I Changed My Mind: I Want My Kids To Go to PS and Get Average Grades

[Anonymous]

I'd written several MyTakes before about how I liked the idea of homeschooling and wanted to homeschool my own children if I ever had them. Now, my POV is very different: I don't like the idea of solely focusing on kids' education anymore.

What changed my mind was reading this horror story from an all advanced classes sophomore: Her School Horror Story

On top of that, I ended up reading all of the horror stories in the comments section, and quite a few were FAR worse than even what the original author had posted. Many kids explained what it was really like having an extremely heavy load of homework each day; they stayed up throughout the night, took drugs, and even got really physically ill from the extreme stress that literally having 3-5-7+ hours of homework everyday caused them.

The amount of suffering the kids were going through convinced me I don't want to support kids taking honors classes, getting the best test scores, high grades, or anything that contributes to kids suffering so much.

That was why I actually really liked the idea of homeschooling....But from reading the forums, I realized that even homeschooling and unschooling parents want their kids to go to top colleges a lot of the time, and so the kids will take dual enrollment classes, lots of tests, and even more honors classes/curriculum than PS kids do. So whether they're homeschooled or not many of the kids end up like:

I decided it's much simpler just to have the kids go to regular classes at PS and actually have a childhood. I want them to go to college too, but a public state college is fine by me.

[DarkHumorRUs]

Eh, kids don't learn anything academically important in school anyway. Sure, they take tests over it, but they usually don't truly learn anything. They memorize for a while, and then forget most post-2nd grade concepts after they graduate college. It's too difficult and impractical to teach that many kids at once.

School really is a lot of about learning to be social, and learning how to deal with people. And that seems to be even more important, considering most mid-level jobs can be held by almost anybody WHO HAS PEOPLE SKILLS.
Service jobs - need people skills.
Manager - need people skills.
Any part of a team - need people skills.
Marketing - need people skills.

etc.

So I would send them to public school just for the sake of social learning.

[RationalMale]

As a guy who was homeschooled k-12, you realize that you could homeschool and make your kid's workload much easier, if you wanted to? For instance, if your kid is great in history, then they don't need to do the homework assignments, just what's on the report card sent to your state agency, if there is such regulation.

Also, while homeschooling is more difficult, you get a better education. I was homeschooled, went to college, didn't really work that hard, but had a couple of semesters where I was getting straight A's anyway.

[myTake Owner]

Hmm, I could... but I don't want to support the idea of kids needing to be educated in certain ways anymore. Those horror stories just did it for me.

[RationalMale]

there's far more public school horror stories, lmao. and crime.

[myTake Owner]

The story I linked to was from a PS, and so were most of the stories in the comments too. I meant that I don't want to add to the idea of kids needing to sacrifice so much of their time/childhood for school. Even if I personally didn't force my kid to do any of those things, other people wouldn't see it that way.

[Anonymous]

Plus it's not like private schools are offering anything more than a resume builder for your kid. Growing up, my private school friends were just like me, had the same experiences as me, learned the same things, and so on... except their parents were shelling out tons of money per year to essentially have piece of mind and that voice in their head tricking them into thinking their kids are actually better off.

That's a pretty expensive voice to feed...

[myTake Owner]

I'm not surprised, I bet a lot of colleges are similar too.

[Opinion Owner]

From what I've seen, yes. Only making a bit of an educated guess (pun intended :D ), but the whole "having a good university on your resume" is fortunately being replaced with "... but what can you do? Are you worthwhile as an employee? Do you have skills and talent?"

[JackKerouac77]

You could also avoid the problem all together by not having kids, I suppose.

I went to both private and public schools and did not find either intellectually challenging at all. I attended a public university and found it moderately challenging, but more and more a continuation of high school (less rules, but more or less the same).

I have learned more on my own through reading, experimentation and practice than I ever did in a classroom.

I hope that the dominant education model of the future will be based in practical experience and the Socratic method in smaller class sizes, but I believe these are pipe dreams for now. I still support homeschooling, but you have to be dedicated to it.

[myTake Owner]

Dedication is actually the problem that I have with everything; I want my kids to be able to enjoy their childhoods, not be dedicated to and have their lives overrun by school.

[JackKerouac77]

That's fine, I just wouldn't rely on many school systems to properly educate your child. A lot of that will come back to you. Just be a responsible parent and you should be fine.

[myTake Owner]

Yep. we could be library and bookstore addicts, lol. Although God only knows what kind of tech will be out then.

[JackKerouac77]

Yes, I volunteer at the library a lot and see lots of parents coming in to get their children books still. No matter what tech is out, information that was printed long ago in various forms will still have value.

Teach your children to ask questions and do research for themselves (while not being afraid to experiment) and they should become reasonably intelligent on their own.

[rocelot]

Or you could watch this movie and now you will never send your kids to school.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNnIxNeWcQ0