i'm writing in the language, and with the basic typing skills, I gained from the u.s. state-funded system (til private college, then public grad school). I was, however, raised in a very small, isolated, rural town (my graduating class had 35 people. yes, 35, total, for _the entire town_ including farm kids AND another, smaller neighboring village.)
i'm now, lo these many years later, it turns out, parenting my 2 nieces (long story), who first went to a British comprehensive school (in England) until they were ages 7 & 8, then they came to live with me here in the U.S. (in a large, university-town). Here in the US, they first attended a public (state-funded) elementary school, and _now_ they attend an all-girls fee-based highschool school on scholarships.
Ok--if you follow all that--here's the kicker: my sister-the-fundamentalist-christian is home schooling _her_ 6 (and counting!) children, ages 2-15.
What wisdom do I have?
I don't know, really. (For some reason Wm Carlos Williams keeps running through my head "So much depends on the red wheelbarrow, glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens.")
some random thoughts . . . I think US schools vary TREMENDOUSLY, as do all parents' parenting skills . . . let alone their educating skills. But what does that mean?
Academically, my school was ok--it seemed to teach us all--even those that seemed right dim to me--to read, write, do basic math, and we all got lots of individual attention. But I also felt incredibly cut off from the diversity of the rest of the world. Those 35 kids were all white, most had very little experience or contact with anything outside our immediate area. Most were overtly racist, sexist, heterosexist, xenophobic . . . (a sister in law simply calls the region "a cultural wasteland"; she fled to Germany to live her life, raise her child.)
One specific, general beef: US schools, even private ones, are typically lousy at teaching foreign languages: we still typically just begin learning one new language just at the age when we are losing our ability to acquire new languages--only from about age 12 onwards. Often it gets put off til college, so fluency in another language, even for college graduates in this country, is a joke.
But, as with most school problems, that's as much a problem with US culture as with US schools, reflecting our general cultural arrogance, methinks.
I worry about my sister-the-fundamentalist's kids. But, then, she worries about mine, too.
"My girls" are doing well in their school, and I'm pretty happy with it, although I know that it isn't perfect. I'm glad it is all-girls; I believe it makes a huge difference. Lowers the level of compulsory heterosexuality in the classroom that I remember from my schoolhood.
But I'm not sure I always understand what a "perfect" system would be--nor that I can in any way guess what would be "perfect" even for my own girls, let alone the whole culture. I now live in a little hippie town, and there's a little neighborhood--on a gravel road in the woods--where a group of people are doing what Deva said she'd like: they are collectively rasing their kids outside the school systems. A friend of mine teaches the children Spanish and another friend shares a house with one of the families. It sounds pretty close to perfect for young children especially, and I think they are working towards apprenticeships, volunteer work, and other activities, as the children age.
It's tough to sort all this out. I think communal standards for education are important, and that the common experience of public education has some value that my own children are missing right now, but maybe they've been innoculated by the variety of their educational experiences. I know I would go berserk if I were trying to homeschool my own children, especially if we were basically cut off from the world, locked in some suburban or rural house. Getting hives just thinking about it. But it's very difficult to create, or to enter at a later date, the kind of community that exists in that community down the road from me . . .
i think i've become a little more humble about judging other parents' decisions. a lot of my friends are pretty happy with Montessori schools . . . |
