What makes a proper education?

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

To structure this question, let me give you a framework to work in.

Imagine that you are a parent raising your child in a micro-environment by yourself. You can construct this environment however you would like. You have 18 years to give them a "proper education" with the knowledge that after 18 years they will leave your micro-environment and be put out in the real world. For simplicity, say this real world is put in the mainland United States. If you haven't lived in the states at all, use whatever local community you are most familiar with.

How would you design this micro-environment to give them a "proper education"? What things might you put in your fictitious environment? Ultimately, what constitutes a proper education?

I'll get around to my own thoughts later after I had a little more time to think about it. I wanted to get this little exercise out there before I forgot about it.

 

[Sucumbio]

I'd just recreate the public school system because it's important for matters of social integration and training, but I'd make several changes:

-leave out the no-child-left-behind aspect.
-eliminate homework around 10th grade or so, and extend classes to be from 8am to 5pm with 2 lunch breaks - open campus.
-eliminate from 10th grade on punishments and regulations that deal with attendance.
-eliminate all forms of standardized testing
-eliminate all forms of multiple choice, t/f and matching testing as these forms of tests only teach us the process of elimination rather than true information retention and application

In essence I would hope to better prepare my child for the chilling effects of the business of college, because today's public schools still fail miserably at preparing most people for undergraduate college life, and I think that high school's main purpose should be to prepare you for 1.) college or 2.) a job.

In that respect I'd also ensure that the high school level of education 9-12 grades, would offer either academic focus or vocational focus and that both be offered at the school, and that vocational focuses include a paid stipend from 10th grade on (typically when students are old enough by child labor law to work) which in turn would coincide with training on banking, saving, bill paying, etc. Let's face it, some kids have to work full time and go to school. Nonsense. There's no need for a child to hold down a REAL job while under 18, it makes more sense to offer a chance to work in the same vein as a real job, but still under the umbrella of educational training.

-grades 6-8 which are during the child's most sensitive physical growth period, should take a metered approach towards focus with the ultimate decision to go vocational or academic being reached by 9th grade admission.

-grades 1-5 should be spent solely on preparing the child as best as possible academically for the basics of life and living: reading, writing and arithmetic. Science and Social Studies while important should be introduced at such a time so as not to identify them as separate categories of information, but rather integrated: science is rooted in math, social studies is rooted in reading, etc.

- pre-k and K should be optional, however I would recommend a pre-screening of public school applicants to ensure that the child has been "broken in" in terms of social interaction. They should have already attended reading hour at the public library a few times, or swim lessons, or played at the park with the other kids, whatever it is. A meter has to be established in other words to determine the child growth level so as not to make it more difficult for the other students. Though all children develop at a unique pace, most children develop at a similar pace, so the odd balls (those highly accelerated or grossly under developed) should be put into special programs early on which are designed to "catch them up" so to speak so that they can be re-inserted into the normal flow at a given time (or in the case of an accelerated youth, catapulted into higher learning).

there's prolly more I could think on but in essence and to answer the question at hand: I would not just home school them, regardless of what options I had, if I'm to create a perfect learning environment, it's going to be a public school - just with several things changed.

 

[Xivii]

Scumbio:

it's important for matters of social integration and training

Where are you getting this information from? I don't think this is true at all, or at least I haven't seen any substantial evidence for it. From personal experience, home-schooled children seem to have no problem integrating with society.

grades 6-8 which are during the child's most sensitive physical growth period

Why is physical growth relevant? It seems that something like this should be based on inner/psychological growth which I don't believe is the most sensitive during this period, or at least I haven't seen any substantial evidence for it.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

Enabling a child to:

1) have a skill driven background to target moderate to high pay-out jobs to make a living
2) have the ability to adapt when their career is jeopardized
3) physically be able to handle commuting/stressful hours
4) emotionally support reaching out to new people for networking & social relationships
5) impart an ambitious sentiment for them to keep on building core skills
6) develop a sense of creativity that leads to success and not away from it

1) programming, actuary, formulations, accounting
2) disposition to taking tests i.e. ccna, mcat, lsat, gre, cpa
3) some jobs require people to stand the entire day i.e. surgery, pharmacy
4) networking meet-ups, opportunity sharing, coworkers, outside of work friends, significant other
5) future development mindset
6) if you are able to do renditions of picaso cubism as a corporate accountant that's great, but irrelevant. If you're able to cut costs and increase efficiency in a creative way then that's great and relevant.

