Which is the best form of schooling?

[they don't love you like i love you]

Given that 75% of the country is Christian, yeah, you would certainly think that schools would be rather ill-attended if every single student who went to church on Sundays was expelled.

Nowhere near 75% of the country goes to church every week.  I'd guess more like 25%.  I doubt 75% go to church even on Easter or Christmas.

Weekly attendence is about 40%, but even then 40% of students aren't getting expelled.

[dead0man]

Aye.  I'd like a cite from the guy that said people were getting expelled for going to church to much.  Of course one doesn't exist, so we shouldn't hold our breath.

[Gabu]

Given that 75% of the country is Christian, yeah, you would certainly think that schools would be rather ill-attended if every single student who went to church on Sundays was expelled.

Nowhere near 75% of the country goes to church every week.  I'd guess more like 25%.  I doubt 75% go to church even on Easter or Christmas.

I didn't say that all 75% go to church, but with that high a percentage of Christians, I'd imagine a fair portion do.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Public schools are just fine.  Home schooling is a joke and private schools are only good because they don't let the riffraff in.

[they don't love you like i love you]

If I had my way, public schools would be the ONLY legal form of schooling.

[Padfoot]

I'm personally biased towards public schools because I went to some really good public schools.  I don't really have a problem with private schools, though.

However, I think home schooling is a horrible idea almost 100% of the time.  If you don't like the public schools then go to a private school but don't seal your child in some freaky protective bubble by home schooling them.  You'll make them socially retarded.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Home schooling = a way for fundies to shove creationism into their kids' heads.

[dead0man]

If I had my way, public schools would be the ONLY legal form of schooling.

What if they taught things you didn't like?  Tough cookies?  Do you hate freedom of choice?

[dead0man]

Home schooling = a way for fundies to shove creationism into their kids' heads.

All Home Schoolers are fundies?  Cite?

[dead0man]

I'm personally biased towards public schools because I went to some really good public schools.  I don't really have a problem with private schools, though.

However, I think home schooling is a horrible idea almost 100% of the time.  If you don't like the public schools then go to a private school but don't seal your child in some freaky protective bubble by home schooling them.  You'll make them socially retarded.

What if the local public schools suck and you can't afford private school?  Tough cookies?

[Everett]

Home schooling is a joke

Excuse me?

Of course I have a profoundly low opinion of the Religious Right, which completely fails at educating children just as it fails at pretty much everything except for perpetuating irrational hatred, but it seems that many people conveniently disregard the existence of liberal homeschoolers. I have encountered a number of previously homeschooled fellow Mathematics majors here at UC Berkeley and know many more from my other college, and I am friends with other homeschoolers from an alternative family education organisation in Santa Cruz. Just because fundamentalist Christian losers in Nebraska adamantly refuse to allow their children to learn about the real world doesn't mean that everyone throughout the country functions in the exact same way. I'm certainly not ignorant enough to conclude that all public schools are useless simply because the public schools in my home district are total jokes.

As for the original question, I don't have any strong preferences; it really depends on the individual child. I didn't ever attend a public grade school, but I am very satisfied with public universities. UC Berkeley is significantly cheaper than Stanford University and I love the culture; whilst I am applying to public universities for graduate school mostly because of financial concerns, it is also because I simply don't fit in at private universities. I dislike private institutions in general because of the festering elitism and socioeconomic issues, though I wouldn't call for them to be banned.

Some people are intrigued that I am not a huge advocate of homeschooling, but it's mostly because I absolutely hate the association with the Religious Right.

Now, I suppose that I should hasten back to reviewing for my "joke" Complex Analysis exam, but I felt somewhat compelled to get my two cents in.

[Gabu]

Home schooling = a way for fundies to shove creationism into their kids' heads.

There's generally two reasons why people are home schooled:

1. Their parents are morons.

OR

2. Their children find the local schooling system to be woefully inadequate in terms of meeting their needs.

Quite frankly I'd imagine #2 is probably the majority case.  I was semi-pulled from public schooling (I attended, but infrequently) for the duration of grades 2 and 3 because my parents saw that I was learning nothing and they didn't want me to grow up hating school.

[opebo]

...private schools are only good because they don't let the riffraff in.

Correct Snowguy - they simple eliminate anything that would be the least bit challenging, such as educating the powerless disadvantaged poor and working class.  Not unlike the american health care system which eliminates (most of) the ill.

But my point about the public school system is, that while it has many problems, it has one overriding good aspect:  That it limits the power of parents in children's lives!  Home school and private school continue the almost unimaginably dictatorial power we allow parents over their children, while public school allows them an escape into that wonderful institution bureaucracy: responsible yet indifferent, allowing anonymity and, relatively speaking, some equality. 

Nothing in the world provides a space for individuality and personal development like poor old much maligned bureaucracy.  One must submit to socialization, but it is more or less the same socialization everyone else of one's class recieved, not the despotism of a particular parent (which could as easily be cruel as benign).

As for the accusation that there is much sexual abuse or other abuse in public school, how comically absurd.  Abuse occurs most where there is most opportunity - in the privacy of the home, with the caretaker, usually the parent, prodding the child.  It certainly is far rarer in the very public institution of a school, where one is constantly under the observation of the controlling Eye of society (yes I've been reading Foucault again).

I would advocate public school as a requirement for all children, rich or poor, but perhaps some exception could be made for private education if it were very strictly monitored by the bureaucracy. 

I think that the institution's inherent problem of penal socialization could be tempered by making it the focus of educational bureaucracy to 1) deny the objectivity of value/'morality', 2) keep school generally very easy and 'free', so that regimentation and requirements are minimized, 3) range the disciplinary powers of the institution most against enforcers of conformity such as bullies and 'normal' youths (for example go to every lenth to protect gay or other students who do not fit the locally accepted 'norm' from the ravening majority), and finally 4) provide a high level of 'counseling' services,  with close cooperation with other social services - making the school less an institution of enforcement of the social order and more one for emeliorating its inherent abuse of young working class people.

