What's the difference between a "hothouse" and a school that pushes your child to meet their true natural ability?

[HappyDads]

On Mumsnet, "hothouse" often seems to be used - by implication - as a slightly derogatory term for "damaging your child" by those not getting into said hothouse school (Westminister, St. Pauls, Eton, SPGS, Tiffins, Habs, Wycombe Abbey etc - whatever floats your boat actually).

Yet we all want our DCs to reach their maximum potential, and be stretched, yet without being damaged. Where is our dividing point?

Seriously I struggle to balance my own thinking with my DD at a school often described as both a "hothouse" and yet also called "balanced".

So what is a "hothouse" and is it more a term of jealousy vs your own DC's ability, or is it something more tangible you can describe?

[wordfactory]

Well according to the sandwich thread...school meals are manna from heaven. Orgabic, locally sourced meals of wonder. After one of those babies, nothing more than a cheese sarnie is required for a child's tea. In fact any more than a cheese sarnie and your child is in danger of being obese.

[seeker]

Really? Must have missed that!

[TotallyBS]

rabbit: My so-called contradiction is down to your misunderstand my point.

We have free education. Ok the quality varies but the point is that everybody has access to an education. Large parts of the UK is comp only so one can't even argue that the MC kids get to go to a GS.

My kids have access to a PC each. Both DP and I are graduates. We are well off. All the above gives my kids the opportunity to do better than the average WC kid BUT it does not make the excuse that WC kids underperform because they don't have the above.

[wordfactory]

I don't think it is that seeker.

During the boom years, the middle were increasingly less likely to push through to certain jobs/industries. Far more likely to take mid level public sector jobs. Social mobility decreased overall.

Now there were all manner of reasons for this, but the education system certainly played its part, I think.

[Festivelyfedup]

I've taught in both. IME hothouse = amazing all round education, failure not an option, success academically is a given but might be a few emotional scars in the process.

The other has a much lower calibre of pupil and makes a half arsed attempt to keep up with the hothouses whilst allowing laziness and apathy to be rife. Happier and more balanced children but not great if you want Oxbridge odds to be 1 in 4 for your child!

I'd go for the hothouse but make sure I can deal with the neurotic aspects your child might learn, but only if your child is already emotionally robust and very ambitious.

[Bonsoir]

The fact that the middle is getting poorer in the US and the UK is largely attributable to globalisation. Old-established economies have lost a lot of middle-paying jobs, both to technology and to lower-wage economies.

We now need people to be much better educated than in the past in order to attract the kind of industry and innovation that will ensure they continue to enjoy a high standard of living. That is a huge challenge.

[seeker]

"My kids have access to a PC each. Both DP and I are graduates. We are well off. All the above gives my kids the opportunity to do better than the average WC kid BUT it does not make the excuse that WC kids underperform because they don't have the above."

Sorry- I don't understand. Your children have the opportunity to do better than other working class kids because you're well off, but not being well off does not explain why other working class kids do less well.
I don't think anyone is saying that poverty is necessarily an excuse for poor children doing less well, but it's certainly an expectation.

I use poor, rather than working class, by the way, because I don't think they are synonyms.

[seeker]

Sorry, meaning changing typo.
"I don't think anyone is saying that poverty is necessarily an excuse for poor children doing less well, but it's certainly an expectation. "

That should be explanation, not expectation. But it could have been a bit Freudian!

[CaseyShraeger]

"My kids have access to a PC each. Both DP and I are graduates. We are well off. All the above gives my kids the opportunity to do better than the average WC kid BUT it does not make the excuse that WC kids underperform because they don't have the above."

Isn't that another contradiction, though? You accept that your DCs have extra opportunities so likely to outperform WC children, but reject the suggestion that a lack of those opportunities makes WC chikdren likely to underperform your DCs. It reads like a weird logic problem in which x is greater than y but y isn't less than x.

[Bonsoir]

"I've taught in both. IME hothouse = amazing all round education, failure not an option, success academically is a given but might be a few emotional scars in the process.

The other has a much lower calibre of pupil and makes a half arsed attempt to keep up with the hothouses whilst allowing laziness and apathy to be rife."

Interesting, Festivelyfedup, and I think that you confirm what I, as a parent/observer, am seeing around me!

[wordfactory]

I think globalisation is certainly at the heart of the shrinking middle job market. I've long been saying that I think the furture holds a much more extreme society of haves and have nots.

But that wasn't what I was thinking of really. More that it is shocking (or I find it so) that so few children of the middle didn't push out of it. They have a lot of advantages, not least speaking the intenational language of finance and business, and yet so few made the move out of the middle.

I think education and culture were definitely at play here.

[Bonsoir]

There have to be the jobs for them to go to, though, and the support systems to allow them to go there. There are lots of structural rather than individual reasons for not pushing outwards and upwards. I think it's a bit harsh and judgemental to be "shocked" about something that is largely beyond individual control.

[Offred]

Not sure globalisation as capitalism and not sure it is education and culture so much as an aristocratic system which has gone into hiding rather than disappeared. Aristocrats have simply become capitalists in order to maintain the oligarchy.

[Festivelyfedup]

Bonsoir the lazy half-arsed school I taught in was still a top 50 school in the country but the difference between top 5 and top 50 is enormous. I was shocked on every level of ability, attitude, behaviour etc. I'm not sure I would have worked out the size of the void between the two if I hadn't worked in both. You are obviously more discerning than I!

[seeker]

Ah. If it was that lazy and half arsed how was it top 50?

[wordfactory]

I think I am shocked by the paucity of ambition, given that this strata of society is not in any way impoverished.

And I do see the culture being part of it. The middle's mantra became all about happiness and self esteem and the education system reflected that of course. Coming from nothing, or less than nothing on a bad day, I find it all rather self indulgent and complacent.

MNet is a bird's eye view of it. Sqillions of posts from people who can't be arsed to do this or that. Who don't want to do anyhting hard or boring. Who want the world to revolove around them and their DC. Everything from exams to cooking xmas dinner is an affront to them!

[Bonsoir]

I think that low standards are rife in Western countries - people have got comfortable and forget that their comforts were earned by the toil of others that preceded them and are frittering them away...

[Offred]

I don't think it is anything to do with a lack of ambition, it is a lack of opportunity. I don't think it is any coincidence that the middle has been being squeezed for generations in order to give tax breaks to millionaires and corporations that are inaccessible through "hard work" or ordinary educational advantages.

[Offred]

And people in the middle are becoming impoverished now in that they can't afford homes, heating, food etc

[Offred]

I think very, very few people are comfortable actually.

[Bonsoir]

I disagree. You see them, waddling around shopping centres in an overfed, over-screened haze, bumbling through life...

[Offred]

Fat doesn't mean comfortable, it often actually means poor as does smoking and drinking.

[SilentSplendidSun]

Oh my! A LOT of generalisations made here.

[Hamishbear]

Rabbit I would argue any average 7 year old can look something up via google & so do basic research? You don't need to have a high IQ to be resourceful. I would argue many are surely lazy rather than incapable in the way you describe.

You are right though in that intelligence is composite - I am resourceful but naturally have little sense of logic. Our society does ascribe higher status to some forms of intelligence - quick thinking & a sense of logic enjoying higher status than EQ or stand alone creativity (in a school setting). Those than can ace CAT tests & recognise patterns & have good spatial skills & can recognise sequences & patterns are highly prized & deemed to have superior intellect.

[wordfactory]

offred the middle are beocming less comfortable, that's for sure, but they have been highly priviledged compared to the vast majority of people around the world. So many opportunities...