[laurent92]

> I'm not sure it's fair to extrapolate what everyone's experience is from what happened to you.

But the problem is generic. USA schools have all the code smells: employees who are “just doing their job Ma’am”, or reacting knee-jerk, politics being involved leading to no solving issues but communicating a lot on them; no-xyz policies (replace with any CNN topic of the time) which leads to extreme response to normal youth events (overreaction to suicide or misbehavior, police in schools, searches come to my mind, but there is worse), competition between children, not only in curriculum but also in who’s the most popular and the most bully, drugs… And finally, the prevalence of psychologists compared to other countries, but psychologists that prescribe Aderall (US schools are world-famous abroad for threatening to curb energy with drugs on, mostly, boys) instead of working with teachers to better alternate recess/manual classes/theoretical lessons.

Of course it’s easy to tell from abroad that something is wrong, but less easy to tell how to setup different social dynamics that would result in a better system (and France certainly has its own problems with schools). It might even be as subtle as too much sugar in kid’s food, which changes behaviors a lot.

[withinboredom]

In the US, we were told our son had too much energy and would be medicated when he gets older. We moved to the NL and the teachers say he’s perfectly normal, despite having more energy. She said it would only be an issue if he wasn’t learning; which might indicate an issue with focusing. It turns out, you can still have energy and learn at the same time.

[daddylongstroke]

Exactly this. This is one reason we homeschool. Public school in the US was so incredibly oppressive (cops patrolling the halls and writing lewd conduct tickets for kids cussin'???), I was frankly shocked that most kids and parents put up with it.