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“…your son will never be college material.” (courtesy of my “guidance” counselor)

“…your lips are just too big to play the trumpet.”

“…your son needs to go to our ’special’ class…”

“and, of course “nigga” “nigga” and “nigga”

These are just some of the things that I heard while in both public school and private school. Not to mention the time I was practicing for a play and the new teacher asked before handing the script to me “Can you read?” Trust me, these comments do not reflect all of my school experiences. I had some good times as well. But as you can see, years later, I still remember these comments and the feelings that accompanied them. (I did not cut their pictures out of my yearbook, or create voodoo dolls in their image and dangle them over fire). Again, these comments only represent only a small part of my schooling. On the other hand, I will not minimize the fact that these encounters had an adverse affect on my self-esteem as a child.

The thing I didn’t like about my public school experience (and in some cases, my private school experience), is that it was hit or miss when it came to getting a teacher that actually had high expectations for me as a student.

As I stated in the last posting, the school system was not developed for the primary reason of creating independently-thinking citizens. The main purpose was to develop students into adults that would easily fit into “the gears” of the industrial revolution. The founders could not afford having a bunch of geniuses coming over the horizon that could very easily put them out of business with one good idea. It was out of this concern that the school system has leaned towards standardization. John Gatto talks a little about this:

In the new system, schools were gradually re-formed to meet the pressing need of big businesses to have standardized customers and employees, standardized because such people are predictable in certain crucial ways by mathematical formulate. Business (and government) can only be efficient if human beings are redesigned to meet simplified specifications. As the century wore on, school spaces themselves were opened bit by bit to commercialization.(web page)

(Gatto is a former New York city teacher who won the “Teacher of the Year” award some years ago. He later came out with a book that exposes all of the hypocrisy, lack of organization, and low expectations that you will find in most school systems. What makes his books interesting is that he gives real-life accounts from an insider’s perspective. I will be highlighting some of his books in the near future.)

Over the years, schools have become the ideal place for companies to test their products before releasing them to the general market. Companies like McDonald’s, Coke, Pepsi, etc. have all been cashing in on this concept for years.

Companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi offer schools hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in exchange for exclusive vending machine contracts. And financially pinched schools can’t resist. “This is such an incredibly bad idea, because the school enters into a contract that puts them in the position of encouraging kids to drink more soda so that they can make more money. They often get bonuses if kids drink more,” (full article)

The problem with most curriculae out there is that they leave little room for the child that is either ahead of the expected result, or far behind it. In a general school setting, accommodating these types of scenarios usually involve some type of peer pressure that only does more damage to the child. The whole purpose of most curriculae is to train the child to think and to reason they way its creators want you to. I think it is safe to say that most of the geniuses that we read about in history did not come out of a public school environment. With all the so-called advancement that we have seen in the last couple of decades, why have we not seen more inventors and geniuses? Most schools will have you to believe that the only subject that our black kids can excel in at school is sports. Sadly, we have been buying into this ideology for years. It is one thing to demand for “better” schools; however, it is entirely something different when you talk about the ideology that is taught in most school systems.

Did you know that their is a growing trend in the public school system to eliminate recess? Read below:

New elementary schools in Atlanta have been built without playgrounds, and recess has been curtailed in other Georgia school districts as well. Schools in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Texas, New Jersey, Florida, and California have all jumped on the eliminate-recess bandwagon. “This is an example of good intentions gone awry,” Paul Houston, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, told the Chicago Tribune (9-27-01). “There’s huge pressure these days on superintendents and boards to show that they’re serious about achievement, so they do something symbolic – they get rid of recess.” (full article)

Can you imagine being locked-up in a classroom all day without having a break? Now, let’s add in the ingredients of broken-down classrooms, incompetent teachers, dated schoolbooks, and most importantly constant peer pressure. What you now have are actual factories (not schools) that produce people that are easy swayed by the actions of the general populace.

Since the early 1970’s, this nation has at least tripled the amount of money that we are throwing to the public school system. Yet, we are still not able to compete with other countries in the field of math. Yes, the school systems have been slightly improving over the years, but it is no where in proportion to the amount of money that has been invested into this failing system. We’re beyond the “Mend it! Don’t end it!” mantra. All parents (especially Black parents) need to begin to look at other options when it comes to the education of our children.

This posting is just the first in a series discussing this issue. So please check back often.