I think my school system was pretty decent. We had AP classes available, and in grade school we had a special advanced class for a few hours a day. They taught me how to program in 4th grade, I got do all kinds of microscope experiments, and so on. Not sure why that went away.

Seems like a really good school system would have more things like that, and maybe some counselors that might have done more to steer me in the right direction.

My public (high) school was pretty lousy, in terms of general academics, but I was there for the magnet arts program, where I stuck it out (and finished 7th in my class without working too hard, woooooo). Through some fancy manuevering after going to college, I ended up transferring to and graduating from a big fancy college. Yaaaaaaaay.

*scratches head*
Well, there's your language difference right there.

From American2English.com

public school n. Ah, the joys of confusion. Contrary to what one might imagine, a public school is not one that's open to all and sundry, it's a fee-paying school. Schools funded by the government are known as "grammar schools", "state schools" or "elementaries". To, erm, add to the muddle, public schools are called "private schools" in Scotland. A contributor tells me that the reason the curious name arose because in the days before state-funded education, public schools were open to anyone (with cash) whilst the "private" schools were only available for the children of people belonging to a particular profession.

I was educated comprehensively. Which, despite what you may think actually means I didn't get a good education at all.

From a distance, mine was pretty good. (I assume we're talking primary/secondary schools, right?) The principal of my HS (who's a good friend of my parents) was pretty strict, and no one got away with much. We also had a really strict dress code for a public school. It was a clean and safe school with a fairly small student body and our teachers were mostly competent. (The exception: Texas law required coaches to also be teachers, which means that a lot of our classes were taught by coaches who were handed teaching certificates without really knowing much. This is the reason I don't understand algebra.)

That said, our high school was a product of the small, conservative town we lived it. We went to church with a lot of the teachers. And, especially in English classes, your religious affiliations and professions actually had an impact on your grade.

During my zealot years in HS, I got better grades for incorporating religion into my English papers.

And yeah, even after it was officially prohibited, our school had morning prayers during the morning announcements and before football games.

Did I learn much, though? Nope.

I also didn't learn a whole lot in college. Most of the stuff I've learned in life is knowledge I've sought myself, not something someone handed me as part of a curriculum. I think not acknowledging/encouraging that is one of the big failings of our school system.

But I guess I've wandered away from the question, so I'll stop now....

I think I had a really good education, but because I was lucky to have very good teachers. I'm thankful to my teachers. I feel I can't credit my school, because the principals, school board members, and policies change so often that once my favorite teachers retire, it won't be the same school. :(

My small town schooling was enormously bad, even though it was a university town. (That should have helped, but in practice it didn't.) By the time I was in high school, I hated school with a white-hot passion. I'd usually read the textbooks on my own, and I'd occasionally take a test or two, but I boycotted almost all homework and usually just read novels during class. Very occasionally, something would catch my interest. My junior and senior years, I mostly skipped school almsot altogether. I went weeks without being seen in most of my classes. I came close to not graduating.

I'm still pissed about it. Had there been a gifted program, things would have been different for me. There was one gifted experimental class in sixth grade in which I (and others) blossomed, but otherwise there were no gifted classes at all in the school system. A few very hard classes in high school caught my interest and I did well. Had there been computing, I probably would have done well in that, too. There was a short-course sponsored by the university that invloved their little jury-rigged microcomputer (this was 1980) which I thrived in, and the science teacher gave me keys to his office so I could play with his TRS-80 Model III every day after school.

I was in band, and that kept me in school, probably. If only there were a private school available for me then. But my parents wouldn't have been able to afford it even if there had.

Mine was just about the exact opposite of kmellis's. We had a very robust gifted program and a ton of AP classes. I got so many AP credits that I started college as a sophomore. And every teacher I had for any of my AP or advanced classes was JUST. AWESOME. I loved every one of them.

Now, I was bored as fuck in all of my "normal" classes, and like kmellis, I would usually just read a magazine or a book during class. I got an A in every high school class I took so nobody ever questioned it beyond the occasional raised eyebrow.

Beyond academics, I never noticed any cliquey-ness at my school either. I hung out with the gifted people, the band geeks (though I wasn't in band), the drama folks (though I only did one play), the stoners (though I never partook), the popular people (though I never considered myself particularly "popular"), and the jocks (okay, I was kind of a jock) and never felt like I didn't fit in. I certainly was never picked on.

Yeah, you could say I loved high school.

I moved from the city to a small town in 6th grade. My experience in the Philly public schools was wonderful. We learned Latin from 3rd grade on. In gifted, I learned French and how to program BASIC (this was in the days when you had to physically dial the mainframe downtown and put the phone in a cradle in order to use a computer).

