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Public VS. Private VS. Home school
Come here to argue about which is best:
Public School,
Private School,
Home-school,
or something else altogether.
You can also share stories about your school experiences, or just talk about the school system in general.
I suppose this argument is referring to High-School level, but you can talk about elementary or middle school as well.
I would prefer that college doesn't enter into it, though, as that's really a very different experience.
Personally, I think homeschooling is the best, but I haven't really had much experience with anything BUT homeschooling.
However, I have many friends who have gone to school (or are still going), and nine out of ten said they hated it.
Public School,
Private School,
Home-school,
or something else altogether.
You can also share stories about your school experiences, or just talk about the school system in general.
I suppose this argument is referring to High-School level, but you can talk about elementary or middle school as well.
I would prefer that college doesn't enter into it, though, as that's really a very different experience.
Personally, I think homeschooling is the best, but I haven't really had much experience with anything BUT homeschooling.
However, I have many friends who have gone to school (or are still going), and nine out of ten said they hated it.
Comments
a) You have intelligent parents
b) You have open-minded parents
c) The kid likes learning
d) There is a good social network for the kid to be involved in
My parents are talking about home schooling my little brother because, frankly, our local schools kind of suck when it comes to dealing with anything but average kids. Smart kids get punnished for being too ahead of the game or knowing too much. Private schools cost a lot, so you have to weight the cost of that against the cost of staying home part time to teach your kids. And then there's the fact that you can tailor your curriculum.
Public, private, or sometimes a very good charter school is the way to go.
I have one friend (over the internets, har har) who has been home-schooled all her life, and beyond having practically no real-life friends beyond her older brother, she cannot deal with social situations where groups of strangers are involved. I'm really scared of what is going to happen if she decides to leave for college or head out into the world on her own— I have a bad feeling that she's going to wind up living with her parents her entire life because she was not taught from an early age what it is like to interact with other people.
The nice thing about public schools is that you get to meet people from all different social and economic backgrounds. Of course, that's not touching at all on the quality of schooling you'll get at a public school. But the teachers at my old high school (which was public) were halfway competent, and I think I turned out okay. So there you are.
As Master pointed out, the above is not always the case, but I maintain that in my experience with people who are home-schooled and parents who home-school, Master's explanation tends to be the exception to the rule.
I know many people who are less social because they went to a public high school, as they weren't "in the clique", or were "unpopular", and got ostracized by the other students.
Oh, and I like the way you all call me "Master". Of course, I planned all this...
As to the different kinds of schooling options available to kids, there are pros and cons to each. But I think the key to success in any one of them is for the child to have perspective - an awareness of themselves, the larger social world, and especially the system in which they are being placed. School in the West isn't just about the book-learning of facts; we condition our children into certain systems of belief and behavior. Public schools, for example, instill (either overtly or subvertly) obedience to authority and adherence to a work schedule and working hours, and reinforce the social hierarchy. One could argue, then, that public schools train "average" children to have a working-class mindset. It's no surprise, then, that a family of higher socio-economic status might choose private schooling for their offspring. It would be really, really, really neat to study the child socialization done within school from a Marxist perspective. Omg. But ultimately, where parents send their children to school is dependent upon how they want them to be both educated and enculturated.
I am wary of homeschooling, I'm sure there are great homeschool plans out there but it seems that many parents do it because they disagree with what is being taught in schools and want to indoctrinate their kids.
Personally I would consider putting my kids in public school in their junior years then moving them to private school for high school, that way they can get the experiences of public school when they are younger and the educational benefits of private school when things get more serious.
I think the major issue though is class size and community, I know two people who teach at small public schools with small classes where all the teachers know the kids and I also know of private schools that are so big that no one knows anybody. My graduating class had 50 students in it, we knew everyone and were able to have one-to-one relationships with our teachers which is vital in the senior years.
Now, the obverse argument is that public schools hire teaching staff based on cost-benefits savings ratios, which means that many times you get a bottom-dollar scholar leading the class instead of the most qualified candidate; i.e. People with doctorates cost far more to retain than teachers with bachelor's degrees.
