Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight
But the reality was that I spent 13 years (including kindergarten) in the LAUSD and got an excellent education. For 7 of those years I was with largely the same set of students. Most did well. A lot did not. Of those that did not, my observation was that most of the reason was that education was simply not a priority in their home. There were certainly a few for whom the public system simply did not have the capacity to help. But, to my eye, they were the exception. The majority of those that were struggling would have been perfectly capable of learning and achieving within the system if they actually tried.
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If a lot did not do well, then by your own standards earlier in the thread, something should be done to change that. Also, if, according to your theory, the same kids that do poorly in public schools will do poorly homeschooled, then why object to homeschooling them?
What if the students that didn't really try just weren't interested in what was being taught, or the way it was presented? I didn't try at all and still got good grades and a full scholarship all while deliberately learning as little as possible. That's a flawed system, IMO.
I can see Indi being one of those kids that just wouldn't try. He would do horribly sitting all day in a classroom staring at some grown up chattering away about things that bored him. Similarly, he would do horribly if I made him sit down and learn a "lesson." So we do a totally different type of homeschooling which works with the way he learns. He loves to have his hands on things...building, drawing, cooking...we explore in a very physical way while talking about what we are doing. There's a lot of learning involved, but nothing formal. He couldn't get that in school. At best, his drive to learn would be squelched. At worst, he'd be labeled ADD or something similar.
He just turned five a few weeks ago and has become interested in learning to write. The way he likes to do this is by having me write a word on his paper and he copies it. For one thing, I was amazed at how accurate his printing was, having had no experience with it. When your brain is ready for something, you do it easily. But what struck me most was how he would experiment with it. He would put words together and add extra letters to the end and then ask, "What does this say?" It was such a fantastic way to learn. He would never have been allowed to do that in school. I can totally see him in kindergarten or first grade with his little lined paper being told to write the same letter twenty times or whatever they do and either refusing or getting more and more bored with every passing minute. Then eventually he'd be labeled as one of those kids that just doesn't try. But why try for something that feels so crappy?