Soccer, soccer and soccer (and not just a little bit about education)
Bookworm on Sep 09 2006 at 8:36 am | Filed under: Education
It’s fall, and my life is once again bounded by soccer. Four times a week, I’m dragging at least one of my children, and at least one of the neighbor children, up and down my community to various soccer practices and games. Today is one of those days where both kids have to be at different places at the same time. Still for all that it’s an inconvenience — a major inconvenience — I happen to like soccer. I enjoy watching the game, and I think it’s just an excellent antidote to the otherwise sedentary life children lead.
Their lives are getting especially sedentary now that they’re at public school. Both their schools have “no running in the school yard” policies. This would be an excellent policy if either (a) the children were fragile geriatric people or (b) the school yard was filled with fragile geriatric people. (I know of what I speak, since I frequently have to remind my children not to run at the delightful retirement community in which their grandmother lives.) Neither of these is true. As it is, the policy seems to be part and parcel of a “God forbid children should get hurt” world view or, perhaps, “God forbid the school district should get sued” view. As it is, several hundred children are chained at desks all day with periodic breaks in which they’re allowed to walk around sedately.
To add insult to injury, one of my children’s classrooms uses TV as a bribe. If the children sit quietly and cooperate, they’re allowed to watch cartoons in class. Then, of course, when they come home, they’re laden with homework which they have to sit and work on during their tired and cranky time. Chutzpah doesn’t even begin to describe the thinking that has the kids watch TV at school and do school work at home.
Yesterday, my son’s homework assignment, which comes out of a workbook a major publishing company sells to the State of California, had at least two grammatical mistakes. I say “at least” because my son hasn’t finished his homework, so I’m not sure what other little gems of illiteracy are lurking in the papers sitting on the kitchen table. I corrected the mistake in the text — something I could do without giving the teacher offense, because she didn’t write the material. Perhaps she’ll learn something, though, and will start thinking about her own grammar.
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6 Responses to “Soccer, soccer and soccer (and not just a little bit about education)”
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… and perhaps not.
There is no place for rambunctious child, and especially rambunctious little boy energy in school anymore. My kids attend public school too and it they can run and play at recess, just not in the halls.
In my public school bribing with candy has become endemic. Clearly it is the current administration-approved, mob control behavior modification technique. So my well-behaved daughter gets candy many times a week, from her regular teacher, her (gifted class) teacher, the music teacher, art teacher, and of course every substitute teacher who is at a loss to keep control of a class.
Any parent who thinks a public school has the welfare of his/her own child as a goal is deluded. The parent must advocate and be vigilant about that; the school’s goals are very different: mass “education” and crowd control, and staying within policies and avoiding lawsuits.
A funny game we had in 4th grade was that the teacher, Ms. Moore, would give out candy to the winner of a competition. That competition was a search to see who could pick up a specific piece of trash on the floor. It served the dual purpose of being a mental exercise as well as a way to clean the room. I figured out that there were 2 sizes of paper trash. Medium to big balls, and small itty bitty pieces. Me being who I was, I used logic to figure that if Ms. Moore was to adequately cover the entire room, then she had to see the trash. Given that I had trouble seeing small slips of trash paper even up close, obviously she can’t see it from all over the room, in order to pick that trash as the “One”. So that being that, I started going around the room picking up only big pieces or at least pieces that are obvious to the eye.
I kept winning the prize in a row, so obviously she didn’t figure out that I had figured it out, nor did my other classmates figure it out.
Children have an advantage when they can think logically, you know.
“Any parent who thinks a public school has the welfare of his/her own child as a goal is deluded. The parent must advocate and be vigilant about that; the school’s goals are very different: mass “education” and crowd control, and staying within policies and avoiding lawsuits.”
A statement worthy of contemplation. It’s true for too many of us.
“Any parent who thinks a public school has the welfare of his/her own child as a goal is deluded.”
Indeed.
Our local public district (Pickerington Local School District, near Columbus, OH), which always receives high marks and accolades from the state, just pulled a big boner this year.
We’ve been trying to pass a levy to build new grade- and middle-schools. Failed 5x in a row. Meanwhile, our schools are adding small, crowded trailers as classrooms.
Guess what our brilliant school administration did this year? Added digital video projectors, with **motorized screens**, to each classroom.
Brilliant.
What’s wrong with pushing a cart? We survived.