The most powerful argument for home education I have ever seen!!

[Spidermama]

Has this link already been shown on MN?

If it hasn't, it certainly should be. This is

It was brought to my attention by a friend who's a primary school teacher in South London. Yet she goes on teaching and I go on sending them to school.

The school system needs a radical shake up.

"seeker I understand what you're saying, but I don't think many of us need to adapt to thirty others on a constant basis."

I don't think you do in most Primary schools either. In my experience, most work is done in much smaller groups. And my 9 year old ds came home last night hugely frustrated because he was the only one in his group of four who wanted to get on with building their aqueduct.

His teacher has promised that he can be in a group of other crushed, repressed downtrodden anaesthatized drones today. He is very pleased, and looking forward to it. I presume this means that his beautiful, creative free spirit has been repressed and he has become a cog in the machine in thrall to The Man?

Do you think Bonsoir?

I'm just thinking of when I worked in a large law firm. Obviously I had to muck along with everyone else, but for much of the day I had my own room and could prioritise my own work...take coffee/lunch etc at my own instigation.

Whereas school is so rigid.

Don't get me wrong, my DC thrive there, but it always seems to me a very peculiar institution.
The idea that on x day, at x time, everyone in the room will be occupied in the same way, seems...a little spooky.

Perhaps I am spoiled by my own very free existence. I work from home as and when I want.

In the summer holidays my children spend hours and hours of every day running around or playing full on, energetic games. They end the summer holidays much fitter, better toned and happier. They also behave better and get on with one another better.

This spirit is crushed in the school setting and I don't see how it could possibly be catered for.

Seeker that was a very defensive post. You make a good point about how children do tend to work in smaller groups and this is the case certainly in primary schools. However your argument is weakened by your sarcastic attack in the last paragraph which is a shame.

I think some cleve so strongly to the notion of state education that they cannot enter any real discussion.

Even admitting that some children may not be best served by an institutional setting is more than they can do.

It was a bit defensive. But that is because this thread, like so may others, talks about 'sausage factories" "anaethsatizing" "crushing" "character suppression" "institutionalizing". People are so judgmental about school. As so often the judgments are based on what happened to 6them^, not what is happening now.

But the op made it clear her misgivings stem from current information.
She has been working in her DD's school and her freind is currently a teacher.

When you work in an institution, not everyone is necessarily doing the same thing at once. But there is a very high degree of taylorisation and working boundaries are tightly defined, and I think that school doesn't necessarily prepare DCs enough for that. It's best to know the limits of work and not idealise the fulfilment it doesn't necessarily bring!

If I used language like that about HE I would be rightly flamed. But mumsnet seems to have open season on schools and people who send their children to them!

Spidermama why do you send your children to a school that crushes their spirit? [interested smiley]
I haven't read the full thread ... sorry
The Ted lecture is from Feb 2005 and many many schools acted on it many years ago.

2005 source
I remember emailing the link to my head (5 years ago!)

I don?t think the lecture makes a good argument in favour of home education ( the best learning takes place in groups, although is this evidenced in any way?) and I think a lot of his ideas have already been introduced into schools, particularly into primary schools but also into secondary education with the introduction of NVQ and other vocational courses.

Learning has become more individualised in recent years, at a cost to teachers who now have to accurately monitor and assess and then set targets at the level of each individual child. Teachers are expected to differentiate tasks and outcomes for all children and when this works that?s great but it?s a huge task for one teachers with a class of 30 plus.

A friend of mine who teaches primary full time said that quiet children who never draw attention to themselves are lucky to get 14 minutes of 1-1 time a term. That is a frightening idea to me, when I feel that young children actually need a lot of support and active adult involvement in their learning.

one of my kids was bubbling over with excitement about school on the way home today. They are being read a story, and reading stuff themselves. Next week they are going to make playscripts based on the book (working in small collaborative groups), and then perform the plays they write in front of the author who is paying a visit to the school. The author is also going to give a talk on writing and taking questions. You might call that crushing etc, but I don't, and there is no way I could offer that experience at home.

seeker I'm not anti-school. I'm so pro-state you wouldn't believe. DD loves her kindy (although I noticed her character and behaviour changes for the better during holiday time, and that makes me wonder about how much of her personality she is having to suppress there, especially as a girl, where standards for behaviour are set at a much higher bar than boy

But it's interesting to see that people are willing to discuss this subject because most people are taught to believe that school is the only way kids can and should learn. It's only when you do a bit of research as an adult that you realise it's not actually that conducive to learning. There are lots of positive things about school. They were the best years of my life wrt friends etc.

It is very interesting because I work with a guy who would have been classed at school as non-academic but is brilliant with spreadsheets and I suggested he would be good in a finance capacity. Immediately the shutters went up because it involved maths. However, when I explained why he could do the job he realised he could. Therefore his schooling blocked his view of his transferable skills. I actually think apart from testing schools are getting better than when I was a child as in my day, kids who struggled were written off. In a good school this does not happen as much now and both my kids were not academic when they started school but their interest is now being sparked later on. Had they been kids when I was younger they would have been classed as thick and never given the attention they needed. I still believe in schools unless the parents collaborated with others. Too intensive for me to have just parents teaching their kids. I do like the idea of vouchers for a group of parents to work together. I also believe that kids need other kids.

I have taught in schools that stifle creativity and schools that encourage it, like all of these debates you cannot generalise.

But surely it is not solely up to the school to encourage creativity. My dd goes to a failing primary school where they cannot even teach her basic numeracy and literacy so I do not even dare to dream about creativity. However she is one of the most creative children you could meet because as parents we offer her opportunities and follow her interests.

I agree and have tried to encourage free thinking at home. I was encouraged by 10 year old and this was a really interesting project that the school did. Pretend you are 50 today and write your autobiography. It was amazing the different outcomes the kids did. My son got the Noble Prize for Science and found a cure for cancer. His friend became an architect. Interesting I would class both of these as free thinking careers. The only problem for me was that all the kids wrote about university. Is this the only route for kids now to dream about their future. Probably for their chosen careers yes but not all can afford to take that risk anymore.

Why can all children not afford to go to university?

£9000 per year would put many children off and certainly many parents would talk children out of it if they had not been themselves. Yes they only have to pay it back when they earn a certain level but with no guarantee of a job many will not want to take that risk. I will personally fund my kids where possible as both DH and I had free university education and I had a full grant but not all parents will help and many including some of my friends will actually discourage their children from taking this route.

But if you don't get the job you don't pay the money back.

I am not planning to find my child to the hilt but don't see this as a reason that she should be put off.

..erm, i don't think that's an argument for HE at all. it doesn't mention HE! - It is an argument for chaging the basis of he current system. some of which is spurious (standard testing correlating to ADHD diagnoses?) some of which is debatable (challenge to education by year group) and some of which most people could probably agree on.

the paper clip thing just shows that knowing what a thing is for is not always helpful.

I have seen HE work very well for children of friends so I certainly wouldn't knock it.

The main reason I don't want to do myself it is that I think I am already an enormous influence on dd; if she were to spend more time with me, I think that would seriously cut down on her ability to develop as a free thinker. She needs to see dh and me in perspective, and school is a good place for her to do that.

I feel the same about my own schooling: my parents were definitely the most important educational influence on me and still are, but it was worthwhile learning that there are other ways of looking at the world. Not least to learn that not everybody (not even all teachers) is as fixated on education as my own geeky family.