Reply #167: I have an essay on my _Teacher, Teacher_ website

[tblue37]

called "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum":
http://www.teacherblue.homestead.com/inmates.html

In it I explain why I will never enter a public elementary school classroom again.

I have taught college English since 1972. I also ran a home daycare for 18 years, while raising my own 2 kids (while still teaching). And when my kids were in grade school, I did volunteer teaching in their classrooms several time a week. I have the knowledge, the skills, and the experience to handle a classroom full of kids--under normal circumstances. But when I substitute taught in the grade schools here during the 2002-2003 schoolyear, I was appalled at the chaos in the classroom, at the unsocialized kids, and at the way the teacher's authority had been totally negated.

If my kids were that age now I would homeschool them. I would never let them go to such a school. Not only would they not learn what they should, they would learn all sorts of things they should not.

I also have an essay on my Who's Minding the Children" website called "American Kids Really Have Changed!"
http://www.childrensneeds.homestead.com/rudekids.html

In it I describe the changes I have noticed in children over the past 25 years. The fact that so many kids were coming into my daycare completely unsocialized is one of the main reasons I closed it.