Over on Reddit, someone was puzzled about why US schools start so early. When I was in high school, for example, I had to be at the bus stop by 6.30, which meant I woke up at six, dressed, and left the house in about fifteen minutes. I dropped my little brother at the baby sitter's on the way. I would buy "breakfast" at a food truck near the school, after the bus dropped me off at around 7:45. It was a cheap sugary sweet roll, usually.
Why start so early?
My mother taught in the Orleans Parish public schools, and had to be on campus by 7:15; she had to leave the house before six to get there in time. My father left for work every day at about four a.m. (He didn't get home until well past seven at night.) Schools in America have this schedule because pretty much every parent was working a similar schedule.
I would often fall asleep in my second period class (sociology) and sleep right through the entire class. (I read the textbook, and made an A, which pissed off the teacher.)
When I got home -- my bus left the school at three and I reached the bus stop around 4:15 -- I would pick up my brother from the baby sitter and then start supper. My mother got home around 5:00. I also had to do the dishes and deal with the laundry and take care of my brother. Homework, you ask?
Also, why weren't my two older brothers (one two years younger than me, one a year older) doing any of the housework? They also had jobs. My younger brother was a bag boy at a grocery store, and my older worked for a lighting company. I briefly held a job, working at McDonalds, but the manager scheduled me to work from 4:00 until closing, which meant I got home at about 2:00 a.m., and still had to get up at six a.m.
If we actually wanted to educate children, school would start around 10:00 a.m. and let out at four, with a mandatory two hour study hall from two until four. No one under sixteen would have a job, and no one who hadn't yet finished school would work more than two hours a day.
But we don't want educated kids in this country. We want workers. That's what the schools are set up to do -- make it possible for parents to work.
I got very little actual education from middle school on -- I spent most of my time reading books on my own, or, at recess, talking to my friends. In high school, the teachers would often give us what they called "free periods," when we didn't have to do anything but stay reasonably quiet. I would escape from my classroom and go find one of my friends, and we would play cards. Or if the teacher caught me trying to escape, I would read novels while around me people played music on their radios and danced and squabbled. I would often finish two novels a day -- I always took at least two books to school with me.
My most indelible memories of high school are those: reading novels, playing card games with my friends, and boredom while the teacher 'taught' us nothing at all. I remember being assigned to write a paper on a book from a list the English teacher gave us. I picked Jane Eyre, which I was way too young to read. "Write a paper" was the entire assignment. I had no idea how to write an English paper, and the teacher didn't bother explaining or showing us how to write a paper, except to say she "didn't want a book report." What did she want? I had no idea.
French class was my favorite, because the teacher actually taught us. She left at the end of my freshman year, and after that I went over to the boy's high school to take Latin. (The girl's school did not offer Latin, or physics, which I also wanted to take.) The Latin teacher actually taught as well. Probably that's how I ended up with a PhD -- that was a way to keep taking Latin and Greek.
But other than those two courses, and a history class my junior year, no teaching occurred. I remember sitting in chemistry class so bored I drew little circles at the top of my paper and inked them all end, one per minute, for the last 20 minutes of class.
Every fall, I'm still glad I don't have to go back to high school.
