John Taylor Gatto's book Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling makes similar observations about public education. Gatto argues that the goal of compulsory education is to provide a compliant and complacent workforce. If a parent feels ill equipped to home school the curriculum can be supplemented with apprenticeships, community college coursework etc.
My son spent a year at a Sudbury school which is a model for interest driven education. Students chose what they want to learn. The misperception is that students left to their own devices while lie around on the couch watching TV or playing computer games. I observed a five year old student reading CS Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia. Students built a computer from spare parts. They learned to use a sewing machine and create a budget. My son took an auto mechanics course at the local community college and built a potato launcher from PC pipe and an ignition system. His home school advisor had a lot of fun taking him out to the high school football field and using it 🥔 😂
I was bored out of my mind in high school. The only relief was participating in the track & field and cross country programs. I'm still running at age 66. I cobbled together a fine art program and went back to college in my 40's on a reentry scholarship. A lot of my coursework was independent study projects inc. a portraiture project in Afghanistan. I've currently been doing international running races & photography in countries adversely affected by conflict, such as, Palestine, Lebanon, Cyprus & Cuba.
So much opportunity for a rich & robust curriculum, as a result of, home schooling.
I love Gatto. He was my guide for the first five years of homeschooling. We did almost exclusively play until the kids were in third grade, and every time I worried that I was crazy for doing that I would read some of Gaito's book to get more confidence.
Why would you assume that all parents would be good (enough) teachers? And that all parents would want to put in that effort? It sounds very idealistic to me, not realistic. For so many kids school is a safe haven compared to home, and the place where they get a meal.
I for one am glad beyond belief that I wasn't home schooled.
I do assume that the most unstable families need school. I think school should be a social service system and give much more to those families.
But too often school is a babysitting service for parents who would both rather be working than home with their kids. I don't think we should encourage that because it's not good for the kids. There is very good research from the last 20 years to show that parents who are middle class or higher should have one parent at home. The second parent does not improve the children's lives more than having a parent at home improves the children's lives. This research has not been refuted for two decades, it's just that people don't like it so they don't talk about it.
So what ends up happening is that school resources go to families who don't need it -- those families can homeschool. And there are not enough resources left for the families who really need school to compensate for the parents problems.
We are actually seeing this very situation play itself out. The majority of rich kids go to private school. The majority of homeschoolers are middle class families -- they don't want to use their public school and they don't have enough money for private school.
I do believe that having a parent at home when school is out is a good thing. I'm from The Netherlands and the school system is different than in the USA, overal the difference in quality for schools and universities isn't very big in our country, and the college/university fees are all the same.
I wonder if differences in a system is ever taken into account in research? Or was the research purely for the USA? Or purely for a certain kind of system?
I guess what I'm saying is: I don't know enough about this subject.
Me and my husband both work parttime and both take care of the kids after school. Like many families I know (with maybe one or two days of after-school care).
And I personally wouldn't choose to home school unless I really had to. I think I would suck at it compared to the teachers who are doing it now. Hated doing it during covid - although I really did my best. And I rather just be the mom. Teaching is underrated.
But I understand this is a very privileged situation when I read about bad schools, expensive schools, bad pay .etc etc.
The Harvard Study has consistently found that connection and quality of relationships are what keep us happy, healthy and underpin a ‘good’ life. Doesn’t school make a contribution to that by creating a myriad of opportunities for long and short term connections and social interaction? How is that adequately created through home schooling? I hated school personally but I only have a few close friends and I made them in school.
It's a good question - people ask this all the time. But the truth is, school does not promote relationships.
Schools control when kids can talk. School puts kids in huge loud rooms to eat. Schools separate kids into classrooms and then change those groups each year so kids have little opportunity talk to friends they made the previous year. And school controls the majority of a kid's time and energy when they could be making relationships based on common interests and proximity.
The fact that we made friends as kids was despite school not because of it.
Schools are modeled after factories. We have not changed that in 100 years. Factories are not places to make friends. The way we have made friends forever is by playing with them and school does not promote play. As we get older we make friends by engaging in shared interests. School does not encourage individual interests and connections because how could school do that when the student teacher ratio is 30:1?
We make friends with time and space and patience. School is not set up for that. Yet making friends is the most important life skill to learn.
Huh? Where do you get this bollocks? I homeschooled and preferred it, my kids tried school…and loved it. They have great friends. They do cool stuff. They get to choose their friends, not limited to the neighbourhood or ‘HS group activities’. They like the teachers and prefer having 200 kids to choose from and tonnes going on…sport, music, camps. We had some great HS years because I hate doing the morning school run and we were free, but I have to admit they have a great life. I’m in Australia so maybe it’s different but I’m not cool with anyone burning school just because they didn’t do it. Both ways can be great.
School is absolutely free day care (or government subsidized). But if women at all want to work, so their family can own a home, for example, then they need the day care.
Solve housing (by making it cheap and abundant, relative to men’s wages) and you will probably “solve” education
Housing is really cheap when you don't have to live near a good school. All housing in the US is organized by school district. So you can get much lower cost housing when your kids aren't in school.
Also, I homeschooled and my kids and I lived in a rental. And we lived off one income - mine. So it can definitely be just fine with a two-parent household.
Housing bundles a lot of desirables. Location to public transit and green space. Safety. Schools. Proximity to work.