 

[Sucumbio]

Scumbio:
Where are you getting this information from? I don't think this is true at all, or at least I haven't seen any substantial evidence for it. From personal experience, home-schooled children seem to have no problem integrating with society.

If you wait until you're 18 before interacting with more than 1 or 2 trusted people, you'll definitely find it difficult to adapt once you move on to an environment like, Walmart, the Army, College, etc. Being home schooled is an unfortunate necessity for some children due to their physical or mental conditions, but in general and for your normal every day kid I'd recommend a fully interactive and social environment. I suppose a home school kid could just read "How to make friends and influence people" but why read what you can practice instead? There's no doubt in anyone's mind that hard physical practice is important to learning any skill - it'd be like trying to read a book on dating and then wondering why you can't get laid.

That's not to diss all home schooled students. I'm sure you'll find a few that turned out perfectly normal. And normally one would eschew personal evidence when debating... but I can't help it. I've known several home schooled kids and they were all wack jobs, lol. At the very least they become super dependent on closed social interactions such as the internet. Focusing all their social needs to one monitor and keyboard, they end up shuttered in, unable to cope with the simplest of excursions, such as going to a friend's birthday party (if indeed they even have such a friend to call upon.)

As they say...

"All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten." -Robert Fulghum

Why is physical growth relevant? It seems that something like this should be based on inner/psychological growth which I don't believe is the most sensitive during this period, or at least I haven't seen any substantial evidence for it.

Puberty, dude. Puberty. During puberty kids are less focused on ... well everything, really, but academics also, and more focused on their junk and how their junk fits into other people's junk. It's almost amazing how any 13 year old can even really get by in school when they're surrounding by so many hormone crazed others. I'd even go so far as to say that 6-8th grades may be better off home-schooled, except that the public school approach has been tirelessly formatted to ensure that students take all that extra... energy, and focus it on hands-on things. Most public school systems introduce vocational concentrations at this time, wood and metal shop, home economics, etc. Also sports become bigger, as do most after school clubs and activities. As the child grows, literally, so too does their capacity to expand their repertoire of activities.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

To my understanding, unschooling probably has the most potential for teaching. Unschooling being teaching students simply by raising them. Of course, this can be the worst thing to do, but it is only as bad as you let it be, and to a certain extent when the child grows older, how bad you force it to be. First off, the negative effects of homeschooling, like lack of diversity, socializing, lack of societal involvement, can all be remedied by being active with your child and exposing them to these things (although a child and/or teenager is going to be actively curious in their own right to a degree). The negative effects of unschooling like lack of knowledge exposure is a similar concept: be active in raising your child. So long as you are proactive and expose your child to different types of experiences, they'll develop not sheltered, all the while not facing all of the negative side effects specific to schooling. Any subjects of learning that the child enjoys should be developed and encouraged through any means possible.

Now, because of the manner in which I answered this question, it'd be rather difficult and conjectural to describe and micromanage all of the details of a hypothetical child's development. The only real issue to me is that this is highly idealistic. The crux that the entire concept hinges upon, potential, can simply be wafted away by normal schooling (and if that were to be done, altering it like Sucumbio has done would be preferable). But in this case I'm simply answering under the assumption that I can do what I believe to have the most potential. I'm not a fan of our schooling system, as I've probably went on about many a time. Again the specifics of which I'd try to do, not only because of the nature of the problem, but the scope, I must say I cannot confidently answer.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

Schooling is only flawed in the modern sense that going to school no longer appropriates proper pay. When students are taking on five figure debt and graduating to find jobs that only pay off interest rate on that debt, then there is a sense that the education system has failed. The educational system has failed, but its flaws are systemic not because of its debt burden on students, but because of its nature as a systemic entity with a systemic responsibility for socio-economic stratification (NCLB).

Of primary focus in an underage education is that it covers literacy, reading comprehension, and social interaction. From then on, the focus should be vocational, as no one cares how well versed you are in poetry, the current news, or even in mathematics if the industry you work in has no overlapping features with these categories. Entry level jobs are not created to fully utilize a well-rounded individual with a spread-out skill set. Even 'management' has strict guidelines in a corporate sense. Although going off on your own and setting up your own business is a completely different story. Vocational focus should be the focus of an education because financial dependency is the most important type of dependency that is growing proportionally harder to gain for disenfranchised students. It doesn't matter if you have an entire library in your noggin if you're starving and don't even know if you're going to be alive the next day.