[dead0man]

...private schools are only good because they don't let the riffraff in.

Correct Snowguy - they simple eliminate anything that would be the least bit challenging, such as educating the powerless disadvantaged poor and working class.  Not unlike the american health care system which eliminates (most of) the ill.

Unless of course we do that crazy thing and give the poor money to go to a better school instead of locking them into a choice of one sh**tty school system.


wait...did you just say MOST of the ill in the US don't get medical care?  Cite?

[John Dibble]

I'm surprised none of you have yet made this answer - none of the above. There is no one 'best' form of schooling. What's best for one student may be bad for another. Any of these forms of schooling can create a thriving learning environment or fail miserably at that goal. If there clearly was one best way then that would probably be the only one practiced.

Home schooling = a way for fundies to shove creationism into their kids' heads.

Actually, I know of one case where atheists were basically forced to home school their kids because the public school environment was filled with enough anti-atheist Christians that keeping their kids there would be bad for them. While home schooling can be used as a platform for indoctrination, the same can be said of public and private schools.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Unless your parents are licensed teachers, there is no reason to be home schooled.

The problem with home schooling is that you deprive children of important social interaction with other children and parents often indoctrinate their kids with their beliefs (be they liberal or conservative).

[dead0man]

Unless your parents are licensed teachers, there is no reason to be home schooled.

The problem with home schooling is that you deprive children of important social interaction with other children and parents often indoctrinate their kids with their beliefs (be they liberal or conservative).

And the problem with forcing people to send their kids to state run schools is that it pisses on the Constitution.

[John Dibble]

The problem with home schooling is that you deprive children of important social interaction with other children and parents often indoctrinate their kids with their beliefs (be they liberal or conservative).

Not necessarily - home schooling can involve students from other households. Also, indoctrination can be a problem in any school environment.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Home schooling is a joke

Excuse me?

Of course I have a profoundly low opinion of the Religious Right, which completely fails at educating children just as it fails at pretty much everything except for perpetuating irrational hatred, but it seems that many people conveniently disregard the existence of liberal homeschoolers. I have encountered a number of previously homeschooled fellow Mathematics majors here at UC Berkeley and know many more from my other college, and I am friends with other homeschoolers from an alternative family education organisation in Santa Cruz. Just because fundamentalist Christian losers in Nebraska adamantly refuse to allow their children to learn about the real world doesn't mean that everyone throughout the country functions in the exact same way. I'm certainly not ignorant enough to conclude that all public schools are useless simply because the public schools in my home district are total jokes.

As for the original question, I don't have any strong preferences; it really depends on the individual child. I didn't ever attend a public grade school, but I am very satisfied with public universities. UC Berkeley is significantly cheaper than Stanford University and I love the culture; whilst I am applying to public universities for graduate school mostly because of financial concerns, it is also because I simply don't fit in at private universities. I dislike private institutions in general because of the festering elitism and socioeconomic issues, though I wouldn't call for them to be banned.

Some people are intrigued that I am not a huge advocate of homeschooling, but it's mostly because I absolutely hate the association with the Religious Right.

Now, I suppose that I should hasten back to reviewing for my "joke" Complex Analysis exam, but I felt somewhat compelled to get my two cents in.

Good God, YES.

It's funny but in Europe what homeschoolers\communal schooling\deschoolers (there's another two options) there are tend to be on the far left; probably due to influence of neo-Marxist thinkers like Gramsci and Althusser.

I could elaborate if you like but I suspect that only BRTD will listen and will then call me a "Nader loving fascist" for it.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Elaborate please. That sounds like it could be interesting. Due to the fact that I'm about to go to class I won't respond till later.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Public schools ARE communal schooling.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Public schools ARE communal schooling.

Not quite; Public schools are run by the state, communal schools are run by the community or a community of individuals; I know that subtle difference might be beyond you but it has to be made.

And now let's back to more important things like why I am a "nader loving fascist" for my opinions on State Education. (And that IS what we are referring to when we say Public school I assume?)

I will once again end this with a Woodrow Wilson Quote:

"We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks."

And with this inquiry:

BRTD, what do you think should be taught in schools? What is the function of a school, or of an education for that matter? What do you think is being taught in state schools as of now or as of, say, 50 years ago? Is it really that different? What do you believe is the function of a state school and so on?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Oh for the record I would support schooling along these lines (though this is not in specifics what I would have in mind):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerhill_School

Actually I think you would quite like it there BRTD.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Oh for the record I would support schooling along these lines (though this is not in specifics what I would have in mind):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerhill_School

Actually I think you would quite like it there BRTD.

Oh yeah, optional classes. Kids sure are going to go then. Yeah, I probably would've liked it as a kid, just as I would've liked dropping out of high school and being free all day, but I sure wouldn't like things now after that.

And yes, I know college for the most part has optional classes, but that's a completely different situation, plus if you don't do anything your grade suffers, which doesn't sound like it's the case here.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Thanks for ignoring my previous questions. Anyway your response just confirmed pretty much all my prejudices of you; despite how "unconvential" you wish to seem you still think of education as a conveyor belt of children; it's entire function is to produce workers (to put an Opeboesque flavour on it) and if that children don't find into that straight jacket you create for them then they will just fail at life and be horrible people.

And Summerhill has been open since 1921; and has been pretty unchanged. So I would say it's pretty successful.

I wish I could write a longer reply but to be honest I wish someone else was here to argue this; I feel like talking to a brick wall with you Red.