The firm belief that most people hold onto that the public school system is the best way to educate a child is based on the fact that they were educated in the public school system and feel they fared pretty well.
There are a lot of responses to that.
Schools haven't adapted to the modern world
First of all, we need to learn to let go of old systems that simply have not adapted to the changes the country and world has gone through. The public school system I went to is pretty much the same one kids are in today (except now they have more testing and less learning). The focus seems to remain on teaching the basics and repeatedly testing and re-teaching them. When I look at school workbooks, curriculums and textbooks, they seem to all teach the same information, year after year. The difference in the math that is taught in third, fourth, fifth and sixth grade is minimal. History is also a subject that is beaten to death in the public school system. I know that new information about old topics is being uncovered every day. Do children in public schools get this new information? Are they encouraged to think outside the tired old textbooks?
Children need more than the basics
It's great to teach the basics in the younger grades because all kids need to learn how to add, but as kids get older, they need an education on new media, computer programming, web design and the skills people need to actually make it in today's world. They need to know that new information and new technology is being discovered and developed every day and they need to know how to keep up on the latest.
I had my son in an online charter school for a couple of years and they were still teaching references as dictionaries and encyclopedias. What about the Internet as a resource? What about professionals in business as a resource? This was an online school and their ideas for references and resources were still mainly old-school (pun intended).
Obviously you need to be careful when allowing kids to explore the Internet or use it as a means of research, but you can do your own searching, decide on websites you approve of and only let your child navigate those sites. My computer (I'm on a Mac) requires my authorization before my son can go to any website I haven't already approved. I believe many computers have ways to allow our children to safely navigate the web and get used to it as a tool for learning.
Not all kids learn the same way
My second reason for home schooling my son is based on the fact that the public school system still believes in a one-size-fits-all education. My son is dyslexic and does not learn the same way many other children do. I know that my son is not alone (check out the videos below). It is estimated that about 15-25 percent of the population has some kind of learning difference.
I was reading Learning Disabilities: A to Z recently and it reminded me how every class, every teacher and every school district in the U.S. is different. While one parent may be lucky enough to have a teacher that makes accommodations for children who learn differently, that is not always the case. If a teacher is unwilling or just not educated enough to make those accommodations, even though by law he or she is supposed to, the student will not succeed. While I would like to believe that the teachers educating the nation's children are there because they love to teach, I know this is not true. I went to college with a number of people who were studying to be teachers and their reasoning was not always altruistic. Some were in it for the summers off (boy were they in for a big surprise). One woman even told me she hated kids. Are those people going to go outside of their curriculum to make sure all the students in their classes succeed? No. They are going to stick to the book so they can earn their paycheck and move on with their lives.
Kids have different interests
Along those same lines, I have to ask why all kids are taught the same things? They aren't all interested in the same things. After they get the basics down (which they should have prior to entering high school), they should be allowed to explore their interests so they can be better prepared for college or a career once they graduate. Some high schools provide electives for kids to get their feet wet in certain areas, but kids can't be guaranteed that their interests will be covered. I didn't have an art option in my high school and there was only one foreign language taught. There are still schools out there today that don't have enough computers in them for kids to do research on or learn.
Kids in high school will continue to get the basics ad nauseam and told to explore other interests outside the school setting or once they get into college. By the time they reach college they are expected to make a decision NOW about what they want to be when they grow up without being given a chance to explore.
Did you really fare well in public school?
This brings me to my third reason for home-schooling. I don't think I fared that well with a public school education. Sure I did well, made all A's and went on to college. I still knew nothing of finances or computers. The School of Hard Knocks isn't the best school to learn these topics from.
Many people who say they are doing OK with a public school education are just kidding themselves. If they are really successful in life, it's not because of what they learned in public school. Most of my success can be attributed to what I taught myself, what I learned in college or what my parents taught me outside of school. I know this is the situation for most people.
Financial experts know that kids coming out of high school don't even have a basic knowledge of how to handle money. (See Tax Time a Taxing Time for more on this topic). I'm guessing this is the cause of the nation's credit woes and dwindling economy. You would think someone might figure this out and start teaching kids in the public school system the value of a dollar, all about interest rates, mortgages and credit cards.
Home schooling for success
There are many more topics kids need to learn in order to be successful in life and they just aren't getting it in public school. That is why I home-school. Why should I waste my son's precious early years (the formative ones where they learn the most) by teaching, re-teaching, testing and re-teaching again the same information year after year after year?
Yes, being repeatedly exposed to the basics in math, science and history makes them more permanent in his brain, but using the basics to study and explore new topics and information is just as effective in making them permanent. Plus, he learns more in the same amount of time.
Don't our kids deserve more than just the basics in education?
No comments:
Post a Comment