I was recently asked-- as a “school shooting survivor”-- how I felt about these recent tragedies that seem to be happening frequently here in the USA. My answer was not what they expected to hear.
The Question:
“Paul, as a one of America’s first ‘school shooting survivors’ back in November of 1974, what are your feelings today about that incident?”
My Answer to the question went something like this:
I think that it should be clear to everyone by now that this madness has gone on for long enough, and that if we truly cared about the children’s safety, well-being, and education, that we would do the sensible thing by immediately banning all public schools.
I didn’t say anything about guns.
I was then told that I had ”earned the right to my opinion”, and the conversation pretty much ended there.
A School Shooting in Little Rock, Arkansas- 1974
This discussion had all started based on an incident that happened to me when I was at school in the 8th grade.
It was Thursday, the 21st day of November, and was the day that many of the students at Booker Jr. High School heard their first real gunshots.
It was when an angry gunner emerged from a classroom and took a shot or two at me with a real pistol. He missed me, but two other students had already been tragically shot a few moments before.
This was the day when I watched a fellow student die in the hallway at school.
How I Felt About School Already
Back when I was in the 8th grade, I didn’t want to go to school anymore.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but at 14 years of age, the public school system had already lost me, having taught me all that it could. The lessons had become repetitive and dull, and with the addition of my being rather socially inept, I dreaded each day wasted in and around those 8th-grade classrooms.
Somehow I knew that there was a real world happening just outside of those cubicles that we were forced into each day.
Somehow I knew that the Public School system was designed to kill my spirit; I saw a device that was formulated to crush my imagination with military precision, and thus I resisted.
Military-grade Division of Humans
Crammed into concrete boxes all day, deprived of nature for weeks on end, we suffered as students in the Public Schools.
Being mere children, we had no choice in the matter; our parents would be punished if we were not properly enrolled, and few parents would question the traditions and cultural comforts of the Schoolhouse, while even fewer would dare try to educate their own child without government assistance.
Divide and Conquer by Grade Level
Aside from the obvious division of groups by age, wherein all of the students are assigned ‘grades’, from first grade to twelfth, the divisive tactics become acute as the difference in a single grade is emphasized by using terms such as freshman, sophomore, junior, senior-- terms which are then used by the students as a way to further divide themselves from one another into exclusive social groups.
GO TEAM! (Dividing the Population Further)
The US Public School system goes beyond dividing the students in their individual schools.
By pitting the sports teams associated with particular schools against each other, a vicious patriotism is encouraged in the student body, and peaceful communities will simply accept the fact that the games lead to vandalism, fights and injuries around the schools and local neighborhoods.
By design, nearly every American Public School cultivates aggressive mentalities that wouldn’t have necessarily been part of the community without the warlike nature that their sports teams and the games inspire in otherwise peaceful beings.
Et tu, Alma Mater?
This calculated division of the American society-- a war tactic that the Public School System was designed to maintain-- continues well past those twelve years of mental conditioning.
Colleges in the USA have traditionally used this same military hierarchy to divide the student body into classes, while the college-level sports teams then further spread the war drums across even larger regions, until whole states in these ‘united states’ are intentionally kept in conflict by the various schools, all trying to maintain their legacies of victory.
Often these college games are supported and funded by society’s most prominent members, making it seem like these constant regional and interstate conflicts should be encouraged by all.
The World Is Going to Change, Again
As awareness of the true purpose of these institutions is finally reaching the mind of the population, there is a chance that soon, the USA Public School System will become obsolete, it’s tentacles finally withering from disuse.
Even 'higher learning' is feeling the change, as young people who do manage to graduate from high school are wary of enrolling in college at all. Many of them simply don’t want to go to college or to participate in the archaic system that’s been handed to them in any way, while others have been warned that they will never be able to pay back the student loans that they might accrue, and that the chances of getting a job in their selected field are slim.
Since 1974, there have been some dramatic changes in the world, yet our education system still fails to educate, and many will spend their hours trying to devise ways to fix it.
Those who hope to fix the system may not realize that the Public School System is doing exactly what it was intended to do; to condition each new generation to believe that their war habits are part of human nature, and that surely we must fight, or assist in a fight, somewhere.
Schoolhouse of the Internet
These young people of today are correct by not wanting to go to school; there is no need for it anymore now that nearly all of the combined knowledge of the planet’s population is available for free on the internet.
