Are schools becoming obsolete?

[CarmenSanDiego]

It's a provocative question, but I'm really beginning to wonder what purpose traditional schools are there to serve.

The adult world is a complex place and there are many paths one can take. You could be a manicurist or a gardener, a lawyer or a doctor, a housewife or an entrepreneur. Or several of these things.

There is an assumption that schools should 'prepare' children. But for what, and how?

Now, I realise that parents may have to work and money and resources are limited, but I'm pondering on the whole concept and whether education needs revolutionising.

I withdrew my children from school a few months ago. I didn't really want to do it but now am actually amazed how easy it has been. We're following an online curriculum and I love how the lessons are very specific and to the point, with particular learning goals for each one. We get through maths and English quickly each morning and then have the rest of the day to pootle around with science, history, music or whatever we fancy.

School seems more of a continuum of practicing and rehashing work. It seems a slow way of learning when today's kids are very fast - able to zoom through internet sites and learn about a range of topics very quickly, zooming in and out on what interests them.

I'm also amazed at just how much time is wasted in school - all the nonsense that is inherent in the school culture - uniforms, PTA squabbles, disputes over healthy lunchboxes, bullying, peer pressure, proms etc. and having just read about the teacher who was taunted and cracked under the stress, there is an element of dehumanisation about schools - teachers aren't seen as people by pupils. PSHE doesn't even touch what you can learn by talking about the news and engaging with the real world and with people of different ages rather than just the dynamics of your own age group.

It interests me that children are often seen as unengaged at school. I remember being so bored and zoning out in lessons, yet as an adult able to choose my own method of learning, I haven't stopped studying. My children seem to be the same - they learn without even thinking about it or planning it, they just follow their interests. They're most engaged when it's a project they like whether it be dinosaurs, computer programming or a dance show.

I think the ideal is a system where children can somehow pick and choose their learning. I love the US system of summer day camps where children can do pretty much anything they like for a week at a time - golf, horseriding, chemistry or dinosaurs.

How do we decide what is important? Why does understanding the formulas for gravity take precedence over being able to compose a song or design a web application or bake and decorate a fantastic cake? Why should children learn French or German? Why can't they do Japanese?

I really think we need to move towards some kind of system where children can follow their interests and start rethinking school - rather than it being such an incestuous artificial environment, it should be more flowing and community based. I think this would lead to a happier, more productive society in the long run. Am I mad?

The idea of HE makes me want to slit my wrists. I'm talking about me doing HE, no problem with others doing it.

My cousin's kids were chronically bullied by a teacher at a California Montessori charter school so that's my sniggering gut feeling about how good they are. Cousin now HEs, but she is unlike me -- the sort of person to be very happy tied down by her children's needs all day every day for the next decade.

Also, I went to an alternative school lots of same practices and principles as Summerhill and it was pants academically, in that we had no culture whatsoever of valuing education or educational attainment. Precisely because school and lessons were so completely optional.

As for Summerhill (having looked into it a lot) one of my big reservations is how much enthusiasm the teachers can muster for their job given that nobody may turn up and the wages are otherwise poor, too.

HE and alternative schools really are NOT good choices for many -- and that's leaving aside financial concerns. So I think conventional schools are with us for a long time to come...

"happy to be tied down by her children's needs all day every day for the next decade"?

What a bizarre perception of HE!

lljkk, charter schools vary massively. Some are religious, some are like traditional schools, some are just drop in centres to take music or art lessons. They're all different

I actually agree with your point that some alternative schools don't put any emphasis on education. My children went to a 'progressive' school for a year and were utterly bored. It had a fluffy hands-on style which focused on art above all else and barely any formal learning.

What I am arguing is not the style of lesson but the choice. I think children will learn if they are doing something they want to do and offered great choices. I also think they will accept formal lessons if they are effective - see the kids who are bored in school yet sign up for and pay close attention to guitar lessons for example, just because they really WANT to learn.

It is actually very restrictive if you do it for a long time.My SIL was really enthusiastic when she started, but she has been doing it for over 10 years and is jaded, she wants to do things for herself in the creative line but has at least 4 more years to go. If you start at 5 yrs you need to be sure that you will still want to do it 13 yrs later or more-it isn't an option for her to send her last DC to school when he has never been and doesn't want to go. She didn't realise that she would feel like that when she started.
John Holt was writing about studies in schools in USA in the late 1950's. He has been required reading for teachers since 1960's and they have taken on board his ideas.

