Five little boys

[Bruce]

Good onyer octave. Kids can do much better away from school if they are home-taught properly.

 

If my grandkids ever want to get really good university entrance marks, I reckon it will be necessary to take them out of school for at least a year before the exams.

 

But universities have sold out to political correctness and managerialism, with the result that many degrees are worth nothing now. A trade is harder to attain and worth more as a meal ticket.

 

 

[Bruce]

And sorry to say, OME, but kids vary greatly in their intelligence. As do adults...gosh I would like to understand more science than I do, but alas my brain is not quite good enough. And as for playing music... I just was not born with the talent, bugger it.

 

 

[spacesailor]

Bruce

 

I 'm tone deaf but still like guitar instrumentals.

 

So death I can't hear sicaders at all.

 

but only three frequencies

 

spacesailor

 

 

[old man emu]

And sorry to say, OME, but kids vary greatly in their intelligence. As do adults...gosh I would like to understand more science than I do, but alas my brain is not quite good enough. And as for playing music... I just was not born with the talent, bugger it.

I don't think that it is "intelligence", if anyone knows exactly what that is, that varies between people. I think it is "attraction". Like you, the only way I can play a tune is on a pianola. Doesn't mean that I'm not interested in music from the physics of acoustics, but I was never given the chance to play with a musical instrument. As for singing, I was the kid who was told by the choirmaster to learn the words, but only mouth them.

 

Perhaps one could compare a human brain to a computer hard drive. When the computer comes out of the box, the hard drive holds a small amount of information (intelligence). As the computer is used, the amount of information stored on the drive increases, so the "intelligence" increases. I bet if we compared the data stored on my hard drive with anyone else's, there would be great differences in the fields of knowledge the data covered.

 

And why is going to university the be all and end all? A lot of what is taught in the Sciences, Information Technology or Manufacturing Engineering is out of date before the student walks into the first lecture.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

If we really want to know how those five little boys will turn out, let's get over our prejudices and cast aside our pet peeves...and do some proper science.

 

Our NZ cousins have been doing the hard yards for over 45 years. Their research is now globally-recognised for helping us understand what affects how kids turn out.

 

The Dunedin Longitudinal Study features in this fascinating doco; well worth watching.

 

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[old man emu]

This is a scientific paper arising from the Dunedin study that identifies a correlation between a person's genetic makeup and educational success. The Dunedin study is a well respected, on-going investigation of human development, both physical and mental. This paper provides suggests that educational success is genetically influenced (see the Second Finding).

 

Belsky, D.W., Moffitt, T.E., Corcoran, D.L., Domingue, B., Harrington, H. L., Houts, R., Ramrakha, S., Sugden, K., Williams, B.S., Poulton, R., Caspi, A. | 2016

 

The Genetics of Success: How single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with educational attainment relate to life-course development

 

Psychological Science, 2016, OnlineFirst, published on June 1, 2016, doi:10.1177/0956797616643070.

 

doi:10.1177/0956797616643070

 

Our ref: RO682

 

A previous genome-wide association study (GWAS) of more than 100,000 individuals identified molecular-genetic predictors of educational attainment. We undertook in-depth life-course investigation of the polygenic score derived from this GWAS using the four-decade Dunedin Study (N = 918).

 

There were five main findings.

 

First, polygenic scores predicted adult economic outcomes even after accounting for educational attainments.

 

Second, genes and environments were correlated: Children with higher polygenic scores were born into better-off homes.

 

Third, children’s polygenic scores predicted their adult outcomes even when analyses accounted for their social-class origins; social-mobility analysis showed that children with higher polygenic scores were more upwardly mobile than children with lower scores.

 

Fourth, polygenic scores predicted behavior across the life course, from early acquisition of speech and reading skills through geographic mobility and mate choice and on to financial planning for retirement.

 

Fifth, polygenic-score associations were mediated by psychological characteristics, including intelligence, self-control, and interpersonal skill. Effect sizes were small.

 

Factors connecting DNA sequence with life outcomes may provide targets for interventions to promote population-wide positive development.

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

@old man emu, the polygenic score theroy is pretty interesting...

