Why children go to school

[HSMM]

Had a very interesting debate at my OU tutorial this week about why children go to school. The tutor wrote 'school' up on the whiteboard and then had lots of lines going off it saying things like socialisation, qualifications, etc. When everyone had finished shouting out, he went through each thing and we had to decide if it was accessible without going to school and he wiped off the ones which were. At the end, the only 2 reasons he had left for children going to school were:

1. To keep them off the streets
2. So their parents can go to work I am considering HE my DD, so found this backed me up. The other students were very shocked and still could not agree, even though the evidence was in front of them!

Could someone explain 'emotionally bound up' with your DC's. Surely we all are. All parents are. It is feeling like a dig at home educators but I'm sure I'm reading it wrong.

i don't get that either buterball.

or even butterball !

sounds like some kind of constipation

Bringing up children is instinctive and emotional. Educating them isn't necessarily, it is much more formal. Some things have to be done in a certain order and in a certain way. As a very simple example, you can't teach the calculation of percentages without knowing how to multiply.

Probably not explaining it very well but hopefully you will get the point.

Ahh Niecie I have some books which might change your mind about what education is and isn't.

But don't worry I'm not going to lecture you. I do what works for me and you do what works for you and we're all happy.

If I home educated my children I would feel that their failures to learn something and their successes were mine because I had failed or succeeded in teaching them in a particular way. That is what I mean by being too emotionally bound up in the children. If the school educates them then I can commiserate and congratulate them on their achievements or lack of them. I have nothing to do with it other than to provide them with support and guidance.

I did specifically say, when I made the point that if you aren't the same as me then good for you. It certainly wasn't a dig at home educators. If you take it that way then maybe your are too bound up in this thread.

I think that most autonomous HEers would say that bringing up your children is exactly the same thing as educating them - there's no moment when the one stops and the other begins - but this is so so so so so so different to the received view of education, be that through school or school-at-home style HE that most people just don't get how it might look in everyday life. And so they say things like "I couldn't do it, I don't know enough" and "but you'd need to be interested in so many different subjects" and "but isn't it better for children to hear lots of different viewpoints?" and "but it's too controlling". I'd suggest Alan Thomas and Harriet Pattison's "How Children Learn at Home" for a real eye opening description of how unschooly the process is for many families.

This isn't to say that school or school-at-home is a bad thing, just that autonomous HE isn't playing the education game (or indeed the family life game) by the same rules At. All.

x-posted with Niecie.

It isn't really possible to take credit for the educational strides of one's autonomously HEed children, IME. They completely own the process. One can celebrate with them, one can suggest possible avenues for further exploration, one can rejoice at having managed to help them when asked for help, but they are calling the shots and creating the knowledge. Would we congratulate ourselves when our children start walking or learn to ride a bike? Same thing for autonomous HEers.

I knew what you meant, neicie, although I didn't have the words to explain. I am a very good teacher of other people's children, but not of my own. I'm not too good at even helping them with homework-DH does it-he is able to separate himself, I am not.

niecie - by saying that though, surely all you are doing is removing yourself for any blame if it all goes tits up. 'Oh you failed because you had a shit teacher' and then you can happily get on with your life?

I think she means that if they had a shit teacher they will get a better one next time-if it is all down to her it is her fault entirely and as she did her best, she can't do more and has failed them.

Poop - he's a very academic scientist! (nuff said - like the school point though OUCH )

But also HE is teaching, at the end of the day. It's not imparting your knowledge to your dc's - it's communicating that. I find helping with homework really difficult - even with very basic things like multiplication, say. It's so engrained in an adult, you look at the sum and think 'that's easy'. You can TELL a child what to do, but to COMMUNICATE it and make them UNDERSTAND is totally different. There have been plenty of 'helping with homework' sessions that have ended in tears on both sides - you've either got the skill (and patience) or you haven't.

Poopscop - Not at all because for a start they aren't stuck with the same teacher for very long so how can I blame all their failures on the teacher? Anyway, that kind wholesale failure is rare. And, if it were a major problem then I would talk to the teacher, move them or find some other method of educating them. I am a facilitator not an educator - it is all about team work with people working to their strengths.

I know that a lot of HE'ers have had bad experiences with school but on the whole they do a pretty good job for most children.

Pisces - I am entirely with you in the homework thing. If they don't get 'it' first time it really bugs me! I am toying with the idea of teaching 14 to 19 yr olds and this is the one big thing that really makes me think that I am not cut out for the job. It may be a personality fault of mine but why should my children have to suffer for it?

primula: "But also HE is teaching, at the end of the day.".

No. It isn't. And I write as someone with a considerable amount of teaching experience.

