A Family Can't Have a Vacation this Summer

Before I get into the material of my lessons with students, I will start with some chit-chat about whatever may seem to be topical.  So during the Summer, I will ask the students if they have gone on vacation trips.

One student, an older woman, told me her family would not be able to go on a trip this summer.  I asked her why and she told me that her son had been assigned too much summer homework by his school.  If they went on a trip, he wouldn't get it all done.

I then asked her what grade her son was going to enter in the autumn.  The parent told me grade five!  Hearing this filled me with rage.  My son Tony is going into the fifth grade as well.  I want my son to be a normal human being, not a constantly-schooled cypher that this culture is producing.

Only problem is that my only other option is the Canadian public school system which is all wrong for the opposite reasons.  The school days in Canada are excessively short.  The subject matter taught is not at all substantial and stupidly faddish.  And there is the problem of kids getting into drugs.

So, I see myself stuck in a sort of Latvian World War Two dilemna.  Nazism or Communism?  Facism or Cult-Marxism?  Chinese or Western school systems?