Caminsky's World: The Right to be Fools
Posted by Jeff Caminsky at 3:50 PM
Susan Bachus said...
Here's a comment from a parent who has recently suffered through the ordeal of dealing with the inflexibility of the public school system (in Fairfax, Virginia). I completely hear you about letting kids learn through their mistakes, but our society has come up with some absurd rules that disproportionately penalize kids, such that it's really difficult to stand by and watch them learn this way. In our barbaric school system, if a student has 3 unexcused absences, his grades automatically turn into F's, no matter what the quality of their work. 3 "tardies" count as an absence. To make matters worse, the schools start at 7:10 am, despite the fact that this is in diametric opposition to the circadian rhythms of adolescents. Moreover, our fool principal refused to accept medical excuses from their psychiatrist (my kids both have clinical depression), claiming that a psychiatrist isn't a "real doctor". The result of all this was that my kids, who are extremely bright, were completely failed by the school system. My son dropped out. He is now in a fully funded PhD program in computer science at Georgetown University. My daughter was shunted to an "alternative school", for which she had to board a bus at 6 am (some solution, huh?). She is also doing well in college now. The bottom line is that the only reason this school system looks so good on paper is that they get rid of any students with any problems. Anyway, I agree with you about the importance of letting kids learn how to make decisions and cope. But this has to start with a society that doesn't throw them away for the slightest misstep. Just my 2 cents worth (yikes, when did they take the cents sign off my keyboard?).
Caminsky's World: The Right to be Fools
Posted by Jeff Caminsky at 3:50 PM
Susan Bachus said...
Here's a comment from a parent who has recently suffered through the ordeal of dealing with the inflexibility of the public school system (in Fairfax, Virginia). I completely hear you about letting kids learn through their mistakes, but our society has come up with some absurd rules that disproportionately penalize kids, such that it's really difficult to stand by and watch them learn this way. In our barbaric school system, if a student has 3 unexcused absences, his grades automatically turn into F's, no matter what the quality of their work. 3 "tardies" count as an absence. To make matters worse, the schools start at 7:10 am, despite the fact that this is in diametric opposition to the circadian rhythms of adolescents. Moreover, our fool principal refused to accept medical excuses from t
heir psychiatrist (my kids both have clinical depression), claiming that a psychiatrist isn't a "real doctor". The result of all this was that my kids, who are extremely bright, were completely failed by the school system. My son dropped out. He is now in a fully funded PhD program in computer science at Georgetown University. My daughter was shunted to an "alternative school", for which she had to board a bus at 6 am (some solution, huh?). She is also doing well in college now. The bottom line is that the only reason this school system looks so good on paper is that they get rid of any students with any problems. Anyway, I agree with you about the importance of letting kids learn how to make decisions and cope. But this has to start with a society that doesn't throw them away for the slightest misstep. Just my 2 cents worth (yikes, when did they take the cents sign off my keyboard?).