Public School Crushes Souls
By Mimi Rothschild
I would encourage all parents to read Steve Olsen’s heartbreaking account of his experience in the public school.
Here we have a brilliant young mind that is systematically stifled and neglected over the course of twelve years. He went to one of the best schools in one of the most highly regarded states in terms of education: Minnessota. Here was a student that had a real burning curiosity for learning. His passion was stifled by uncaring teachers and peers.
Two years later in Jr. High, I took an Apple II computer class. On the first day of class, I looked through the syllabus, found the last lesson, loaded the 5 1/4 inch floppy, and completed it. I beamed with pride and arrogance. The teacher looked at my program, turned bright red, yanked me out of my seat by my ear, and I fell to the floor humiliated. He pointed to the door and said, “get out of my classroom.” He forced me to sit in the hall the rest of the semester and failed me.
Tragically, that was the breaking point for young Steve. At this point in his education, he lost interest in learning. He phoned it in for the next fifteen years. I felt that the most inspiring part of his long post was the declaration that “abuse and self-denial is not a normal part of growing up”. This is so true. Parents often excuse the public school system because they feel that children need to suffer like this in order to grow. And it’s worse today than it ever was when we were kids. Olsen tells of a harrowing conversation with his former high school English teacher. Today’s teens are so disenfranchised by the system that they just don’t care anymore. We have turned the majority of students into mindless, indifferent drones.
Fortunately, Olsen was able to overcome his crippling self image issues and has chosen to enroll his child in a small private Montessori school.
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