Posted by alexandra_k on January 26, 2005, at 0:24:26
In reply to Education - Alexandra and everyone, posted by Dinah on January 25, 2005, at 18:38:41
As I said I started out at a private christian school with around 8 people. In NZ it is usual to start school at 5. I was reading at 4 so my mother wanted to get me in school and I remember that I couldn't wait to get away from her. A private christian school wasn't really what would have been chosen for me, but the public schooling system refused to have me before my 5th birthday.
The values seem quite similar to the ones you have mentioned. Also, because there were so few people, and because the older students were buddied up to help teach the younger ones, and because the student / teacher ratio was amazing, we all (especially us younger ones) learned the formal curriculum at a rapid rate of knotts. Also the fees were fairly exorbatant. That meant that the kids were from well off families. Mostly christian families with 'wholesome christian values'. Most of them were really cared about and had pretty good home lives.
I moved to a public school when I was 7. That was when my Dad left and everything turned to sh*t for me. We went from being fairly well off to being on welfare. Moved to a fairly bad area. I was streamed into a class on the basis of age rather than ability. Most of the teachers time was taken up dealing with behaviour problems, kids who still wet themselves, kids who hadn't had any breakfast or lunch or whatever. Kids who stole their parents cigarettes or drugs. Kids who fought in the playground. When I had finished my work I was given more pages of the SAME exercises. Not any harder or anything. That was when I learned to be lazy :-( Working didn't pay and the other kids would laugh at me.
Anyway, the point to all that was that my situation really doesn't bear on your son's. I had trouble fitting in. But that was only to be expected given the extreme nature of the differences.
I think I would have been much better off to have stayed in the first environment. If you can afford to give your son that right up until he graduates college then I would say that you would be giving him a wonderful opportunity. To make the most of his potential, both academically and as a person. Even if you can't afford to keep him there forever or whatever, I am sure he won't end up in such a 'bad' school as I ended up in.
>parochial school
Sorry, I am not sure what that is.
> So when you mentioned the same thing as my husband I was interested. I tend to discount what my husband says since he did swimmingly in a sheltered environment followed by college and life. I don't quite understand why he thinks it would be harmful. But I am open and interested to listening to other points of view.
Have you asked him why?
> What I meant by irony was that I was arguing the concept of gated communities by quoting the standards of a school that I admire very much, but that amounts to a gated community itself.
How is it gated?
>I suppose all schools have gates of some sort though. Where you live or your GPA or how much your parents are willing to fix their old car and skip vacations. It did strike me as an internal inconsistency in my logic, and in my life.
Yes, that is life.
You can't protect him from gates.
But you can assist him to be one who is lucky enough to get on the in side of most of them.
From what I have heard you say about him he is a sensitive kid.
A caring environment is always better than a non-caring environment.
I am afraid I don't know anything about what 'schooling options' there may be in the US to see what you have to pick from.
I don't even know much about NZ ones.
But I guess (if I could afford to) I would do what you are doing.I know a couple of people who home school. That is something that I have mixed feelings about. Actually, I think that it is a bad thing. That one is a little too protective. IMO likely to cause great harm at the end of the day.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:447030
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050123/msgs/447866.html