A proper education should be a hobby, because sadly there are limited opportunities to share your passion of Thoreau when you are running an rt-PCR on a sample or dying a compound for spectrophotometer analysis. And even if you did share, well, chances are that no one knows, and because they don't need to know there is no chance that they will care.

 

[Xivii]

If you wait until you're 18 before interacting with more than 1 or 2 trusted people, you'll definitely find it difficult to adapt once you move on to an environment like, Walmart, the Army, College, etc. Being home schooled is an unfortunate necessity for some children due to their physical or mental conditions, but in general and for your normal every day kid I'd recommend a fully interactive and social environment. I suppose a home school kid could just read "How to make friends and influence people" but why read what you can practice instead? There's no doubt in anyone's mind that hard physical practice is important to learning any skill - it'd be like trying to read a book on dating and then wondering why you can't get laid.

That's not to diss all home schooled students. I'm sure you'll find a few that turned out perfectly normal. And normally one would eschew personal evidence when debating... but I can't help it. I've known several home schooled kids and they were all wack jobs, lol. At the very least they become super dependent on closed social interactions such as the internet. Focusing all their social needs to one monitor and keyboard, they end up shuttered in, unable to cope with the simplest of excursions, such as going to a friend's birthday party (if indeed they even have such a friend to call upon.)

As they say...

"All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten." -Robert Fulghum



Puberty, dude. Puberty. During puberty kids are less focused on ... well everything, really, but academics also, and more focused on their junk and how their junk fits into other people's junk. It's almost amazing how any 13 year old can even really get by in school when they're surrounding by so many hormone crazed others. I'd even go so far as to say that 6-8th grades may be better off home-schooled, except that the public school approach has been tirelessly formatted to ensure that students take all that extra... energy, and focus it on hands-on things. Most public school systems introduce vocational concentrations at this time, wood and metal shop, home economics, etc. Also sports become bigger, as do most after school clubs and activities. As the child grows, literally, so too does their capacity to expand their repertoire of activities.

Well yeah I can agree that it would be difficult to adapt if you only interact with 1-2 people, but there's nothing about the scenario that suggests that would be the case if you do away with public school. The micro-environment can still involve interaction among other people just as your scenario of maintaining the public school does.

Social interaction can come from extended family, family friends, parks, recreational facilities, everydayness, etc. Public school isn't necessary for providing essential social interaction. I see why this is easy to assume, but like I said there is no evidence for it. (No scientific studies that I can find. Could you possibly show me other wise)?

Personal "Evidence": I know only a bit of children who were home schooled, but none of them seem to have had a problem adapting to broader social environments once leaving home. Three children in my family (my cousins) have been home schooled. One went off to the military, one to college (and is quite successful there with a nice group of friends. He joins clubs and is pretty actively involved with campus-like activity).

I recently found out a classmate of mine was home schooled until entering our college. She personally classifies herself as an introvert, however, she is very social. She is always one to raise her hand in class, speaks clearly and loudly and is just not shy at all. She's the kind of person you want when you have to preform a group presentation. A group of us once went out to do Kareoke and she was at the forefront all night. And I hardly ever see her without friends. I was utterly shocked when I found out she has been home schooled all her life.

Like I said, I just think it's an easy (though not accurate) assumption to make that home schooled children grow to have more issues interacting with others than those who go to public school. Or at least that the home schooling is the cause of it.

-Perhaps the people you knew were wack jobs because they type of parents that usually home school their children tend to be wack jobs? Perhaps they were home schooled because they were wack jobs.

At the very least they become super dependent on closed social interactions such as the internet. Focusing all their social needs to one monitor and keyboard, they end up shuttered in, unable to cope with the simplest of excursions, such as going to a friend's birthday party (if indeed they even have such a friend to call upon.)

The funny thing is, this sounds like me, and I've been going to public school all my life. I just happen to be both introverted and shy.

Historical Evidence: Public school was invented or rather became mandatory only after many years of human existence. There doesn't seem to have been a problem with the social interaction of our ancestors before today's format of public education came into place. Here's some lists of famous (past & current) people who have been home schooled.

Historical peeps who have been home schooled.
Modern famous peeps who have been home schooled.

And also some information on the history of the American school system: http://www.pbs.org/kcet/publicschool/innovators/index.html

I'd definitely say all these people have done just fine in society.

