Are schools the ‘only’ place for a complete education?

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Public Schooling on 28 Apr 2009.

When I first read what a certain head of a private school said about homeschooling, my first reaction was disbelief. And quite disturbed too, that an article on homeschooling should end with such an ill-informed quote by a school head on schooling and education.

I think I can live with people who do not buy into homeschooling or who say that homeschool is not for everybody. But it is hard to accept that this educator believes schools in this country are the “only place where a child can experience a holistic and complete education.” Saying that schools are the best place for education is like saying a bus is best or the only vehicle for transporting a lot of people. The question educators have to ask themselves is, where is the bus taking all these people? What are schools supposed to produce?

In the first place it goes against common wisdom that education and schooling are two separate things. It was no less a personage than educator and philosopher Mortimer Adler (he also served on the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Board of Directors) who once said that schooling is not education, that “no one has ever been or can be educated in school or college.” It all has to do with one’s philosophy of education, and this coming from a man who first dropped out of school at 14 before becoming the brilliant scholar known the world over, makes good sense.

Secondly, such a stoic defense of our schools goes against the clamour about the state of our education system – many parents are voting with their feet, like homeschoolers, deserting our public schools for alternatives and options elsewhere. Not a day passes without a media report about how our schools are failing. The amount of statistical evidence and research findings pointing to Malaysia’s deteriorating school performance and university ranking is too much to reference. In a talk delivered at the 12th Malaysian Education Summit 2008, Hanif Merican said:

“The undeniable truth is that we have allowed the education policies of successive governments since 1969 to divide our country racially, religiously, culturally, linguistically and economically in the name of nationalistic jingoism and communalism – and, ultimately, more for the protection of the party political elite than for their constituents….Meanwhile, as each year slips by, the end products of our education system move further and further from the ideals we espouse in our mission statements.”

Now if you read his whole address, you can see where he’s coming from. Let me say it’s not a pretty picture.

Thirdly, in spite of the grand vision of providing the one place where children can “learn holistically” and “gauge” their performance, the reality is tragically lost in translation, as they say. Almost every parent I have ever spoken to has despaired that our schools so highly esteemed by its educators have failed their children. Yes, they may say one or two things that are positive, but the test of the pudding is in the eating. I happen to agree with Willi Schohaus (Dark Places of Education) when he wrote that, “The most elementary, the most obvious condition which the school should achieve is that the children will want to go there.” Now isn’t that true? Just try asking any kid if they would go to school if given a choice.

Perhaps our educators need to hear what our own school students and graduates have to say about their personal schooling experience? Here’s what one ex-student has to say about what school meant to him:

• Get up and 6am. Take our breakfast (Usually misses it). Go to school.
• If it’s early, we catch up with friends. Talk about soccer matches yesterday. Crap. Chelsea lost 1-0 to MU yesterday night. MU lucky only lah. Yeah right you losers.
• The teacher comes, we rush into the class. Greet the teacher.
• Take out our books and turn to page 69 and listen to boring lectures.
• Eagerly wait for the first break.
• Happy Hour Starts. Talk crap.
• Boring lectures continues…
• Eagerly waits for the second break.
• Happy Hour Take Two. Talk crap again.
• Boring lectures resumes…
• Eagerly waits for the 12:35pm “Go Home” bell.
• The bell rings. We go home.

For the whole painful post, check out what this blog has to say, and don’t miss the frank and amusing comments posted (last I counted there were 59 of them). Reads like some tragic comedy.

What I fail to understand is this: every other day we hear reports of school gangs and violence, school bags that weigh a ton, graduates who cannot fit, dropouts, unimaginative teaching methods, overcrowded classrooms, and under-qualified teachers, the rampant tuition culture, etc. Yet you get news about a family that homeschools, and somehow it’s bad for the child. All too often whenever students fail, parents are blamed. It is amazing that schools know how to point at parents, yet educators bear not an iota of responsibility when they fail students by the thousands. And when parents decide to take charge to be responsible and home educate, these same educators are up in arms.

“Why is it that millions of children who are pushouts or dropouts amount to business as usual in the public schools, while one family educating a child at home becomes a major threat to universal public education and the survival of democracy?” so writes Stephen Arons in his critique of compulsory schooling entitled, Compelling Belief. Never a truer word was spoken!

I am not saying homeschool is foolproof, or that it is somehow superior in every way. Admittedly not every homeschool child does well (measured against conventional standards), but it has a lot going for it that makes success achievable. To say that educating one’s own child is somehow illegitimate (unless one’s child is unable to attend school!?) or even incompatible with education is surely living in denial pure and simple.

Let me close this long post with a quote by my favourite educator and 3-time New York City Teacher of the year John Gatto:

Schools were conceived to serve the economy and the social order rather than kids and families — that is why it is compulsory. As a consequence, the school can not help anybody grow up, because its prime directive is to retard maturity. It does that by teaching that everything is difficult, that other people run our lives, that our neighbors are untrustworthy even dangerous. School is the first impression children get of society. Because first impressions are often the decisive ones, school imprints kids with fear, suspicion of one another, and certain addictions for life. It ambushes natural intuition, faith, and love of adventure, wiping these out in favor of a gospel of rational procedure and rational management. [More]

So many of us parents lament the dearth of good schools, when what we really want for our children is a good education. The solution came after my wife and I decided to stop complaining and start taking control. That is why we chose to homeschool.

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