What, exactly, do you feel is the purpose of school?

[Orinoco]

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only read op

to institionalise people at a young age

I wasn't commenting on your decision to HE either, critter. I have very strong views about home education (as the adult product of it!) but I would never generalize about HE the way it seems to be OK to generalize about school based education.

That's interesting, Seeker.

I have strong views on HE too, but as I have no real experience of it myself, I'd like to hear the thoughts of someone who has.
Care to elaborate?

The purpose of school is to form children into reasonably similar adults so that they can live side by side without killing each other.

This includes a common history, shared values, discipline, respect for authority, etc.

Education, as in acquisition of knowledge, is also part of it, but as everyone knows, most of it is useless in everyday life and we forget a big chunk of the rest anyway.

right now? today?
god knows.

From a legal point of view it's to provide a suitable education. (An LEA doesn't have to provide the best just one that's suitable).

If you;ve "strong views" on home education, but "no real experience" of it, it's probably best to keep schtum rather than suggesting things like:

"all home educated children are lacking in life skills and unable to cope with difficult social situations? Or that it is unnatural to have no time to develop away from their parents?"

which do indeed show that you have no real experience of home education.

The comment you refer to was in reply to a sweeping generalisation by Critter that schools mess children up.

I was suggesting that to say that about HE would also be a generalisation, hence my later post 'I respect your decision, education is a very individual matter'.

It seems it is ok to air very negative views about parent's choice to school educate, but not ok to comment on HE.

Read the thread!

Ideally school would provide all those educational benefits listed below. But failing that, if the dc aren't actually unhappy about going, it's worth it to me just for the benefit of 30 hours a week of free childcare.

Nobody was commenting on your decision to HE, Critter- just on writing about it as if it was everybody's experience ('messes you up' rather than 'messed my daughter up').

In my dd's particular and rather special case being HE would mean spending far too much time at home, or at least in my company, as she cannot travel very far and cannot get around outside the house without help. School is an ideal environment for her- it gives her a chance of independence without tiring her out physically. I know a few people with her condition who are home educated or flexi-educated, but these children really are isolated, and many of them admit that they find it difficult to cope with other people outside the family.

But I am not going to write a post stating that HE is too physically demanding for everybody. Just for my dd. Each of us has a specific situation to deal with.

However, I do feel that for both my dc's school has been what I think school should be about:

a stimulating learning environment

a chance to be taught by people who know things we don't- more learning is always good

a chance to socialise with children outside the immediate family circle (including some I might not approve of )

an opportunity to meet different adults with different viewpoints

a chance to move outside their comfort zones and experience things that the family does not do (including most modern culture)

a shared experience with their contemporaries- even the negative experiences can have a great bonding effect

Also, it has been one way of getting involved in the local community- we have a strong supportive neighbourhood and the school is very much part of that: it's at the school gates that you hear if somebody's Mum is ill and might need a meal taken round etc. I want my dc's to experience this sort of thing.

The difference is though that many of the Home Educators on this thread have experience of their children going through the state education system, and are therefore able to compare and contrast HE and the state education system. And recognise the effects of both state and home education on their children.

I haven't aired any views on a parent's choice to school educate, only our experiences of putting DD through the state system.

er if this isn't airing a view 'The more I home educate my DD, the more I realise how school messes you up, stunts creativity and holds you back academically.' I\d hate to see it when you were being blunt and saying what you thought

Good post, Cory.

Especially your comment on your dc socializing with others you may approve of.

I agree it's important that children have experience of dealing with all types of human behaviour, good, bad and ugly, as at some stage in their life they will have to face these unfortunate situations.

I believe that a school education gives them the tools to deal with these types of behaviour.

Schools contain all manner of wide and varied viewpoints, cultures, opinions and experiences.
For my dd, this is something she just would not experience in a HE setting, and it's an experience which I feel is important to her development.

You said 'messes you up', Critter. That presumably is a general 'you'. It was impossible to deduce from your post that 'you' in this case had the new and unprecedented meaning of 'the specific case of my daughter'. English grammar doesn't work like that.

If you had said 'messed my dd up' that would have been fine. But using the general pronoun implies that all our dc's are messed up- and however hard I look at mine I can't see that.

Yes, you did air your views, Critter.

'SCHOOL MESSES YOU UP'

Hence the annoyance of those who choose schools.

I met a wonderful ambulance man on Monday, who treated my husband with every care and all the dignity that he could muster as he too him to the Hospice.

I had taught that man, and helped him to get the GCSE in Biology that he needed to become and ambulance man.

That is what schools are all about IMHO

I agree with Fennel.

Gosh what an unusual school your daughter went to Critter. No wonder you have such a jaundiced view. None of my friends with children who have been through reception and yr1 in totally bog-standard urban primaries have had experiences anything like this. It simply bears not the smallest resemblance to the experience of anyone I know. Are you SURE she was told off for counting to 11? I have to admit to being sceptical.

Irrespective of school and LEA mission statements, I think that what society as a whole really wants from schools is to prepare children to move into the adult world. This does not necessarily mean giving them the best possible accademic education or catering for their every need. It does mean teaching them to work with others and understand that other people may have different needs, giving them the accademic skills (reading, writing, numeracy etc) they need to be able to determine what job they want and try and get it, coping with authority, independence, completion of required tasks etc.

Certainly in relation to ds's current primary school teacher, I am almost certainly better educated and have a better general knowledge (based on lots of conversations wtih her) but I cannot teach him all the things that she can. I cannot teach him how to sit still and listen to other children talk in a group or to alternate between the games he wants to play and the games that they do. She is producing a much more rounded person than I could alone, (although I could produce one stuffed with more interesting facts) and I am happy that this is fulfilling what I believe that the school should be doing.

What a bittersweet story MB.
You should be very proud.

Hope Mr MB and your family are all ok.

I think of it like this. If we had no schools what would happen then? Surely this is the point of them? What were the Eduction Acts in 19th and 20th centuries for?

Imagine no one could read
"""""""""""""""""""add up

Society would regress 200 years.

They also provide me with a job

Well, its up to others to make what they want of my post. That's fine. But, really, only the author of a post can explain what they meant by it. And I can only speak as the parent of a child who has been through the state system and seen their child blossom in a relatively short space of time with HE.

MsDemenor
You obviously don't have experience of some of the schools in our area. The Welfare Officer at our Education Authority was very pro home education, which made me wonder if this wasn't the first time that something like this had happened at this school. She vaguely mentioned other schools for DD, but it almost sounded as if professionally she felt she had to raise this option.

At one stage my daughter was hospitalised. The whole situation has traumatised our family.

I can't say I'd ever question some one else's experiences.

critterjitter on Fri 20-Jun-08 11:34:28
'Well, its up to others to make what they want of my post. That's fine. But, really, only the author of a post can explain what they meant by it.'

No, not really. Any language, including the English, is based on agreeing on certain conventions, such as the use of pronouns. E.g 'I' refers to the speaker, 'you' either to the person/persons addressed or to 'people in general'. If you want to talk about one third person, such as your daughter, you use a third person pronoun ('she'). It is only in Lewis Carroll that people can make words mean what they want. In RL or on the Internet, you need to stick to conventions if you want people to understand you. Otherwise you can't blame them for not getting your meaning.

I think it's extremely rare for anyone to reach their full potential.

I think the purpose of school is to provide children with a well-rounded eduation in a stimulating and friendly environment so as to better enjoy their lives.