers "Sir".

By the time my Sons went to school, the pendulum had swung. Children were not to be touched by a teacher; they were taught that they were as equal as any adult, and to question authority.

The result ? By good fortune, our two did well, but most of their peers are too snooty to be bricklayers, plumbers....etc. They all want to be Captains of Industry without getting their hands dirty.

A joke of mine "I hope there is a happy medium somewhere!".........but I haven't met her yet.

 

[Booko]

By the time my Sons went to school, the pendulum had swung. Children were not to be touched by a teacher; they were taught that they were as equal as any adult, and to question authority.

The result ? By good fortune, our two did well, but most of their peers are too snooty to be bricklayers, plumbers....etc. They all want to be Captains of Industry without getting their hands dirty.
/quote]

Yes, that's about where we are now. Our little darlings graduate from school thinking the world owes them something. Boy, are they in for a shock. :biglaugh:

The post that was uploaded here makes some interesting points, I think.

One thing about the American public school system is that it's designed to turn our good factory workers. That was fine a century ago, but we aren't a factory worker economy anymore.

 

[c0da]

The result ? By good fortune, our two did well, but most of their peers are too snooty to be bricklayers, plumbers....etc. They all want to be Captains of Industry without getting their hands dirty.

I think a lot of the kids coming out of the system in britain now are absolute idiots. No intelligence, no commitment, NOTHING.

Thus institutions are dropping the standards to accomodate this and it is a problem. I am in the lower year of college. The year above are all there because they did well in their exams at 16 years old. In my year, most of us are like that, but there are a few there doing more vocational courses. Next year, there will be a large amount more doing these courses and the ones who do them tend to be the type who sat at the back of the class room swearing and messing about because they knew they wouldnt need the knowledge and can make it through life doing something vocational.

FINE!, but I don't think they should be allowed into academic institutions like my college to do these courses. The lowering of standards is BAAAAD!

 

[fromthe heart]

Personally I think public education works in the right sense with good teachers. I was against my first grandson going to public school I felt he should be homeschooled but my daughter felt he needed to make friends and fit into the community life of public school. We have been fortunate so far to have some of the best teachers to deal with that truely care about education. His current 1st grade teacher went to school with my daughter before I pulled her and homeschooled her the rest of that year and throughout the last 3...she felt she was left out of a lot by being homeschooled but would pull her boys in an instant if it meant dealing with bad teachers. I fear next year...2 of them in public school. but with good teachers...it helps. I know what will hit the fan if anyone ever hurts one of those precious babies. I will be at some teachers front door!!! The school was one of the reasons we picked where we live to begin with...it's not as bad as city schools with gangs and all but there are drugs everywhere and I don't doubt there is a school out there that escapes that trial. The doors are locked and you have to be buzzed in now from the office. I like the security issues...but recess for gradeschool isn't as well supervised.

I went to public school up through 10th...from 7th through 10th grade I was beaten up everyday and called 'little barbie doll' by all the black girls in the 2 grades around me...I had to wonder how they ever got through summer without me to beat on...the bad thing was the teachers stood by and took no action...my daughter had a condomn thrown at her from across the room in lunch just behind the teachers table and again the teachers did nothing as she was called 'little miss can't do wrong'. I was glad God gave my daughter the strength to endure the days coming home in tears from another day of threats,teasing,and bullying. I think she is scarred from it and blamed me because I'd pulled her from her friends and city school to get that...don't really blame her either...I never wished that on her...she went from being popular to being the new kid and got it all dished at her.

I wonder if teaching via computer by way of home wouldn't be the best direction for the public schools...web cam and all so no one could get away with too much. At least the kids would be safer.

 

[Booko]

I wonder if teaching via computer by way of home wouldn't be the best direction for the public schools...web cam and all so no one could get away with too much. At least the kids would be safer.

I have a couple of cousins who were mostly educated this way. My aunt and uncle, the grandparents, were very skeptical of course, but it has really worked out well for the girls.

I considered that for my daughter, but I was in no position to supervise anything at the time, so that wouldn't have worked.

 

[kevmicsmi]

"We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control. No dark sarcasm in the classroom. Techer leave them kids alone."
-Pink Floyd "The Wall"

"I have always reminded my self to never let my schooling get in the way of my education."
-Samuel Clemmens (Mark Twain)

All in all, education is just another brick in the wall. But on the other hand if you dont eat your meat, you cant have any pudding!