Up here, though, was another story. My jr. high science teacher didn't believe in the big bang or evolution and told us so. I got kicked out of class for questioning something my psych teacher told us. (It contradicted a film I had just seen in anthro class.) During my time in high school, they refinished the gym, built a pool and bought new lights for the football field, but we had to raise all the money AND hire an outside director in order to have a school play. Bitter? A touch.

mudpuppie: The Texas law applying to coaches is that coaches are required to be full-time employees of the school. Since most full-time employment positions at schools are teachers, a lot of coaches also teach. (In some districts, the coach is a full-time coach and doesn't have another job, or is the "athletic director" as well.) Just to clarify.

I won't comment on the school I went to, since it can't possibly be relevant. When I went to school, most kids didn't have calculators, but using a slide rule was still taught (I never learned the slide rule, but used a TI-30 "on the sly".)

Thanks for the clarification, Doohickie. I get your point, but in practice, at least in smaller school systems, the law practically requires that coaches teach. And this is not always a good thing. I suppose they could have been janitors instead.

One thing that strikes me after reading this: The foreign language class options for most of you were pretty incredible, by my standards.

Latin? Heh!

We had Spanish. And we liked it. For a few years, our HS offered French classes too. But then the French teacher (my next-door neighbor) died. No more French.

It really depends on your locale. Great for one place is a joke for another.

My public high school was fine. But the college counselors were fucking awful. They wanted everyone to go to a community college--and the AZ state schools only if you were really prepared. Gah! Between my parents, neither of whom went to college, and these idiot counselors no one was around to tell me to set my sights higher. Thankfully, I didn't listen to the community college BS.

Oh well, it worked out in the end.

I'm a wierd one. I ditched private school (all-girls catholic HS) for public. I'd say that in my case the public compared more favorably to the private, but then again the public schools in the area (Mont Co MD) were pretty decent. Overall it was probably the best move for me even though I fought it every step of the way for social reasons, since I knew absolutely not a soul in public school and had to start fresh with strangers in 10th grade - scary!! However, I got exposure to a TON of stuff not offered in the girls' school though -- lots of languages, art, MUCH better math instruction. And much cooler friends, I have to say. I can't regret the switch, and it was a lot better for my sanity not having to spend those years in a plaid kilt.

(whoa. my first mecha comment ever!!)

I went to a public but "alternative" charter school k-8, which was great. But then suddenly I got thrown into "regular" school, which was awful. I'd received a grade before, to give you some idea of the level of culture shock. Plus it was considered uncool to actually learn anything, let alone admit you liked to study. So I left for a couple years and went to a private school that was much stricter than the grade school I went to but also very encouraging of academic exploration and a good mix overall of the two experiences. When I went back to public school (due to lack of funds) I was much better prepared and able to actually get something out of it.

Whoops, "never" received a grade before.

I sum up my grade school experience thusly:

I was having trouble with bullies (getting beat up by them) in the L.A. public school system, so my parents went to the expense of putting me in a private school where I experienced a much higher socioeconomic class of bullies. There were the children of some famous people there, and I got my ass kicked by the son of TV legend Steve Allen. My first - and worst - brush with fame.

(Interestingly, the older brother of the Allen kid who beat me up had plenty of discipline problems too and ended up dying of a drug overdose in his early 20's. After that, Steve Allen - who wrote something like two hundred published books - wrote one of his most personal books about his failings as a father. Hey! I coulda told you years earlier, Steverino! But how can you stay mad at the guy who discovered Don Knotts and Tom Poston?)

"...so my parents went to the expense of putting me in a private school where I experienced a much higher socioeconomic class of bullies."

That had me laughing out loud, wendell.

One thing I don't understand at all in retrospect about my high school years is the big gap between how I felt and feel about them and how other people perceived me. I was about as popular as I could be for someone who slipped out of the jock/cheerleader contingent in seventh grade and started band--those really popular kids still thought well of me, mostly. And although everyone knew I failed a bunch of classes and skipped half the time, apparently no one thought of me as unhappy. People seem to remember me as a fairly happy, likeable guy.

But, except from my closest friends (and, really, just my very closest friend), and although I supposed I couldn't help but like most people individually (because that's the way I am), in general I was as pissed-off and hating of all these other teenagers and their high school rituals (most of which I boycotted) and just generally life as a teenager as any of the really fucked up, pissed off kids. So why didn't people see me that way?

I have good earlier childhood memories of that small town. If that were all there was to it, I'd think of it fondly. But, truthfully, and in a way that no one else I know from there feels, I fucking hate that town and will be pleased if I never come within 100 miles of it ever again in my life. And how I felt about school plays no small role in that hatred.