School open 7 day a week to suit your life

[Cyclone]

I know I haven't said how, but I have have said twice that somebody else might know.

 

 

They might be better at English too

 

Well I think the problem is insoluble and hence the idea won't work.

Unless someone can and does explain how that sticking point can be solved we can shelve the whole thing.

[Cyclone]

Self directed learning for five year olds. I can't see that being overly successful, I always hated having to learn letters, words and spelling, so if I'd been in charge at that stage I'd probably not be posting on here.

[hennypenny]

Self directed learning for five year olds. I can't see that being overly successful, I always hated having to learn letters, words and spelling, so if I'd been in charge at that stage I'd probably not be posting on here.

 

I never taught either of my kids to read, we never did spelling lists or reading schemes - we just read to them an awful lot, let them choose their own books, and played loads of eye spy and other letter and sound games. If they had an interest we looked into it with them, as far as they wanted to follow it.

One learned to read at 3 and one at 6. They both read well above their age group by 7, and both of them loved reading. All the children we child minded did very well at knowing their letters and words until they went to school, where they went backwards and lost the words they knew. Something they thought of as fun suddenly became work and pressured.

 

Home educators have found that the natural window for reading varies from child to child anywhere between 2 and 12. Those children who don't read until 12 when given the freedom to decide when they want to learn themselves, have been shown to be reading at the same level as those children who learned very early, by the time they are 16. They are found to have much better listening and memory skills than early readers. Maybe by having a society that is fixated on the written word, we are giving up oral and listening skills that we don't even realise are possible.

 

As a society we are routed in one direction and forget that there are other ways of learning. Those children I know who haven't read until much later than normal have still been learning, but they have learned through hands on exploration, through listening to tapes, through watching videos, through making things with their hands, through helping adults etc. I know one lad who learned to read at 12, and was in college doing A levels by 15, having been allowed entry based on his portfolio as he didn't have any GCSEs. He is very dyslexic, but having been allowed to find his own way to reading, with help when requested, he never got any of the labelling or being made to feel stupid that invariably accompanies the diagnosis in schools, so when he decided it was something he needed to learn, he learned quickly because it was what he wanted, not what someone else was deciding he should want.

 

Whoever was it who decided that children should suddenly stop learning by exploration and trying things out, through play and fun as they do preschool, and instead switch their learning styles to learning through sitting still and listening to someone talk? What a weird idea! Seven distinct different learning styles have been identified. Sitting still and listening doesn't suit many of them.

[Cyclone]

Sounds good, but it doesn't sound like the syllabus was set by the 3 year old who chose which classes she might like to sign up for and attend.

Presumably you weren't trying to teach 30 kids at once, or even a far smaller 10? If we could afford teachers at a ratio of 1:1 or close then they could all be taught in a very flexible tailored way, when class sizes are larger that's much harder and if they could all attend on different days of the week, and potentially with different teachers (since a teacher won't work 7 days a week) then it just wouldn't work.

[hennypenny]

Sounds good, but it doesn't sound like the syllabus was set by the 3 year old who chose which classes she might like to sign up for and attend.

Presumably you weren't trying to teach 30 kids at once, or even a far smaller 10? If we could afford teachers at a ratio of 1:1 or close then they could all be taught in a very flexible tailored way, when class sizes are larger that's much harder and if they could all attend on different days of the week, and potentially with different teachers (since a teacher won't work 7 days a week) then it just wouldn't work.

 

Hi Cyclone

 

Fairly obviously my 3 year old didn't know anything about syllabii at all - for that matter they still didn't when they were 12 We never separated life into learning and living, we just lived and learned through living. We never did classes at all, until the children requested them for a specific purpose, for instance when my daughter decided she wanted to learn Japanese and the most efficient way to do that was to find a tutor.

 

You are a typical example of the way society is programmed to believe that children need to be "taught" in order to learn, and yet each child is born needing to learn. No one teaches children to walk and to talk, and yet they learn without having it broken into easy stages.

 

My educational vision would get rid of schools altogether, instead there would be resource centres where children and adults could access anything they wanted to learn about, and where fun and interesting (and educational) activities would take place. These could take place 7 days per week, but would be very unlikely to be full days, so parents would have to be personally responsible for their children, or hire other people to be responsible. Maybe parenting and home making would gain some credibility as an important job in its own right, instead of the low status it currently enjoys.

[Cyclone]

Your last paragraph is getting back to being on topic, and indeed comes close to suggesting something similar to the 'objection' I've raised about Tony's 7 day school idea.

 

You then veer off a little by suggesting that parenting and home making is held in low regard, rather than it just not being a choice for many modern families who need two incomes. This isn't a thread about home schooling, it's about the idea of 7 days a week education provided by the state in some form.

I've suggested that that form would need to be on a one to one basis, or close to that ratio in order for it to work and that it is thus too expensive for our society.

[hennypenny]

Hi Cyclone

 

you say that one to one would be too expensive, and yet if society changed to accepting parenting as a full time responsible and socially rewarding job, and paid people to stay at home with their children, then there is no reason why all children shouldn't be able to have one to one. Currently the school is given around £5000 per child per year. If that amount was paid directly to the parents, then the one to one would be possible. That would still be cheaper than schools as the building maintenance, staff wages etc are on top of that amount.

 

Parents could then choose to either discharge their duty to ensure their child receives an education in person, or hire someone else to do it. If 4 or 5 parents joined together and paid their £5000 allowance to one tutor, then the tutor would get a reasonable wage, and the children would get 1-4 or 5 which has to be better than 1-30. Resource centres could loan books and equipment much as libraries do now, as well as running courses and arranging educational sessions etc. These could be open 7 days a week so that they could be accessed at any time anyone wanted to learn something.

 

I once read an account of how a charity tried to raise the literacy level in a 3rd world country. They rans schools at great expense and found the literacy level was better but still not enough to be cost effective. Then they tried a different approach, and set up literacy classes for the mothers. Once they had taught the mothers to read, they then found they could leave the area as the mothers taught their children and the literacy levels soared. Mothers are very good at helping their children to learn!

 

Home making and being with children is regarded as very low status by society, and therefore there has been no recognition of the hours and work put in by (mainly) women. If this were to change and society was to realise that raising the next generation is one of the most important jobs there are, and reward people who do this job accordingly, then very many of the things that have risen purely to enable parents to be free to work during daytime hours, such as schools, would be able to change too.

[Cyclone]

I don't know if those numbers are accurate, but that still wouldn't help families that need two incomes to survive. You and your partner might be well enough off to allow you to stay at home and parent, but many people are not and many more just wouldn't want to.

I struggle to see how the economics of hiring tutors could possibly work out cheaper than a full time teacher for 25 children, even when the cost of school buildings are taken into account. Maybe it does work though, a full analysis of the cost of schooling compared to the cost of tutors would be interesting.

[hennypenny]

Having a bit of a chuckle at us being well off enough to allow us to stay home and parent - I think we are on the lowest income of anyone I have ever met, but that is the choice we made, as our children were more important to us than holidays abroad or posh appliances etc.

 

You are right about many more just wouldn't want to though, that is sadly a feature of modern day life - parents who don't really like their own children very much For those people there is an alternative to home education - it is schoolhoming. Please note this article about schoolhoming is in fact a spoof even though it is quite difficult to spot, as it strikes very true.

 

http://www.theonion.com/articles/increasing-number-of-parents-opting-to-have-childr,17159/