I’ve written about school, homeschooling, unschooling and the education system a little bit here, here, here, and here. I have strong opinions.
I have a confession to make. I hated school. Truly. I hated elementary school more than I hated high school. I hated grades two, three & four. Grade five was tolerable because I loved my teacher, the social scene, not so much. Six, seven and eight were so bad I’ve blocked them out of my memory. I’m not kidding. I can’t remember a single teacher in grade 7 or 8. I only remember the librarian, because he was cool. And nice.
Why did I hate elementary school? Two reasons. It was boring. It was boring (oops said that already). And, the kids were mean. Mean to each other and mean to me. I admit that I was mean too, usually following the crowd, trying to fit in. I remember being bored in grade three and writing a illustrating a Barbapapa book while my teacher was droning on about something boring. I was moderately successful in elementary school. My report cards always had the comment that I wasn’t working to my potential. HELLO, I was BORED! I’m not trying to say I was gifted or especially intelligent. I’m not. I just found school boring (I promise not to use that word anymore). I remember reading novels and having to stop after each chapter to answer insipid questions. Who reads like that? I just wanted to keep reading, and I did.
My social scene wasn’t great either. I had a few good friends, we were the misfits. I’m not sure why, we weren’t ugly or stupid or clumsy. Just different from the others. Different background, different ideas, just different. Difference does not fly at elementary school.
High school was better. I found my niche, a good group of friends. My classes were mostly interesting.
University was even better. It was great. Choice, choice, choice. Diverse population.
Sometimes I wonder how much of my thinking about school comes from my own background. Some of it certainly. But, I also observe the system from the other side now, and I still don’t like it. I don’t want my kids in it. I’ve stated my reasons before but here’s a brief recap.
It’s boring or too hard for lots of kids. There’s not enough play. There is too much sitting.
Kid’s are mean. I think that schools actually create bullying in many ways.
Where does that leave me now? I’m racking my brains trying to think of how to keep my girls home. I’m doing my best in the classroom to keep it interesting but that’s hard with 56 different people with different interests. I feel terrible that I can’t meet all their needs, all the time. That I can’t make it interesting to all of them. But I try.
What was your schooling experience like? I’m curious to know if my experience if common, rare or in between.
I hated school as well. For mostly the same reasons you named above. I don’t have any friends from before high school, and even from high school I only have my one best friend. I found school painfully boring and oftentimes cruel. I remember having so many moments of “WHAT am I doing here??”
I think that is certainly part of the reason I am not sending my own kids to school, but I think that’s a perfectly good reason. Because the choice I have made for my kids is not the choice between “school and not school,” but more between “force and not force.” I’m not forcing them to go to school, but I will definitely let them go if they want to. Then they will be free to make their own decisions about it! So my purpose is not to protect them from school and keep them home, but to protect them from feeling trapped, in either place.
Desi,
I think you have a great idea of leaving there as long as they still have a love of learning. I know that school squashes that for lots of kids, and I already see it in one of mine, in JK.
As Tracey would say, Le sigh.
I guess it probably depends on the school, the teachers and the other kids. I went to a school where I was very different from the other kids. Most of them came from pretty traditional Greek families and my parents were hippies, at least in spirit.
I think the reason that I want to homeschool is that I know that schools don’t meet the needs of all the kids. They didn’t meet my needs. And there are lots of kids still whose needs are not met. It’s very frustrating to me to watch it happen in spite of my best efforts. And I think the design of the system is mostly to blame.
I’m thinking that I’ve written about this too much and people must be sick of hearing about it. It’s close to my heart though, because I really want things to be nearly perfect for every child.
I didn’t hate school. I can remember Mrs. Muller and Mrs. Jackson from elementary school – both incredibly hardworking, consistently engaged and engaging teachers. There were a few others from high school that I can only remember by COMPLETELY inappropriate nicknames, and Mr. Zorn who loved math like many people love art and made equations that moved like paintings and we all knew they were singing to him.
