http://www.care2.com/greenliving/no-school-left-behind.html
No School Left Behind
This morning I ran into a neighborhood woman accompanied by her school-age daughter. Niceties were exchanged, and simple banter revealed that this woman is actively home schooling her two children. She mentioned it as casually and confidently as someone would reveal their love of pancakes or vacation time. Upon hearing this, I felt a conflict of curious admiration for her, as well as a rapt curiosity, the kind that is piqued when you see a family in matching outfits. All that I know of the primary school experience seems so … primary, and the idea of supplanting that experience for a surrogate experience casting your parents as teachers, siblings as friends, and home as institution, well it sounds a bit uncertain.
But by and large, this is an uncertain time for our standard notion of education, with the public school system in a slow but lamentable decline. Many families are moved (or forced) to consider the alternatives: Effectively abandoning the public school ideology for other candidates like Waldorf, Montessori, charter, parochial, and the aforementioned home schooling option.
The choices are plentiful, and this may be a good thing. We, as parents and citizens, are re-thinking education on a level, and with a passion, that may be unprecedented. We are digging up old models (Waldorf, home schooling) and reanimating them with an enthusiastic certitude and a sincere desire to provide a sane context for our children, who will likely be struggling with modern life as much, if not more so than, we do. A recent example is a German kindergarten model called Waldkindergarten or “Forrest Children” that shuns the institutional classroom entirely, and offers up the great outdoors as the essential learning environment for children. Not bad, kind of utopian, and, as it could be seen as somewhat extreme, you can’t argue with the fact that most children are far too alienated from nature and the option of children running free among the trees and vegetation seems just downright wholesome.
Appealing utopian options aside, I can’t help but feeling that our hasty retreat from the shambles of public education is not only unfortunate, but sadly implicating. Today, public schools, in most places, are reserved for children whose parents readily accept the status quo, or either have no other options due to financial or logistical issues. Government funding is diminishing, teachers are poorly compensated, and test scores are of primary importance over learning. Had we remained true to the solid ideology of public education and supported it through the rough times, maybe we would be left with something much more than this rundown uncertainty our children call “school.”
Eric Steinman is a freelance writer based in Rhinebeck, N.Y. He regularly writes about food, music, art, architecture and culture and is a regular contributor to Bon Appetit among other publications.
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add your comment »We are fortunate to live in a city where Montessori has become part of the public school system, one doesn't have to pay outrageous private fees as I did to send my older son to Montessori when he was young.
We have mostly had our sons in the "system" but also traveled extensively so homeschooled part of each year.
I admire the discipline, tenacity & courage of homeschoolers. I also wonder at the compassion yet thoroughness needed by those who evaluate or keep track of home schoolers...
How do we protect innocent children from being possibly oversheltered & told how to think ONE way at home... vs. bombarded by the negative traits of culture & things like bullying,"coolness" factor & other public school farces?
How do we ensure all children are getting a fair education? Some homeschoolers excel while others are taught so "free form" their future is being handicapped.
Knowing some homeschoolers who were raised in a very strict military'like home school situation, very restricted in philosophy, vs. a dear friend, single mom homeschooling, whose head is so far in the "parenting philosophy" clouds that she is completely blind to the fact that her son is antisocial, rude, socially totally unprepared & inappropriate, disrespectful (etc.). Due to negative public school experiences, she has swung the pendulum so far the other way that both her & the child live their lives "in reaction" to Society, in a critical negative space... very sad to watch.
The s
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It's not a good time right now to be a student or a teacher in public schools, and it's a blessing to have alternatives.
I am certainly in sympathy with the idea that a concerted, critical support of public schools has benefits for the future, but as parents, we have to do the right thing right now for our kids as individuals. We can't just wait out NCLB.
If those who don't currently have children in school would gather and take forward-looking action, we might see better results.
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This subject (of public vs private vs home school) is just now becoming my new obsession -- and my son is only 2! As products of public educations, my husband and I like the "idea" of sending our children to the local public school which we have heard is "great." However, once we scratched the surface of what it means to attend public school today (to be bombarded with popular culture, advertising, and lowest-common-denominator attitudes at every turn), we began to consider some of the more "utopian" ideologies out there. Shouldn't scholastics be a refuge from all that? I'm not not sure I would call it sheltered -- maybe just postponing the inevitable for a few more precious years!
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I was home schooled! Not my whole life, my mother pulled me out in the seventh grade of a school that was going down hill fast. I had been assaulted for simply the color os my skin and she didn't want to see me move onto a high school in the same area. It wasn't that bad an area but obviously it wasn't that good either. So we started on the journey of home schooling. My mom was really nervous not being a certified teacher but we joined a co-op of other home schoolers and I actually went to a lot of classes...creative writing, biology, gym class...with a lot of other kids. Through home schooling I learned more, faster and better. I graduated a year early, could have gone two years early but my mom thought I was too young. I graduated with a 4.0 grade average and was accepted to the college of my choice. I passed the entrance exam with flying colors and wondered why some kids had a hard time. I found out quick that I knew far beyond my grade level and that first year was a breeze for me. I also met my husband through a home school program with the department of natural resources. We worked with birds of prey and reptiles to promote preservation and respect for nature. I did many things that I couldn't have if I was in conventional school and after being married to my soul mate for five years (together for ten!), I count myself very lucky to have had the chance to do it the way we did. I'm not sure if I'll home school my children, probably considering the alternatives.
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There are failures and successes in all educational "camps", and from my observations no matter what parents choose for their children, their attitudes and inputs are a (if not THE) major contributing factor in how much the child learns and can adjust. Michele, it is unfortunate that your one experience with homeschooling is not good. Many, many children who were home schooled are well-adjusted, socially adept adults who do well in their jobs and higher education. I don't know how old your stepchildren are, but many (even teens) will outgrow their shyness and learn to be more social. And sheltered isn't necessarily a bad thing, after all its a parents job to provide the good and minimize the bad. There is a difference between sheltered and naive. People would have considered my "terribly sheltered", but my mother never let me be naive.
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Two of my kids graduated from public school, the other has one more year to go. If it weren't for the fact that they were in the Gifted Program, I would have found another alternative. However, I am currently seeing the "end result" of homeschooling with my stepchildren and realize that, at least in their case, that isn't the answer either. In addition to suffering educationally, they are socially enept, terribly sheltered and painfully shy. I fear for the difficulties they will face in the coming years as they complete their schooling and head for the "real world." I know that homeschooling can, and should, be done differently, I only have one example to base my judgment upon but it terrifies me nonetheless.
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