Is This Education?
The charter school up the street from us was having a "fall festival" today, and I decided to stroll up there with Z and check it out. Not only was it an excuse to put him in his Halloween costume, this is a school that specifically works with refugee and immigrant populations, so I thought perhaps I might look into volunteering there. I figured I'd also check out their extracurricular programs, in case there were some things I could enroll Z in when we start homeschooling.
The festival was small and not really very exciting, and it also turned out not to really be a costume event. Exploring the hallways of the school (which I probably wasn't supposed to be doing), I was reminded of all the reasons why I don't want to send Z to school--or ever teach in one again. This place was depressing. It's an old building, that 1970s Communist block style architecture, and it's dismal in all the ways schools from that period are dismal: institutional tile floors, dim fluorescent lighting, cinderblock walls covered in that thick, chunky paint (inevitably tan, antacid pink, or surgical green). Knowing I shouldn't judge a book by its cover, I browsed the bulletin boards of student work on display to see what their various programs were doing, and discovered this:
Make sure you click these to enlarge them, so you can read all the captions. These are diagrams of the "female brain." Yes, indeed, boys and girls, right there outside the "science" classroom. Science!
Note the "indecision nucleus," the "shopping spree center," and the "juicy gossip switch" in one drawing, the click the other to find the "fart detection center" and the "after marriage sex micron." Yes, look how small that is! What a laugh! Why, it's as small as the "parallel parking neuron" and the "sense of direction cell!" Har har!
Need I add that these were drawn by 13-year-old girls? Who will grow up thinking this kind of humor is actually humorous?
Excuse me, please. I need to go throw up, now.
(NB: Facebook comments here.)
The festival was small and not really very exciting, and it also turned out not to really be a costume event. Exploring the hallways of the school (which I probably wasn't supposed to be doing), I was reminded of all the reasons why I don't want to send Z to school--or ever teach in one again. This place was depressing. It's an old building, that 1970s Communist block style architecture, and it's dismal in all the ways schools from that period are dismal: institutional tile floors, dim fluorescent lighting, cinderblock walls covered in that thick, chunky paint (inevitably tan, antacid pink, or surgical green). Knowing I shouldn't judge a book by its cover, I browsed the bulletin boards of student work on display to see what their various programs were doing, and discovered this:
Make sure you click these to enlarge them, so you can read all the captions. These are diagrams of the "female brain." Yes, indeed, boys and girls, right there outside the "science" classroom. Science!
Note the "indecision nucleus," the "shopping spree center," and the "juicy gossip switch" in one drawing, the click the other to find the "fart detection center" and the "after marriage sex micron." Yes, look how small that is! What a laugh! Why, it's as small as the "parallel parking neuron" and the "sense of direction cell!" Har har!
Need I add that these were drawn by 13-year-old girls? Who will grow up thinking this kind of humor is actually humorous?
Excuse me, please. I need to go throw up, now.
(NB: Facebook comments here.)