Even now, many colleges offer free courses on the internet, so that the only incentive anymore for paying to go to college would be to gain a diploma, a document from the old hierarchy that may or may not be valuable in the future.
Already there are home-schooling programs that can be downloaded for free, and with the internet there is now the chance for a better education in a shorter amount of time than the Public School system could ever offer. Now parents can provide their children with an education at home, without having to fight school traffic, wait for school busses, or worry about school gunfire.
The Future May Take a Few More Years
In the USA, we suffer from the public school’s tendency to create warriors, obedient workers, and perpetual conflict within local communities, but the sentimental attachment to the comfort and authority of the schoolhouse makes an emotional mess out of everything logical and rational that might come along as an alternative, so off to school the kids will go again.
America is not quite ready to give up on it’s failed Public School system just yet.
From sentimental attachment and the comfort of long-held tradition to the convenience of having a free babysitter for their children, it might take a few more years before the practice of sending one’s children to be raised by strangers is seen as a bad idea by the general population.
I Earned the Right to Complain About School
I am a school shooting survivor. I watched an innocent human being’s life end in tragedy at the bottom of a short staircase in a dim school hallway, and it is not something that I can just forget.
One student tragically died, another was wounded by gunfire in a classroom, and a lot of people were rightfully very shaken up over the incident, but when an entire culture is trained for perpetual conflict within every realm of their society’s structure-- a training that starts with public school-- then one possible solution to stopping violence might be for us to find a way to stop sending children to these public schools.
School Survivors
When I suggested that Public Schools should be banned, I was making a serious point. I was probably expected to talk about guns, but it wasn’t about guns then, and it isn’t about guns now that I complain. My concern is the deliberate replacement of our children’s imagination with a habit of violence and conflict, their minds being so molded during a time when their innocence is still intact.
I'll insist that it is the perpetual war that is being baked into the school systems of the USA that is the problem, and I'm saddened by the fact that twelve years of precious life are devoted to absorbing those aggressive cultural habits into each new generation. Yes, I’m complaining about it. I earned the right.
PS: As a witness and supposedly a victim of 'assault', I was taken out of my class after the shooting that November day by the police. They took me downtown where I was asked to provide a witness report, and then they suggested that I might "press charges" against the student who shot at me. Having already forgiven the assailant, I decided that-- for my own safety-- I would not press charges for assault. I recognize that I am merely a survivor of school, because I still consider the true survivors of that 1974 incident to be the victim's friends, and the family who lost a beloved child on that day.
This is an AMAZING post. You have hit on so many good points.
It is awful that you had to go through a school shooting and see someone die in front of you.
There are MANY, many reasons to homeschool, and being more safe at home is definitely one of the reasons why I prefer it.
I have given you a full upvote and a resteem!
I appreciate it @canadian-coconut, the events certainly changed me, though my memory of the event itself is more surreal than terrifying. As you may see by those newspaper clippings, I've had some time to think this over, and I'll admit I'm using my status as a 'survivor' to make my point about the outdated public schooling system that I was forced through like so many others.
Looking forward now, I imagine the necessity of the invention of community learning groups forming within neighborhoods, with groups of parents even hiring their favorite teachers to guide the students, and where teachers will likely be better rewarded for their work than the old system could offer. In these more organic home and local classrooms, the ages of the students might be less emphasized, so that they could learn from each other naturally, like a family.
I used to be told that I lived in a world of fantasy, as if that was a bad thing. I'm still imagining a future that... well just wait 'til you see it! ;)
I'm a bit late to the post here (8 days). I completely agree and appreciate the eloquence you use to convey your message. Is there no way to resteem after a week? No button presents itself here.
This post was just awesome. I think that it should be clear to everyone by now that this madness has gone on for long enough, and that if we truly cared about the children’s safety, well-being, and education, that we would do the sensible thing by immediately banning all public schools.
Epic response :)
I'm putting this in my son's suggested reading by mom- I look forward to his impression being he's about the age you were when that happened.
haha, well they thought they wanted to know how I felt, until I got to the end. ;)
As a barely 14 year old American boy, if there was any trauma from the incident for me, it was buried under a bravado that I probably had to feign. Such tragedy though, up close, does stick with a person.
The American Education system is a weapon of mass destruction.
There, the whole thing in a few words! This comment gets an A for accuracy, and a plus for brevity.