You could also make the argument that public schools are puppy mills that churn out average students because everyone has exposure to the same curricula. Meanwhile, many home school situations turn out students with imbalanced educations because a parent or guardian is a biased teacher and may not be able/willing to see their student's weaknesses. It seems that every time I talk to a home school student, they are bragging that they have skipped grades or finish classes early, or read at an x-factor higher level. They then proceed to demonstrate that they do not have such a firm grasp on the material as the parental teacher believes. I know this is anecdotal evidence, but it's what I have.
I'm for public schooling. I have no doubt whatsoever that part of that is because I went to a (good) public school and thus am biased. But homeschooling is more often than not a disaster for all the reasons mentioned above and private school seems like a waste of money and an unrealistic representation of what to expect in the Real World. You can make a lot of arguments FOR private schools, most of them involving superior equipment and teachers, etc etc but ultimately the drive to learn comes from the kids. I mean, my school didn't allow graphic calculators in Maths C (that's the matrices and conics, etc) because not everyone could afford them so we learned to do our 4x4 and upwards matrices by hand. No big deal. If people want to learn then they will - paying someone more money won't effect that (...much). All the people I know who went to private schools seem to have had a very similar school experience to me except the students were more competitive and apparently (this is in girls-only schools) complete bitches as a result.
I hate when people compare grades from private schools to public schools. OMG a difference of 2 percent WTF! I'm pretty sure that most if not all the difference between grades at public and private schools comes from a) kids at private schools have families who are genuinely interested in their child's education and b) private schools are very careful about expelling "problem children" from their schools in to the public system and keeping the less intelligent kids from taking important exams (for example the QCS test and OP subjects used to rank schools in Queensland).
The other things is that most private schools I know of are either religious (with Religion as a compulsory subject) or are all-girls/boys. Neither of those strikes me as a Good Thing.
Also: Lynx? Lamb? The Hell kind of name is that?
So, my overall opinion. If your in the city = Private or charter schools
Suburbs = Public school
Rural = Public School
Any middle school = Gender separation or home schooling ^_^
*edit*
And furthermore, I am considered by all my peers to be a socialite. I have no problems interacting with anyone!
I can certainly see the appeal of home schooling. Classes were on the whole remarkably boring and I think I learned as much reading the sections of the textbooks that weren't covered in class as the sections that were.
I've been homeschooled my entire life, and I still am. I went to a public day-care center when I was very young, and that's where I learned my basic social skills.
I then started learning with my parents at home, and learned some simple math, and such (math turned out to be my best subject, and I'm learning some calculus now at 14).
Currently, I do almost no learning with my parents at home, as I go to classes all throughout NYC with other homeschoolers.
I would also like to point out that no homeschooler that I have ever met has been socially inept in any way. In fact, the only homeschoolers I've met who have been shy had just left public or private schools to begin homeschooling, and they quickly lost their shyness.
Sure, there are parents who take homeschooling to mean no social interaction at all, but that's really not true, most of the time.
Of course, if you live in a community where there are no other homeschoolers at all, then it's more understandable, and probably just a bad idea to homeschool anyway.
Homeschool, I think, is really just a term to mean that you don't go to school, but you still get an education (with other people or not).
PS. Oh, and there's also a pretty good geek community to be found with some other homeschoolers. In fact, I'm running my weekly D&D; session tomorrow. ^_^
- home-school
- To instruct (a pupil, for example) in an educational program outside of established schools, especially in the home.
If you go by this definition that people being educated outside of established schools are home-schoolers, then you can not say that home-school kids are socially inept. You can even technically say that kids at many charter schools are home-schooled. However, I will say that the people who are taught by their parents in their houses often exhibit social problems not found in classically educated people. Also, there is potential for danger when kids are home-schooled in the scary way, see the white supremacist girls above. I think we need a new word to differentiate between people who are schooled outside of the established system and people who are scarily home-schooled. They are not equivalent by any stretch of the imagination.I'm not disagreeing with this point, and I generally dislike the non-social methods of homeschooling. That's not to say, however, that it's wrong.
There are cases where it's right (such as when there's a child who's just so shy and anti-social that they can't deal with learning with other people), but even then, it's not the only solution.
I think we need a new word to differentiate between people who are schooled outside of the established system and people who are scarily home-schooled.
Just as an idea, how about "social homeschooling"?
Yeah, that's lame.
Any ideas?
Perhaps "community-based" schooling would be the best term?
...Parents who send their kids into homeschooling probably care a lot more about their child's education though. Can't help but think that is where the real difference lies.