I find the social skills comment so disturbing . There are ample opportunity to socialise . How do you socialise behind a desk and purely with children your own age ? I assume when you left school you made friends with people other than your primary school friends ? Forced socialisation in schools is not socialising .
I have to say we socialise so much more since Home Educating , we mix with varying ages and my child can have conversations with anyone . He attends performing arts also after school and he is the most confidence according to the teacher , ironic given that the other children are state educated and seems quite miserable !
As for not being qualified to teach certain subjects , you do know that most areas do small tutor groups for HE with a qualified subject tutor that you pay a small fee towards ? That you can do online courses ? I find the negativity toward HE excuses . There are always ways around everything .
I think HE is the best . In the USA HE children are sought out for jobs as they tend to be better educated and more socialised . Go figure .
Paul - 8 years ago
That's great, Tom. A very balanced and well-constructed argument. I expect no less from you, of course :-)
tom - 8 years ago
I found it difficult to choose an answer. The ideal is of course that the child's education takes place both at home and at school, and that is going to be far better than education only at school or education only at home. And of course schools vary enormously in the quality of education they provide, and even within a school the quality varies from subject to subject. The capabilities of parents to educate at home (whether by doing it themselves or , for the rich ones, by hiring governesses or tutors) must vary rather a lot too, I think.
However, the knowledge that was needed in the early 60s to scrape a the lowest grade pass in maths at O level would, it seems, deliver a grade A pass at A level today, so in England at least it seems essential to include some home education since the schools are presented with such a low level target to aim for (although certainly some schools aim higher). So at first I was tempted to say "Home is better". But then I thought about what sort of problems I would have had trying to teach my children some of the subjects they studied - no problems with maths, physics, and the commonly taught foreign languages up to O level standard, but I couldn't have taught them history or geography or languages (other than English, Gàidhlig and French) to A level (not even to today's A level statndard). So then I thought maybe school is better, because it provides several teachers to handle all the different subjects. And then I remembered the deputy head of the secondary school my children went to deciding to eliminate Latin from the curriculum and concluded that school is not better. So I ended up picking the "about the same" answer in the poll.
Paul - 8 years ago
Sensible comments as always, Anand. Many thanks. Paul
Anand Mehta - 8 years ago
While their academic education can be on par with, or even superior to, what they might get at school, they are likely to be less advanced in social skills. So, taking a broader view of education (preparing the child for a life in society), I said worse.
Many thanks Heidi. Very well argued.
I find the social skills comment so disturbing . There are ample opportunity to socialise . How do you socialise behind a desk and purely with children your own age ? I assume when you left school you made friends with people other than your primary school friends ? Forced socialisation in schools is not socialising .
I have to say we socialise so much more since Home Educating , we mix with varying ages and my child can have conversations with anyone . He attends performing arts also after school and he is the most confidence according to the teacher , ironic given that the other children are state educated and seems quite miserable !
As for not being qualified to teach certain subjects , you do know that most areas do small tutor groups for HE with a qualified subject tutor that you pay a small fee towards ? That you can do online courses ? I find the negativity toward HE excuses . There are always ways around everything .
I think HE is the best . In the USA HE children are sought out for jobs as they tend to be better educated and more socialised . Go figure .
That's great, Tom. A very balanced and well-constructed argument. I expect no less from you, of course :-)
I found it difficult to choose an answer. The ideal is of course that the child's education takes place both at home and at school, and that is going to be far better than education only at school or education only at home. And of course schools vary enormously in the quality of education they provide, and even within a school the quality varies from subject to subject. The capabilities of parents to educate at home (whether by doing it themselves or , for the rich ones, by hiring governesses or tutors) must vary rather a lot too, I think.
However, the knowledge that was needed in the early 60s to scrape a the lowest grade pass in maths at O level would, it seems, deliver a grade A pass at A level today, so in England at least it seems essential to include some home education since the schools are presented with such a low level target to aim for (although certainly some schools aim higher). So at first I was tempted to say "Home is better". But then I thought about what sort of problems I would have had trying to teach my children some of the subjects they studied - no problems with maths, physics, and the commonly taught foreign languages up to O level standard, but I couldn't have taught them history or geography or languages (other than English, Gàidhlig and French) to A level (not even to today's A level statndard). So then I thought maybe school is better, because it provides several teachers to handle all the different subjects. And then I remembered the deputy head of the secondary school my children went to deciding to eliminate Latin from the curriculum and concluded that school is not better. So I ended up picking the "about the same" answer in the poll.
Sensible comments as always, Anand. Many thanks. Paul
While their academic education can be on par with, or even superior to, what they might get at school, they are likely to be less advanced in social skills. So, taking a broader view of education (preparing the child for a life in society), I said worse.