Problem is, in trying to compare autonomous HE with schooling (leaving school-at-home out of it for the purposes of the pun I am determined to crank out here) we are arguing from different premises [canned laughter]

I think learning rigid structure and timelines are a very important reason to go to school. How do HEers instill a work ethic in their children?? I know a tiny amount of HEers and there is very little structure in their daily life and wonder how they will cope in their working life as adults. How many go on to university? How do they cope at university? It was a wrench for my eldest coming from a school so must be much harder for someone who hasn't been to school

I would also love to hear from adults that were HE. We, as adults who attended school as children, can reflect on how it affected us and can compare. All we are hearing on this thread is what the parents feel on how these children are getting what the children at school are getting. Do we have any HE adults on here?

Well .... this one kept you all busy today! I apologise to all the scientists for my use of the word 'evidence' - I agree it was flimsy, based on a roomful of students. I still agree with what was left on the whiteboard though .....

Never posted before but lurked in HE threads a lot, and all I can say about this thread is "Wow".
There are so many differing opinions,both for HE and school, but you all make very interesting and thought-provoking points.
I'll get my coat now.

What course was it HSMM?

scaredoflove:

"I think learning rigid structure and timelines are a very important reason to go to school."

are you saying that you think school is a good way of teaching children to live according to an externally imposed schedule and that it's something most people need in later life?

I agree that there are lots of life paths which involve rigid structure and timelines, but anecdotally my understanding is that HE children are excellent at adhering to external timings, when they are themselves motivated to do whatever the thing is happening only at x o'clock. So I'm not really seeing that as an issue, though I may be missing something (and, frankly, 13 years of school attendance doesn't seem to equip most of the university students I know to turn up to lectures on time or reliably keep other commitments)

"How do HEers instill a work ethic in their children??"

They don't. Autonomously HEed children never lose that passion for learning which we are all so familiar with in our babies and toddlers. They aren't necessarily learning what you the parent thinks is most vital at any particular time, but they are learning what's important for them at this time all the time.

"I know a tiny amount of HEers and there is very little structure in their daily life and wonder how they will cope in their working life as adults."

do you think structure in daily life is something that it takes years of training to come to terms with?

"How many go on to university?"

I have no idea. But I would guess the answer is pretty much as many as want to.

"How do they cope at university? It was a wrench for my eldest coming from a school so must be much harder for someone who hasn't been to school"

Well, they'd already be used to following their self-motivation, they'd be used to learning independently, they'd already probably have had the freedom to go all around the country visiting HE friends they'd met at HESFES and other camps... every admissions tutors dream!

I would worry about the airy way that it is said that they can join out of school activities like scouts, dancing etc, as if it is a breeze. I can see that it works for the confident, sociable, talk to anyone DC, but I was none of those things as a DC and I don't think that I could have gone off happily and had to keep explaining that I didn't go to school.
It isn't that easy. I was a Beaver leader and I had 20 boys, the majority came from 2 schools and then there were a few on their own from different schools. I had to work very hard in bonding them all. I used to have learning name games and getting to know you games and making sure that everyone mixed-it was all too easy for them to stick to the friends from school. I don't think that everyone who runs a group makes that considerable effort-they just leave it to the DCs.

If your philosophy about schools and their role in educating your children is positive, and you have observed your children to be happy then I think that is fine.

Others believe that education is a broad term that isn't so easily definable and encompasses many things and many different approaches and strategies. People have and are entitled to have different opinions about what outcomes would determine a 'good' education.

I find education fascinating, and of course there exist many different 'models' of it the world over in different countries and among different cultures. I do not believe it is something that can be so easily pigeon holed.

My motivation for withdrawing my children from their school - which certainly had some excellent teachers - was based on many things, some to do with what I observed of my ds's experience of it. But hugely, I withdrew my children from school because I wanted them to have more freedom to choose what their education should look like if that makes any sense.

I do think, - and this is not an attempt to undermine the valid right of those parents on here to send their children to school if they wish - that the formal schooling model with the current NC can be slightly 'rigid' and 'boxy' and increases unnecessary pressure on children to pass tests simply to achieve grades that are then used by gov/schools as some kind of barometer of institutional success/party politics, instead of how happy, confident, SWITCHED ON and EXCITED about learning kids are.

This for ME is what I wanted for MY children. I observed that my ds's were losing their in born love for learning. Whilst I know that schools have the ability to inspire children, (of course they do) I believe that HE allows for more flexibility in terms of tailoring the educational provision to your childs particular interests and especially learning styles.

I've had this discussion with many teachers including a head teacher and several university lecturers, and many agree with me that there seems to be less focus on catering for the individuality of children within the system. This is not the fault of teachers. I am all for teachers to have less restrictions placed on them in terms of what to teach, how to teach and when to teach certain subjects within schools.

Actually many of the so called experts currently making policies for teacher's and schools and thus influencing our young have no more teaching experience or qualifications within the field than an average parent. Some less actually. Yet they are determining policy for education for every child in mainstream school.

My DS2 has to get up at 6.30am every morning to go to work. I expect he could do it if he had been HEed but it is a lot easier when he was already used to getting up and getting a school bus at 7.30am each day.

I would agree with a lot of that, 2kidsandi and I think most teachers would. Thankfully primary schools are moving back to the sort of education that motivates and interests children.