Education Rant

Random tidbit off http://www.arachnoid.com/reader_exchanges/autism_is_real.html
It is an article called autism is real but this question and response really meant something to me so thought I would use bloggie here to share:

Mother-"My fear is that neither one of them will be educated to their full potential in any type of school."

Answer-" That's a virtual certainty, because (1) schools only teach us how to teach ourselves, and (2) education never ends. For a "full potential" education, one must be willing to learn new things perpetually."

Due to my Aspergers/ADD/ADHD kiddos I was reading the article but this particular bit seemed to kind of sum up my problems with education nicely. Maybe that is why I am so frustrated with the public schools lately. It just doesn't seem like they are trying to teach my kids to LOVE learning. If they don't LOVE learning, well, why keep doing it? If they are made to feel stupid, unsatisfactory, unable to compete on a level with the other kids due to disabilities LISTED on their IEP's then how are they going to want to further themselves? If every nominal thing is berated, shunned... every independent thought squashed like a bug, why have them, why try? My kids learned the phrase, "I can't" at Jefferson. I hate that phrase. Rock Creek and I went round when Jus was in kindergarten due to a teacher (one who apparently since has retired) telling me in a conference that she could NOT LEARN.

I flipped out and stormed the principals office. The same principal who is currently in administration and apparently has forgotten this incident if present circumstances are any suggestion of memory retention. My speech to him involved Helen Keller. I blasted him with, "If Helen Keller, deaf, dumb and blind could learn and go on to do all that she accomplished as a person in her lifetime, which she did, then do not TELL me that my daughter, currently in possession of all of those abilities CANNOT learn. If we have to go about it in a different manner to get through to Justice, show me the way. You people went to school for education-- This is supposed to be your area of expertise. But to say a child, any child cannot learn is both arrogant and ignorant. And actually, while I am throwing out adjectives, laziness on the part of the educator." Or something along those lines. I was mad.

I can't say as I was a favorite that year. Possibly, that is why my kids are trotting through the school with bullseyes painted on their foreheads currently. Maybe he does remember...

Regardless, that is the point of education. It is supposed to be the basic building blocks for a lifetime love of learning. I learn something new everyday-- because I love it! I have always loved it. Then again at their age I, when asked, did not want to grow up to be a firefighter or a supermodel. I wanted, and I quote, to be "someone who never stops growing."

And at the end of the day that is what I want. Three kids who want to learn. Three kids with the basic building blocks so that they can go on and do what they dream and KEEP learning.

Is it too much to ask?

Apparently. My kids go to school largely because that is where you go. My daughter, who last year Loved school and thought that someday perhaps she would like to be a veterinarian, hates school and does not want to do any work at all EVER. Puberty. They are blaming it on puberty. Or something. I am not certain. They keep asking me if it is normal. I keep saying, as a matter of fact NO. She just started this year. At your school. After school started. After about a month or two. Suggesting something here is bugging her. What are they doing?

She is passive aggressive, they say. Let's skip her a grade. Get her with kids her age.

???

Get her out of your school you mean? Because you have no clue how to deal with a kid like her?

Ok. Because that is not going to create a BLACK HOLE in her education. Maybe socially great. Maybe a train wreck. She has never been around kids her AGE. Because of this school system.

Us?

YES YOU! Rock Creek messed up kindergarten so I repeated it homeschool. Then she completed first and I put her back in public at Jefferson, all nice and diagnosed as aspergers thinking you guys could help me and you said... well, lets put her back in first for a week or two and see how she does. Again, I had asked and you said it was a trial period. The trial period went a year and then you promoted her to second. When she was supposed to go to third. So Jefferson Area Schools did both of her grade "adjustments."

Hmm. Well, perhaps...

I scream and pull at my hair and continue to watch my daughter fall behind... Yeah, right through that NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND crock. My kid always gets left behind. And I am standing there yelling at the school and they then call me and ask me things like:

"Three boys were on the playground making fun of Justice because of a boy she liked. She then said to one of them, 'I am going to wring your neck.' Mrs. Nelson, do you feel this was appropriate and how should we handle this."

Me- Um.... thinking. "Did she wring anyone's neck?"

"No, but we do not condone that sort of talk. (or something like that) She should have gone to a teacher to handle the situation."

Me- Nod. "True and she knows better than to threaten violence. Years of counseling and psychiatry have taught her better conflict resolution than violence."

I stare and do not comment further.

"The three boys were good kids and I know, Mrs Nelson."

Me- Mentally screaming because if I get called MRS one more time, heads are rolling. "My kids are good kids. And three boys harass my daughter on the playground and all she does is threaten violence and you are asking me what I want to do to handle the situation? Where were the teachers when my daughter was being ganged up on by boys and wow, she really showed patience only threatening when being ganged up on by three BOYS. My little daughter. I am not going to teach my daughter to accept that or to stand and allow it to happen if the administration that is supposed to be protecting her so obviously failed."

"They were good kids and they came to the office because they wanted to let me know about this situation." states administration, cheerfully oblivious to the fact he is WRONG.

Me-Thinking that they came to the office to get my kid in trouble and because she took their abuse and only retaliated with one measly, halfhearted threat, she is in trouble and he wants me to punish her for getting bullied??? "I see your position."

Yeah. LOVING THIS SCHOOL.

That is one of many instances. The one that made me so mad that I could spit fire and wring necks myself. That is not the long list of calls I have received. The multitude of calls. "Justice said" which she states was a rumor started by a girl in her class. "Ashton said a bad word at school today." Gasp! An eight year old boy says a bad word? I am sure that my eight year old boy is the first in history to try out a bad word. And that surely is cause for a principal to call.

A note home? Sure. A phone call? Seems drastic. I like the attention. I wonder though if they are giving me this kind of "attention" how much "attention" my kids are getting at school? And how much of it is positive. *laughs* Positive reinforcement... yeah, oh. Funny. Where do I come up with these REVOLUTIONARY ideas?

Okay, this turned into a rant. Shutting up now.

Quietly goes off to not sign more assignment books and continue to self-educate failing children. Feebly hopes this year gets better... it has to get better... right???????????