Thread: Doesn't fit in "Younglings . . . "

The "Younglings" thread was starting to drift into the ugly in some respects. I thought a new thread was in order.

I never really went to Uni so this is based on my experience through year 12.

The first 8 years, where the teachers were not allowed to strike the students, but it still was a highly punitive atmosphere. A couple of the male teachers knocked me around a bit. I deserved it. I didn't tell my parents because I would have gotten worse from them.

In school your work was perfect or you were in purgatory. If your work wasn't perfect you would do it over again from scratch and do it over again from scratch and do it over again from scratch at home. A simple way to teach a child to hate school. A simple way to teach a child to do only what is absolutely necessary to avoid the wrath of a teacher.

The attitude of parents were that I was going to be a doctor or a Lutheran minister. Even to this day, I have zero interest in either occupation.

About the third day of year nine and in algebra class I was asked what I intended to be after school. My answer was "I want to be an electrician." (a.k.a. A sparky) Immediately I was corrected and told that I was going to be an "Electrical Engineer". For the remainder of the semester, the teacher called me "Electrical Engineer". When I said that my name was "Richard" I was sent to the Dean Of Boys for discipline. It seems that I was insolent.

My family moved across country during the summer between my tenth and eleventh years. What little self confidence and adaptation to the education system was destroyed. In the new school I was just hiding until the end of year twelve. I did graduate, just barely. What I had achieved during those twelve years was virtually worthless for any type of significant employment.

After a marriage (Failure) where both of us just wanted to get out of the house. . . . It was a different world then.

I was working as a wireman on the Apollo Moon project and after about a week, I could see the end of the contract in about 18 months. I went back to school to learn electronics and fell into a job working on computers. About 40 years later evolving through more computers, communications and computer networking I've retired fat, dumb and happy.

What I've learned the hard way and applied to my boys was to allow them to make their own decisions but guide them from disaster. The worst decision that we made together was for the boys to take 4 years of French in High School. At that time a lot of technical papers were written in French. Both of the boys have lamented since then that Spanish would have been more useful.

I've been to the principal's office and had a few chewing out sessions. I was the one doing the chewing out. One time I basically told the principal that I tended to believe my son rather than the lunch recess monitor. The principal did investigate and an excellent compromise was reached.

I guess that the message is the children have to learn through their own decisions. You can help but they have to live their own life. You can guide them away from disaster, but don't mandate.

There is a very old joke about a girl's catholic school. A Nun is asking the girls in year five what they wanted to be after finishing school. When it was little Mary-Jane's turn she said that she wanted to be a prostitute. The Nun fainted almost instantly. After the Nun was revived and sitting at her desk, again she asked Mary-Jane what she wanted to be. Mary-Jane again answered that she wanted to be a prostitute. The Nun regained her composure and said "That's nice but earlier I thought that you said that you wanted to be a Protestant." It's all in your point of view.