Well as a teenager getting ready to enter high school in September . I want to say if we ban guns we need to ban cell phones. I say this because every year there are about 1.6 million accidents involving texting and driving. There are about 6,000 injured children every year as a result and that’s only here in the USA. Also stats have it that every day 11 kids die with texting and driving accidents . Some get killed in a car , some are riding bikes , some are just run over. That is a lot more lives lost than what is lost with semi auto matic guns. Bottom line is guns don’t kill people it’s the sick people that do it. Also cell phones don’t kill people it’s the retarded people who text and drive . So to all those protesting for a gun ban , think about it next time you are texting and driving ! Enough with the Double standard . Steem On Steem Nation!
Resteemed
Thank you for this post, @therealpaul. These are uncomfortable ideas for the average American, but if they want to reduce school shootings, they need to start getting uncomfortable. Public schools are designed to break the spirit, and sometimes broken spirits retaliate by perpetrating massacres.
I covered the topic of school shootings in a recent post, The Real Reason Why School Shootings Happen, and my conclusions were very similar to yours.
Resteemed!
Thanks for the resteem, I appreciate that. There is a lot of sentimental attachment to the little schoolhouse for the culture, but that may be a sentiment that the newest generation of parents won't really cherish. A few unbroken spirits using one internet might retaliate in their own way against the old slave system that their parents lived in, and the old mind-control devices will be recognized and properly rejected.
I am really happy that you were able to escape that ugly incidence that faithful day, now I know a great guy called @therealpaul. I do not know much about the American standards but what about educating people about how and when guns should be used, I feel that is a better idea(I stand corrected though).
I'm happy to be here with you as well! Here in the USA, like anywhere, guns are like tools, and I sometimes wonder if part of the reason guns are made to look bad is because 3D printing technologies are blooming, and will certainly threaten a lot of assorted industries when perfected in the next years. Next, we will likely hear how 3D printing should be discouraged because guns can be made with the technology, while in actuality the 3D printer will probably soon eliminate a lot of other industries that will no longer be needed to ship things or build things. In the USA, guns are used by the population to slow down most government-sanctioned genocide, but I wonder if large industries are using the fear of guns to slow down the upcoming 3D printer's universal acceptance.
Public schools are no more than government indoctrination camps now.
Yup.
Everyone can talk about the school shootings but your voice must be counted, IMO. You are not talking from belly button, you are talking as a survivor. Someone must do something about it and your suggestion is one of the solution. My suggestion is "home schooling with internet access." I know most of us working during school times and how can we control the children... But may be send children to the private school for the primary and after the primary they can do it themselves at home... Hugs from Spain.
There will be a time soon when a lot of parents will find ways to do their work from home, and with the availability of online courses, the centralized schoolhouse will probably become obsolete before too long. We had a local, private homeschool group here that formed organically in the community-- it happens!
Dude you are a beautiful and enlightened soul! Perfect!
Spot on assessment. I home schooled my son after the 5th grade due to all of the social conditioning that was being emphasized over actually learning useful ideas and knowledge. By the time he was 17, I had him get certified at the local college in computers, one he received 3 weeks after his 18th birthday. No student loan debt for him, and he has worked his way up the ladder, knocking on close to 50k a year now.
You find this need for divisiveness not just in schools, but as you pointed out in our sports and worst of all, the media. Despite them saying our strength is in our diversity, they go the extra mile to make sure the diversity will always be at odds with itself. Keeps the sheep to busy to notice where the farmers (bankers and their allies) are steering us on the farm.
Meanwhile the wars continue among nations that the majority of the people in each nation wish was not the case. Helps weed out the strong stock from the herds as the war machine marches on funded (with interest of course) by fake money created from thin air.
I'm happy to hear that you pulled your child from the camps, grade 5 was likely a perfect time to do it too, so that they could experience the schoolroom, and then real life, and see the difference for themselves.
Tis true; if we were to believe the media, we would think that there were entire nations of 'enemies', when just a few minutes on the internet at places like this (Steemit) can show the propaganda for what it is. The media is doomed, and they know it. Google and Twitter are getting all kinds of attention by pulling down tweets and videos that might help humanity see through the obfuscation and deceit. They are getting publicly desperate, it won't be long now.
I wish I had seen you give that response live on CNN, just so I could see them cut you off and pretend they had technical difficulties. That's always a classic.
This is a very real problem, and I think it is worse than when you were at school. For your generation, the adversarial mindset was born and cultivated within the classroom. But the youngest generations now are getting that and far worse programmed into them by shit like YouTube kids before they're even old enough to speak. I'm not sure there will be a way back for them, as there was for us.
