The fact that a kid's peers have more influence than parents is what scares the crap out of me. That, along with the fact that so many teachers are incapable of teaching without bias, is what turns me off of public schools. Those little sponges inside those fragile little heads absorb everything, good or bad and come away with beliefs and morals not in alignment with parents. A school with a narrower focus sounds great! Best wishes for Smallsteps's audition!
Here, the bigger problem for the teachers is that they can't teach without the influence of the parents. They have no way to actually scold a child for bad behaviour anymore.
When I was a kid, it was still possible to be sent to the principle and they could use the "beach bat" - I never got hit.
Fun times!
And children were far better behaved.
Oh you were a good boy then! I know the threat of something like the beach bat would tend to keep me in my place lol. We had 'the green thing', not at school, but at home. The green thing was a bumper off of my brother's toy pool table, a skinny piece of rubber about 15 inches long. That thing would hurt like hell if you earned a whack with it lol. There were 6 of them from the pool table and we each got one when we had kids of our own. You didn't really have to hit them with it but the threat worked like a charm lol. I think my niece still has hers, even though her kids are grown.