In some of my reading today, I’ve come across many comments asking parents if they really wanted a better school system, then why not stay in it and work towards improving?
On the surface, it seems like a fair and valid question. But what then do you tell a parent who has worked with teachers, who has argued with principals, who has shown up to every meeting, volunteered at every event and in some cases been the president of the PTA?
What do you tell that parent whose child still didn’t get adequate help for learning disabilities, still got bullied, still got beated up with teachers present? What do you tell that parent whose child is bored in school, who is unchallenged, who gets in trouble for working ahead, whose teacher refuses to believe for months they can read well above grade level and forces them to chose books below their skill? Or worse, what do you tell the parent who is begging and pleading for school officials to “do something” to help their child just so they can read, let alone pull up to their grade level, but the child gets moved ahead to keep up with their peers?
What then, when the battle is so uphill?
So why not do it yourself? It’s certainly less work. Less begging, pleading, cajoling, arguing, fighting, less stressful, less money.
After all, in the end it is about the child, not the system.
Analogy: The ship is sinking, why not stay on board and keep your finger stuck in the hole.
While the parent is “staying in and working towards improvement”, the child is still exposed to everything that needs improvement. What’s more important – the child’s welfare NOW, or some improved future the child won’t even benefit from?
I really think they would have to scrap the whole public school system – at least here in the states – and start over without government involvement in order to make the public schools worth sending our kids. Let the parents and local communities shape the schools. Get rid of the NEA. Since that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon, trying to change it from the inside as one measly parent would be paddling uphill.
I asked myself that question and I hadn’t done more than the minimum of asking them the provide some challenging work for my kid. In the end it is a waste of my energy to stay in and fight. I think that the public school system is good. For most kids. Bullying is taken much more seriously than it was in the past. Most kids are getting a reasonably good education. But not all kids need the same thing. And there is only so much money available for education and for that money you have to teach largish groups. And when you are providing a public service you have to accomodate significant opinions in the community about what should and shouldn’t be taught. And in the end, I decided that the system as it is now isn’t really that bad. But it isn’t good for MY individual child.
Sure, I think some things could be fixed. But mostly those things are symptomatic of bigger issues in society that I think should be fixed. And I don’t have the energy to fix those things on a big scale. So I do what I can on a small scale.
And some days, I accept that they way I would like the world (and things in it like schools) to be may not be the way the majority of people would like it. And my compromise is that as long as the world makes space for some diversity (including the ability to homeschool), then I’m fine with that.
I lasted a whole month with my finger in the hole of the sinking ship! My daughter has Prader Willi Syndrome and they planned to teach her to wash her face and brush her teeth. wrong answer. AFter fighting for a month they were still carrying her – after we spent 4 years teaching her how to walk, feeding her – after we spent 3 years teaching her how to feed herself, and *forgetting* to do her catheter – sorry, I’m not willing to risk her kidneys for the non-education she was getting! My other two had been in school for 2 yrs (after homeschooling) but followed her home shortly after we pulled her from school. Perhaps the system could be improved (read totally changed) but I don’t have the time or energy to do it, my children need me right now. Perhaps when they’re all grown up, if I’m not educating my grandchildren.
So, yeah. If parents feel they should “stay and fight” that is certainly their call, but I know for my kids? They needed out!
I think that people only ask this question because they can’t conceive of there being a fundamentally different way of approaching education — they seem to assume that homeschoolers all still basically support the notion of “school” and have abandoned the school system only over minor details that could be negotiated if they were willing to put the effort into doing so, and that we all agree on what those minor changes should be. But you can’t “work towards improving” something when the government and most parents for that matter are actively opposed to the changes you would make. There is no choice in such a situation except to leave.