Another thing I would like to add against the importance of public school for your child is how the internet is becoming more and more prominent in education. In schools and out. Education is becoming a lot more personalized and virtual. One can now earn a degree though online courses, find the most advanced college lectures on youtube, and general education on sites such as Khan Academy and Sylvan. I just don't think public schooling in the micro environment is necessary at all when personalized/private schooling is starting to become quite common outside of that environment.


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Basically what I was getting at in the second quote is why the premise of physical growth is relevant to why that time should be when the child focuses on making a decision for continuing into academic schooling or vocational schooling. But I just realized that probably wasn't what you were getting at, but rather they will have to make that decision any way so they may as well focus on it at some point (and that's the point/duration you chose). Er correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

For a proper education, it seems to depend upon the sort of ideals and values you suppose should be taught. Ultimately, this is the driving force behind an education as I see it. People are put through schooling (teaching) in the first place for what purpose? Probably to adhere to a certain form of customs. Now that I think about it... there is probably no such thing as a proper education. Going further there might not really be any proper ideals or values. If so, how do you even come with an answer to a proper education? Well, to me it seems the only avenue left is simply to go with the flow on it. At present, the world operates in certain ways and you simply have to assemble enough experience to live in it.

I would suppose these are some topics that appear to be important to teach:
-Flexibility
-Scientific method
-Manipulation

Flexibility - By this I am referring to the "open mind" statement. Rather than fixate one's way of thinking, interacting, and making actions it is important to adapt to a changing environment.

Scientific Method - I bring this up due to the subjective nature of what is around us. By this I refer to ideals, actions & interactions of people, the seeming randomness of how choices bring about a current present, etc. At some point, a decision must be made. How do you make a decision? Do you make it based of impulsive behavior or do you try to structure it? Weigh the pros and cons and make a choice. Through success and failure you continually critique until a goal is met. As an example.

Manipulation - I think it is important to know how to achieve a goal. Much of the world is goal driven. Knowing what you need in order to reach the destination or by what means you need to work and shape the world around you to meet it.

If I had to wager a better guess now about what a proper education is it would be simply to develop your mind to figure out how to survive in the world. Through a scientific method you have a good tool for assessing the stuff around you. With a flexible mind you shouldn't drown in an ever shifting world. Finally, through the skills you learn and decide you can manipulate things around you.

Still thinking of how to implement this approach however.

 

[Sucumbio]

Could you possibly show me other wise?

This study is about the importance of "the arts" and what an improvement a strong foundation in the arts has on a student's academic potential.
This article talks about the same thing but goes further to illustrate how public schools go about achieving this enrichment.

Generally, public, private and parochial schools have a greater potential for providing the necessary enrichment a child needs. You don't go to USM on a football scholarship by playing catch with your mommy in the back yard. You play varsity ball in high school, get noticed by talent scouts, and before you know it you're the next Heisman Trophy winner. (read: Tim Teabag doesn't count, cause he's a god bothering douche bag and not the normal example, but the exception to the rule)

I will admit however that the social aspect is a misnomer I just don't like home schooled kids, cause I think it's a bit cult-like and I'm prejudiced. But aside from my judgmental attitude, the fact of business is that properly accredited learning institutions have a far greater advantage over the home-schooled environment.

"The internet is for porn."

Yeah, the internet is cool and stuff, but it's kind of irrelevant to mention because public schools use it too... it's a tool, nothing more nothing less. It's by no means a replacement for the classroom (and if that's not what you're suggesting then I apologize).

Er correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm not sure, lol. I think you got the point but I'll reiterate. Puberty is a tough time for kids, so to combat this, educators try to pick up the pace a bit in terms of vocational training, but it's not full on training because honestly you'd have a lot of injured 12 year olds. Instead it's best to slowly introduce these ideas... 8 weeks of metal shop - learn how to make a tool box or something. 8 weeks of wood shop - learn how to make a spice rack or whatever. Depending on the child's area, it could be quite different. Some kids are immersed in marine exploration, some get to play with farm equipment, some get to chop down trees, you name it it's there. Vocation. Basically because the child is "coming of age" it's time to start getting them to think about what to do with themselves... it's a matched approach, as the body matures so should the mind. This is done alongside academic advancement and by 9th grade admission most students (and parents) have a good idea of whether or not they'd be better off at a vo-tech or regular public high school, or a magnet school, or private school, etc.