evilbrent

it's not just the parents 'leaving the schools to raise their kids'

It's also the parents thinking that this is the best way to learn.
It's parents thinking that a quiet school room has a lot of learning going on.
It's parents thinking that kids doing hours of rote-learning of sums and algebra is the same thing as them learning the concepts and developing the life long love of maths that will lead them to become an engineer or physicist.
It's parents thinking that it's not ok to take your kids out of school once or twice a year to do something TRULY FASCINATING with them.
It's parents thinking that a USEFUL day of 'learning' involves 6 time-limited, regulated chunks of curriculum periods where EVERYONE learns about maths for 47 minutes, then BANG, EVERYONE goes off to learn about geology then BANG, everyone goes off to learn History - as if that were the best way to capture kid's imagination.
It's parents believing that age segregation is an appropriate way to live in the world.
It's parents believing that marks matter more than self-esteem.
It's parents believing that the school knows better than the kid what's going to fascinate them - rather than the school doing everything it can to stay the hell out of the way.

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my elbows are grass-stained i've got sticks in my hair i'm covered with bug bites and cuts and scratches i've got sand in my socks and leaves in my shirt my hands are sticky with sap and my shoes are soaked i'm hot dirty sweaty itchy and tired. I say consider this day seized. Tomorrow we'll seize the day and throttle it.