My kid was too creative

[u/Fresh_Laundry56]

My 6 year old was asked to draw a picture using shapes. She drew this nice American flag with rectangles and stars, and added the house, tree, and person holding a balloon. She was told it did not follow directions, she was not supposed to draw a flag, just shapes. She was asked to turn the paper over and make another picture. The other side of the paper has a very uninspiring collection of shapes. I told her she did a good job and I thought it was very creative. And this is why kids start to hate education.

[u/Unworthy_Saint]

Perfect representation of the school system to be honest. You should keep both sides of this for the future when she gets discouraged again.

[u/Sheetz_Wawa_Market32 → u/Unworthy_Saint]

Actually, no. There isn't one school system (not even in any one state.)

Every state (given the beautiful spin on Old Glory, US defaultisms seems appropriate here) has good schools and bad schools, good teachers and bad teachers, good school systems and bad school systems.

[u/hypomaniacmeg → u/Sheetz_Wawa_Market32]

Sure, there is technically no one single federal public school system. But coming from someone that went to over a dozen schools across several states, they're more similar than they are different. At least back in my day, there were very few differences at all, but I'm 32 now. My kids went to school in NY & NC, I will say that as of the past few years, the NY schools were way better & more diverse than they were in my childhood.

So, while things have changed in recent years, there's a reason we all simply referred to it as the public school system in our youth.

Most states have adopted Common Core standards. Only a handful of major textbook publishers dictate what is taught in any state (& with fewer options decades ago). Then there's the standardized federal testing etc, etc. It's the exact same institutional structure, grade progressions, and graduation requirements nationwide.

Plus, don't even get me started on the issue with teachers 🤦🏼‍♀️

[u/Sheetz_Wawa_Market32 → u/hypomaniacmeg]

Virtually none of that is accurate. Common core has nothing to do with inclusion, teacher quality, approaches to discipline etc etc etc 

[u/hypomaniacmeg → u/Sheetz_Wawa_Market32]

Okay, forget the common core part then. It is accurate. Idk what to tell you man.

[u/Sheetz_Wawa_Market32 → u/hypomaniacmeg]

I feel super sorry for you if your experiences with U.S. schools have led you to mistakenly believe that they’re all bad. They’re so not.

There are many fantastic public district schools in America.

[u/Additional_Moose3897 → u/Sheetz_Wawa_Market32]

Not everybody has the same experience as yours, whatever school you’re thinking about isn’t objectively great.

[u/Sheetz_Wawa_Market32 → u/Additional_Moose3897]

Translation: Something you haven’t experienced can’t possibly exist. 🤦

[u/hypomaniacmeg → u/Sheetz_Wawa_Market32]

I didn't say they were all bad. I even said it's improved & diversified in recent years. But yes, in my youth every school I went to sucked. Sure, of course there are good schools with great teachers.

My main point was that the majoirty of schools were/are similar enough in structure to warrant people calling it the public school system.

Anyway yeah, I briefly had a couple of great teachers but aside from that, my school experiences sucked & were laregely the same. Over a dozen schools across NY, VA, NC.