[speaker001:] did you attend public school
[speaker002:] I did attend public school for all but one year I uh went to a Catholic school for one year found that uh it did not agree with me or I did not agree agree with it and uh spent the rest of my education in public schools
[speaker001:] uh-huh  uh-huh
[speaker002:] uh I had mixed feelings on it uh because I thought that there was a greater range of students that a public school has to uh has to address
[speaker001:] yes that's true they can't root out the troublemakers as easily
[speaker002:] right and and the the programs have to be wider uh when I went to the Catholic high school uh there was nothing but a college preparatory course
[speaker001:] okay
[speaker002:] and in the public school there were uh a couple of different courses the uh the the so-called business course uh the college prep course and then there was the uh the uh the the basic uh gas station manager track uh you know
[speaker001:] yeah I never yeah yes vocational education we called it
[speaker002:] right and I'm not sure that uh the college prep course was any worse in a public school than it would've been in a private school
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] but I think that the teachers were spread a little more thin because they weren't always able to focus on the areas that they taught best
[speaker001:] uh-huh uh-huh and by spreading thin you mean they too many students or too many subjects per teacher or
[speaker002:] well a little bit of both uh the school wasn't very crowded when I went there although it's since gotten it's since gotten worse but uh there were
[speaker001:] uh-huh um-hum
[speaker002:] there were some very good math teachers there there was one uh a science teacher in particular there who ended up having to teach a I I can't remember what course it was but it was really unsuitable uh it was some sort of uh
[speaker001:] um
[speaker002:] shop or mechanical drawing class and he just
[speaker001:] oh uh-huh
[speaker002:] he know he didn't know much about it but they figured he was a warm body in a room
[speaker001:] uh-huh that's kind of technical so he could him it was him yeah
[speaker002:] right right and I don't think that uh I don't I don't think that there are the resources in most public schools to be able to say well what we need here is a trained machinist to teach teach the metal shop course let's go find one they just say well you know we have this course we need a body for it
[speaker001:] um-hum uh-huh were already paying this guy
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] yeah yeah uh
[speaker002:] did you go to a public school
[speaker001:] I did I did and uh I felt I got a very I mean I feel I got a very poor education in general uh
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] but I think that I knew other people from other public schools who got better educations um uh in our case it think it was you know the teachers uh again spread thin but maybe in terms of just having too many student to really do the job um I'm sort of I have a two year old son now and so I'm starting to think about
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] education you know more critically and trying to figure out what we want to do and I'm just sort of turned off by the whole uh the whole system where everyone sits facing the front of the room as quiet as possible while the teacher lectures uh especially for small children
[speaker002:] um-hum sure
[speaker001:] uh it just seems like it's not the way they're going to learn best but when you have one teacher and thirty students what else can you do
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] you know I mean it seems like the the style of teaching that we we have grown to think of as normal I think is dictated by economics in just in terms of uh student teacher ratios um
[speaker002:] um-hum so have you started looking into uh alternative schools like Montessories
[speaker001:] um no so far I'm just whining  I haven't done anything constructive yet uh we fantasize about homeschooling
[speaker002:] uh-huh um-hum
[speaker001:] but uh we probably won't
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] although I could see where that would be that could be a lot of fun
[speaker002:] I can see a lot of advantages to homeschooling but uh there's it's it's interesting there's uh someone here in Rhode Island who is very disgusted with the school system