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srg0pdrs4 t1_j8octjt wrote

Reply to comment by Chippopotanuse in Massachusetts has the 2nd earliest average high school start time in the country (7:38am) by LuckyLaceyKS

Dude...short temper? I did the job for 15 years... I had my kids in school for over a decade... I think a final straw was more like it.

I'm happy with our decision, and was very skeptical at first...my kids feel less stressed and I'm impressed with their progress and their ability to determine what they want to learn, they even have time to learn a foreign language, something they wouldn't get until high school, for 2 years....

Listening to my 3rd grader learn about consumers and producers for 2 months during Covid was more than enough to see where the focus is. We definitely have our ups and downs but overall my wife and I think it's the best choice for our family at the moment. We're not even opposed to them returning to public school, but not while standardized testing rules and the lack of individualized learning and teaching the individual are not taken seriously.

I understand the constraints, but the technology capabilities and resources are readily available, but as long as the system for educators values the ease of collecting data over how school actually should work for the individual we're good. Unless they really feel like they are missing out. For now the social activities they have (they spend a solid chunk of time in sports with other kids) seem like they are providing them with that aspect...their friends that are in school don't really sell it very well either.

Edit: I don't go on Facebook nor am I part of any homeschooling groups on Facebook or anywhere else. I'm just a frustrated educator that watched apathy play out every single day. I tried hard to make kids care about learning to make their day interesting and I guess ultimately failing...the vast majority simply don't, the overwhelming majority of the parents whose kids I taught didn't care about their kids education.

I have high expectations, I didn't graduate from high school in the states and struggled...but the fact that I wasn't just passed along was important to me. And I was allowed to try new things, lots of freedom to make academic risks. In my experience, and maybe I worked in a shitty school (on paper it's not, very much the contrary) we are very much pushed to pass students, look the other way, "seeing what we can do for kids"...that is not indicative of a solid school system. And it's not just my personal experience ..I have multiple friends in administrative positions...it's a problem.

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Chippopotanuse t1_j8on1so wrote

  1. We all have our kids in Mass schools. You act as if we aren’t aware of how they work?

  2. You struggled to finish high school? Are not from the US? That explains a bit of your jaded takes.

  3. Maybe had you gone to Mass high schools, and been surrounded by peers who go on to top universities (6 of the 12 kids in my calculus class went to Harvard, I went to law school and had a great wall st/big law career) you’d realize you have no goddamn idea what you’re talking about.

Kids are most definitely not just “passed along” in Mass unless they have brain dead parents who wish that to be the case.

Kids who come from well resourced households or households where education is a clear priority thrive and have an absolute abundance of top notch AP courses and extracurriculars to choose from.

Not to mention all of the social benefits that being in school can bring.

But maybe we’re all wrong and maybe a starving r/antiwork starving artist knows better than the all of us. I’m fine with those odds.

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srg0pdrs4 t1_j8opte5 wrote

Lol...

I moved to Portugal as a 14 year old...I'd love to see you do better than I did learning every single subject in what amounted to a foreign language for me...but go on and call me stupid. Fine.

You don't know the inner workings of the evaluation process and how they affect what your kid is exposed to and learns in school. And for 15 years I was rated proficient and exemplary, mentoring young teachers and being asked to put on professional development sessions for my coworkers. It's not Wall St...but I feel fulfilled in my attempts, and continue as an educator on my own terms, I teach people that want to learn.

Yes mass schools are great even comparatively worldwide... I think they would be 9th if we were a country...but I know they could be better. It should be better.

I was an AP teacher, in fact I (along with my Academic Coordinator, who also found greener pastures) started the program at my school that had zero AP classes (I'm also certified in ELA, History. Spanish and Portuguese and taught those subjects for the duration of my career in the classroom)...I know there are brilliant kids. Lots.of them, I also know lots of them that ultimately, once the school wasn't there to support them crashed and burned...but it's not the schools making them brilliant or fail...it's their home life and parents that care about their future...and also kids that don't want to be anything like their parents (that's my wife).

I'm not opposed to learning... I'm a life long learner always developing new skills. No stagnancy...I'd like to see more of that and schools in the US feel very apathetic to me from all angles at the moment...the moment being my 14 years in US public school as a student and 15 as an educator and 10 as a parent of 4 kids in public schools.

And for the record I don't believe in God either, nor in any grand narratives.

Edit: hadn't seen the antiwork, starving artist comment...lol.

Also, every year I was approached to "find ways" to get at least one student to the finish line...at least one...and yes, brain dead parents are behind that, no doubt about it...and it's not just at the school I worked at.

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Chippopotanuse t1_j8oz8y8 wrote

So you never went to Massachusetts high schools yourself and won’t let your kids go.

But you’re an expert on them more than me (and the hundreds of thousands of households that don’t home school in Mass).

Weird how you think folks who’ve lived here for decades, and who are intimately involved with the schools somehow have zero access or knowledge how MA high schools work.

Cool beans.

Enjoy babysitting your kids. Best of luck.

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srg0pdrs4 t1_j8p5ier wrote

I was a freshman in NBPS before I moved and my wife is a product of NBPS with degrees from UMass Amherst and an MBA from UMass Dartmouth...if that's not enough public school educational experiences plus an outright love for knowledge, I don't know what is.

I'm going to roll with my 15 years as a public school teacher, and the multiple years of education between us guide what we think is right for our kids. I do value your opinion though, I don't know everything as I've learned in my life and can only work within the circumstances I'm presented with and always seek other's views to help shape my own. Something I try to impart on my kids... all systems, people, ideas are fallible and flawed and shouldn't inherently be accepted as the only way to do things. Self-reflection is important...we did that and consistently question our decisions...but it still always feels like the right thing to do at the moment.

I'm sure your kids are awesome and will be well off because of their public schooling, It might be just me and my personal experience(s), again if I didn't have eyes and ears for the last 40 years. I'm happy that you feel confident in what they are getting. You care about them, that's more than I can say for a lot of parents.

My kids can go back to school tomorrow if they showed any interest and if they weren't thriving on their own. I don't own them, I simply care for them, they are their own people. My life would be much much easier if they were all in school. But their love of learning is the most important thing to me and I simply didn't get that in the public school system.

I love spending time with my kids, literally nothing I would rather be doing. I love being the one to challenge them and their views of the world, I love traveling with them and exposing them to shit they will never be exposed to in their depressing little bubble of ALICE trainings and prepping for STAR and MCAS testing, and the nonsense of American adolescence.

:)

I know you have already painted a picture of me, and that's fine...but I assure you that nothing that I have done in the last few years was done in haste or because of a temper tantrum. It's genuinely what I believe is the best move for my family.

We're having a discussion about you and your comments about us as we speak.

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