The would have certainly had some technical difficulties, and the way I built it up, built it up, they would have had everything on for that last phrase... crap he didn't say guns!
The incident at my school was a crime of passion; the guy with the gun had been getting his ass kicked daily at school by a little gang, and he finally lost it. It was nothing like the events that we hear about today, that is for sure, I doubt there were many kids in my day who were on prescription pharmaceutical regimes like so many are now, chemicals which promise violence right on the label, a little pill that 'does what it says on the tin' as the saying may go.
Unschooling!
Wow, that was an incredible post, as a former public school teacher I could not agree more and have come to all of those conclusions. I think brick and mortar public schools have one or two generations more, people who attended an online university won't balk at sending their kids to an online school and then there is the money, a municipality can fire all of its teachers and custodians and the bussing company, no more dirty expensive buildings full of asbestos and hazards, no more physical bullying, no more school shootings, no retirement funds, no more pencils, no more books. There is an app for that, city after city will make the switch when their budgets get tight. The app can monitor the child's location and activity and progress and provide them with personalized learning.
Wow, glad to hear it from your mouth too!
Yes it seems like the latest generations are not impressed with our 'little red schoolhouse' version of life on Earth, and the traditions and rituals of school are becoming tedious now in the age of information at a glance. I can imagine local teaching and learning groups forming organically within communities who will find the thrift of their 'decentralized schools' to be superior to waiting for a bus or driving across town every day to pick up the children. It may be gradual, and may not make the evening news, but the community and home school fractal learning system is inevitable now.
I knew it was all over when I was showing the kids some of what I consider excellent cartoons and one kid wouldn't even pay attention for that, "If I wanted to watch that I could go home and watch it on youtube"
The kid couldn't have known the right search terms for the good stuff, 'tex avery', 'carl stalling', art, music and motion at it's finest!
In fact is was some classic Bugs Bunny I was showing!
Parents send their children to school with the best of intentions, believing that formal education is what kids need to become productive, happy adults. But The unfortunate fact is that one of our most cherished institutions is, by its very nature, failing our children and our society.
There was no real alternative to the public school system for most families around where I lived during my school years, but now there is an internet full of possibilities for everyone, so the individual buildings full of students will become obsolete pretty soon, with community classes and home groups taking advantage of the information that is at hand now everywhere.
Jesus, thanks for sharing this experience. I don't envy you. I grew up in the countryside and shootings in Italy NEVER ever happen. It is very difficoult to legally own a weapon, imagine mass shooting! No way.
When I hear these stories, I always think how life is much more simple in the countryside, far from the evil human.
Also, I understand your statements come from a different contest, however I am glad we still have a social system that allow everybody to attend public school if they don't have enough income.
That Italian countryside sounds quite nice to me.
The incident that I witnessed was a crime of passion, as one person was pushed into a rage against another individual ending in tragic violence. Any kind of violent death or murder was a new thing for us back then, unless it was seen on the TV, we never thought of such things before that.
Here, our existing organic social system is hobbled by the public school system, instead of being enhanced by it. I keep on creating this future (wait 'til you see it!) where communities create local learning groups using online resources, where any income bracket can become educated within their own communities. The best teachers would be rewarded directly by whole communities pooling their money into these private groups, and the traditionally underpaid teachers may find themselves well paid and appreciated for their work.
Wow, @therealpaul, you've shared such a unique perspective with us today. I can't say as I've ever spoken with someone who's been through a school shooting before. Thanks for sharing your story and your views.
I'm sorry you had to go through what you did. I don't know how much I agree with your suggestion to ban public schooling, but as the interviewer said, you've certainly earned your right to that opinion.
As a society we must work together to protect children from tyranny. This includes tyranny from schools, but also from their own parents. It takes a village to raise a child. I don't endorse home-schooling not because it is not the parents' right (it certainly is and should be), but because it is not in the child's best interests. My opinion is this: "I support your right to homeschool, but unless you are a teacher, please don't do it."
I do think public schooling is way too focused on indoctrination. In the USA, children stand in the classroom every day and are taught to recite some meaningless words they have no idea about. How is that not brainwashing? However, I worry that many parents who homeschool do so in order to brainwash their own children, and I think this is unfortunate. Children deserve to grow up learning the truth, not some twisted version of it skewed by religion or a political agenda. The public schooling system is not perfect, but it does protect a lot of children from their own idiotic parents.
