So lots of folks asked me about why I wouldn’t send a kid to public school. Let me say this—this is not something I have researched or studied in any way. I base my opinion strictly on my experience, combined with anecdotal information.
I’ll start off by telling you my personal experience.
When I was four, I taught myself how to read (with a little help from my grandmother, a former first grade teacher). By the time I was five, I was easily reading chapter books--at great speed. When I arrived in first grade (I didn’t go to kindergarten—too busy living in a commune), this was a serious problem.
They gave me the first grade reader and I returned it the next day and asked for the next one. The teacher thought I was lying, so she spent about a half hour quizzing me on what was in the book. She then had me read several things out loud to her, including the paperback she had in her purse.
She then stuck me in a corner of the classroom with some books and proceeded to ignore me.
Soon, the principal had me take some tests. The tests said I should be in third grade. My mother felt uncomfortable moving me that far ahead, so I ended up being moved into second grade.
Where the teacher stuck me in a corner and ignored me. Until she realized I could read to the other kids, at which point she had me run a little reading circle. I was a year younger than the other kids, so you know that they loved that.
Then we moved, and I started going to a better elementary school. The teachers no longer put me in a corner, but I always finished my reading and assignments before any other kid and spent much of my time in class being utterly bored.
In fifth grade, I had an awful teacher. She told me, among other things, that I was a bad daughter because I allowed my mother to change my name (my mother changed both our names back to my mother’s maiden name). She said I had betrayed and dishonored my father. It didn’t move her at all that my father hadn’t sought me out in over eight years.
In middle school, I was finally put into a “gifted” program. Unlike accelerated academic classes, this was just a class where we used our brains. We did elaborate projects; spent the day hanging out with business people to see what career we might want (I spent the day with a veterinarian—I remember it quite vividly). For some reason, I began to feel frustrated in this class. I was never really interested in learning to play chess (something the boys in this class did), but somehow I decided I wasn’t smart enough to play, and I began to feel inferior. It could also be that I was a girl, and I was beginning to get messages that girls weren’t as smart as boys (the teacher in that class definitely believed that), and it wasn’t my defects at all.
So somewhere in middle school I began to hear the phrase “not living up to her potential’ coming up a lot at parent/teacher meetings. I was still bored in my other classes (except band—band I loved). I got in bad trouble in eight grade for being happy that Reagan got shot (my typing teacher dragged me to the principal’s office yelling at me about how to be a good American). Don’t be too hard on me—I don’t think it’s a good idea that Reagan was shot; I was just a young feminist democrat in the rough. I needed to learn that glee of that sort is best kept inside your head.
Then we moved again, from New Mexico to Michigan. Along with the standard trauma of a big move, there was the complete culture shock of moving from the desert to the third rainiest place in the US. I was a complete emotional mess by the time we went to register me for high school.
When my mother asked the registrar receptionist how they go about getting my transcripts, the woman said, snidely, “Well, I don’t know how they do things in other countries…” My mother (the geographer) patiently explained that New Mexico was, in fact, part of the United States of America. The woman then had us fill out some paperwork and meet with the registrar. The registrar was a harried woman, and she hauled out some large book and looked at some strange ratings and declared Albuquerque’s public schools as academically two years behind East Lansing’s. So she then filled my schedule with remedial courses.
Yep, I went from gifted to learning disabled in a few simple moves.
This was the death knell for me. I think my mother didn’t fight them because she assumed that I would prove them wrong in short order and they’d move me into better classes. But instead, I found alcohol, and began acting like I really was learning disabled. Not to mention hardly ever showing up for class, you know, that sort of thing.
So that’s my experience with public schools.
Years later, I was teaching poetry and creative writing to kids at a bookstore. It was an informal class meant to be fun for the kids. Soon I developed a loyal group: two home schooled kids, three public school kids, and one catholic school kid. These kids were all from good families, and went to “great” schools.
The difference in their learning styles was marked. The poor Catholic schoolgirl was terrified of displeasing me; she would ask me a dozen questions about what I wanted; she couldn’t understand the concept of letting go and just writing to please herself. She begged me for direction (if I said, write a poem about a dog, she’d say, “What kind of dog? Should it be a happy or a sad dog? What color dog? Is this my dog or my friend’s dog?”). The public school kids wanted a bit of the same thing, but they mostly wanted to know how long the poem should be.
But the home-schooled kids—oh, they were a delight. As soon as I gave them a topic, they got a gleam in their eye. Sometimes they would write three poems. They were just bursting with creativity, and most remarkably, a complete lack of fear. They also didn’t worry much about what I wanted. They understood that it was meant to be fun.
This left quite an impression on me, as you can imagine.
When you add the whole standardized testing thing (and the new practice of “teaching to the test”) to the picture, I just don’t see public school as a good option. There aren’t many private schools I see as an option either, frankly. I think institutionalized learning as a whole is flawed, and not geared to take the best care of the fast (or slow) learner.
Plus, most public schools in my area are continually cutting their arts programs. I do NOT want to send a kid to a public school where they can’t be in band, or chorus, theater, or art classes. That is just not an option.
So home schooling appeals to me. But even more than that, the idea of “unschooling” really appeals to me. I’ve read about Dawn’s success with her son (I’d link you to her site, but she’s password protected now) with unschooling and it just sounds right to me.
When I say that, I really mean that it sounds right FOR me. That system of learning would have been perfect for me. I would have blossomed beautifully with it, and my deep passion for reading would have been rewarded instead of punished.
I realize that our child (ha! our child!) may be quite different than me. That child may, in fact, be a perfect candidate for public school. We’ll know, I think, when that kid is actually in existence and we know what will work best for them.
So I’m not entirely opposed to public schools; I just know they didn’t work for me. So I won’t send my kid to one if I don’t think it will work for them.
So there you have it, my utterly uneducated opinion on the subject. Tomorrow? House reports!
