srg0pdrs4 t1_j8opte5 wrote on February 15, 2023 at 9:23 PM

Reply to comment by Chippopotanuse in Massachusetts has the 2nd earliest average high school start time in the country (7:38am) by LuckyLaceyKS

Lol...

I moved to Portugal as a 14 year old...I'd love to see you do better than I did learning every single subject in what amounted to a foreign language for me...but go on and call me stupid. Fine.

You don't know the inner workings of the evaluation process and how they affect what your kid is exposed to and learns in school. And for 15 years I was rated proficient and exemplary, mentoring young teachers and being asked to put on professional development sessions for my coworkers. It's not Wall St...but I feel fulfilled in my attempts, and continue as an educator on my own terms, I teach people that want to learn.

Yes mass schools are great even comparatively worldwide... I think they would be 9th if we were a country...but I know they could be better. It should be better.

I was an AP teacher, in fact I (along with my Academic Coordinator, who also found greener pastures) started the program at my school that had zero AP classes (I'm also certified in ELA, History. Spanish and Portuguese and taught those subjects for the duration of my career in the classroom)...I know there are brilliant kids. Lots.of them, I also know lots of them that ultimately, once the school wasn't there to support them crashed and burned...but it's not the schools making them brilliant or fail...it's their home life and parents that care about their future...and also kids that don't want to be anything like their parents (that's my wife).

I'm not opposed to learning... I'm a life long learner always developing new skills. No stagnancy...I'd like to see more of that and schools in the US feel very apathetic to me from all angles at the moment...the moment being my 14 years in US public school as a student and 15 as an educator and 10 as a parent of 4 kids in public schools.

And for the record I don't believe in God either, nor in any grand narratives.

Edit: hadn't seen the antiwork, starving artist comment...lol.

Also, every year I was approached to "find ways" to get at least one student to the finish line...at least one...and yes, brain dead parents are behind that, no doubt about it...and it's not just at the school I worked at.

Chippopotanuse t1_j8oz8y8 wrote on February 15, 2023 at 10:24 PM

So you never went to Massachusetts high schools yourself and won’t let your kids go.

But you’re an expert on them more than me (and the hundreds of thousands of households that don’t home school in Mass).

Weird how you think folks who’ve lived here for decades, and who are intimately involved with the schools somehow have zero access or knowledge how MA high schools work.

Cool beans.

Enjoy babysitting your kids. Best of luck.

srg0pdrs4 t1_j8p5ier wrote on February 15, 2023 at 11:08 PM

I was a freshman in NBPS before I moved and my wife is a product of NBPS with degrees from UMass Amherst and an MBA from UMass Dartmouth...if that's not enough public school educational experiences plus an outright love for knowledge, I don't know what is.

I'm going to roll with my 15 years as a public school teacher, and the multiple years of education between us guide what we think is right for our kids. I do value your opinion though, I don't know everything as I've learned in my life and can only work within the circumstances I'm presented with and always seek other's views to help shape my own. Something I try to impart on my kids... all systems, people, ideas are fallible and flawed and shouldn't inherently be accepted as the only way to do things. Self-reflection is important...we did that and consistently question our decisions...but it still always feels like the right thing to do at the moment.

I'm sure your kids are awesome and will be well off because of their public schooling, It might be just me and my personal experience(s), again if I didn't have eyes and ears for the last 40 years. I'm happy that you feel confident in what they are getting. You care about them, that's more than I can say for a lot of parents.

My kids can go back to school tomorrow if they showed any interest and if they weren't thriving on their own. I don't own them, I simply care for them, they are their own people. My life would be much much easier if they were all in school. But their love of learning is the most important thing to me and I simply didn't get that in the public school system.

I love spending time with my kids, literally nothing I would rather be doing. I love being the one to challenge them and their views of the world, I love traveling with them and exposing them to shit they will never be exposed to in their depressing little bubble of ALICE trainings and prepping for STAR and MCAS testing, and the nonsense of American adolescence.

I know you have already painted a picture of me, and that's fine...but I assure you that nothing that I have done in the last few years was done in haste or because of a temper tantrum. It's genuinely what I believe is the best move for my family.

We're having a discussion about you and your comments about us as we speak.