I wasn’t a social butterfly or anything, but I made a few friends then that are still friends now, and overall the experience wasn’t horrible. I wasn’t bullied. If I was excluded I didn’t know about it, and when people gossiped about me, I didn’t care. But I was bored out of my mind from Grade 2 onward. And I attended the exact minimum number of days required to qualify for my Advanced Diploma in high school. I always finished my homework in class, and brought novels and paper to occupy myself all the rest of the time I had to be there. And I waited a long time to finish my degree because I was just so done with school.
I’m on the fence about homeschooling my own kids. On the one hand, I don’t think kids necessarily thrive in the thirty-kids-to-one-teacher, standard curriculum our school system provides. On the other hand, I don’t think I can handle the time and energy commitment necessary to give my kids the education they deserve. So our solution, for now, is afterschooling. We take some time to work on the basics at home, and some more time to work on whatever the kids are interested in. Right now, my daughter is all about Ancient Egypt – as in, she’s digging holes in our snowy back yard to find the entrance to the Underworld. She’s five. I really hope that after she starts kindergarten in the fall, we’ll still be able to explore those things together.
Mostly, I just want them to love learning for as long as they can. If public school starts to damage that for them, we’ll bring them home to stay.
I loved school – I could name my teachers
2 – Whitney
3 – Kingsley
4 – Appleton
5 – ooh she got married Kundel
6 – Farncomb
7 – GAskell
8 – Wilcox
Ms Farncomb and Mr. Wilcox got married and they were my two favourite teachers. I guess you could say I loved it. all of my teachers were amazing and I can remember it all well. High school – not as much. In high school, I never applied myself and no one pushed me too – I wasn’t mature enough to push myself. I wish I had a do-over.
Cathie, did you like school as a child?
Thanks for delurking Rachael. I will check out your post and comment there. I lurk on your blog too!
Cathie,
That is a fair question.
When I decided to become a teacher I was working in the finance world. There were aspects of my job that I loved but I didn’t feel fulfilled. I wanted to do something that was contributing to society and I didn’t feel like being support staff (I was in HR) to people selling stocks was it. I thought about the different things I could do, what my strengths were and I decided on teaching because I though I could be good at it and because I like kids. I didn’t think about my own experiences in elementary school at that time. Maybe being there has reminded me of them.
I don’t loathe it now (I did then), I think there are a lot of problems. I’m not saying it would be easy to change it, and it seems that lots of people think it’s just fine the way it is.
It’s probably partly because lately I’ve been moved around so much, I don’t feel like I can do my best, I don’t have time to develop the lessons and units I want to, it takes a few years to get really good. But that’s not all of it.
Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m a counter culture hippie. I don’t buy into a lot of our cultural ideals. Like success is about making money and being the best. I don’t buy into competition (as Rachael says).
Whatever it is, and I will think about it more, I do not let it interfere with doing my job to the best of my ability. In fact, I watched the Ken Robinson RSA with my class to get them thinking. I try to do fun, engaging projects as much as possible (difficult with the very full curriculum we have) like planning and filming public service announcements. We will be starting an election unit soon in which we campaign, create poster, shoot ads, give speeches, etc.
Did you ever watch Ken Robinson’s Ted Talk or the RSA of his Ted talk on shifting paradigms in the school system?
Hi, Erin, I’ve mostly been lurking, but this post I must comment on. For me, school was not so much *boring* as *competitive,* though I guess I’m talking not so much about elementary school as middle school (which was awful) and high school (which was intense in every way). I could go on and on about it, but I pretty much summed it up in this post, which I’ve been thinking about a lot the past few days — I’m going to be writing about the topic again soon, methinks.
As for the Critter, he’s in a lovely Montessori preschool three days a week. After that? NYC public schools? We’ll see.
I must say, I find it interesting that you so loathe the education system in which you are employed. Why bother being qualified as a teacher if you so strongly disagree with conventional education? I’m not saying this to be a jerk, just sincerely curious. Is this something that you have given some thought?