HE is great if the parents have the resources and want to do it.

many parents are lacking one or the other of these things, and for that reason schools need to be kept in some format or other to stop kids being exploited, left to rot, etc etc.

I agree that much of school is diabolically useless. I can't remember anything about anything I wasn't interested in. That includes science of any description, geography and history, maths. Nothing. It's all left my brain, not that it even went in at the time I suspect.

It definitely needs an overhaul.

Wow. I must be a wierdo because I loved school and am grateful that I went to such a fabulous one. Yes, I had to learn Latin (great for vocab), French (DS is French), maths, ancient medieval history, ancient medieval literature, European history, European Literature, American History, American Literature, Chemistry, Bio, Physics, Algebra I and II, Geometry, Modern Political Systems, Speech, Typing, pottery, painting, Voice lessons, Health, Intro to Psychology, Into to Philosophy - all just in High School. You know what - I use much of it today. My parents, although very bright, could never have given me such a broad knowledge basis.

I loved Uni also, and am thankful for the Liberal Arts Education I had. All of those nonpractical courses are part of myself and my outlook on life. I want DSs to have a similar "useless" uni life and will send them back to the US to take Intro to Music History, History of Art, etc. It will be their last chance to learn such "drivel" for a long time.

Why would it be their last chance?

Does learning really stop after university?

I think this is part of the school problem - that it is seen as our one and only chance to learn everything we need ready for adult life. With books, distance study, access to the internet, online courses, videos and tutorials, there are so many ways to learn continuously.

I don't think learning ever stops, it certainly hasn't for my family. However, as the example of my niece shows, it can become very expensive and difficult if you have to take time to catch up on the basics after you are grown up. Learning as an adult is much easier if you have a good foundation, and learning as a child has the advantage that somebody else is keeping you and paying the costs. But I certainly don't expect my dcs ever to stop learning.

Your parents could never have given you such a broad knowledge base, SofaQueen? Really?

My DD1 (who is, admittedly, only just about to turn 7), already has a massively broad knowledge base and knows things that I have only just learnt (through her) and many, many things I had no awareness of at all at her age or older!

Latin - not just yet
French - yes, she is learning French from cd's and going to a french club
Maths - she loves and has a fantastic grasp of...not taught by me but by life and books and games etc.
History - well, she has a very deep knowledge of a few periods of history, deeper than most adults in some cases. She's had big interests in the Second World War, Victorians, Romans so far.
Some of the next few things I'll give her a few years yet but...
Modern Political Systems - we've recently been talking loads about this and she's really getting knowledge that DH doesn't even have at the moment!
She does a lot of typing because she uses the computer a lot.

I know nothing about a lot of the things you mention, though, and I have a very fulfilling life with many interests. I have a degree and good GCSEs and A-Levels but I really don't use very much of what I learnt then at all. I'm hoping, later this year, to start an OU degree in history - my real passion - and I can't wait. My first degree was a waste of time and is simply a piece of paper now. Yes, the experience shaped me, but I certainly didn't need it to be where I am now. Most of what I've learnt that I use now I learnt outside of institutionalised learning - on trips with my mum, through conversations, through reading, through being taught by my mum how to learn and how to love learning and how to question things. My schooling was average. I want my children to have more than average.

I don't deny that school can be the most wonderful thing for some children, but that's the key - some children. For so many it is a waste of time or, worse, damaging. Something ought to change about our schools. I don't think everyone should home educate, though. There is no way that would work!

'Wow. I must be a wierdo because I loved school and am grateful that I went to such a fabulous one'

You are not weird-lots of DCs love school. I would have hated to have been kept at home with my brothers. We appreciated each other far more when we could go off and do things at our own level, with our own friends.
Education doesn't start and stop at the school door and the DC is only there for 30 hours a week for 30 weeks of the year. There are lots of exciting things you can do at home around it. I am still learning now-as people say -it never stops.

Yes, education continues throughout life, but what I meant by "last time for a long time" was that after this period, mu specialized education started - 4 years of medical school, 2 years of research, 4 years of registrarship, work then motherhood. During this period, I had no time to learn in detail the kind of things I did at Uni or in High School. I still don't have the time to do a course for fun, which I'd love to do.

