Possumblog

A long night.

Sometimes you find out things and you really didn't want to know them. This comment prompted by open house at the high school last night. Oldest had to be there at 6:15 to serve as a helper for her homeroom teacher, so Reba and I swooped in, picked her up, and headed on over to the school without even stopping for supper.

We got a short intro from the principal and assistant principal and then followed her schedule to each class for about 15 minutes or so, then the bell would ring and we'd move to the next. They also rang the tardy bell five minutes later so parents would be able to see if their student was actually being truthful when told that it takes several hours to get across campus. Thankfully, OUR student hasn't gotten gigged with any tardies this year, although there were a few last year.

This semester Ashley has Business, Choir, Honors English, and Honors History, and each of her teachers makes me feel better about the state of public education, at least in our town. Speaking from the perspective of someone who attended a private Christian school for 12 years, and as the parent of four kids who attended another private Christian school for three years (they got to go because Mama worked there), don't fool yourselves about the quality of those private schools.

I managed to do well enough for myself, but only because I had initiative enough to go learn things on my own. I knew more chemistry than the chemistry teacher we had in high school, and more biology in the seventh grade than our teacher knew. Bless their hearts, because they wanted to teach and be able to do so in a religious sort of environment, but still, it's pretty bad when the students are more capable than their instructors.

My kids got the "opportunity" to experience such a school, too, but thankfully they were able to overcome the intense handicap it imposed on their learning. The delusion of superiority that the place imposed on itself was unbelievable, even in the face of standardized test scores that lagged behind even the middling public schools.

But what of the high moral education? Well, just like every public school isn't a trash heap of immorality, simply plastering Christian on the buildings doesn't make it so. Again, that delusion of moral superiority amongst both the faculty and administration caused the drugs, alcohol, and sexual licentiousness of the students to be completely ignored, or if discovered, to be excused. Can't make those big donors unhappy, you know. Likewise, the favoritism, backbiting, high-handedness, and lack of respect shown by so many of the teachers was reprehensible, especially in light of the lightweight credentials they had brought to the table. I might be willing to accept a bit of that from someone who's a genius--maybe. But not from someone who graduated in the middle third of a class of underachievers.

The point? Well, maybe my experiences aren't typical, but just as you can't paint all private schools as paragons of virtue, you also can't tar all public schools as being ineffectual pits of moral decay. Any school where the parents are committed to superior performance--and are willing to put in the time it takes to achieve it--will be a good school. They might not have any Bibles lieing around, but when it comes to education, I am firmly of the opinion it's better to have good teachers rather than bad teachers with good intentions.

Anyway, enough of the soapboxing. We walked around to all of her classes and met her teachers. The business teacher's been all over the country and has actually worked in a business! (Imagine that!) She seems like a real go-getter. As for the choir teacher, he joked about wearing a tie and not shaving so the parents would believe that he actually was the teacher. Might need to let the facial hair grow a couple of days, there, Junior. He looked about 12 or so. And he went to Ole Miss. I guess all that moralizing about good teachers just went STRAIGHT OUT THE WINDOW! (Obviously, this is tongue-in-cheek. Despite looking like a kid and knowing the Hotty Toddy cheer, he seems like a great guy.) The English teacher was fine, in a way that would have made me unable to concentrate on my lesson were I still in high school, and then there's the history teacher.

An old-school fellow, in the very best way, in that he seems to believe in teaching history rather than being politically correct. And he's a legacy--himself a grad of the school, and the son of a man who taught history there for 30 years. He knows his junk. Bad stuff? Well, he DID have a Jimmie Johnson poster on the wall at his desk. And guess who keeps going to sleep in his class?

::sigh:: He was disappointed, more than anything else, because he knows that Oldest is a good student, and when she's engaged, she soaks up that history stuff like a sponge. But her pigheadedness in defying us by trying to stay up late--bedtimes being for little kids--is catching up with her.

I've recognized her problem for a long time, mainly because of her determination to sleep through church even with me AND mom poking her in the ribs. What we're really going to have to deal with, though, is the fact that Mom isn't helping matters.

Reba, bless her, loves to talk. As I've said before, she talks the way I blog--constantly, and with much hand-waving. This is fine, most of the time. But Ashley has found that if she goes and engages Reba in conversation at bedtime, she can stay up an extra hour or more. Because Reba, not wanting to be mean, or confrontational, simply cannot not talk to her, and refuses to cut it short and send her to bed. I can rant and rave all I want, but as long as she keeps providing an excuse for Oldest to drag out bedtime until midnight, it does nothing but make more aneurisms spray out of my brain like a lawn sprinkler. I'm hoping that having a bit of gentle humiliation at the hands of the history teacher will make both of them understand that something's gotta give.

We'll see, I suppose.

And then?

Well, wouldn't you know it, but YET ANOTHER EXCUSE TO STAY UP LATE! Grr.

Oldest wants to be in another play, and they had auditions last night. Until 10 p.m. Reba and I went and got the other kids from the grandparents, I took them home and set them to bathing and getting in the bed, then went back to the high school to wait on Oldest. I would hate to actively wish for her desires to be crushed, but never have I wanted so badly for her to not get picked for something. That's bad to say, but with her difficulty in getting enough rest, this seems like A Bad Thing.

We'll see, I suppose.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at October 5, 2005 09:20 AM