 

[Booko]

A Baptist friend of mine who is a teacher herself has sent her 2 boys to a local Jehovah's Witnesses private school for years and was quite satisfied with it.

The school's theory of education is radically different from anything I've seen in public or private schools. They operate under the theory that busy work is a waste of time, and it should be used for *family time." The kids are only in school in the morning, which is time enough to present the material, do group work, and hand out assignments. In the afternoons, the kids are at home and do their work. This prevents the problem where the kids who do it fast are left twiddling their thumbs, and where the kids who are slower feel they are somehow stupid because it takes them longer. If a child has a problem with lessons, then they can get one-on-one help in the afternoon.

I would love to see this sort of thinking incorporated in our schools. They seem so much more to work under the theory that school is a place to warehouse the kids while both parents are working.

My husband's granddad was a nuclear physicist, and was fond of saying "Never let your studies interfere with your education."

If this were the way we viewed our children's education, many many things would change...and for the better, imo.

 

[Booko]

All in all, education is just another brick in the wall. But on the other hand if you dont eat your meat, you cant have any pudding!

Rubbish! I have my pudding after portobellos.

But we sure do not need no thought control.

 

[kevmicsmi]

Rubbish! I have my pudding after portobellos.

But we sure do not need no thought control.

But how can you have any pudding if you dont eat your meat?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I was respected by many teachers in high school, and even the principal. Some would even look the other way while I was doing something I wasn't supposed to, like occasionally sneeking outside during lunch for a smoke, or skiping the required study hall at the end of the day, or just wondering the halls during study hall with friends, and since we was in the TV class, and had a camera, it was OK. Alot of people and teachers also either had alot of concern for me, or feared me. I was generally alone during school hours, which pretty much red flagged me for the "concerned" teachers to look out for, and my strength and size made alot of people fear me, plus the fact I would hit back when a football player, or gay person, would slap me on the rear. My attendance was so poor, I was told if I was late or absent one more time, without a very good excuse and proof to back it up, I would be expelled. I was also known for sleeping during classes, playing games on my calculator, or writing programs on my calculator so I wouldn't have to do the math myself. Some teachers didn't like it that I was selling these programs, but since they were my own creations, they really couldn't do anything about it. And a code to require a password to transfer it made sure I made profit. And then there was the report card changing, which to my knowledge, no teachers ever found out I was doing that. But I will agree public school is bad, and private/home school is too easy to cheat on and learn nothing.

But how can you have any pudding if you dont eat your meat?

*Peels open a cup of pudding* HA! *dumps pudding down throat* I just ate some pudding and didn't eat a bit of meat, so go stand still yourself.
One good thing, Korn's cover of that was my graduation class song.

 

[Flappycat]

Physical education courses should be rewards for excellence. Failing students will receive plenty of exercise on the job, and academic excellence might look more attractive if their containers were more attractive. As shallow as it might seem to some, people, particularly youths, place a high value on physical appearance, and I think that it is the duty of those who will be leaders in the world to be leaders in their schools.

Above average performance and decent attendance should be prerequisite to attending sporting events as well. The academic elite should also be the social elite.

 

[Booko]

Physical education courses should be rewards for excellence. Failing students will receive plenty of exercise on the job, and academic excellence might look more attractive if their containers were more attractive. As shallow as it might seem to some, people, particularly youths, place a high value on physical appearance, and I think that it is the duty of those who will be leaders in the world to be leaders in their schools.

Above average performance and decent attendance should be prerequisite to attending sporting events as well. The academic elite should also be the social elite.

Geesh, do you want my kids to fail? This would be a good way to do it. I don't think they'd much appreciate the pressure to go to sporting events in order to somehow confirm their academic abilities.

You know, there's a fair percentage of people, including youths, who really don't give a rat's behind about sporting events and fashion.

My daughter cares about the latest fashing in ceili dance costumes. Other than that, if its purple, she'll wear it. My son just wants as many pockets as possible in his clothes. He's a walking suitcase.

