Ok..so wicked long time since I've been writing and it's always been a fun thing for me to write about celebrities, we all know that. But alas there are more important things than that. So now, i want to discuss private versus public school systems. I know, it's like, "Woah, what the Hell are you going into that for?" Well, it has come to my attention that some people think that private schools are better than public. I highly disagree. I went to a private Catholic high school and I know for a fact I have always wondered what I would be like or what my life would be like if I were to have gone to a public school rather than my private school. It's not that I didn't like my private school, I will carry memories of that institution forever. I met my best friend there and I couldn't possibly imagine my life without going to mass with these kids or celebrating Christmas and Easter. I thank God for that I really do. I also remember the condition my school was in. It has not evolved since the late sixties. There are numerous things wrong with it be, jammed lockers, chipping paint, a temperamental elevator, or staff so old they sat behind Jesus in the third grade. They had a very sweet, "grandparent" like quality to them but I wasn't there to be friends with the cute little old people I was there to be educated. Part of this is also weird because the first question on my entrance exam was whether or not any of my family members had attended this place. I of course answered with whomever I could and after I remember thinking to myself, "Would I have still gotten in if not for my family?" You see people get away with much more in private schools be it the family name or be it the fact they're on a varsity sport or giving a generous gift to the school. Now, in private schools the teachers don't have to be checked up on every year so rather than hire more qualified or newer teachers that would ask for higher pay, they stick with the teachers that have clothes older than myself. One of these such teachers works in the foreign language department. He's a sweet guy but I did not learn a thing in his class. I turned in the same homework for the entire year. He accepted it and just let everyone talk the whole period. I also felt the public school teachers had better control over their classes. I was in a math class my junior year that was able to be described in three words, no control whatsoever. He was this little Indonesian man who was almost too smart to teach. I want to say around seventy percent of his students got D's or low C's and those kids were ecstatic. I was one of those kids. We as a class went to our Guidance department to try and see if high authorities would try to hold a meeting with him to change his approach or teaching styles. By the way, my Guidance department consisted of one awesome counselor who was a priest and was the only person in my school allowed to wear a popped collar. The rest of the counselors with the exception of one was like walking into One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I felt like every time I walked in the door I was going to be seized for electroshock therapy. So, obviously, that didn't work out and we as a class had to fight tooth and nail to get passing grades. Another prime of their exceptional interview skills would be hiring a theology teacher with no degree in theological studies. He had a B.A. in English who was an Evangelical prick. he had no prior training and my class came across information that the sweet priest from the Guidance department hated his guts. I tried with fifteen of my other classmates to get him fired no matter what. The only things we didn't press were planting drugs on him or saying he had an illicit relationship with a student because frankly, he wouldn't get that lucky. He said and did a lot of things most people would find crude and close minded. The latter, being something I personally frown upon. If you are going to sit in front of me and say kids from broken marriages are going to be less loved or love less than you have a big reality check coming because seeing as sixty percent of marriages end in divorce, you have a sixty percent chance of saying and offending a child from a divorces household. In my family we have an awesome track record with divorce. Naht. My family has a total of three families on my mother and father's side combined that were not previously married or divorced. I felt wicked offended that someone would even consider that something relevant to the class. Anyway, the teachers like that were crazy. Another thing was the academics. I took Advanced Placement English Composition and literature my junior and senior year of high school and it was probably the only classes I've taken because the teacher wasn't stupid and knew what we were capable of. She was one of the only real teachers in the school. She was also a younger teacher, coincidence? I think not. The only difference between my private school and public school according to some is the uniforms.
Let me tell you something about those stupid things. First of all I am lazy and loved getting up in the morning and throwing on anything and knowing it matched. Second, tucking in your shirt confines you to drokdom for life. I don't care how thin you are, you look like a dweeb. Uniforms also made it harder to express yourself. If you like myself felt that fashion was art and a way to express yourself you hated the uniform. You hated it with a passion and felt that your parents were evil people for sending you to such a place of damnation. Basically, I was pissed from the age of twelve to roughly age sixteen. I hated it. Not everyone could afford the uniform either which made it all the more frustrating to shell out like forty bucks for a shirt to only find that your school is switching uniform companies within the next year and you can no longer wear that brand of shirt. Hence, the label tearer and my mum's first rebellion of my school by refusing to spend an obnoxious amount of money for clothes I'm only going to wear for six years. A friend of mine who went to an all girl's school loved her uniform but I can't imagine that. It's just impossible to me. And in my opinion the only thing worse than a co-ed Catholic school is a single gender school. She went to an all female school and with my experience in school with about six to eight guy friends and the other six girls and nine of them gay men, I can't see myself not having that diversity in my circle.
Gay-Straight-Alliance groups are one of those awesome groups I wish my school had. I couldn't start one because the Catholic church looked down upon it. To be honest, the Catholic church looked down upon meat on Fridays and felt women should never be allowed on the altar and we see how that's such a hit with the crowd. It's almost not worth the arguing because you knew at least three of your classmates were gay. We live in Massachusetts, a very liberal state, it's about time we caught up with it. Acknowledging homosexuality and its faces is one thing I especially would have killed for at my school.
I went to a much more "ghetto" Catholic school than some of my other friends at college. They went to these pristine places where trips to Europe and smart boards in every classroom happened. We at my school had one smart board. They had computers that all the parts worked and they didn't have to save things to floppy disks. The alumni from my school are not big money spenders on gifts for the school. Anything we wanted we had to work for and do a lot of fundraising. I feel like we as a private school had switched spots with a stereotypical public school and we were ion the bottom with most of the qualities and requirements a school should have. I could go on forever about my school's problems but it's a moot point. The friend of mine that went to a really nice single gender school states that no one from her class or within her group was homosexual when i am almost 98% sure someone was. They may have hid it. I don't blame them. Kids are vicious and the Catholic church is about fifteen times worse. I saw a lot of things go down in my school I doubt would have been tolerated at a public school.
In my opinion, there is no difference to private and public institutions. The only differences if you want to look for them are the uniforms, bringing God into the classroom, and maybe having more holidays off. Other than that it wasn't as different as I see. I mean, yeah there are little differences but going to a private school does not make you smarter and going to a public one does not make you less intelligent. I think people need to open their eyes and realize that there are public schools that could kick private school's butts when it came to credentials and requirements. I know mine would be looking pretty lowly if compared (God forbid.)
