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ouinon
chemical reaction
Joined: Jul 11, 2007
Posts: 3124
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 Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 3:51 am Post subject: |
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| Xelebes wrote: | | ouinon wrote: |
John Taylor Gatto puts it down to the spread of capitalist industrialist commercialism; school was the tool invented to create obedient unthinking workers and obedient unthinking consumers. |
That would have been false then. It was Napoleon I who started the whole public school system as a means of undoing the anarchy that gripped France at the time. |
That is incorrect. Napoleon only invented higher education, for those who wanted it, the upper middle class, those intending to enter the professions etc.
The person largely responsible for the public/national school system in France was Jules Ferry, in the 1880's, perhaps inspired by the example being set in America at that period by the capitalists and industrialists, ( which Gatto was talking about) . 
It was he that created the "modern", free, public, non-religious school of France today, who introduced/proposed the law which imposes the "obligation to instruct " on every parent, and the "right to instruction" on every child, which is causing me such problems at the moment.
The problem is that he had this law passed because he believed, as many did at that time, that children were like empty vessels, passive recipients of information which had to be fed to them by some outside active agent, a teacher. This conception of learning has been proved false.
Public/national schools are founded on what has been demonstrated to be fallacious thinking about how we learn, as far as gaining knowledge is concerned that is, whereas it is very effective indeed at inculcating social values and forming behaviour.
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Last edited by ouinon on Fri May 30, 2008 5:18 am; edited 3 times in total |
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ouinon
chemical reaction
Joined: Jul 11, 2007
Posts: 3124
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| Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 5:17 am Post subject: |
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Actually, I've been reading about Ferry, and it turns out his creation of a free national public school system was fired by his hatred of the church, and the church schools which were the only ones offering free/cheap schooling ( compared to the private schools for some middle class) at that time.
His support for a particular structure and type of schooling, and its mandatoriness, may well have been the result of his ( resentful/envious) admiration for the Prussian Empire, whose schools had also served as model for the founders of american public-schools. And we all know what the end result of the Prussian system was.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system
Another reason why he imposed one language, french, on all the schools in all the french provinces, which resulted in the virtual disappearance of half a dozen regional languages, ( as the same measure had in Prussia, much to the increased power of its rulers), was because of his ambitions for France as a colonial power, which goal he also contributed to while a minister in the government.
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ouinon
chemical reaction
Joined: Jul 11, 2007
Posts: 3124
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 2:12 am Post subject: |
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After holding off for as long as possible to see what the correspondence school director had to say about his board of inspectors/ministry contact's activities on our behalf, but who when the papa phoned him had forgotten that he was supposed to have some indication by friday, and had nothing to add, I phoned the Education Advisor.
I confirmed for the afternoon of the 10 June, but requested that it start half an hour later because unless get up at 7 am to get the morning bus, can not be there before 14.00. Also warned him that we will have to leave at 16.30 at the latest, to be sure of getting the last but one bus back to our village. I do not intend to rely on the last one.
He accepted this, saying that he would just have to make do with the time this would leave us. He had told the papa that the tests would be for 3-4 hours. It's funny that ludicrously minimal public transport has come to our aid in reducing this time to 2 and a half hours!
He said the tests were usually "child on their own with the inspector" I declared this out of the question. After initially only allowing that I could of course stay in the building while my son did them, he apparently accepted this too. ( if he tries to send me out of the room he will have to throw me out bodily). He would not back down about the tests, though he began calling them "a few questions"! 
I suggested bringing along a book in english for him to test my son on english reading, but he wasn't interested, despite the fact that, since 2006 apparently, bilingualism has been legally taken into account, ( which is the result of the german mother's struggle to overturn the judgement which put her in prison) as acceptable reason for delay in french language acquisition. So I'm going to take a book along anyway.
If we hear nothing useful from the corr school director before the visit I will not hesitate to use the idea given me by a homeschooling mother last week, which is to explain that actually the course only represents a small part of our son's instruction, the french "backbone" which his father, being on the road so much, could not provide, and the rest is in english, which it is really, reading, internet games, talking about all kinds of subjects with me, etc.
Thus will no longer have to lie about how much time we spend on the course, which is supposed to be at least 5 hours a day, whereas we only spend a little over an hour. Not having to lie will be good. And also represents the first step to liberating ourselves from dependence on the correspondence course in the future. As the school have been no help to us at all so far in proving to the inspection that their course provides a full schooling I see no reason to protect their reputation for it, when in fact it is clear that it doesn't count.
So... just 10 days to go!
The advisor said that he will not have time to correct/mark/"score" the tests while we are there, so will not know how my son has done for a few days after that.
