TEACHER APPRECIATION WEEK

     Yesterday, according to a notification from Google, this week is National Teacher Appreciation Week. It seems a bit ironic; given the rates of illiteracy, childhood/teen suicide and addiction, gender dysphoria, and violence proliferating our schools that we should have a week dedicated to this. It feels a bit like expressing appreciation to the Japanese for attacking Pearl Harbor. 

     For some inexplicable reason, the American public operates under the delusion that our educational system is above any criticism. This lack of any oversight or accountability has produced an administrative class rife with corruption and ideological fanaticism. I suspect that there are many reasons for this indifference.

   1. Many parents actually hate their kids;

   2. Many parents were too doped-up in school to remember how bad it was, and are still too doped-up to think about what their kids are going through;

   3. Many parents erroneously believe that the brutality and injustice that children receive prepares them with coping skills for adult life in postmodern America. (Sadly, there's some truth in this, but it's very perverse logic);

   

        Besides 1st Grade in a very small town, I was fortunate enough to escape most of the Living Hell that is public school. I did also attend a larger public school during 4th, 5th, and 6th Grade. I remember learning nothing in 4th Grade. 5th Grade arguably was one of the worst experiences of my life. We had two teachers: both Lesbians who made no secret of their hatred for boys and engaged in some grooming of the girls. Boys were beaten for the slightest offense. They used to take us out in the hallway and scream accusations at us by turns (like Gestapo interrogations in movies). One kid got his mouth duct-taped shut for loaning another a crayon. Every day one poor slob would get singled out for especial gaslighting and torture; and any student who showed any compassion for them got piled on too.

     I recall going "out in the hall" once because, as I was informed, a relative wanted a teacher conference to see why my grades were slipping and I feared going to school (both of which weren't normal me). We had to stand at full position-of-attention in front of these two bitches---at least one of whom carried a wooden paddle that they never hesitated to use on us. Even though I knew nothing about it, I got the full enhanced interrogation as to what I might have been saying out of class and given a warning to "remember that you have to come back here and face us, so it had better go well"---which I actually felt was getting off lightly. 

   In 6th Grade, the teachers really never did anything; they picked out the biggest bullies in the class and let them run things while they went off somewhere. I remember the kid who sat next to me used to deal drugs out of his desk, and pay the bullies a cut. If anybody got too disruptive for the bullies to handle, the teachers would take them to a small room at the end of the hall and beat them with a radiator hose---which was kind of clever of them since hoses rarely leave marks. I still remember a teacher coming in during the middle of class and announcing in front of us all that one girl was going to have to leave because her mother had just committed suicide. That was how that poor kid got the news. 

  These are the kinds of human scum that we're supposed to 'appreciate.' In my case, a Merciful Providence intervened and I got an opportunity to escape to a private boarding school. In the long run, my experience with public schools instilled a lifelong hatred of injustice and abusers of authority. In the short term though, I suffered from chronic insomnia, recurring nightmares, and a tendency for my arm to tremble or go numb in stressful situations, which took a few years to recover from. 

   Today, most schools (on paper at least) don't allow Corporal Punishment, but the bullying, gaslighting, and psychological abuse has gotten even worse. Many of those who actually pay attention have noticed that most postmodern schools are structured like prisons, complete with armed guards, metal detectors, humiliating searches, disregard for human rights, mass surveillance, lockdowns, etc. The situation has only worsened during the Scamdemic and the wake of considerable Media hype about mass-shootings.

   We're all familiar (one hopes anyway) with the abysmal failure of our public schools to achieve any of their stated purposes of actually educating anyone or preparing young people to become responsible participants in a self-governing society. We also are (or should be) well aware that all manner of radicalist propaganda is imposed on young minds and conformity to agendas rigidly enforced. And this is the where the real problem lies: it is categorically impossible that Americans are unaware of the problems---either the abuse or the failures or the corruption that is happening in plain sight of everybody. It's actually so bad that some within our much-maligned immigrant community residing on the Southern Border actually enroll their kids in Mexican schools and hire a bus driver to send them to school and back. I've actually known fathers here who've moved back with their families to countries like Nicaragua and Iraq for the sake of their children and concern over the conditions of the schools here. In fact, contrary to xenophobic 'Conservative' propaganda, Moslems are among the fastest-growing homeschooled population. 

     Unfortunately, our spiritless native-born population hasn't the will to make and enforce necessary changes. The Left is in complete denial that anything is wrong with the system, and chooses instead to throw more tax money at the system and write paranoid editorials about school shootings and 'extremism'. The Right is in denial too, and imagines that harsher discipline and imposing ideology will solve everything. Meanwhile, the system goes along on its merry way; churning out conformists, ignoramuses, neurotics, and addicts while the School Administrators roll around in the loot and laugh up their sleeves at the chumps who maintain their operations.

        What can be done? For most of us, not much. The US (for now anyway) still has lenient homeschooling and alternative schooling laws, so parents should take advantage of those. On a larger scale, there's no popular nor political will to do anything. What really needs to be done is what Bill Bennett suggested 30+ years ago: burn the whole system to the ground and start over---even if that means importing educators from countries with schools that actually function. Not that that's actually going to happen, but it's the best suggestion so far. Instead what will happen is the usual finger-pointing, a few superficial changes here and there, and American parents will go back to their drugs, infotainment, and blissful denial.