There is absolutely no way my parents could have given me a similar education as my high school one. Let's take French for example. I took French for 8 years prior to going to Uni. The last years were spend on obtuse French tenses which are necessary to be able to read Racine or Voltaire, which we did. It wasn't just the mechanics of the language, but the reading, discussing, and writing about these old masters of French literature IN THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGE. My background allowed me to take a year off in Uni and go to the University of Paris IV as a parallel student - and what an amazing experience that was!

Modern Political systems - it wasn't just learning about my political system, but that of the US, UK, then then USSR and France. It was not just the structure, but the history and philosophy behind the structure. The learning was not just book learning, but discussions amongst my peers in class (which is invaluable), insights from my teachers (whose passion is was), and guest speakers.

Perhaps the difference is that I went to a truly amazing school - private single sex school which gave a very deep and well rounded education. I took a seminar just focusing on Milton's Paradise Lost at the age of 13 with just 3 other people and the teacher. Teachers were encouraged to offer one off courses on a subject of interest, even if there would only be 2 students in it. We were taught to think and learn from a very young age. I am looking for a similar school for my sons here (and think I have found one, just a matter of passing the 7+ to get in!).

My parents always arranged for summer tutorials to make up for the abysmal state education I received as a child.

Perhaps we're trying to get to the nut of the issue on this thread of what education is supposed to be, but practically this needs to translate into what is a state-provided education, which may or may not be the same thing. For example, the anecdotes above are very individual focused, yet there are definite social engineering ascpects to state education.

I find some very strange perspectives coming from the current Gove thread . . . it seems that parents want the government to provide an ambiguously defined service that meets all the perceived needs of their children. The tone is accusatory, and the rhetoric has the flavor of 'the system is broken but don't change the system.'

I think Carmen's question deserves serious consideration.

'I think Carmen's question deserves serious consideration'

It is a very good question. Although I loved school, and still do, and think that the value of a good teacher is a price beyond pearls, I agree that we need a national debate to decide what education is for.
I don't believe it is for all children to jump through the same academic hoops (and even if they were the same academic hoops they wouldn't be at the same time).
HE will only ever suit the minority. Most parents don't want to do it-they have a career that interests them and they want child care. Most children wouldn't want it.(I meet a lot of children during the course of the week and I can tell you that most wouldn't- as a fact).
Change is needed and 21st century should be the time to do it.

Mrswobble, I could give my dcs the kind of education that has been good and valuable to me, but the problem is that they are not me. I don't know what will prove valuable to them. They can learn maths from books, but not sure if that would be enough maths to, say, start a science degree at 19 if that's what they wanted to do. If they only worked with me, they would naturally veer towards the things that I was very passionate and interesting about, namely humanities. I can never do what dd's maths teacher did, and show her someone who was passionate about maths, because I am not and she would knew I was faking it. Seeing him was a bonus.

One reason I want them to have other teachers is that I already have an enormous influence on their lives: I am well educated, highly verbal, passionate about what I do and they think highly of me (most of the time). I was the same with my parents. It was lovely, the only problem was that because of that enormously strong tie, it was quite difficult for me to learn to think for myself and accept that other ways of being and other priorities might be equally valid. This is one of the areas where I am thankful to my schools and my teachers: it gave me more different viewpoints.

And I do not actually get the idea that my dcs are spending their entire school day surrounded by boring people making them bored. They have the occasional boring teacher (possibly educational in its own right, if it's a one-off), but they also meet a lot of people who are really enthusiastic about things that I couldn't get any enthusiasm up about in a hundred years. Dd's maths teacher alone was worth going to school for.

An excellent post cory.
My mother 'felicitating' my education would have been frustrating beyond all bearing. If I wanted to know about an aspect of physics I would like to be taught by a graduate in the subject who was passionate about the subject-not by mother helping me find out about a subject that she knew nothing and had no real interest in.
My DSs teachers have brought out hidden depths in their personalities. I am all for 'it takes a village to raise a child' and the more people and ideas they come across the better.People seem to miss the point that teachers do the job either because they love their subject and want to impart it or they love working with children or both-they certainly don't do it for money or the paper work! It is a vocation and seems sensible to take advantage of it.
Schools are also full of lovely, lovely children-they are not all hot beds of bullying. Of course they aren't all lovely-but neither is everyone in life. I get rather fed up with schools being portayed as run by petty tyrants with foul mouthed, out of control children. They are a community-as such you get all sorts.

I just want to point out that although I HE, I am not really advocating a system where the parents are expected to teach the children everything.

In an ideal world, I think children could learn from lots of different teachers from different age groups and experience levels, from peers to professors, who have different learning styles and interests. I'd see it as a more community based learning where they could go and learn horseriding at a stable with an instructor. Go and learn skateboarding with some experienced guys at the skate park. Go and do chemistry in tutorials at the science museum, go and listen to a lecture on dinosaurs... etc. etc.

Which is sort of what I do with my kids. But I'm lucky because we're in a big city geared up to home education, with plenty of reasonably priced activities and plenty of museums - many of which run dedicated homeschool programmes.

California has an interesting option for home educators... you can sign up to 'CAVA' - a 'virtual academy' which actually qualifies as a public (state) school.

It's a way of home educating but still grabbing your share of the education budget so they buy you a computer and a subscription to K12 online curriculum, as well as textbooks etc. I think it works out cheaper for the state than putting a child through public school.

i've done a lot of different university courses and my conclusion is that there is a lot to be said to be immersed in a large group of students all studying the same topic.

at 18 i did a traditional BSc in science subjects plus philosophy of science. it was a small university so lectures of about 150 students in 1st year down to about 10-15 for honours courses.

then at 22 i did a taught masters which was full time but only one and a half days on campus - the rest was independent study.

then at 32 i did a level 2 OU course at home in preparation for the course i'm doing now, at 33, which is masters level again but by online distance learning with the University of the Highlands and Islands.

Now, my experience is that the 'teaching' can be just as good no matter the delivery method.. BUT there is a big difference between my first two degrees and my latter two courses. on my first degree i was part of an academic community. my lecturers were doing world-class reasearch and it was utterly inspiring. on my second, those two days we met up were crucial, we argued and discussed all day with the lecturers and between ourselves and at 5pm we went ot the pub and kept on discussing and arguing till last orders time. that social interaction with a large diverse group studying the same topic was abstolutely crucial.

The OU course i did was lonely in comparison, people worked at different paces and there was very little discussion of the topics on the discussion boards - more just people pointing out errata and picking about assignments.
The UHI course i'mk doing now is better as we're forced to participate online by it being 15% of the mark, we've had a few good discussions but nothing like we could have if we were face to face

so... i'm sorry to diverge from the question about schools but i think that group education at higher level is valuable.. and i'm not sure if youcould have that without having group education at lower levels.

"so... i'm sorry to diverge from the question about schools but i think that group education at higher level is valuable.. and i'm not sure if youcould have that without having group education at lower levels. "

Well that's not true! And has been proven untrue by the numbers of home educated children who have a very successful and happy time at university.

ok, good point for individuals, though the general system is that you get certain school-based qualifications as a grounding for university.

do HE children need to do standard exams to get into university? or get admission based on portfolio stuff and interviews?

do you think the univeristy system could deal with every applicant being 'non-standard'?

i guess maybe they could... interesting...

so for HE children who go to university, what is the difference that makes school undesirable but university desirable?

Fluffles, haven't got there yet but I'm aware that some local (US) universities are now actively looking for HE candidates. They accept portfolios and interviews instead of grades/exams.

For me, the difference I can see is that a university curriculum can be chosen and then tailored. It's also a student-led environment without all the trappings of school (assembly, uniforms, detentions, playtime, lunchboxes etc. etc.) It's about the learning. The experience is what you make it rather than something which is foisted upon you.

You have to bear in mind that HE is just like education in general. Some children go to university and thrive, some go to university and drop out and some don't get to university, or don't want to go. My SIL's HE group has the whole range-from those who went to Oxbridge to those that my SIL reckons are unemployable and everything in between.

it doesn't surprise me that HE candidates are sought after by universities, in my experience they are usually articulate, confident, and very used to self-motivation.

but i wonder if that's because in our current society it takes a special family to HE. What would happen if everybody HE'd, or had some other form of very flexible child-centred learning.. would all the children benefit?

personally i HATE the idea that school is a 'training for the job market' - but that seems to be what we're all reduced to, either workers or potential future workers

The HUGE difference is that at university level you are dealing with adults, or young people on the verge of proper adulthood. They are treated in as adults. It's developmentally appropriate.

When you're talking about primary education, there is a whole other range of developmental issues to consider, many of which I believe are ignored in our National Curriculum.

Anyone can do OU, you have the same sort of choice as you do when younger-study with others or study on your own. Different things suit different people-or they suit them differently at different times in their lives. One system will never suit all-which is the main reason why the whole system needs a radical rethink.