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
- school is compulsory
- children love school
- schools are wonderful places.
- 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
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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)
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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.
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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.