On Choosing a Right School for Your Child

So my son had started his education at a French school. The school took their mission of being French seriously, consequently, they were rather neglectful at modern schools’ main task: raising politically correct kids expected to say all sorts of slurs and insults in the privacy of their bedroom only. In fact, the school’s idea of politically correctness was to let an unhinged librarian to substitute as a teacher, so that she could press their little fingers to their desks, or pull ears and hair off the innocent children when she got angry with them. I used to get upset about such peculiar interpretation of political correctness, but at least the school did not tinker with kids’ brains.

Had my son attended the truly progressive school, the damage could have been much more permanent. For starters, we would have never been able to be engaged in our favorite activity: telling fairy tales.

The story telling would be impossible, for the simple reason, that he would interrupt me on every turn.

I can easily imagine our conversation:

Dad, tell the story. --Ok, there was a king and a queen. -- Dad, why do you start with the king, the teacher says is it sexism. -- OK, there was a queen and the king. Dad, why do you presume that they were heterosexual. That's offensive.

OK, there were a king and a king --I will go on, but then stop. Listen, we can't have two kings, because my story is about -I wanted to say baby prince, but corrected myself in time -- my story is about baby princess.

--They can always adopt, says my son, besides, why do you insist on a nuclear family. Don't you know that it is the seat of abuse and exploitation and inequality.

-- But they are kings, who's going to exploit them, -- I retort. Besides, the story needs a child.

-- I don't want to hear about the corrupt elites, says my son, we don't recognize any royalty in America, besides, didn't you yourself always rail against elites.

Alright, I say. I have an idea. There were these two robots, gender-neutral, and they’ve constructed another robot.
-- What language would they speak, asks my son.
--Expecting a trap, I say, -- it would be a computer language, the one which has no genders, nor colors, nor any other ethnic references.

-- My son thinks for a while, obviously disappointed, for not being able to use the latest trap that the school has taught him on me, but then he would asks triumphantly:

Why do they have to speak? Language is a mechanism for perpetuating power relationships in any case, and besides, speaking is offensive to the animals, who can't communicate through language.

-- OK, there were two stones, and then another smaller stone fell from the sky and joined them.

--That's boring, says my son, I need something I can relate to. Was this stone a boy or a girl?

At that moment I pull a volume of War and Peace off the shelf, and menacingly aise it above his head.

-- I cannot read Russian, he says. You never taught me, so please, put it back.

--Why don't we instead of telling the stories, -- I say, in utter frustration -- go and torture our cat, Hobbs. Maybe we can throw Tolstoy at him. We can start with Sebastopol Stories, the collection is a bit lighter that War and Peace.

--Great idea, he says. That's a great use for this basically useless stuff produced by those dead white men.

Finally, agreeing on something, we proceed to torture Hobbs, who was waiting impatiently in the corner all this time.