In an ideal world, schooling would be completely decoupled from government involvement and would instead be driven by communities. As for forcing kids to go to school, well, I think it is good for a child to be made to learn until they can actually formulate an opinion on whether they wish to keep learning or not.
However, regardless of what I personally believe, it should be the parents' decision when or if to enroll a child in school (though I don't think that decision should be immune to pressure and shaming by their community), and once they are capable of understanding, it should be the child's decision whether they want to continue to go to school or not. If a child does not want to go to school, and we force them to go anyway, we are committing a cruelty.
In the end, I am mostly sympathetic to what you're saying. I was certainly never shot at, thankfully, but I do share your other more minor complaints about school (it was never really my thing either). I just don't want a bunch of uneducated idiots running the world when I'm old.
I was told that I had 'earned' the right to my opinion, but even then I had to remind them that I had a right to an opinion already, that there was no need to earn it. :)
The difference in my opinion is that I've had 44 years to think about it, and instead of formulating it based on popularity, it is based on the actual results of the US public school system, both in the American student's academic results and in the predictable cultural ones. The USA ranks very low in educational scores around the globe, and very high in unwarranted military incursions around that same globe, and whether by design or not, those numbers are in.
I don't worry too much about wacko parents trying to instill ridiculous notions into their own children's heads, because I understand the rebellious nature of a being who's free will is being challenged in any way. Hardly any kids want to grow up to be like their parents, and now with information being the new gold in the world, there will be no way for those wacko parents to keep the truth from their children anyway.
There has been a popular interpretation of the idea of homeschooling that suggests that parents don't make good educators, and that an organized school system is a better choice, but whether true or not, things are changing now with new online programs for homeschooling which teach parents how to use the internet as a learning tool. Homeschooled children already tend to show better scores than Public Schools can boast, but the only 'homeschooler' stories we are likely to hear are the ones that have tragic, newsworthy headlines, and none of the positive results will be publicized.
It is definitely going to be communities that ultimately educate their young, and that will happen when we recover those same communities that I described in the article that are fractured by the local school districts. We have been divided for a purpose, but now the powers that have kept us divided are beginning to wane.
I certainly used the word 'banning' in my dialogue for shock value, and I don't truly expect school to be banned. I do see the system that I grew up in becoming obsolete, but even then I will always agree that it should be a parent's decision as to whether or not to enroll their children in anything. At some point the generation that birthed today's youth will find themselves making these choices, and there's no way that school will be cool for the newest generation- they are abandoning everything that the grown-ups have offered, and I'm cheering them on.
Well, it's funny to think that the history being taught to our children, the same history taught to us, was actually the truth. Ha! the victors write the history the way they want it to be. Sad thing is someone else is also raising our children while parents are trying to scrape together enough fiat to make ends meet. They spend most of their time in these places learning all the wrong things and losing their light.
You make very good points. I'm in cautious agreement with you, I think. I especially hadn't though about this bit:
This is something I hadn't thought of before. The children of today will find it harder and harder, as they get older, to remain within a closed system. Most of these crazy belief systems fall apart at the lightest touch of sunlight.
Thanks for giving me something to think about today.
A very thought-provoking post. I think I would have to agree with you. It is not about gun control. It is about how kids are suffering in the public school system. They are being made to conform to ideals that are away out of date. They don't want kids to think for themselves. They want lemmings. In some countries, it is illegal to homeschool. This is sad situation. I think parents and kids shouldbe allowed to decide what is best for them.
I don't think I know anyone who really wanted to go to school. Many of us felt like it was a waste of time, because we could see it for what it was; a way to condition us to accept the authority of the state as a superior being-- even more powerful than our parents-- and so that we would be programmed for aggression, so that we would easily accept the latest war. Once we are deprogrammed though, we can never unsee the facade, but we can see the indoctrination camps that we survived, and we can warn others!
Keep shouting in the dark and eventually things will change. You have a lot of courage...
I pretty much agree.
With today's technology, the internet and the blockchain..brick and mortar schools are obsolete..not to mention dangerous.
Every day if I'm driving anywhere in town I have to fight school traffic, and then those damned busses, all that wasted fuel, when there's an internet waiting to be incorporated into the education system today. Ah, whenever I come back from my imaginary future, reality seems so harsh.
