Homeschool blog – state schools are needed
Recently I’ve been writing about myths that I have been coming across on social media. Last week I wrote about the myth that only rich people can homeschool.
https://thereisnoshouldbe.com/only-rich-people-can-homeschool/
This week I wanted to address another myth I’ve come across recently. “Public school isn’t needed anymore – it was made in the 1800s to get Victorian children off the streets.”
I feel passionately about encouraging people who wish to, to homeschool their children. But it really only goes so far as the families who want to. Public schooling is a choice that many parents benefit from, and indeed, many children benefit from.
Where parents deem their child to be better supported at home, that is what I write about, to encourage. Encouragement is very much needed for people choosing to go against the grain, against societal norms and often against more recent family traditions.
In the past home education was the norm. So was caring for the sick and elderly. Now the state facilitates education and care, and home education has become a second rate option for the masses. But we wouldn’t consider care from the family a second rate option – that is very much a wholesome option, from a physical and mental health perspective.
But the truth is, education is of great value. If the government didn’t invest in education, and supply it as an option, our economy and opportunities would disappear rapidly. There are many people for whom public education plays a vital role in their lives. State school programmes can provide nutrition, dental health care, and nurturing and professional adults. They can flag up when there are red flags in a child’s home life.
In the book, ‘What we owe each other a new social contract’ by Minouche Shafik, the author describes the first 3 years of a child’s life as the period “when brain development is highly influenced by nutrition, mental stimulation, and social and emotional development, that the foundations for learning are laid.”
The input by the state into schools, with the breakfast programmes, standards of care, and providence and example of a hygienic and social environment can support children so they may be in a position of developing normally, where they might have been “disadvantaged by impaired brain development and poor skills”.
These opportunities are vital for many children around the country. It continues through childhood and through adolescence. When a child’s development becomes stunted, the ability to ‘catch up’ becomes less and less, because of the process of the child’s brain development as they get older. The brain becomes less and less malleable.
And of course the return (through earning capacity) on money spent on education for the individual only continues to increase throughout the stages of education. In Shafik’s book she shows a table where for every pound spent (in a high earning country) 28.4 is the return for primary education for the individual, 13.2 for secondary education, and 12.8 for higher education. There are not dissimilar returns for the state, following the same pattern.
Homeschooling in the light of this
Clearly there is a great deal of benefit provided by the state through state schools, shown through these statistics by way of average for the population as a whole.
However, no measurement was made for children who are homeschooled in Shafik’s book. These figures and statistics show the beneficial impact that public education on earning potential has for the individual, and the economic potential for the state. It does not show the compromise for children and elderly, for community and relationships within the community, when everything – relational, care giving, child rearing and family nurturing – by the family and community is put to the side and provided by the state in an institutional and professional structure.
It does not show the statistics of children violating one another in school as a result of unlimited internet access. It does not show statistics of anxiety and depression in children and adults. It does not show how limited outdoor play has become, and the mental and physical impact from this.
The educational institution
There isn’t a definite protest here – the state has an obligation to provide an institution of child care and education for the economic benefit of the country, and individuals also clearly benefit from this providence. However, to justify state schooling as superior – superior over family and community values is not just misguided – homeschooling can be a wholesome and educationally exceptional option for some children and families, for the needs of individuals.
So much so that we cannot surely advocate such full reliance on an institution to raise our next generation, over our family time and values. Such world wide institutionalisation of child care and education has not resulted in healthier children, more present and able to think for themselves and on behalf of others.
It is an institution that is mothering our children in state care and education. It’s an engine. A state run program making decisions on a day to day basis for our children. Whether it’s permission for a child to defer a year, take a year out, or not have internet access all day in school.
In the Scottish Borders, (and in Edinburgh and Glasgow) all children from p4 upwards in state schools are given an iPad, connected to the internet ‘with child restrictions’ (such as YouTube) ‘to support their learning’. How the children use them at school and at home is largely unmonitored due to pressure, cuts and expectations already on school staff. Especially in high school, children now perform most of their education on apps on these iPads. They are rarely encouraged to write their learning down on paper, present any findings, lay out ideas manually with paper and pencil – a wholesome, human process of inspiration and learning. They are not being asked to read. Nor are they being asked to communicate eloquently on paper with good spelling and grammar.
Like the titanic streamlining, transporting and ‘protecting’ our children, any changes made in the institution of education are incrementally slow. The system is not up to date with the type of education that we know our children now need in this age of AI to prepare them for their working future. Where AI is able to regurgitate any required information at the click of a button the times have changed, and we need, now more than ever, our children to learn to think.
They must be able to think for themselves and on behalf of others, and with compassion. Children must be encouraged to problem solve. And most importantly, they must be allowed to approach ethical questions without the fear of being ‘cancelled’. They must be allowed to ask questions and explore around topics. They should be encouraged not to just take the progress for granted. Just because we can, does that mean we should?
Horses for courses
Sometimes input from parents in wealthier settings may not provide the social and emotional input required for healthy child development. And sometimes parents are unable to provide for their children. Some families are not inclined to educate at home. And some families find a healthy, balanced set up in the state school setting.
What state schools can’t deliver
There are so many benefits in homeschooling, namely outdoor play and moral values. In state school children are in one room, all together, and unfortunately, in terms of behaviour and moral standards, often it’s the lowest denominator that wins through. After all, no one wants to be the weakest link. And with escalating ‘behaviour’, often children have to step up their own behaviour up to win some.
There is a lot of close knit mental health support that schools just can’t provide for children with various needs. 2 – 3 hour daily outdoor experiences are just not possible in a school setting, you just have to mention health and safety and the whole thing becomes a headache totally unworthy of its own cause. But we have found ourselves to be more anxious and dysfunctional than ever before, disconnected from nature and even from ourselves as humans.
This is especially true for the many children being diagnosed with various conditions of neurodiversity. Schools cannot properly accommodate for all of the needs of these children, nor step back in time where learning expectations were less intense, with more time for free play. These children are drastically affected by the intense, direct, indoor, seated, eye to eye learning that is expected of them all day, every day. Many ‘problems’ that are ‘identified’ would not be problems at all if school learning had more side by side and outdoor opportunities.
State schools are required to provide for assumed, generic career paths for all children. There is no scope for anything other than corporate assumptions on behalf of our children. Children are not being taught to value life skills and maintenance. Children must be taught to think for themselves and what they value, and not just hurtle down a career path laden with ‘should be’s and ‘would be’s. With so many agreeable children, working hard and eager to please, there can be a difficult time of realisation when it comes – what life after school looks like – the working week, socialising, bearing our own entitlement. It looks nothing like school life at all.
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