The Silent Treatment: A Day in the Life of a Student in ‘No Excuses’ Land

[Honeycombe8]

43. I don't know what to think about this. It goes too far. I wouldn't want a child of mind in that

regimented an atmosphere. OTOH, I volunteered as a tutor once or twice at a modern elementary school, and I was struck by the loudness of it, the constant chatter and nervous movement of all the students, the chaos. Very different from when I was a child. So I DO think there is a noise factor that this school is trying to address. You can't concentrate on a fiction story, or your grammar lesson, if you are surrounded by 30 students who are all talking simultaneously. The noise alone is disconcerting.

And the bus....the way kids behave on a bus does seem to have gotten out of control in recent years. So I can understand trying to reign that in. It is a good way to protect the weaker and smaller kids, for example. You won't find any bullying on that school's buses.

Still, it has gone too far. I remember riding the bus as a child, and we would actually all sing! It was comaraderie. We had fun. We were not misbehaving. We were expressing our happy selves, being children, being creative. The poor bus driver.

Part of learning is open discussion and free expression of ideas. How would that be possible in this strict environment? OTOH, military schools are like this, I imagine. As are hoity toity girls boarding schools. It's a disciplined environment.

Gilda Radner came from a cloistured girls school. So maybe creativity can come from a strict environment.