Good housing has all of them. Bad housing has none of them
I agree that renting is an (increasingly expensive) option. My take is that a lot more housing solves a lot more ills without needing to make painful tradeoffs
John Taylor Gatto's book Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling makes similar observations about public education. Gatto argues that the goal of compulsory education is to provide a compliant and complacent workforce. If a parent feels ill equipped to home school the curriculum can be supplemented with apprenticeships, community college coursework etc.
My son spent a year at a Sudbury school which is a model for interest driven education. Students chose what they want to learn. The misperception is that students left to their own devices while lie around on the couch watching TV or playing computer games. I observed a five year old student reading CS Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia. Students built a computer from spare parts. They learned to use a sewing machine and create a budget. My son took an auto mechanics course at the local community college and built a potato launcher from PC pipe and an ignition system. His home school advisor had a lot of fun taking him out to the high school football field and using it 🥔 😂
I was bored out of my mind in high school. The only relief was participating in the track & field and cross country programs. I'm still running at age 66. I cobbled together a fine art program and went back to college in my 40's on a reentry scholarship. A lot of my coursework was independent study projects inc. a portraiture project in Afghanistan. I've currently been doing international running races & photography in countries adversely affected by conflict, such as, Palestine, Lebanon, Cyprus & Cuba.
So much opportunity for a rich & robust curriculum, as a result of, home schooling.
I love Gatto. He was my guide for the first five years of homeschooling. We did almost exclusively play until the kids were in third grade, and every time I worried that I was crazy for doing that I would read some of Gaito's book to get more confidence.
Why would you assume that all parents would be good (enough) teachers? And that all parents would want to put in that effort? It sounds very idealistic to me, not realistic. For so many kids school is a safe haven compared to home, and the place where they get a meal.
I for one am glad beyond belief that I wasn't home schooled.
I do assume that the most unstable families need school. I think school should be a social service system and give much more to those families.
But too often school is a babysitting service for parents who would both rather be working than home with their kids. I don't think we should encourage that because it's not good for the kids. There is very good research from the last 20 years to show that parents who are middle class or higher should have one parent at home. The second parent does not improve the children's lives more than having a parent at home improves the children's lives. This research has not been refuted for two decades, it's just that people don't like it so they don't talk about it.
So what ends up happening is that school resources go to families who don't need it -- those families can homeschool. And there are not enough resources left for the families who really need school to compensate for the parents problems.
We are actually seeing this very situation play itself out. The majority of rich kids go to private school. The majority of homeschoolers are middle class families -- they don't want to use their public school and they don't have enough money for private school.
Penelope
I do believe that having a parent at home when school is out is a good thing. I'm from The Netherlands and the school system is different than in the USA, overal the difference in quality for schools and universities isn't very big in our country, and the college/university fees are all the same.
I wonder if differences in a system is ever taken into account in research? Or was the research purely for the USA? Or purely for a certain kind of system?
I guess what I'm saying is: I don't know enough about this subject.
Me and my husband both work parttime and both take care of the kids after school. Like many families I know (with maybe one or two days of after-school care).
And I personally wouldn't choose to home school unless I really had to. I think I would suck at it compared to the teachers who are doing it now. Hated doing it during covid - although I really did my best. And I rather just be the mom. Teaching is underrated.
But I understand this is a very privileged situation when I read about bad schools, expensive schools, bad pay .etc etc.
The Harvard Study has consistently found that connection and quality of relationships are what keep us happy, healthy and underpin a ‘good’ life. Doesn’t school make a contribution to that by creating a myriad of opportunities for long and short term connections and social interaction? How is that adequately created through home schooling? I hated school personally but I only have a few close friends and I made them in school.
It's a good question - people ask this all the time. But the truth is, school does not promote relationships.
Schools control when kids can talk. School puts kids in huge loud rooms to eat. Schools separate kids into classrooms and then change those groups each year so kids have little opportunity talk to friends they made the previous year. And school controls the majority of a kid's time and energy when they could be making relationships based on common interests and proximity.
The fact that we made friends as kids was despite school not because of it.
Schools are modeled after factories. We have not changed that in 100 years. Factories are not places to make friends. The way we have made friends forever is by playing with them and school does not promote play. As we get older we make friends by engaging in shared interests. School does not encourage individual interests and connections because how could school do that when the student teacher ratio is 30:1?
We make friends with time and space and patience. School is not set up for that. Yet making friends is the most important life skill to learn.
Penelope
Huh? Where do you get this bollocks? I homeschooled and preferred it, my kids tried school…and loved it. They have great friends. They do cool stuff. They get to choose their friends, not limited to the neighbourhood or ‘HS group activities’. They like the teachers and prefer having 200 kids to choose from and tonnes going on…sport, music, camps. We had some great HS years because I hate doing the morning school run and we were free, but I have to admit they have a great life. I’m in Australia so maybe it’s different but I’m not cool with anyone burning school just because they didn’t do it. Both ways can be great.
School is absolutely free day care (or government subsidized). But if women at all want to work, so their family can own a home, for example, then they need the day care.
Solve housing (by making it cheap and abundant, relative to men’s wages) and you will probably “solve” education
Housing is really cheap when you don't have to live near a good school. All housing in the US is organized by school district. So you can get much lower cost housing when your kids aren't in school.
Also, I homeschooled and my kids and I lived in a rental. And we lived off one income - mine. So it can definitely be just fine with a two-parent household.
Penelope
Housing bundles a lot of desirables. Location to public transit and green space. Safety. Schools. Proximity to work.
Good housing has all of them. Bad housing has none of them
I agree that renting is an (increasingly expensive) option. My take is that a lot more housing solves a lot more ills without needing to make painful tradeoffs