Class A vs. Class B

It's interesting to volunteer in each of my boys' classrooms. Watching the teachers at work, experiencing what my kids experience and thinking back on my own childhood.
And I get the chance to COMPARE.
That thing we're not supposed to do... in many cases. It's hard not to, especially in this situation.
And the fact that one of them comes up lacking is unsettling to me.
I do believe that public education is in a crappy state. Even good teachers have to struggle within the limits they are given, follow the curriculum, get the students to test well, and deal with huge classroom numbers.
I also can see very different styles functioning within that system.
- both classrooms have moved the desks into clusters - teams of 4 or so each. One class has hanging signs over each group; Team #1, Team #2, Etc.. The other class also has hanging signs over each cluster: Team Dragon, Team Tornado, Team Cupcake.... and each sign has a description of each of the team members'  strengths written on it in the kids' handwriting.
-both classrooms have to do the same math. One of them does the workbook pages, the other one does the problems on the legs of a spider drawing, or a beetle drawing.
-one classroom has pet toads, the teacher has started reading a chapter book about a kid who loves chocolate, and they got out of work early for PE today.
-the other doesn't, hasn't, didn't.
No surprise that one kid seems to be a little happier in school than the other one.
I feel like one teacher needs saving from the system so she can flourish as a teacher, but then the system would be that much poorer.
I feel like the kids need saving from the other teacher.
IS this part of the problem? Teachers that stay are often ones that are just going through their paces?
Why do people who don't LOVE kids become teachers? How do we, as society, inspire our teachers to inspire? Is there any reward for the creative souls teaching out there to help them stay?
Of course none of this is measurable, and therefore can't be rated by great schools dot net.
And how can the government give a school money because their teachers think learning should be fun?

It Keeps Coming Back Around

So John and I were driving away from his physical therapy appointment and he said "Jeez. Thats' a lot of pressure".
What?
"That he said he wants to see that much range of motion by Wednesday."
I shrugged.
"not that big a deal?"
 Well, honestly, (maybe this is the Lucius part of me) I don't put that much stock in other people's expectations of me.
"Oh my god. We so need to get that kid in a different school."

 How many degrees of separation between John's physical therapy and all our concerns about our kids' education? Two.

I don't remember elementary school being any sort of problem for me, but it may have still been a different education process back then. It all changed in middle school. Expectations were very different. I didn't make it all the way through high school in the public school system. I finished high school only by being at a small private theatre arts school with a very progressive academic program. And I didn't look once, let alone twice, at colleges. I moved to New York City, having been accepted at The Strasberg Institute. Then I used my tuition down payment money as a down payment on an apartment in Hell's Kitchen. Very few people in my life ever even think about wheather or not I went to college.When they discover I didn't, they are usually surprised. My education was a very personal, experiential process.

John's education was much more traditional. He doesn't rememebr it fondly. He had trouble fitting in to the teachers' mold for a good student. He did do well in college. A teacher at our boys' school, upon hearing some of the trouble John had in school, asked "Is that what you want for your boys?". 
Well frankly, John is one of the most stable, happy, personally successful,  people I know. If my boys grow up to be just like their dad, then they have done very well for themselves. They don't need to have done all their homework and excelled on all the tests to be good people and find their way in life successfully.

I would like for school to be a place where they can discover themselves, learn what they are passionate about and get the life skills to follow that passion. Right now it is a system that they hate. They don't want to go. They are not performing at the level expected of them. They resist it all. Lucius downright refuses to do much of the work asked of him, just refuses.

He is totally unmotivated by others' expectaions of him.

and there we are, back at the conversation in the car.

School (probably the first of many post on this subject)

I have begun seriously exploring private education for my boys.
 And not only does the undo-able price tag frighten me, I find I am overcome with anxiety about the application process. Petrified of rejection. It's almost to the point of stopping me from even looking at the options.
John keeps saying "if they don't want us we don't want them". Yeah. I know.
And also there is the form they all seem to need, that gets filled out by the student's current teacher. I know how it will read. And it won't look good. "If they don't know our kids and see past this, then we don't want them" says John. "They need to know the boys" John says.
Yes. It's true.
It's just that......
No matter how much I love my boys, I have trouble believing others will look beyond the troubles and see the good.
Is this a lack of faith in my boys? Or a lack of faith in others? In educators?
And I also have a horrible stereotype of private school administrators in my head. I think it comes from tv shows about families going through hoops to get their kid into a school, going to meetings with snooty judgmental admissions officers looking down their noses. I don't want to be the begging, shananigan doing parent desperate to get into the "right" school. I want to get my kids the education that will help them flourish. I want them to discover how to be the best they can be, and enjoy learning. I want them to believe in themselves and be good people.
Public school is pushing them through the hoops. They are falling short of the public school expectations. They don't sit still well. They are not dumb. But sometimes they think of  themselves that way. And behave correspondingly.
I need to explore the options.
Push myself past this anxiety.
Yet another part of this parenting process I would like to run from, and know I just can't. I am their advocate. I must do what needs to be done, to the best of my ability.
The fact that they are not your "typical" or "average" student can not get in the way of me helping them thrive.
 Yes, there is also homeschooling.
That's a whole other post waiting to happen; "Why Eden Can't See Herself Homeschooling".