Re: Books Banned in Utah.

In article <li6vi4Fs82kU1@mid.individual.net>,
Chris Buckley  <alan@sabir.com> wrote:

Kids are heavily influenced by what their peers are doing. They need to
have at least some classmates who want to do well.  If not, the only
motivation for doing well will have to be their families/culture,
and that's not enough to have a well-performing school district.

In some schools, "doing well" is life-threatening.  Thinking of
a brilliant girl in my mother's school district, straight A
student, planned to be a doctor...

... she bled out on the bus one morning, her throat cut for the
"crime" of "acting white".

Some school districts don't publish their Honor Roll, because
of the danger it would pose to the students on it.

I don't know of a good solution to this problem. The violent
thugs in school absolutely need to be separated from the ones
who want to learn, or at least, not prevent others from learning.
There used to be this institution called "reform school", but
that's gone by the wayside. For those who want to learn, charter
schools, private schools ... but these are vehemently opposed
by the education bureaucracy.  There's perhaps something to
be said for having the good students be a good example for the
rest, but at the cost of sacrificing the futures of those good
students?

This is probably part of why home schooling has exploded.
That, and students with special needs who can't be adequately
helped in a public school setting; thinking of a friend with
an autistic son who does fine home schooled, because she
knows how to deal with his issues. (She's diagnosed autistic
herself; when she got the diagnosis, her reaction was "So
that's been my problem all these years!" She was also home
schooled, and learned coping mechanisms on her own that got
her through college and a software engineering career.)

But for many families, this is just not an option.

--
Mike Van Pelt       |  "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."
mvp at calweb.com   |   -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane
KE6BVH              |      Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston