Is school really so awful?

[emmaagain]

In recent posts, I've written several things about school being a second-best to HE.

Here's exactly why.

From the age of about 2, perfect strangers will stop children in the street and say "Are you going to school yet? Oh, you'll LOVE school..."

From birth, parents' friends will say "What are the schools like in your area? Have you got him/her down for St Custard's yet? The waiting list is really long, you know, and you really need to get him/her into the pre-school to have a chance of a school place. And St Custard's is the best place to be."

The prevailing assumptions are

1. school is compulsory
2. children love school
3. schools are wonderful places.
4. school should start as soon as possible.

And that's all fine, for the many children who do enjoy school and find their schools to be wonderful places.

End of. I can't think why their mums would be fossicking around in the Home ed forum anyway (though it's lovely to have you here, of course, waves cheerily)

But what happens when a three year old is bursting into tears every morning at the prospect of going in to preschool? What happens when a 7 year old is crying their way through the playground? What happens when every day a child says "I don't want to go to school?"

For those families, the second and third prevailing assumptions are horrible lies. These children hate school. They are depressed, they are angry, they are maybe violent. They might be the bullied one, or they might have been classified by Mrs Miggins as "The naughty one" aged 4. They might be slower to read and write than the other kids and be "the stupid one". They might just be temperamentally unsuited for the culture of school - not everyone wants to spend all day in a large group engaging in activities decided by someone else on someone else's timetable.

The really important thing, and especially in a Mumsnet forum with "Home ed" as the title, is that those families should learn

1. the first assmption is just wrong. School is not compulsory. Education is compulsory, but only from the age of 5 (so the fourth assumption was wrong too)

2. the second and third assumptions are not true for all families, but there are alternatives to gritting your teeth and bearing it. And those alternatives might mean economical downsizing, and career downsizing, and moving to a caravan on the edge of Bognor (no offence meant to all those gloriously happy Bognor dwellers - it's just that the name is so funny), but the alternatives would also mean having happy children and happy parents.

3. If you can't be happy and fulfilled in your childhood because, for whatever reason, school is hellish, whatever chance do you have of learning how to create and sustain a happy life in adulthood?

This post is a bit of a muddle, but I wanted to explain why I went off one one a bit in the "Do you have to be a SAHM to HE" thread. It's a redressing of the balance. The prevailing assumption is that school is the best possible place for children to be, and that you have to be really something quite special to educate your children yourself. Neither of those things are necessarily true.

What time shall I pick him up tomorrow, FMV?
The more the merrier!

please don't joke about it....

I don't think Emma's post has a "them and us" feel.

I don't HE (am far too lazy and can't bear to downshift any further, plus I'd like to know if in future lone parents will even be allowed to HE, given tht they're going to have to be looking for paid employment) but I am astonished that people would assume that anyone who does so, hasn't researched the subject to within an inch of its life. The default position is school; therefore, anyone who isn't doing that, is bound to be extraordinarily well-informed about education options. It's hardly a casual decision made on a whim, is it?

it does occur to me that I AM a lefty anarchist though...

re the teacher thing. An awful lot of us are, or were, teachers. Those who weren't have often had some experience in schools beyond the norm-I wouldn't class myself as a teacher but have volunteered/worked as a classroom assistant while I was a teenager/student, have done TEFL, etc.

Even those of us with no experience of working in schools, have usually actually been to school.

I do think that this means that the general level of knowlege of schools is higher among HErs than the general level of knowlege of HE is among either non-HEing parents and teachers. It is incredibly rare for a teacher to have actually seen HEing on a day to day basis.

I have no problem at all with teachers, but I do think its not just possible to provide the kind of education that I want my kids to have in a school setting, for a lot of reasons.

sometimes schools encourage parents to take their children out of the system because they are very disruptive. This often happens in year 11. They child is on the books as being HE, but in practice little education happens.

This is very wrong of the school and also wrong of the parent to collude in this decption.
Lots of such children exist

Psst. MB. How are you on physics...?

Re Physics

I have an A level. And I did some biophysics at University but that was back in the days of parchment I'm not brilliant, but I do teach Foundation GCSE.

Ah no, it's ok, google has provided me with what we seek...

good oh!

If we did 1, we would be perpetuating the 'them and us' feeling.

We DO 2 on a regular basis.

There are lots of closed lists elsewhere.

Just seen this

Hi all

Runnerbean, how I wish you had posted on that thread!
But I don't blame you for scarpering. I felt quite flummoxed by some of it.

A few people seemed to interpret my question as 'how can I persuade Ds to do sounds etc so he is prepped for yr 1' which wasn't really what I was saying at all.

It was really interesting to hear all the views. I was also really glad that some of us think the same way and we are not all seeing our non reading children as failures waiting to happen.

Have only read the op

I cried all the way to school every morning for a long time

But I still loved school

(but then I am weird)

I've said this on the other thread, the one that seems to have prompted emmagain to start this one but I'll happily repeat myself here.

Dd is not yet two but already by reading HE threads I've changed a lot of my ideas about the sort of education hat I want for her. I've done some teaching of undergraduates and spent time doing a postgrad certificate that made me think about motivation, facilitation, deep learing and many of the themes that are discussed in relation to the positive aspects of HE but I'm ashamed to say that I had never really thought of them in relation to the education of children .

For a variety of reasons I doubt very much that I will HE dd BUT thinking about HE and the educational theory underpinning it rather than anything political will I hope enable me to make better choices wrt dd's school and the ethos of any school that I would like her to attend.

I hated it but was afraid to cry

They told me I had problems.

Sorry, lack of punctuation and some poor spelling in that post!

I loved most of school. But I also really used to enjoy eating chalk, so you might not want to listen to me

I loved infants school. Hated primary (bullying). Loved secondary school and was fortunate enough to have some teachers who totaly changed my outlook on life and expanded my life choices beyond my wildest dreams.

My mother was functionally literate, and that was about her limit of education. She knew that she couldn't teach me, but encoraged me to take every educational oppertunity that I was offered. God Bless my mum, Miss Williams and Miss Poole.

filthymindedvixen
I have been thinking about you and your son-and wondering if there is no way at all to do this.
Home education doesn't have to be 9-3 you know and I know several families where grandparents help out in the day and parents join in with education when they get home from work and at weekends and holidays.
A couple of others I know pay a childminder-but of course that costs.
Others have started to work from home and fitted home ed around that-some have created successful businesses
I know a few families where one and sometimes both parents have become childminders in order to home educate.

Wish I could come and help out-as a mother of three children who are dyslexic and were very unhappy in school I know exactly how you feel.

Maybe even if you need to work now and can't HE, you may be able to in the future perhaps if things don't improve.

We didn't do it until DS was 13 -as I didn't know about it before-he says although he would have preferred to have got out sooner at least we did it when he really needed it.

We downsized dramatically in terms of holidays (HE camps are more fun anyway but I did hate camping in all that rain last summer) and cars (now drive old bangers off ebay) and food (given up meat and dairy for health reasons but it is much cheaper this way)
I buy in charity shops all the time and shop on ebay-lots of the children's Christmas presents were not new, but they were happy with the things I got and I saved a fortune on the new price.
Heating is not on very much anymore-we have lots of fleecy jumpers and slippers!

Our way of life is so different from my sisters and all of our savings have gone and the chance for me to work through these years and save to pay for their University education has gone too.
We have to prioritise everything-and they know if they/we do one thing it is at the expense of another-we involve them in all family related choices but then budgeting is a good educational theme

However they feel we made exactly the right choice for our family and they much prefer our life of freedom to anything else.
Even if it does mean they have to work to pay their own way through university.

DS has done his A levels now and is working to save money before embarking on a university education so he comes out with less debt.

Hoping you find a way forward for your ds
regards
Julie
Home Educating in Worcestershire
www.worcestershire-home-educators.co.uk/

ok ta for that, < now empowered to interrogate further>

can i ask another question???

At school kids get exposed to lots of teachers, though they are not necessarily all nice and cuddly, they do expose the pupils to different views. Although as a teacher you're supposed to stay neutral it is impossible not to put a bit of yourself into your subject. But this is balanced by parents at home and other teachers and kids can form their own ideas from this.

However (and you know what's coming I 'm sure HEs only get their parents natural bias to all subjects and that is not balanced by anything. I guess it comes back to the lefty religious thing..how can your child have its own view if they are only exposed to yours?

Well, I suppose that all depends on whether or not you think 'neutrality' is a necessary thing.

I mean, when it comes to being able to read and do maths, different opinions are fairly irrelevant, I would have thought.

I'm quite open that I'm passing my worldview on to my children by HE. It's one of the reasons we chose to do it.

I don't think people come to their views by a simple process of 'one person speaks, another says something else, child comes to a decision'. As long as we're teaching a child to think, I feel no overwhleming need to create 'neutral' environment.

My children see far more people now that they are HE, then they ever did when at school.

And they are exposed to a far greater diversity of opinions and lifestyles than they ever were in their small village C of E Primary school.

If my dds were sat at home with me all day and never went into the real world and met other people, then yes I can see where you're coming from.
but this stereotype of HE is not the case!

Everyday we go out into the world outside and talk to lots of people.
My dd is comfortable in adult company, something that is often noted about HE kids.

On Mondays she goes to a tennis class, Tuesdays it's Brownies, Wednesday she has a French class with other HE dc's, in the afternoon a one to one golf lesson, Thursdays it's a HE group and then she, goes to a history and latin group, Fridays is another He group and then dancing.
When friends visit, in between, she talks to the adults and looks after the toddlers.
I'm not including the days out on trips or just to the library and sainsburys, where people always ask "no school today then?" And she is very happy to tell them!

When my dd was in school she spent from 9-3.30 with one teacher, occaisonally another teacher stepped in, if her teacher was absent.