Two Articles Question Mainstream Education
arun on Feb 15 2008 at 7:04 am | Filed under: 4 to 8 year old, education, homeschooling, looking out, mainstream media, unschooling | Click here to go HOME | or find out about SUBSCRIBING TO THE PIT |
Two interesting articles doing the rounds recently caught my eye. The first was published by the BBC and asks in its headline, “Is five too soon to start school?”.
(btw – thanks to Scott Stantis for the cartoon).
The article compares England’s experience with countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Finland where school begins at seven years of age. A Cambridge based review of this question states:
The assumption that an early starting age is beneficial for children’s later attainment is not well supported in the research and therefore remains open to question
The report also notes that motivation for an early school age was historically about “child protection and social conditioning rather than learning.” It is interesting that the focus of the article is what age to start school given the journalist’s admission that:
One of the most intriguing statistics from international comparisons is the lack of relationship between hours in the classroom and educational achievement. Finland, a global superstar in education terms, is consistently among the top performers. But it is also at the very bottom of the league in terms of the hours spent in the classroom
While brushed over in the BBC article, the idea is taken to its logical conclusion over at City on A Hill Press where they’ve published an article called “Class Dismissed”.
Its a nice contrast. The journalist takes the time to talk to a number of unschoolers (both parents and children) and seems interested in exploring the concept even through the “experts” she interviews, so she writes:
Studies have shown that this type of learning as a family dynamic has proven effective. Dr. Doris Ash is an assistant professor in UC Santa Cruz’s education department and has researched science learning in informal settings like aquariums and zoos.
“The family for me is a stand-in of a social unit that can collaborate together,” said Ash, who watches families as they interact and learn from their environment. “Some kind of exquisite mix happens between what people already know and the activity they’re learning. What kind of knowledge does [the family] build collaboratively? It’s always the case that they know more together than alone.”
Its not often that the conventional wisdom about schools gets questioned, so I for one found both articles to be a breath of fresh air… hope you do too.
I had seen the BBC article a few days ago - but the “Class Dismissed” article is new for me. Thanks for the link - it IS a breath of fresh air!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for the article!
I know this may strike many as odd or unfavorable, but I have always wanted to open my own school. It is a dream I have had since a small child. The only problem is having taught in public and private American schools I didn’t want anything close to what was being done there.
Denmark and Finland became very interesting to me as I began homeschooling my own son. I couldn’t agree more that we begin school much too early in this country and that we spend way too many hours and years in the classrooms. I began wanting my school to resemble more these models than the ones that are here. I have been reading and researching, but it is hard to find such articles.
Again, I thank you for the articles and hope that some of these models along with my own homeschooling experiences can help me design my own school for the children who’s parents simple cannot unschool or homeschool their children!
Hi
I love this blog!
Just reporting from “the other side of the fence”: Danish children are put in daycare when they are around 8-12 months old - if you do not “provide this opportunity” to your child you are constantly asked how you socialise them, how you stimulate them, how their language development is. We honestly do not believe that children can learn how to talk without the aide of public daycare. Once they are 3, even so called humane kindergarten teachers, will look at you with concern and bewilderment, if you say that your child will not be going to kindergarten. They do have curricula in daycare as well as kindergarten. They do have scheduels and they do not have enough time to spend with the individual children. I know sahm’s who send their children to kindergarten because they believe that is in the best interest of their children. The danish crown princess has sent her oldest son to kindergarten - because it would be “bourgeois” and “overprotective” to keep him at home.
Some Danish parents try to stop their children from learning how to read on their own accord - because if they learn at 3 - what will they do when they start school at 7? My mom was advised not to answer my questions, when i started asking what the letters were at 3 years old - because I would get bored when I started school.
Only the average student is beign taught anything in the danish school system. The poor student will not learn how to read (about 20% of a year is funcutionally illetterate) and gifte children will be bored for 10 years - some of the gifted children end up being kicked out of school because they are so bored the start making trouble. If the gifted student is really lucky, and have a really progressive teacher - he or she can sit at the bottom of the class with advanced books and work on their own - as long as they are quiet. A lot of gifted children end up in special classes - for kids with asbergers or ADHD. “What not everybody can learn no-one should learn” - was a credo of a Danish minister of education some 30 years ago - it is still true in most class rooms througout the country.
Just to say - it’s not all roses… I would never put my child in a Danish public school - ever. I’m considering private school or unschooling. Right now unschooling sounds more appealing.