I was a school bus driver for a few years. From that contact with the public school system as well as being a parent my conclusion is that SchoolDistricts are STOOPID.
Why the HELL do they put the schools on the major THRU-roads in town? There's no way to cross town without going thru multiple school zones. THAT's stoopid.
When I was growing up in the fifties..one of the major attractions to buying a home was whether or not it was close to a school. I walked to school (or rode my bicycle) until I got old enough to buy a motorcycle.
Now they buss kids across town even if there's a school two blocks away..THATS STOOPID.
when the weather was bad (rain snow, tornados) did they close school? :Not likely. I'd drive my bus out into the country (I had a route that was 70 miles long) pick up the kids..bring them to school...for half a day. They'd close early due to bad weather...then drive them back home again. What the hell could they do in fifteen minute classes? They spent most of their time moving from room to room
THAT's STOOPID...(and fricking dangerous)
and the list goes on and on.
When the last public school building is torn down...I won't shed any tears.
That is a crazy intense experience for you to have gone through. Especially back in 1974. Wow...
It probably affected me in ways that hopefully have been resolved by now, but at the time, we have to figure that I was a 14 year-old boy in the heart of the USA-- getting shot at with real bullets was something that such a boy as me was liable to brag about before admitting any trauma, so the terrible things that I witnessed that day were likely buried under a bravado that I thought I needed to manufacture and reenforce as an adolescent boy in those days.
Wow very powerful statement. You make a great point here. I have more negative memories from school than powerful life lessons. There has to be a safer and better solution.
I don't have a large amount of memories from school at all, which is sad because that was 12 years of getting nothing done worth remembering!
"My concern is the deliberate replacement of our children’s imagination with a habit of violence and conflict, their minds being so molded during a time when their innocence is still intact."
STANDING OVATION
As a mom of 4 home/un-schooled kids, I have been fighting this indoctrination and divisionary programming for years. We currently live in a country where homeschooling is illegal and I continue the fight over here, for the rights of children to LEARN as they want, what they want, how they want, when they want, and most importantly: WHERE they want.
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I'm happy to hear that your children might have a chance to see through the programming, but I wonder if there is also a punishment for unschooling your children every day after they have been exposed to the facade. I recall debating on how much reality I could send my young child to school with in those years, for fear of having her taken from me if she spoke too much, too loudly. Thankfully that is behind us now, and ahead is a new Earth without the illusion. As necessity arises, new models for learning will be invented, and have been invented, and it only takes a bit of time for customs and tradition to give way to better designs.
Yet as the realisation hits more people that public the public school system is not what they want for their children, more governments are making it illegal to take your child out of it. As always, the solution for them is to resort to force.
I've noticed that too, it's part of this incredible race that we get to watch, as people cautiously start to respond to the tyranny, that tyranny reacts accordingly. Amazing to behold.
even basic things like education is not safe anymore god knows what's gonna happen on this earth lately
I think education will evolve into local, smaller community groups using online courses, maybe even paying their favorite teachers in crypto to teach their children. What's going to happen on this earth is up to us as always!
I love it. I love the shaking people out of complacency of it. So much truth here. Thank you for sharing it. 💛
Yes. Oh my fucking god yes.
Our kids are only 3, but a year ago when i would tell people we planned on home schooling our twins, they'd look at me like I'd grown another head. Now they listen. The gun violence has always been a product of frustration with the system. Change the system, end the violence. ✌
I'm happy to hear that you are going to homeschool, and that the option still exists. A lot of people have become accustomed to the system to the degree that, they wonder where the violence comes from, then a few minutes later they are furious because their child's football team didn't have a good offense during a high-school game.
Phenomenal read. I honestly didn't think I was going to get very far, and then you pulled me in to the end. I have to comment because although I had a very similar soul crushing experience as a kid in a public school, I waited until I was 40 to have my own kids, and I am really happy to say that everything about their school seems different. They are only in elementary school, and as a coach at our high school I see problems there, but it still seems as though the system has evolved. Now, granted, we chose to live in New Jersey partly for the good public schools, but we also chose to pay the second highest property taxes in the nation to access them! By no means am I trying to imply they are perfect, but I guess personally I am not ready to completely give up on public education, and I am going to do whatever I can locally to support our schools so they can keep evolving.
