Beach High School

01/15/2024

If you need a transcript or something else, please contact me on Messenger through my personal page. I do not check this page with any regularity. – Wes Beach

11/03/2021

"Free play resulted in courage, confidence, and a national soccer championship."

Free play resulted in courage, confidence, and a national soccer championship.

10/07/2021

"Here are 6 reasons why high schools should terminate their AP programs and let teachers and student create their own special courses, motivated by genuine interest, not status."

Advanced Placement courses harm students and enrich College Board executives.

09/03/2021

The website of the nearby public high school states that “Passing this exam [the California High School Proficiency Exam, CHSPE] allows students to leave high school (with parental permission) to seek full time employment or enrollment at a community college in California.” The fact is that kids who leave high school after passing the CHSPE can do anything they choose – travel, do volunteer work, become an apprentice, engage in independent learning, create art, etc. I see the quoted statement as a lie by omission and an attempt to control young people even after they leave high school.

The California High School Proficiency Exam (CHSPE) is a high school diploma equivalent for California

08/26/2021

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-apprenticeships-can-bridge-the-employment-gap-for-workers-without-college-degrees

Because of the pandemic, millions of lost jobs in the U.S. are not filled yet. While there are reports of labor shortages in many sectors, a large percentage of workers say they are looking for a new job. For some without a bachelor's degree, job prospects were bleak even before the pandemic. As par...

06/29/2021

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/202106/free-range-kids-movement-thats-gaining-ground?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Freedom-to-Learn+%28Freedom+to+Learn%29

The "world's worst mom" is making kids' life better

06/15/2021

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/202106/the-toxic-consequences-attending-high-achieving-school?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Freedom-to-Learn+%28Freedom+to+Learn%29

Achievement pressure promotes mental anguish at the so-called “best schools.”

05/24/2021

“There is no such thing as a ‘developmentally appropriate curriculum’ for three- and four-year-olds. . . . Curriculum implies imposed learning goals, which implies assessments, which necessarily implies coercing children to abide by the curriculum plan.”

What little children need is play, care, and love, not school.

05/09/2021

“ . . . adolescents at high-achieving schools suffer from symptoms of clinical depression and anxiety at rates three to seven times higher than national norms for children their age.
“What’s driving their misery, the research shows, is the pressure to excel in multiple academic and extracurricular pursuits.”

“My school is giving too much work,” a 10th grader wrote during the pandemic. “At first, this was just a break from school, but now all I feel is stress, anxiety and pain.”

04/23/2021

Many years ago I got angry because, like all faculty and staff members, I had received, in my mail slot at the high school where I was then teaching, 25 buttons displaying the school mascot in school colors with instructions to give them to “worthy students.” I went around to places like the cafeteria where I thought the buttons would be little used and rounded up a lot of them. The next day I began each of my classes by asking, out of the blue, everyone who felt unworthy to stand up. I thought that the weird request and desires not be embarrassed would prevent everyone from standing up, and I was right. (If some had stood up, I would have told them to sit down.) I went around each class and gave every student a button, explaining their origin and the instructions I had been given.
Still angry, I ordered a large number of buttons like the one pictured below and distributed them often and widely. Lots of good things grew out of this.
Opening a desk drawer and seeing some of these buttons that I still have prompted me to post this.

04/20/2021

Today’s experience led to this acquired story. Our dryer quit producing heat a couple weeks ago. A technician named Trevor from Santa Cruz Appliance Repair came today and found that a faulty circuit breaker, not the dryer, was the problem.
I briefly explained that I work with teens who are looking to decide what to do with their lives and asked Trevor if he had time to tell me how he got into his work. He was a student at at the University of California, Santa Cruz when his dryer broke down. He decided to fix it himself, and used YouTube to figure out how. After he succeeded, he began obtaining old dryers, fixing them, and selling them. Then he began with washers. Following this, he went to a trade school in Ohio and learned about repairing all appliances. Santa Cruz Appliance Repair is his and he’s the sole technician (he’s looking for someone to work for/with him). I recommend this service: http://www.santacruzappliancerepair.com .
Trevor finished his degree at UCSC, in environmental studies. He told me when I asked that there’s no connection between his college education and his work, which he says is perfect for him because he has trouble sitting still at a desk. He’s in his mid-30s and has been able to buy a house in Santa Cruz, no easy thing to do when even a modest house here can easily cost a million dollars or more.

Amazing service.  Call back was within a few hours.  I was able to get an appointment for the next day.  My service tech was courteous and thorough in his work, diagnosing an intermittent issue with my gas oven (it wouldn't light/turn on to heat).  He took extra care to keep the work area clean,...

04/16/2021