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ouinon
chemical reaction
Joined: Jul 11, 2007
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| Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 3:28 am Post subject: |
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I am realising that most of my stress, panic, and despair was caused by my inability to believe that an almost nine year old child having done only an hour and a half a day of schoolwork 4 times a week for the last 3 years could possibly pass a test standardised on performances of children who are in school for 7 hours a day.
My son spends most of every day playing, with Bionicle or other lego toys, etc, or on the internet, ( games, games, games! )or reading.
He has never, apart from 3 weeks a few years ago, been to school. Nor do I sit him down for any teaching. The only "schooling" he has is the assessed homework for the correspondence course, less than 90 minutes a day, which we do together, as fast as possible because it is so boring.
But yesterday he passed a test for children of his age based on national school standards. What are children in school learning, that takes up so much time?  
I simply don't understand.
The educational advisor who tested him yesterday did make allowances for my son's slowness, and also let him off the french requirement for joined up handwriting because I said I had a letter from the corr course school agreeing to his printing for the moment. But what my son did, he did at "the level for his age", which is what the advisor concluded and will send written confirmation of in next few days.
I was panicking this last 6 weeks because I still believed that children in school 7 hours a day must learn more, of school material at least; of conventional reading, writing, and maths, than a child playing most of every day. But I was wrong. I'm feeling kind of freaked out by this because even though in theory etc I was well aware of all this, I think I still didn't really believe that this could be possible.
The advisor was nice and friendly, and after a sticky start with an exercise on a weak area for my son, ( dates), things went very well. I had to reiterate that I was staying with my son, because he asked again that I leave them tete-a-tete, but I was very non-interfering/quiet, and attentive. Perhaps he had been afraid that I would talk all the time!
It helped that was an environment which suited us; peaceful, noone in the room apart from the advisor. The building is totally new, so there were wires and tools and boxes everywhere. Very few other professional workers there, just builders and painters etc putting finishing touches to the place. Amusingly like a building site.
He said that he would see us again in a year's time, next June. I am not sure if this would still be true if we dropped the corrrespondence course though, ( "pure" homeschoolers usually get their first convocation to an inspection three months after the start of the school year), so we are going to think hard about that over the summer.
Yep, still feeling a bit stunned/"sous le choc".
But so relieved. Wow!!  
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"Life is pain; anyone who says different is selling something"
Last edited by ouinon on Wed Jun 11, 2008 6:25 am; edited 1 time in total |
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lotusblossom
Deinonychus
Joined: Jan 14, 2008
Posts: 356
Location: UK
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| Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 5:15 am Post subject: |
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Im so pleased for you Ouinon
Your boy is so clever passing the exam and your so clever making the choice to home educate.
yay! |
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ouinon
chemical reaction
Joined: Jul 11, 2007
Posts: 3124
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| Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 6:43 am Post subject: |
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| lotusblossom wrote: | | Im so pleased for you Ouinon |
Thank you.
| Quote: | | Your boy is so clever passing the exam and you're so clever making the choice to home educate. |
Yes, my son is a star. He stayed calm, didn't go to bits, didn't freak out, didn't grimace or wriggle or space-out as I have seen him doing in a noisier "class"-style environment with several other ( about 12 ) children around, ( the music classes he went to for a while).
And he didn't let the situation push him into trying to work faster than he can well.
If cleverness is the right word for my decision, and if you're not taking the pee saying that, then it was in having faith in
a) my son when he didn't want to carry on going to school, after 3 weeks when he was 5, and
b) people like John Taylor Gatto, John Holt, Ivan Illich, and others, whose books, articles and ideas generally I had read/heard about and been convinced by.
You homeschool too, like Rachel46, Mumof5, and Tortuga; what led to you making this choice? How did you end up being so "clever" too?
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lotusblossom
Deinonychus
Joined: Jan 14, 2008
Posts: 356
Location: UK
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| Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 8:53 am Post subject: |
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I like those writers too especially John Holt- he is great
I chose to home educate as I left school at 14 and had a terrible time- once I was given a detention for telling a history teacher that the industrial revolution was not a good thing as it led to unemployment and destroyed comunities and was bad for the enviroment and I was sexually assulted by a couple of teachers and also bullied.
Having left school at 14 and no qualifications I went on to do a degree with the open university and Im now doing a msc in psych research methods and hope to go on to a phd. I learnt nothing in school and they punnished me for what I did know and I did not want to put that on my kids. I also suffered with nightmares about school for 8 years after I left.
My eldest child is much more strongly effected by AS than me especially sensory stuff so I figured it would be terrible for her and my youngest has very strong special interests that she can do all the time at home but schools would not do (entomology and general science).
The home ed group that we go to is really nice and the local autism group is good too and that gives us plenty of social stuff as we need lots of recooperating time.
Im so glad we dont have to do an exam though as my kids would probably bite the examiner and just write about insects  |
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