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We don't need no education

Lukraak_Sisser said:
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I understand that there are some exceptions where maybe a homeschooling setup for a limited time might be the best option, but imo it should stay something exceptional, not common.
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Agreed, where, by homeschooling, I mean remote teaching by a teacher, not the parents teaching their kids. The problem is;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66701748

"More than one in five children in England are frequently missing school...Over the last academic year, Department for Education (DfE) figures show 22.3% of pupils in England were persistently absent."

That is a lot of kids who schools need to re-engage with, so remote teaching may need to be more common than we would prefer.
 
dann said:
No, not really.
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From the link:
How the Christian Home-Schooling Lobby Feeds on Fear of Public Schools
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This is my stereotype of homeschooling, parents who don't like their religious beliefs challenged in public schools. It especially took off with the Evangelical fanaticism.

Anti-vaxxers, with a lot of overlap were the other parents who fled public schools.

After the pandemic closed a lot of schools for 2 years I imagine that caused an upheaval in the whole system. I'm not sure what will be the result when the dust settles.

I think kids benefit from the socialization that occurs at school. It includes bullying to some degree as kids need to learn how to deal with such situations. That can backfire of course when the adults don't monitor the situation.

As for the education, that varies considerably by teacher and school. I don't think there is a one size fits all. I only had a couple teachers who understood the importance of teaching critical thinking skills. This is a good time to consider restructuring public education. Unfortunately for the US the current political situation is dominating public discourse so I don't anticipate attention being paid to the transition back to school for kids.

First day of school is Tues for most public schools in this country. I believe most schools here opened last year.
 
Nessie said:
Agreed, where, by homeschooling, I mean remote teaching by a teacher, not the parents teaching their kids. The problem is;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66701748

"More than one in five children in England are frequently missing school...Over the last academic year, Department for Education (DfE) figures show 22.3% of pupils in England were persistently absent."

That is a lot of kids who schools need to re-engage with, so remote teaching may need to be more common than we would prefer.
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Remote teaching was hell.

Sure, if you can schedule the time to talk to each student individually, but even then, it was a pale imitation of actually being able to walk past students and see what they were doing.
To make it work you'd need classes of 10 or less per teacher, and given the shortage of teachers, that's not going to happen.

Again, if it's limited to special cases this is not a bad idea.
 
lionking said:
I’m sorry to say, this illustrates your ignorance. Vanishingly few people live in remote Australia without access to school. Despite the country’s size, Australia is one of the highest urbanisation of all nations. And first rate, accessible schools.

You are also, like so many, underestimating the importance of face to face engagement. It is very well known that moving from face to face to remote communication degrades the quality of such communication. Psychology 101.
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Exactly. One of the most important parts of going to school as a kid is learning social skills. Comparing this to adults working from home is an invalid comparison to put it kindly.

The logic here seems to be "kids went to school remotely and they loved it so why force them back?" Yes, God forbid kids not get what they want. We wouldn't want to teach them that's how life is or anything. Coddle and spoil, that's how to do it :thumbsup:

(Side note: I always found the PF song title funny, given the glaring lack of education it shows)
 
lionking said:
Yes some children need alternatives to school, no question. But you didn’t say that. You said “many”. Prove it. Show your work.

And using the trite song title from an ordinary album to make your point? Come off it.
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It’s not a title of a song. The song title is Another Brick in the Wall, and the thread title is merely a line from the song. Do they not teach anything in your schools?


Samson said:
I think times they are a changin'.
I think schools were good for mating behaviour, and computers deter this.
Consider how other species continue with mating behaviour unabated by screen time.
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Samson! Do other species learn mating behaviour in schools? No!? Then your argument is very silly!
 
Given that the average test scores for kids declined sharply during the school closures due to Covid, it seems unlikely that remote learning works for most kids; it probably would for some. Schools also function as babysitters for a lot of working couples.

BTW, the song title is Another Brick in the Wall Part II. :D
 
My wife is a teacher. She was very frustrated with remote classrooms via computer because the4 was no way to maintain any "classroom" control.
Add in no student could be failed no matter how little they participated.
Net results, a lot of kids got pushed through two years of school without any real gains.
Now the kids are back in the classroom in person and some are way off the level they could be at.