 

[Cerrax]

I like public schools.
Private schools teach you that everything in life is a one-on-one basis. You can do anything if you work hard enough. You are taught that you are special and better than everyone else because your education is higher.
In public school, you can be the brightest, most athletic, handsomest person in the whole world, and you will still get beat up and called names. You can work your butt off for that A, but don't expect to get it. Forget one-on-one, you'll be lucky if you get anyone's attention by the end of the day. Public school is life. Take it or leave it. Some of the most important things I've learned were outside the classroom and on my high school campus.

 

[Maxist]

I dislike the public schools, not becasue of the people, but becasue of the education. It is all memorization. They teach us to memorize, and expect us to do well on the Standardized tests, which happened to be logic and reasoning tests. It is idiotic to only teach memorization. That is why I am applying to the Illinois Mathematics and Science academy; to get away from the idiocies of public schools. On that note, anyone know how to improve my chances of getting in?

 

[Flappycat]

No, I just want the flunkies moved away from the center of the social arena. The schools set up their students for failure in many different ways, one being that students are given no social incentive to succeed. Another problem is that the schools are like prisons. Egads, give them more freedom of movement, and don't force them to ask for permission to take a ****; there is no reason to believe that this could be anything but demeaning.

As controversial as this may seem, I think that the schools should loosen their policies on tobacco use: if they can't smoke outdoors, they'll congregate in the bathrooms, and students are more likely to get hooked as a result of second-hand smoke than of seeing another student with a cigarette. Besides, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the violence in schools is in part a result of tobacco withdrawal symptoms. Either ban the sale of tobacco products altogether, or allow those unfortunate enough to be hooked on the stuff to get their fix. I know plenty of youths who have been smoking for years: 1) most of them would like to quit, 2) all are resentful of being unable to step out to light up, and 3) those who have been punished for lighting up immediately became defensive of their habit as a result. If you want youths to quit smoking, you'll have to cough up the bigbux for an effective voluntary tobacco cessation program; a kid with a lit cigarette is a victim, not a delinquent, and should be treated accordingly. Also, serve some coffee at these joints. No wonder they're falling asleep in class: they have nothing to help wake them in the mornings or to keep them from becoming befuddled and lazy after their lunch (the time of day at which most heads seem to fall). The stuff is good for your health anyway, and caffeine's property as a central nervous system stimulant could cool some of the symptoms of undiagnosed ADHD. Milk is overrated in all respects. Besides, it would take some money out of the pockets of the soda industry, which is always a good thing.

As for the curriculum itself, I've got an answer as to why the students are fallng asleep in class: it's boring. There's the grand mystery. The subject matter is addressed in such a way as to insure that the students will find it uninspiring. They'd be better off doing their own research. Unless you're teaching to a classful of young autists, the reason they're not absorbing the material is that it isn't connected with anything they're ever likely to touch, something they've been complaining about for centuries without anyone bothering to take notice. Don't teach them math: teach them how to use math. Don't teach them to write: give them something to write about. Don't teach them history: teach them to enjoy history because nobody has ever learned anything about history outside of class without first having taken a genuine interest in it, and there isn't enough time in class to give students a full knowledge of all the world's history; give them a reason to care.

School uniforms. Oh, this is a fun topic. Yeah, the students are really going to care what they're made to wear. Here's what it'll do: NOTHING! The students don't and have never cared what their peers wear to school. You didn't, and your friends didn't unless some fool walked into class dressed entirely in bright orange. I don't know what the theory is supposed to be behind this, but a kid isn't going to benefit from having to wake up at the buttcrack of dawn to track down the uniform that doesn't have the rip in it and throw it into the wash. They would have one less thing to giggle about in the middle of class if students were forbidden to walk into class dressed entirely in bright orange. They aren't really all that concerned with their freedom of expression, either: they do have an existence outside of schools. Moderate dress codes are the way to go because, let's face it, students aren't going to be distracted by an outfit unless it's something outrageous as an all-orange get-up that makes the person wearing it look like a walking ad for Minute Maid.

Teachers: try smiling once in a while. You're killing us here: are you some sort of robot? Are you alive or dead? Are there thoughts within your head? Can you walk at all, or, if you move, will you fall?

No, teacher, I'm not trying to make sport of you. If there were a place on campus to get pencils and paper, I would have gotten some prior to coming to class. Yes, I know the taxpayers would complain, but I couldn't get the bus driver to stop by the store.

Gah. Spend more on the books. These things are pathetic.