 

For some anecdotal illumination, I was always classed as one of these kid with high academic potential, but never realised it. I coasted through HSC and got reasonable scores; started an economics course at a good uni; dropped out. Got a job at Melford Motors as a new car technician, or some fancy title like that, hoping it was going to be a para-mechanic. Nope; it was car detailing, stripping the protective wax off the car panels and washing and vacuuming cars . I recall one mechanic named Colin and another detailer whose name I can't recall were really nice. The supervisor was a bar-steward and revelled in his authority. What I did know is that they weren't like me. That is in no way condascending; it is what it is.

 

After about 6 weeks, I threw it in. I couldn't stand the fact I was 18 and earnign a lot less than the others, but was quicker and more diligent as well as, within the time we had allotted, able to do some of the pre-delivery mechanical work such as aligning headlights and tightening various interior fasteners, making it easier for the mechanics to do their job of ensuring the thing was built proeprly and ready for the road. The others just robotically did their job (I presume new car dealers have machines to do most of this now).

 

To cut a long story short, I aborted economics again, computer science twice (after passing the first semester exams easily) and law once. However, I taught myself programming, ended up advising engineers on nuclear plant mainteance and have since gone into the mathematical and now regulatory side of finance (though not earning those millions that have been promised, I hasten to add).

 

One of the reasons I am still in the UK is they are far more progressive with one's career than Australia. I found I hit my buffers as a non-degree IT person; in the UK, I found my skills were in demand regardless of my education and climbed the ladder Then a senior manager for a consulting company I worked for suggested that I try my hand at management consulting and that;s how I ended up advising nuclear engineers (amongst other things). When I returned to Australia, I had found the culture had shifted, but it was still markedly more difficult without a degree and if I had a dollar for every degree qualified person who was a quakc at what they were qualified in, well I wouldn;t be rich, but it would pay for quite a few hours flying.

 

Now I find myself able to hold my own in quantitative professions with PhDs and masters (although aske me to do the mental arithmetic for the 1 in 60 rule and I am all over the place). A uni education isn't for everyone... even for those academic roles.

 

Schools are moving to more individualised teaching; the problem is resources. If you have a class of 30 kids, a teacher and an assistant, how much individualised teaching or learning can you accomplish? I think there has to be a bar set of the minimal learning to be achieved - but that is not parrot learning; it has to be understanding the key concepts of things. And importantly - how to learn - how to perceive and question things; not be docile and complicit. And importnantly - how to value yourself no matter what happens in your life or what people say to you.. And I think part of the education system should be about promoting the family unit.

 

@octave, I am not sure how you did it, but credence to you for home teaching. I don't have the ability to do so.. If I did, I may have done it. If you want free board and food and booze over here, let me know ;-)

 

 

[spacesailor]

OME

 

" Our NZ cousins have been doing the hard yards for over 45 years".

 

Yes, They taught my daughter "Phonetics" at her school, now even her sister's can't understand what she writes ( rites ).

 

As this type of schooling is like another language, & if your not "in the know", your out of society.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[octave]

"I am not sure how you did it, but credence to you for home teaching. I don't have the ability to do so.. If I did, I may have done it. If you want free board and food and booze over here, let me know ;-)"

 

lol - Thanks Jeryy but that is a little above my pay grade. But seriously the last thing I would want to do is convince anyone to do things the way we did them, all I can say is it worked for us and for his friends.

 

This is topical for me at the moment because am (trying to ) a little book about it (just for myself really).

 

During these years we constantly had to fend off criticism from others. Although we had good rational arguments at some level doubt would sometimes creep in. Now that he is happy and successful I sometimes do feel a little smug and would like to track down those people so I can "I told you so" them.

 

For us and I stress FOR US the method involved almost nothing. We sold up in the burbs and moved to a rural block when my son was 18 months old. His earliest memories are of us building our house (ourselves.)

 

In terms of formal learning, well there was almost none. We used to spend a lot of time each day reading to him. We at no stage taught him to read in a formal way. When we would go to the local library he would often insist on getting the same books week after week. Eventually, we realized that he was learning how to read and in fact would want to go faster. This turned into him reading to us. He became a voracious reader and still is. I do the recall the point that I realized he was better at reading and comprehension than me.

