DOPING OUR KIDS: Public Schools and the Dysfunction Junction

As a 10 year old, watching funny bits by School House Rock, I remember thinking that a good teacher’s mission was to make lessons more interesting and learning would then come naturally.  With that in mind I later worked diligently at my practicum and studied hard to obtain a Masters in Education. 

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Do you remember watching School House Rock?  It's funny how I remember their lessons, but don't have one memory of one single public school lesson during the same time period.

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The following is one of my favorite School House Rock bits (I think this might have been Ray Charles singing!):

My last public school teaching assignment was a 5^th grade class in Sandwich.  I was packed into fluorescent lighted hospital-like “classroom” with about 33 “inclusion” students.  (Every year the fifth grade teachers would switch up and one would be blessed with the “inclusion” class.)

When I took the class I was told that it would be a difficult year because I would have all the kids with “special needs” and “learning disabilities.”

Let me quickly sum up my opinion about “Special Education:”  IT’S A SHAM! AND IT OUGHT TO BE OUTLAWED!

I hated to see normal active 5^th grade boys being labeled with “ADHD” –   the catch-all phrase for a normal 10 year old who quite naturally cannot sit still through one of old-granny-Ms.-School-Marm’s boring worksheet parades. 

I worked with 4 female old farts in a "teaching team;" they professed to be "teachers" but bored me nearly to death, let alone the average red blooded 10 year old.  They were mean and got-off being cruel, often laughing at the very students they subjegated with ridicule.  I could not sit still listening to them drone on in staff meetings and I sympathized with the poor children who were tortured into textbook driven convulsions by these stagnant old hags!  I am being generous when I tell you that these 4 were the worst "Educators" I have ever had the misfortune of meeting.  Their abuse served only themselves.

Many of the teachers in this particular school were of the “old school hag” variety.  Angry childless women eagerly awaiting their pensions.  Always right, never wrong...  It was no wonder that most students entering the fifth grade wanted me as a teacher.  I drove a Harley to school.  I let students fidget and move around when they were uncomfortable.  I seldom used the textbook, and when I did I mixed it with music and other forms of fun.  One mother confessed that for the first time in her child’s school career he woke her up early in the morning because he was so anxious to get to my class.  I knew I was doing my job.  Some parents put me up for Teacher of the Year in the Town of Sandwich.  My students scored higher on the tests.  But, despite all that, it would be my last year teaching in a “public school” – the major reason being was that the 4 old hags in my “team” thought I was unfairly making them look bad.  Kids did not want to be in their classrooms and they blamed me for it.  I was let go one day before tenure after teaching 3 years at that particular “school.”   I never had a negative observation and Sandwich Public Schools would never officially tell me why I was let go ONE DAY before receiving tenure.  I figured the reason could not have been too bad because they entrusted me with a grade five classroom for 3 years.  One mother said with tears in her eyes that Sandwich wasn’t ready for a male teacher who had a pony tail, beard, and rode a Harley to work dressed in black leather. 

I felt bad for the kids.

I had many offers to teach elsewhere but will never return to “public education” and here’s one reason why:

PUBLIC SCHOOLS LABEL AND DOPE CHILDREN

In my opinion it’s very rare when a child truly needs to be medicated in order function in school.  So why are so many kids medicated in public schools?

The reasons are simple:  1. overcrowded classrooms  2. lazy inhumane unionized staff   3. boring instruction.   4. a misunderstanding that fidgeting and being an active learner is “not normal”   5. corruption and propaganda from the drug industry  6. misinformed parents.

So to make a long story short when I saw the following “Public School House Rock” spoof I roared out loud with laughter because it was so SADLY true! 

The makers of this funny bit brilliantly summed up the absurdity of public educators having the power to influence and promote the DOPING of our children-  in most cases just to get the kids to be quiet and sit still, making their classroom more "manageable."

That particular year when I taught the “inclusion special education” class I encountered a classroom of overmedicated zombie-like children.  I thought it was cruel, sort of like keeping a healthy young panther in a dark steel cage.  (Many of the students in my class that year were able to eventually reduce their meds because I told their parents that I preferred them more active.)

One last anecdote… One day at recess, while working with a little 10 year old girl learning her times tables, the poor child suddenly broke down in tears because she got one wrong.  I asked her why she was so upset and she told me while sobbing that she would never ever get it because she was a “Sped Kid with ADD.”  I became furious and demanded to know who told her that.  She said that a certain “special education teacher” coldly broke that "reality" to her about a year prior.    I told that little girl that I wanted her to look me in the eyes because I was about to tell her something that she would never ever forget.  I said sternly, “DON’T EVER LET ME HEAR YOU LABEL YOURSELF LIKE THAT AGAIN!  Just because some teacher told you something doesn’t make her right.  Teachers are wrong all the time and in your case she is very wrong!  You are one of my brightest students.  I’ve seen how you help others when they struggle with something, NOW THAT’S INTELLIGENCE – the ability to help others is one of the highest forms of intelligence… memorizing times tables is one of the lower levels of intelligence… THAT’S A FACT!  You’re very intelligent and you will learn your times tables, and if you’re like me, you’ll have to work extra hard at remembering them the rest of your life.  You see I have a confession, I also struggled with my times tables, and I still do!  One time a 'teacher' tried to tell me that I had ADD and do you want to know what I said?”  She answered with wide-eyed interest, calmer, the tears now drying on her cheeks, “What?”  “I told that teacher that she had my attention now and if she ever called me something like that again I’d punch her right in the nose.”  The little girl’s mood suddenly changed to a delighted state of shock, “Oh my God, Mr. Bastille!  What happened?  Did you get in trouble?”  I replied with the rest of the story, “No, I didn’t get in trouble because I was bigger than her and she couldn’t bully me… besides, I can’t get in trouble because I work with that teacher and it happened just the other day in a staff meeting between me and the very person you just mentioned!  But I will tell you that she hasn’t tried to label me to my face since.”

"30+ Years Later"  Press play and laugh until you cry:

and school lunches, don't get me started:

and "resource" cops in the hallways...

and there are some spoofs that are just plain WRONG: