Public Schools Have Become Ground Zero in Our Political Civil War
And our kids are the collateral damage…
I know someone that has extracted her sixteen year old son entirely from public school; she’s listed him as home schooled when he’s not really being home schooled. At first she was reluctant and worried about whether or not she had done the right thing for him but once she got over the fear of having the audacity of not conforming to our broken social systems, she’s never looked back. In her words, she has her son back.
I work in mental health. I know this kid in a clinical setting and since taking him out of school his mental health is no longer in a total free fall or death spiral. His particular school is one of many locally that have come under the threat of bombings and shootings. The school district unfortunately has to sort through many of these threats made on social media, kids will just post a picture of a gun and say things like “see you at school tomorrow.” And while I’m fairly certain that when it does happen, because at this point it just seems like a matter of time, it won’t be anounced on Instagram. The shooter will just show up and open fire.
Parents and students don’t just have to worry about the unthinkable happening at their school, they also have to consider suicide. With mental health in a total free fall, teen suicide claims the lives of more kids than virtually anything else in the U.S. though you might not know it. Nobody seems to give a good godamn but over the years I rarely encounter a teen anymore that doesn’t know at least one life lost to suicide. Sometimes it’s a close friend or a family member.
One of the only kids that I know that isn’t in a complete and total death spiral is the one that has been pulled from public school. He isn’t just doing okay. He’s thriving. He’s finding his identity and when you find your identity, you’re more likely to find your purpose. And he is. And before you jump in with some pearl clutching about the importance of school and education let’s really take a step back and ask ourselves, honestly, what are kids really getting out of high school these days? Beyond being proficient at reading, writing and basic math what is school really teaching that they need to succeed in life?
School sucks
Realistically, life is becoming less and less worth living with each passing moment. Our culture has become shallow and completely detached from virtually anything and everything that makes it worth it to keep on living. When you really think about it, it’s no mystery as to why so many people are killing themselves either abruptly or slowly, we all secretly wish to be free of this nightmare. Maybe I went to far there, not all of us keep it a secret. I openly want to be free of this nightmare and my life has become a fulltime search for what really counts but I digress…
Nobody that is truly happy can give credit to their formal education. Nobody that is truly happy openly says, “Thank god for high school chemistry! Jesus H on a bicycle where would I be?! I shudder at the very thought! Not a single day goes by that I don’t come across the need to multiply a polynomial! Thank God they forced me to learn that!”
Nobody that has found the love of their life and the deep connection they have with their soulmate is because of their formal education. Sure, some people marry their high school sweetheart but going to prom with someone has no correlation to long term happiness or marital success. It’s not like they offer a relationship skills class as an elective. Of course they don’t because that might actually be useful and God forbid public school provide anything useful.
Nobody has found their passion in life through the means of a formal education. Public school has become this mindlessly mundane and pointless exercise in sacrificing your will to live. It was bad when I was in high school a quarter of a century ago and it’s way worse now for many more reasons than just a shortage of burned out teachers. My forth grade teacher actually made a difference in my life, he taught me how to love books and I’ve loved reading ever since. Thank you Mister Andrus, you were truly an amazing teacher but any and all great teachers are walking away from the profession. It’s a job nobody wants anymore. Our kids are being educated by people who desperately wish they had chosen to do something else. Many of them are bearing the burden of the punishment that is now handed to those that actually want to do something good in the world for living.
Public school hasn’t just lost all of it’s redeeming qualities, it’s become ground zero for our political civil war and our kids are the collateral damage. It’s bad enough that enough so called adults can only see a deeply complex world through the lens of red versus blue but they’re pulling our kids into it. Public school has turned into the political battle ground and the kids are turning into child soldiers for the cause. Both sides are guilty of it when both sides want to paint themselves as the ones with virtue and morality. Spoiler alert, none of you are the heroes, all of you are the villains. The hypocrisy on both sides is deeply disturbing as children get thrown into the front lines.
This is a warzone…er… I mean school zone
We are in a political civil war and the public schools truly have become the battle ground, the new Gettysburg, because that’s where the goddamn violence is happening. I truly don’t understand how it got this way, maybe it doesn’t even really matter. What I do know is that adults have lost their minds and our kids are paying the price. While the gun debate wages on with no end in sight, we obviously need a different solution. Regardless of your stance on the matter, I would encourage you to take a step back and see how this power struggle has no end in sight and we desperately need a solution that everyone can agree on and that’s saving our kids from these horrific tragedies. As far as I see it, neither side has the high ground but sadly we’re dealing with too many selfish and childish adults on both sides.
