More adventures in modern education
My daughter came home today with two forms that I “must sign, because they’re urgent.” One is a form that both the student and the parent have to sign. It states that we’ve read the school handbook and its code of conduct, and that I promise to support the principles in those books and to urge my child to abide by those same principles. The only problem is that neither my daughter nor I have ever seen the documents underlying this agreement. Is it just the lawyer in me that has me absolutely refusing to sign a document that’s premised on two other documents that I’ve never seen? Put another way, do people really just blithely sign these things without having any idea what commitments they involve?
The other form is a contract regarding some sort of internet account. It’s a two page document full of terms and conditions, restrictions and limitations. The only problem is, it never spells out what the heck kind of account is at issue. That is, it doesn’t say whether it’s an account for the child or the family, or whether it can only be used at home or is also meant to be used at school. The agreement specifically states that the school has no responsibility for any inappropriate material the child may see. Interestingly, it has no language stating that the school has placed any blocking software on internet access at school premises. The whole thing is unintelligible (putting aside the irritating passive voice that fills the thing), because it has no underlying premise. Again, who signs these things?
I’ve also figured out why our school district is one of the top-ranked in California. I was complaining to my sister that I have to go over my kids’ homework, not just to ensure that they’ve actually done it, but to identify those subjects that they weren’t taught at all. I then give them a lesson on the subject, after which my children are able to do their homework with ease. My sister asked, “What are the other parents doing?” I thought a minute and replied, “The same thing.” And that’s when I realized: the reason our schools are good isn’t because of the fancy buildings and the computer stations, it’s because of the homeschooling. In our affluent, hyper-educated community, the parents are correcting for the school’s defects. What’s sad is that the parents don’t even realize what they’re doing, thinking it’s absolutely normal for a school to be incapable of teaching basics and for parents to have to step in to fill in the empty spaces.
By the way, I’m a person who is resistant to change. While I doubt I’ll ever be blind to the school’s defects, there is a possibility that, in a month or two, I’ll be lauding its many virtues. I’ll keep you posted, of course, as I go along.