 

I think what worked for us was being able to pass on the idea that learning did not need to be unpleasant. We also supported all of his ideas no matter how crazy they seemed. When he was about 8 I think, he wanted to set up a lemonade stand at the local train station. Of course, this was probably never going to happen but instead of putting down his idea, I suggested that he would need to get all the necessary approvals. He did spend most of a day ringing councils and state rail officials. I think the lesson he learned was bureaucracy is endless but it is always worth a try.

 

One of his crazy ideas at the age of 10 has now grown into is own company with 6 full-timers and numerous contractors.

 

I must admit that in the past I have had nagging doubts that as an adult he might resent us if he felt that his upbringing had negatively impacted on his life. I was quite gratified to come across some question he had answered on Reddit regarding home ed.

 

The actual questions are missing from this but they are quite obvious. I have also taken his company web address out becouse I do not want to be seen as plugging it on this forum.

 

"Honestly, almost none.

 

I was homeschooled by parents who were well adjusted, non-religious, and did it because they felt it was a more effective and healthy way to educate a child, and because we lived in a reasonably rural area.

 

My education style was very freeform and unstructured, pretty much just letting me explore whatever I was into.

 

My parents always treated me like an adult and an equal, and never stopped me from learning/reading/watching something because it was too advanced or adult.

 

I read a lot of science books, dabbled in programming, played a lot of computer games, built and fixed my own computers, taught myself to work on crappy cars and race them at motorsport events.

 

I had a great group of other homeschooled friends who I had plenty of time to hang out with due to our lack of school. The local homeschooling group/club also organized excursions to museums and such.

 

A lot of those friends are now doctors, lawyers, engineers etc.

 

I went to study 3d animation at age 15 which went well, though I'm sure I was slightly unusual among that group.

 

Got a government IT job at 18, started a game development business at 20, still running that business with 6 people in the company now.

 

So in the case of me and most of my friends who were homeschooled we basically all turned out as smart, socially capable and well-rounded people with "good jobs"

 

Only cons in my case are that I didn't do as much math as I probably should have I guess? But I have enough to be a games artist and run a company, so good enough!

 

Yeah, I've never really needed any algebra, trig etc. Mind you I'm an artist who only dabbles in fairly simple shader scripting/blueprints etc. So the company only functions because the programmers have some more serious math skills.

 

I've only worked on one major project www.************.com but it's doing pretty well (despite a very long early access)

 

Thanks! Yeah, worked pretty well I feel.

 

Nope not wealthy, but possibly at the lower end of middle class before having me.

 

After having me they sold their house in suburban Sydney, bought a block of bushland 15km out of a small rural town and, with mostly their own labor built a small kit house (solar power + rain water)

 

Because they bought such cheap house/land they could to get by (very frugally) on some work teaching maths and music in the nearby town. This gave them a lot of spare time to spend with me, although little money.

 

When I was older they got jobs in Canberra and would commute 100km to work every day. This gave them more money, but less time. But gave me lots of time to spend doing Interesting things in a larger city."

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Octave it looks like you gave your young bloke the best start in life.

 

During my forty years in schools I saw the best and worst of institutionalised learning. As a write this, my gorgeous grandy is singing and playing next to me. Tomorrow she starts school, where she'll join a large group to be regimented, disciplined and controlled. The school will provide lots of stimulation and experiences, but it will also stifle her creativity and inquisitiveness.

 

I often used to remind parents that they were in charge of their kids' education. They deputized we teachers to help with the more specialised aspects. Parents should realise they expect too much of schools. Only a tiny amount of a child's time is spent actually interacting with a teacher. A far bigger influence is their peers, TV, social media... which too often work directly against what the teacher is expected to achieve.

 

Australia has steadily declined in international rankings. Instead of following the example of countries with the most impressive educational outcomes, we copy America, even when Blind Freddy can see it's the worst option. Instead of investing more to improve the quality of our teachers, we spend lots of money on testing- which has been shown to not work; and it narrows the cirriculum.

 

We can't afford a decent amount to prepare our little kids for school, but then spend huge amounts on remedial teaching in high schools- when it's pretty much too late.

 

We spend almost $300 per day to keep a person in prison, but resist spending a few dollars to make sure they don't end up there.

