What do I really truly think about schools?

[emmaagain]

In response to a discussion with AbbeyA in another thread, but I can't cope with these Byzantine conversations-go-everywhere thread.

I'll try to be very succinct.

1. Schools are inherently places where people get bullied [it's a feature of closed societies which people have not chosen to enter, like prison. Where outside such societies those who don't fit in with the particular culture can choose to leave it, finding alternative people to mix with, in schools you have to stay in a room with people you dislike day in day out]. If your child is not one of the ones being bullied, you might not notice it, but look around. There is often someone being belittled, whether it is by staff or pupils. Except of course in the perfectly happy skippy schools where it never ever happens (only I'm not sure I believe in them)

1. Schools are inherently and institutionally coercive. The teacher is the authority figure, and right and proper in a room of 30 pupils not all of whom want to do what everyone else wants to do, or even be there. The alternative would be chaos. But I am ideologically opposed to my children spending their days in a dictatorship, however benevolent. (NB I am aware that most will not agree with me about it being wrong to submit children to the dictatorship of adults, at home or at school. I am a libertarian and that's an unusual stance. But I am trying to express my objections to the institution of school and this is a large part of my moral objection)

1. Schools have really weird cultures which don't reflect the world outside at all (asking permission to speak or urinate? Eating on someone else's timetable? Stopping an activity when someone else says it's time to move on rather than because you've finished?)

1. Schools, by definition, cannot enable a child to learn in the most efficient manner, as responsive to their ability and interests. Because there is a national curriculum. Because there are so many children for each adult - there's no way there could be a truly personalised curriculum. Educational professionals do their bets, I know, to respond to the needs of each child, but there's no way they're going to come close to what a parent can do, just by definition.

martianbishop
I have met some lovely teachers with all of the qualities you describe-some have even taught my children before they deregistered.
But then they moved up a year or moved to another teacher for another subject and they were not like that.

And lovely teachers don't stop schools being inherently and institutionally coercive

schools help children to socialise usually with people they would not meet if in a tight group with mum and other HE sorts

schools are great imo

also I work and do not have the time or the patience to do it

I was going to home ed (SN ) ds1. His needs are complex nd severe - I had heard terrible things about special schools. In the end he ended up going to a special school and thye give him far far more than I ever could. He has thrived and blossomed and the atmosphere in the school is caring and special. It is a community- parents still come back (as do their children) when they're adults and have moved onto other provision.

ds2 and ds3 also love school. I really disagree tha tthe main advantages are having free time. I thought that- until ds2 went to school. He has blossomed, become confident, tries things that I would never have thought of doing. His school has a wide and varied curriculum with an emphasis on caring for others (they award a kindness cup each year for example- he got a head teachers award last week for 'helping the little ones'). they're not all draconian places with little Hitlers in charge of the classroom.

I don't have a problem with HE. I was once a member of EO, but I do think its a bit bigoted to paint all schools the same- you're just being as bigoted as the people who are anti-HE without knowing anything about it.

I have no issue with HE at all.

I worry that some people who HE may not be very good at it.

I worry that some people who teach are not very good at it.

There are good HEers, there are bad ones.

There are good schools/teachers and bad ones.

I do have an issue with the 'All HE is excellent, and all schols are crap' line because it simply isn't true.

I also get faintly irritate at the 'you teach, we facilitate' line, because amazing as this seems, most of my lesson planning is about facilitation of learning, rather than stand up in front of the kids and bully them

I did um and ah about HE for a while. But you know what really decided it for me?

I actually enjoyed school as did my DP and most other people I know. I know 5 people who were HE only 2 from the same family and all of them have said that they won't HE their own children. That was good enough for me.

Why not have the best of both worlds? Two different situations to draw experience from ie school and home. I can't see why you would choose to totally exclude one. (Obv this doesn't include DC who are having trouble or being bullied at school, I would pull my DC out like a shot if I thought there was trouble).

I doubt most parents send children to school so they can have some free time, I could quite easily say that most people HE so they can take their DC on holiday on the cheap

My dd's truly want to be at school six hours a day five days a week. They even missed the place during the holidays.

dd1's teacher is fabulous

she took a shy, worried child and turned her into a confident smiling bundle of joy who now skips in

hmmm, lets see.... keep in mind that i am not ever the most literate of people when presenting an argument....
school is not representative of the culture of real life is a fact that i do agree with. however, it is a culture that adults in our society have alll gone through and survived, and understand, and therefore all belong to relate to in various ways. by preventing your child from having this experience, you are disempoering them.
kids gain a great many social skills from their interactions in the playground, with different teachers, other school staff, cub leaders etc etc. as well as their parents. by limiting your childs experiences, you are limiting what they can learn.
bullying happens throughout life. we all need to learn to deal with it. and in the work place is not the right place.
eating on someoen elses timetable? er we all do that. breakfast happens in the morning. lunch happens midday, and dinner at night. not somehting i woudl ever choose, but society dictates that these be the times to eat, therefore bullied into them i am.
permission to speak? happens all the time. maybe not as formal as in schools, but you cant just suddenly get up and spout forth. there are more subtle signals at work, but they are still 'asking permission'
human nature is such that we are all either leaders of followers, and will flock around authority figures. school is ismply an extention of the authority figures of parents. until such a time when children can be allowed by society to go seek their own authority figures in the guise of bosses, mates, etc etc.

