While my eldest has been off school this week we've seen her old character come back, the happy relaxed little girl she was before she started to attend school. When she has been up to it we have read books, done Christmas crafts, played, baked, made music and started to learn how to tell the time and more about weather. It's been so enjoyable being at home together and I've started to wonder about school and really what the benefits of it are for
her.
We sent her to school following the status quo really, we didn't challenge or question it particularly and there are practicalities too, we need my part-time income and we have a child much younger to think about too. Is it possible to mix all these things without school? In some respects I feel that we and many other families to some degree use school for free childcare.
Since starting school we have had two sickness and diarrhoea bugs which have gone through the whole family, several colds and a dose of chicken pox, we have learnt the words hate and stupid in context, she's had her hair pulled and been slapped, she's been grouped according to ability and cried at being separated from the only child she knew in the class before she started, she's sometimes anxious and often grumpy and overtired from the school day she's become indoctrinated with the idea she must do homework and read her book EVERY night without exception, she panics if for any reason we haven't had opportunity to do it in case she is in trouble at school and yes she is still only 4 years and 4 months old and has been at school just 4 months.
It is true to say that since she started school her reading and writing skills have improved, but I do wonder whether they would have anyway with the daily discipline of sitting with her every day with a book and also practising letter sounds. Given that in school an adult listens to her read once a week and at home we are reading with her every day how much of her improved ability is actually school related? I also understand that historically state education for the masses was a huge improvement for children, unlike today many families were not literate and many children would have been forced to work down mines, in factories and in agriculture but is state education still the answer for all our children today and if it is how can it be improved so that children are treated more respectfully and individually rather than great herds of cattle.
It is often argued that children need to go to school for socialisation but I do wonder about that argument for a child who takes part in weekly swimming and music lessons, has a network of friends and family completely separate to school, belongs to a church community and who when out makes friends easily and confidently with other children who may be about. At school she is with children all born within 12 months of her, all wearing the same clothes, all doing the same things and when working in the small groups all of about the same ability, how boring and how unlifelike!
I am not being critical about my daughters school in general, we chose it because we believed it to be a 'good' school, parents like to believe that don't they? It has a good reputation in the local area, the children generally seem happy and balanced, they have won lots of awards, they give the children opportunities to be involved in many different activities outside the normal curriculum and they have good facilities, we also appreciated the Christian ethos that being a church school brings but is it enough to ignore all the negatives that come with mass schooling, how long will it be before her peers are teaching her overtly sexual language and behaviour or she comes home practising swear words which no doubt will all be shared with her little sister. It's not that I don't want her to grow up, of course I do but I want her to grow up to be a happy and fulfilled adult, a person who has developed in her own way and learnt to know herself before she is forced to accept the rather harsh realities that the world can throw at us sometimes. I want her to be a child who is not frightened into general submission or encouraged to rebel by peers but one who is secure who can push her own boundaries and limits to achieve her potential without being driven by others.
I'm not entirely sure where that leaves us, we have discussed the possibility of flexi-schooling as an option while she is still very young but not in great depth, I'd love to hear suggestions of why school can be great too to convince me that school really can be a good place for our youngsters and not just a cattle market.
NOTE
Despite writing this blog post I am aware that for some children and some family situations school IS the best place for the child, this is particularly related to the circumstances we are working with at the present time.
Further info:
http://www.education-otherwise.org/
Since starting school we have had two sickness and diarrhoea bugs which have gone through the whole family, several colds and a dose of chicken pox, we have learnt the words hate and stupid in context, she's had her hair pulled and been slapped, she's been grouped according to ability and cried at being separated from the only child she knew in the class before she started, she's sometimes anxious and often grumpy and overtired from the school day she's become indoctrinated with the idea she must do homework and read her book EVERY night without exception, she panics if for any reason we haven't had opportunity to do it in case she is in trouble at school and yes she is still only 4 years and 4 months old and has been at school just 4 months.
I believe that traditions are important for children, (and adults,) they provide a marker along life's super highway, they are often times when we stop and think, times when we pause a moment and spend time with people we love, times where memories are made. Looking back to when I was a child, I honestly cannot remember ALL the presents I got each year, I can remember some, but I do remember being at my Grandparents house with the open fire lit with my family, I can still smell that fire when I think about it. I still remember the family tradition of going to Delamere Forest to choose a tree and again the memory is strong, I can smell that piney tree smell and even taste the burning hot soup we sometimes had afterwards to warm up, (it was gross by the way.) They are the type of memories that are not made from money but through time, through love and through family. They are the type of memories I want to create for my children so that as they grow older they have a bank of happy memories and loving times to use as a bunker when the world gets tough.