Yeah I was 39 before having any children, and my child ended up going to some nice schools with strong community involvement, which did feel much different than my old schools. I don't think public education will necessarily be abandoned, but I do see the convenience of the internet and the power of local communities forming their own learning groups, and the centralized schoolhouse might not be seen as practical anymore for numerous reasons.
I agree that the internet will continue to stretch the possibilities. I’ve had a lot of students at my college that graduated from a virtual charter school and for certain kids it’s a god send. More options are the key. A lot of kids are probably fine with what made us crazy. Actually, I think of that often. It really seemed like a lot of my classmates were fine with it all and did well in school. I think the biggest change that has to happen is we need to go back to investing in quality vo-tech (without the stigma of it being something that less smart kids do). It seems like there is some movement there, and there are some great programs scattered around, but it will take a while for it to go mainstream. Thanks again for you post. I woke up thinking about it!
Excellent answer on so many levels!
Thanks for reading @papa-pepper!
With your penchant for writing realistic fiction, I had wanted this to be one of those as well. I'm sorry to hear about what happened, and I'm glad that you made it out alive. I don't know if the world would be the same if it had been you who was the unfortunate student. Such a profound experience that has undoubtedly influenced your life moving forward.
I do agree that we public schools feel like an antiquated notion. People can learn anywhere, more so now than before. If the abolishment of the school system is inevitable, then it should be starting now.
I always use the 'fiction' tag for fiction, but even then I try to keep it real! I think back when I was 14 I had a sense of 'I'm an immortal being, but school takes forever'. I was never frightened during the incident. I will say that after that first shot missed me, I jumped down behind a retaining wall safely before he fired the next round! I learned that from TV. If my parents had known that the TV may have saved my life that day, they would have let me watch it more often I think. We should all be glad that my parents didn't let me watch much television programming though.
When I play out the idea of schoolhouses becoming obsolete, I imagine the concern of the teachers who devote their time and lives to that school, or it's students, but I would imagine that the best teachers would find that communities will pool together resources and create space for local and home learning groups. It might even be more rewarding for those teachers, who often seem to be underpaid for their efforts in educating the children of strangers. Better for everyone, is what I always try for when envisioning the future.
I know the feeling, people don't give two shits about us lately when we don't talk about banning guns, and they find it appalling when we defend gun rights. I survived the Columbine shooting and I'm still defending guns while still also arguing for banning public schools.
Had my deaf ass been in a Charter school for the deaf and blind, I'd not have had that negative experience.
To be sure, the question was asked to me on Facebook, which is essentially groupthink, so nobody was allowed to encourage my words, even if they agreed. If they gave two shits, they had to hold that shit in. Nobody dared 'like' the comment because it would imply to the group that they might agree with me, while many probably made no sense at all out of my words, presuming that I had finally lost my mind. ;)
Oh, right, Facebook. Screw everything about that. I dislike the group think stuff, I try to avoid it where possible. I don't mind a little bit of an echo chamber, but I don't think it's healthy to have everyone agree with me 100% of the time, sooooo I barely ever use Facebook and G+. Too anti-liberty for me.
In awe of this @therealpaul. I absolutely agree of your assertion to fix and build first a good foundation of our inner man to finally become refine and humane. As John Lock says in his notion "tabularasa" or clean slate mind of a child, we adults have this compelling responsibilty to empower the next generation by discipling them with love and sympathy to mankind. With that we are secured that our descendants and the next generation to come will have a better world of their own.
An interesting opinion, not necessarily the one I would agree with, but interesting, relevant and well written anyway. I personally think public education should be massively reformed but not shut down because it would be a new step in dumbing down the masses. To many people public school is the only contact they will have with education of any sort (apart from maybe street criminal courses).
My gosh. What an incredible post and what a terrible ordeal you have lived through at such a young age. Thank you for sharing this and giving us such a truthful insight into your life and experiences.
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I am very salute to you, because you are a good person, I upvote and resteem @therealpaul.
You should have named yourself "the real survivor......loved this one..
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Posts that attract friends ..
Hi friend too busy,due to some beautiful reasons.will connect you later.
This is a great,
I upvoted you as a witness :) good luck!
Your post is golden yeah... i think writing might have advantages as well as & also nice post thanks for sharing
Something has to be done to the schooling system, it seems children are not secured, and if kids are not assured of protection, why jeopardize their lives
the education is getting worse each day all they want is money and over that you have fear inside of your kids
Hope some technology is made because recent Peshawar attack in Pakistan also humanity is dying in people .... Need to redefine humanity