oliveoil
on another thread emmaagain recently said;

HE encompasses just EVERYTHING from workbook-tastic school at home to completely-child-led-no-educational-products-whatsoever, including fundamentalist Christians and ordinary Christians and atheists and Muslims, and including Roma gypsies and nice-white-middle-class families and afro-carribeans from a dodgy estate in Peckham and EVERYTHING. Did I mention the natural-living end of the scale yet? Them too.

and i replied that I think we had folks from all of those sections of the community at the HE meeting that i run last week.

My children were in three different schools locally (a three tier system exists in Worcestershire) before we deregistered them and they never met such a wide variety of people, from all communities to socialize with, as they have since we have been home educating.

dooley "what about the parent having to work?"

It's a choice. Lots of HE families have two part-time jobs or one full-time or one WAH part time or whatever. Obviously both parents couldn't WOH full time on a 9-5 (duh). We all choose to live more cheaply than we would if our children were at school all day. Renting not buying, living in cheap areas, not running a car, not buying new clothes, not putting the heating on much and wearing lots of jumpers... there's always a choice (and if more of us opt out of the double income lifestyle, maybe us single-income families could get on the housing ladder )

"also don't forget some people love school, thrive in that environment, get good results and go on to have a life long love of learning". I'd assume they'd choose to go to school. End of.

oh god this thread is tedious

I loved school too sherby, I loved every school I went to. DS1 and ds2 are shaping up to be the same, ds3 too (although he's still little). If I thought they hated it we would rethink- read enough about HE to know its an option, but I think I would have very unhappy children if I told them they weren't going back to school tomorrow.

ds2's reception teacher was lovely- ds2 fell in love with her (as did dh and FIL ). His school is holistic. Last time I was near the head's office she called me in to ask about ds1, how he's getting on, what he's like etc. DS1 has charged into her room before - and she hasn't batted an eyelid, just remained sweet and calm, and asked about him in a way that values him.

I don't recognise the OP description of school at all tbh.

my point is that that is the end product
it sounds like your children don't have a choice
have you asked them if they want to go to school?
I don't get why you are blaming working parents for the housing crisis either.

god I agree dooley. We've been a single income family for the last 8 years (until last October). Not smug about it though- it happens when you have a child with complex SN. I know plenty of single income families who send their kids to school. Big oversimplification to blame the housing crisis on school!

er, i dont think children should have a choice about going to school.
do we give them a choice about whether they want to be breastfed, or bottle fed? or potty trained or not? or have a younger/older sibling or not? NO. we dont. as parents we make the decision for them, based on what we see as being right for them and us. therefore, all this talk of asking the child whether or not they want to go to school or not is simply not an issue.

other things my children dont get an oppinion on.
1 vegetables. they have to eat some
2 ice cream in the winter. they dont get any
3 coke for breakfast, they dont get it
4 any drink other than water with meals, not at home they dont
5 meat. currently my kids are meat eaters. they can choose to be vegetarian when they are old enoguht to cook for themselves and me.
6 the list is endless.

we are a single income famioly because we dont have the luxury of me going off to work.

I agree with all your points in the OP emm, but I do think it's not that black and white and people shouldn't feel guilty about choosing to send their children to school.

I would ideally love to HE, BUT at the moment DS loves school. Right from the start, from nursery, I always let him know it was optional, if he didn't like it he didn't have to go. So far, he loves it, he skipped to school saying "school is my favourite thing" today. If this changes then I'll sort something else out, but I'm happy with this arrangement as I'm single and would really rather work than claim benefits.

DS's school is tiny though, and vertically streamed, and the adult to child ratio is very low, 1:6.

I loved school

I loved every school I went to

I wouldn't deny my children the experience

that's what I really truly think about your OP

God I don't get this thread.
Why is it a luxury to go to work?????

yes, completely agree Twiglett

And something I've just added on the parallel thread- HEders often say that at school children only play with their own age group. That just isn't true at ds2's school. He's 6 tomorrow and has invited 2 year 6's to his party (aged 10 and 11 I guess) - both are coming.

Overmydeadbody, if you child is happy in school how can you agree with 'Schools are inherently places where people get bullied'.

Beacsue it isn't happeneing for your son.

And it hasn't happened to mine.

And it doesn't happen in my lab.

It does happen. But not everywhere.

and I bet there are HEdders who bully too

I've always felt my child has a right to be involved in any decision making if it affects him. Of course eating vegetables isn't optional, nor is having coke for breakfast, but big decisions should be made with the child surely