It will take a while to get the system back up to where it was, as relatively defective as it was before the disruption.

Most parents aren't remotely prepared to home school. I certainly am not. My math skills are nowhere near adequate for the material they are learning.
 
Remote learning will not work for all kids, but out of the 1.6 million kids in the UK now regularly missing school, there will be some for whom it is a godsend and the best way to re-engage them with education.

My son would have dropped out, but for the switch to remote learning.
 
Nessie said:
Remote learning will not work for all kids, but out of the 1.6 million kids in the UK now regularly missing school, there will be some for whom it is a godsend and the best way to re-engage them with education.

My son would have dropped out, but for the switch to remote learning.
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What the UK needs to do is require children to attend except for the most serious and provable reasons.

Australia had a problem with idiot parents not getting their children vaccinated for measles. The government stopped welfare payments to families which did that. The problem went away.
 
lionking said:
What the UK needs to do is require children to attend except for the most serious and provable reasons.

Australia had a problem with idiot parents not getting their children vaccinated for measles. The government stopped welfare payments to families which did that. The problem went away.
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The reasons why children do not go to school are many and varied. There are now so many children not going, that alternatives should be offered.

Removing benefits from feckless parents with kids who cannot be bothered with school is one way to get some back.

Offering remote learning opportunities is another, especially for kids who have been bullied, have phobias or are on the autistic spectrum, and who want to learn, have caring, capable parents, but struggle with the school environment.

The pandemic revealed there are a lot more kids in the latter group than I think anyone fully realised.
 
Nessie said:
The reasons why children do not go to school are many and varied. There are now so many children not going, that alternatives should be offered.

Removing benefits from feckless parents with kids who cannot be bothered with school is one way to get some back.

Offering remote learning opportunities is another, especially for kids who have been bullied, have phobias or are on the autistic spectrum, and who want to learn, have caring, capable parents, but struggle with the school environment.
The pandemic revealed there are a lot more kids in the latter group than I think anyone fully realised.
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Are you saying the UK education system does not offer support for children bullied, with phobias, autistic and so on? Firstly, I do not believe this is true, but if it is, this is the problem to be addressed. The solution is absolutely not to keep children away from schools.
 
lionking said:
Are you saying the UK education system does not offer support for children bullied, with phobias, autistic and so on? Firstly, I do not believe this is true, but if it is, this is the problem to be addressed. The solution is absolutely not to keep children away from schools.
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The UK does offer support, in school. That is part of the problem, the support is at the school and the child has to come to school to get it. That support should start at home, with the aim of re-engaging the child and it should include the option of remote teaching.
 
No. Get the children to schools for professionals to deal with their issues.

That is good parenting in my view.
 
lionking said:
No. Get the children to schools for professionals to deal with their issues.

That is good parenting in my view.
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We forced our son to school and college, which he hated, then when everything went to remote learning, he thrived.

According to you are we good or bad parents?
 
Got to say I'm in agreement with LK here. Remote learning was a great thing during the pandemic. Absolutely the best solution to the problem at the time. Outside of that? Sure there might be a few kids who would do better, but school really is the best option for all involved.

I'm not saying schools are perfect. I was bullied regularly when I was at school and I hated it, and I doubt the situation has improved by a whole lot but that's an issue with the way schools deal with the problem and the solution is to fix that not abandon schools.
 
Nessie said:
We forced our son to school and college, which he hated, then when everything went to remote learning, he thrived.

According to you are we good or bad parents?
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Serious questions, no snark: were the schools particularly abusive for any reason? Were other students generally able to succeed? Did the child study team evaluate your child to see if there were other remedies that could have had the student thrive in a conventional environment?
 
Thermal said:
Serious questions, no snark: were the schools particularly abusive for any reason? Were other students generally able to succeed? Did the child study team evaluate your child to see if there were other remedies that could have had the student thrive in a conventional environment?
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The school did not a not bad job with support, but he still left early. He found college more relaxed (the UK allows students of school age to also study at college), but still struggled. The switch to remote learning was the making of him and he is now doing a degree, which would have never happened without remote learning.

That is why I think so many are staying away, because many do not have that remote option they coped with and liked, during the pandemic.
 
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