 

 

[Bruce]

One reason why home-schooling is better lies in the time wasted at normal schools. One day when I asked a grandson what he had done that day in school, he said "nothing much Grandpa, Seb was being naughty again ".

 

In my days at school, Seb would have sat in sullen silence after getting the cane, which would at least have let the rest of the kids do some work. Not that those old days were all that great, I can remember one especially brutal headmaster.

 

I wonder if an authoritarian school system makes people more regimented and subservient to bureaucracies . This is the opposite to what Octave did.

 

If school was not compulsory, it would be a lot better.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

?..I wonder if an authoritarian school system makes people more regimented and subservient to bureaucracies ...

That might be the effects on some, but it also creates plenty of rebels who set out to prove their teachers wrong.

 

Few of my "high-achiever" students have distinguished themselves since, but some of the most outstanding success stories were pretty ordinary at school.

 

Quite a few billionaires never finished their formal education.

 

 

[octave]

I should just make the point that I am not anti-teacher or anti-school. I am a private musical instrument teacher and I mainly teach at a private studio although for quite a few years I did go into schools. I can see how difficult it must be to run a one size fits all kind of system. In fact, I do admire many of the teachers I know. Although I have taught for a long time I know that my strength lies with one on one teaching. The great thing about the "free-range" style we adopted was the ability to become obsessed with one particular project. My son once built an awesome air cannon, great fun and only minor damage to the car!

 

 

[old man emu]

I'm luvin' this thread! If nothing else, it is exposing the education system for what it is ... a failure to the children it is supposed to be for.

 

It is based on a 19th Century Industrial society's demands that workers must be amenable to discipline in the first instance, be able to read instructions and rule books, and do basic arithmetic computations. Clearly, with the vast amount of information at the fingers of 21st Century Young People, and the demise of labour-intensive industry, that educational model is no longer suitable.

 

Because of the vast amounts of information they have absorbed before commencing formal schooling from the visual media, audio media and excursions to places with their parents, the have an expectation that they will continue to learn in the same way. However, the arbiters of school education have not thrown away the idea that the only way to assess a child's academic progress is by setting tests and allocating a grading system to the responses in those tests. They then pour cold water over the efforts of over 90% of the children in the class by heaping praise on the 10% who have learned the skills of how to score well in exams.

 

For years I thought that the Montessori method was a weirdo idea that promoted long-haired, tree-hugging hippiedom. But now, after seeing my kids through their school years, and looking forward to seeing my grandson continue to develop mentally and socially, I think Montessori is on the right track. The Montessori Method of education, developed by Dr. Maria Montessori, is a child-centered educational approach based on scientific observations of children from birth to adulthood.

 

These are the essential elements of the method.

 

• Mixed age classrooms; classrooms for children ages 2 1⁄2 or 3 to 6 years old are by far the most common, but 0–3, 6–9, 9–12, 12–15, and 15–18 year-old classrooms exist as well.
   
  
• Student choice of activity from within a prescribed range of options.
   
  
• Uninterrupted blocks of work time, ideally three hours.
   
  
• A constructivist or "discovery" model, where students learn concepts from working with materials, rather than by direct instruction.
   
  
• Specialized educational materials developed by Montessori and her collaborators often made out of natural, aesthetic materials such as wood, rather than plastic.
   
  
• A thoughtfully prepared environment where materials are organized by subject area, within reach of the child, and are appropriate in size.
   
  
• Freedom of movement within the classroom.
   
  
• A trained Montessori teacher who follows the child and is highly experienced in observing the individual child's characteristics, tendencies, innate talents and abilities.
   
  

 

A 2006 study published in Science magazine found that "when strictly implemented, Montessori education fosters social and academic skills that are equal or superior to those fostered by a pool of other types of schools." Another study in the Milwaukee Public Schools found that children who had attended Montessori from ages 3–11 outperformed their high school classmates several years later on mathematics and science;[29] another found that Montessori had some of the largest positive effects on achievement of all programs evaluated. Some studies have not found positive outcomes for children in Montessori classrooms, but this might be due to the implementation of Montessori. In 1967, the US Patent Trademark Trial and Appeal Board ruled that "the term 'Montessori' has a generic and/or descriptive significance."[33] Therefore, in the United States and most other countries, the term can be used freely without giving any guarantee of how closely, if at all, a program applies Montessori's work. The ruling has led to "tremendous variation in schools claiming to use Maria Montessori's methods".

