https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmaetEX4phW2Hfapcnp2nUSgU22KWqfgaSwLw9X3Np4Jgu/garbage.jpg

What would it take me to persuade you that your future looks like this? "A public school and several years of you attending it" is what you wanted to say? But before anything else let's also have a word about a seemingly unrelated topic - depression.

As usual the point here is to hear from you, so if you don't feel like reading most of this - please navigate yourself to the last part (next to the Dostoevsky picture). *** It's not about me, I am neither depressed, nor have I ever had (at least I think so) the "authentic" experience when it comes to depression, but that's not the point. This is just a way to come close to a question that would be interesting to hear about from the people here. I've recently came across some depression related statistics and before going any further it would only make sense to share them here. According to the World Health Organization over 300 million people around the world are diagnosed with depression, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US and the second leading cause of death for people between 15 and 25, in addition to that around 37% of all people suffering from depression related disorders receive no support (and that also counts for support from the ones close to you) or treatment at all and are not even aware of their condition. The one thing that all people suffering from depression share can be named as "Not being in the right place in life" and of course there will be a million factors involved here, but I want to ask you about the one that is most "public" - public education. Since majority of those years when you are formed as a person you spend in the education system, it is a fair point to give our modern education system "the look". Public education, especially the one that I was a part of (post-soviet) sadly makes 80% of kids (by the time they are 12-15 y.o.) adamant that they are complete idiots, which might have had it's own benefits for the regime, but today everyone can have a say in it, which is a benefit hardly anyone uses. I do not want to deprecate the input made by individual brilliant teachers that can be found in any (even the worst) system, I am talking about the thing as a whole. ***

![dost.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcZi9qbKgzAdihv1SELQJgXZYnTrdZcHAxXDkZ3YpyyvK/dost.jpg)

I am strongly in favor of the approach that can be described by Dostoevsky's quote "People just don't know that they are good until they find out that they actually are", that is surely something that parents play a huge role in, but in cases where kids weren't so lucky - public education delivers the final blow.

And now to get to the actual point - I wouldn't have had these thoughts if I hadn't become a father, but here I am... There are numerous "alternative" approaches to education, such as Montessori, Steiner/Waldorf, Harkness, Reggio Emilia, Sudbury and many more. Has anyone here attended any kind of alternative school? That is the question that this post urges to know the answer to. Do your children attend any kind of alternative schools? Do you know anyone else who does? Please share some feedback if you have it and even if you don't, share your thoughts about alternative education methods. If you don't have anything to say right now, but might be interested (maybe somewhere deep down) to read about other people's experiences - be sure to check back in a little while. Yeah... I would not expect this to be a popular subject here, but it should be appealing to some of us at least. Thanks for your time, peace out!