The FastDay Forum

[carieoates]

Joining in with the home schooling debate, we have relatives in Utah. home school their children.
We are very fortunate, Schools here are brilliant. My nephew with special needs In New Zealand has no support whatsoever. My heart goes out to him and my sis in law who just flounder at every turn .
Before being a science tech in a secondary school I worked in Uni of cambridge part of my job involved showing veterinary students how to do out of hours emergency blood work. Now that showed how good our education system is especially given that some of the students were not from this country and I'm afraid that it showed. So does it show with our sixth formers. In the Uk we show pupils how to do practicals in science whereas the (often very academic) foreign students are very much lacking in these basic skills.
We get requested for project days and one wrote please can I have a "Wayne boat". And a balance. Weighing boat is what she needed. Bless her . Or that plastic thing with holes in (sieve), or a glass tube to measure out stuff (measuring cylinder)
Yes everyone join in this tent is very interesting.

Over all in the US I think the home schooling % is about 10-15%. It varies for each school district. We live in the country so I feel it is a safe area. However our district has made a bunch of poor choices over the last 10 years which is why I think more people home school here. I myself did it for religious reasons and also felt I could teach my kids better than our current system

I love working in a school I just find it very sad that parents and schools don't have better relationships. I believe that that is down to faults on both sides. I have worked for 6 years as a 1:1. The child I work with at the moment is now in his last year at primary and will be moving on to High School next year. I will miss him and the rest of his classmates when they go as I have worked with them for 5 years so far. I also run a part time Nurture Group and I really love that. I would really like to be able to nurture some of the parents too but the ones who really need it won't come near the school

Yes, I wish schools had more resources to work with parents, too. I'm sure that it would make economic sense to work with parents when children have problems learning to read, for example. Parents are the first teachers but some parents just don't know how to teach their kids to read and only a little bit of support from the school would enable them to do it. Trouble is, schools are so stretched they think they have to put all their resources into the kids and don't see that putting resource into parents might be the best way to give it to the kids. Putting resources into testing is a poor choice in my opinion. Sure, we need to know how effective our education systems are, but constant testing isn't teaching or learning and won't make our systems better.

My sister home-schooled her children for some time and I have another friend who has done the same - in both their cases it was because they didn't think the locals schools were challenging enough. I have mixed feelings about this - I know that our schools vary greatly - some are good while others are still very poor - but I also know that some home educators don't give their children anything like the education they are supposed to, but manage to get away with it. Having said that, my nieces both went to school eventually - the eldest did quite well in her A-levels and is now at Uni and the younger one is also doing well. My friend's eldest won a scholarship to a local private school, so is obviously not lacking in brains either!
My personal view is that school is also about community, not just education, which is why I think it is the best

We run maths and reading cafes where the tables are decorated by the children and parents come in. There is a story read to everyone and then an activity for them to work on with the children. There is tea, coffee and cake too. The children love their parents coming in and we do get lots of parents attending. I wanted to run a drop in for parents once a week so they could come in have a drink and sit and chat with me and other staff if they were available and other parents. It would be cheap to do as I don't earn much! But would take time to build up and I'm not sure my head was that keen. Parents come in to the Nurture Group once a term and hopefully they enjoy it. It is interesting watching them interact (or in some cases not interact at all!).
@Madcatlady I totally agree with you everyone forgets that school is also about socialising, learning to get on with people you don't like or that don't like you, trying new things you might not have the opportunity to do outside of school. It is not just academic learning.

Home schoolers can be socialized easily as well. We have a different events almost every day of the week with kids here. The schools are junk around here and my kids do not need that kind of socializing

I am not a teacher, although I've worked with many student assistants in academic libraries. Does that count a little? May I say a few words about the schools I've experienced as a student and as a parent? I can only speak about the schools here in New York State where my husband and I and our children were educated.

I went to the Geneva, NY (pop. 17,000) public schools from the late forties through the fifties. I think I had an excellent education, some extremely good teachers, some not so good. The system had the children of everyone, from college professors, doctors, lawyers, and bankers to working class families. I was the grandchild and great-grandchild of immigrants. Standards were high. OH attended PS in Brooklyn NY (pop millions?) graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School and going on to the very competitive City College of NY. His situation was much more homogeneous--mostly children and grandchildren of Jewish or Italian immigrants.

The thing I love most about public education in those days was how it, buttressed by excellent public libraries, turned us all into Americans, no matter where our forebears came from or how recently they arrived.

My children and OH's attended city, suburban and rural public schools--they are now in their forties and fifties--responsible, hard-working citizens, I'm happy to say. Things are rockier for our grandchildren's generation. Statistics show that, adjusted for inflation, school teachers are making less money than they did in the early 1970's. I think that we need to pay our teachers more in order to attract the very best. I think we need to find a better way than the local property tax to finance schools.

I realize, now, that not everyone marches to the same drummer--some children just don't fit in to the ordinary public school, thus the value of alternative schools, where so many different children receive more individual attention and can flourish.
My daughter has been home-schooling her children, mostly for religious reasons (I don't share her beliefs, but know that she is doing an excellent job.)

I guess my point here is that teachers and education need to be valued more than they seem to be these days. In his recent book Piketty points out that any nation that does not invest heavily in education and research will fall behind.

Sorry for this long, rambling essay.