How many of these things have you said to your children:

"If you were in real school you would not be allowed to sit like that."

"If you were in real school you would not be allowed to just get up and go to the bathroom whenever you like."

"If you were in real school you would not be allowed to waste so much time."

Sound familiar?  I could go on, as I'm sure could you, down my list of assumptions of what would and would not be allowed in a REAL classroom.  You know, no teacher would let a child daydream through reading time. No teacher has to deal with interruptions of other siblings wanting to play.  No teacher has to worry about getting the full 180 days of teaching in.  Right?

Wrong.

I found these great articles (see links below) through the Carnival of Education.  Just like the homeschool carnival except with "real" teachers.  How cool to get a fly-on-the-wall perspective on what it is like on the "other side".  Clearly the problems of attention spans, distractions, disobedience, disrespect and human nature are just as prevalent in the public schools as they are around my dining room table....just in greater  numbers of students.  I'm glad I only have 6.

http://thespisjournal.wordpress.com/2007/01/15/squandering-valuable-instruction-time/

 http://historyiselementary.blogspot.com/2007/01/interruptions-do-they-matter.html