I would argue, first off, that the lack of a bullshit education that you get from public school is a worthy sacrifice if, in the process you save a child from the damage done in public school as well as avoid the potential danger. I realize this isn’t viable for everybody but the internet can offer a far better education than public school does anyway. Lately, I’ve seen more parents choose into a concept called “unschooling” which is essentially taking kids out of school and enabling them to get what they need, educationally, from the abundant resources available online. It also supports the idea that kids learn and retain information better when they’re allowed to pursue subjects that naturally interest them. And when a large percentage of kids are doing school online already anyway, it’s not a far stretch.
Where we’ve gotten now is that school holds no intellectual interest for kids. None. And maybe ten percent of it is relevant to our modern way of living. We’re just shoving them into boxes and expecting them to live their lives according to what we want instead of what they want and instead of what is actually good for them. It’s completely selfish and more than a bit narcissistic to approach child raising as though children are our personal property and they are required to perform tricks and jump through hoops like a dog in order to please us and it completely undermines the process of healthy growth and development.
Even friendships are dead
A few years ago I would have told you that it was important for kids to socialize. In fact, socialization with friends and peers is an essential part of their psychological development and a need that had typically gotten met by attending school but we’ve managed to ruin that and send that down the shitter with everything else. It’s deeply saddening to me to see kids hate each other as much as they are these days. Kids don’t have friends like other generations. They dislike each other, they don’t trust each other and in many cases, they feel like they hate each other. The general mistrust and hatred for each other is an attitude that I’ve seen more universally and pervasively among all ages. People are becoming more and more willing to physically harm people that they’re personal ego deems deserving of said harm and as the saying goes, shit always runs downhill and it certainly has. As history is teaching us as it unfolds in real time, there aren’t enough dead kids that will force so called adults to take a hard look at themselves in the mirror.
“How could this happen to our kids that I didn’t give a shit about until today!?”
Kids feel this intense sense of anger, hatred and mistrust because a generation of so-called adults can’t see beyond their own warped ego. The fact that public schools have turned into war zones is a testament to how disturbed and screwed up the adults are. We created this nightmare for them and we continue to force them to live through it. Why? So they can learn the difference between lava and magma? So they can be forced to learn how to multiply polynomials?! Give me a break, we don’t need to know this bullshit to get through life. Kinda hard to get an “A” on your bullshit math test if you’re having an emotional breakdown about whether or not Rambo junior is going to walk through the door and create a lifetime of unresolved PTSD and nightmares.
There’s no end in sight as these sick and narcissistic adults power struggle and play tug of war at school board meetings and turn public schools into ground zero. The only solution, if you ask me, is noncompliance. If you have kids and you love them you should withdraw them from public school. It’s completely lost the plot. We won’t be able to do better until the broken system has collapsed and I say we let it. I say we let the teachers walk away and I say we allow the public school system crumble entirely. Education rests at our finger tips. Literally. We just have to choose to access it.
We’ll have a better world when we protect childhood as a time of growth and development, that time should be held sacred. The sad truth is, people don’t care enough about kids as they should. It’s bizarre to me that people seem to care far more about a place like Ukraine and what’s happening there than they do what’s happening in their own communities. People look the other way when it comes to mental health, drug addiction, sexual violence, human trafficking or child sexual exploitation. There are so many more things that I could put on that list but you get my point. People continuously live in a state of denial or something, I’m not entirely sure and then they act bewildered because tragedy happened in small town U.S.A. “How could this happen to our kids when we didn’t give a shit about them until today?!” If you ever want to feel like you’re taking crazy pills, try to persuade people to care about what’s happening to the kids in their own communities at least as much as what’s happening in a place like Ukraine. Trust me, it will make you want to drink a lot more than you probably already do.
I recently watched a short clip about how the people in the Netherlands banded together to keep cars from taking over their country and how they stopped their home from becoming this vehicle dominated hell hole that you find in the states. It was actually quite inspiring to see the pictures and videos with a short narrative about how they took their communities back and how this country still to this day limits cars while providing some of the best cycling in the world. Better for you and better for the planet to say the least. It’s an inspiring story about what happens when people come together to create positive and lasting change instead of what we do now which is yell at people, blame people and make memes.
Speaking of crazy pills, anyone else around here just watch people mindlessly do the same thing over and over to try and create social change with zero results? “Another school shooting?! I better create some more meme’s!” We need a better plan…
I’ve made a new commitment to myself. I’m no longer participating in voting and politics. It’s a dog and pony show except now we no longer have politial parties, we have factions and religious cults. What would happen if nobody voted? Would the current system crumble? Who knows… I know that I’m done, I’m no longer participating, enough of the political civil war. My mail in ballot for the mid-terms is sitting on my table and tomorrow I’m going to burn it.