 

Montessori education - Wikipedia

 

After Montessori, what?

 

Given that the Montessori method relies on guided, not regimented, learning, how does a child obtain that all important "piece of paper" that shows that they have had an education, and that they have complied with the requirements of the various Education Acts of the States and Territories?

 

There is another piece of paper called the International Baccalaureate that is recognised world-wide. International Baccalaureate - Wikipedia

 

Initially, the objective of the IB programme was to "provide an internationally acceptable university admissions qualification suitable for the growing mobile population of young people whose parents were part of the world of diplomacy, international and multi-national organizations" by offering standardized courses and assessments for students aged 16 to 19. However, it is now offered in nearly 5000 schools world-wide. There is a good number of them in Australia, but a glance at the list of participating schools give the impression that IB has been taken up by non-Government schools, many of long history and high reputation.

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

I have to admit, it takes a certain amount of bravery and progressiveness to do the homeschooling - and the right disposition. In my case, I would love to have done something like that (but would have struggled at building a kit house - renovating a dump of a house may have worked), however, my partner would never go for that. We recently moved to a smallholding and am now selling it as my partner has conceded she is Margot of The Good Life, and not Barbara. I was pretty surprised since she was brought up in a rural village and spent much of her time in friends farms.

 

In addition, we are conditioned to go to school, get good grades and get a good job so we can buy a house and get all the material things in life we desperately need.

 

Looking back, we used to be concerned about the lack of social development home eduacation could result in, but it looks like your son and his peers have overwhelmingly disproved that. Instead, I was too married to the job to provide much time during the week and too tired to entertain the lemonade stall activities, instead outsourcing their experiences to school and other clubs. We have at least made the sacrifices so my partner was home all the time and for the most part our children have benefited from that, although we are having a disproportionately torrid time with our teenage son at the moment, who is suffering an anxiety disorder. Yet beyond the boundaries of the house, he is an angel, apparently. I put some of that down to genetics, but some down to some of the decisions we made as parents and a strict adherence to conventional and antiquated upbringing methods.

 

In the UK, the schools have an Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education) grading system that goes something like Excellent, Very Good, Good, Needs Improvement, At Risk [of being closed]. The school head is remunerated on the ofsted rating they achieve and any incremental inmprovements they make (primary school heads of excellent schools are known to receive total salary including bonuses somewhere north of £200k, but as they are administered by local education authorities rather than a central department of education, it varies widely). The result is the school focueses on the squeaky wheel high achievers and the stragglers to get their score up; those in the middle are basically commoditised taught as when you have class sizes of 30 with a teacher and a teaching assistant, they will focus on their metrics and not the children individually. Thi was evidenced by our daughter who is very cosciencious but was only an average performer at school coming home devastated because she had spent all year being good and a disruptive student who managed to almost stay out of trouble for a few days picked up some prize of taking home a tatty stuffed toy for the week. We had a chat to the teaching staff who all but admitted that students like our daughter are often overlooked (next week they gave her the stuffed toy, which I wanted to disinfect). It was after this, we decided on private education; but outside of the hot-housing London schools. The private school is big on individualsied learning, providing children with immediate feedback and rewarding good performance (usually with merit points or headmaster's certificates, though if it something outstanding, a book voucher) That is how my daughter is wired - recognition for a job well done. The result - it turns out my daughter, although disliking maths and science has a real knack for it (as well as her arts/English) and she won the only pre-13 year old academic scholarship available for her year - against the headmaster's daughter. In her case,

 

In some cases, a structured and well-balanced school setting works; In my son's case, it has to be more unstructured;. Unfortunately, in both cases, they are still preoccupied with grades because that is the system they operate in.

 

OME's take on Montessori is an interesting one as well.. All we have to do is look back at what we loved and hated abuot school and the teachers we gelled with and those we didn't... [edit] And I agree, this is a great thread...

 

 

[octave]

Very interesting posts.

 

We considered alternative schools I think at the time Steiner schools were the main alternative. In the end, we opted for no formal system.

 

My own education was a little disappointing. I was pretty good in primary school despite some poor teachers. I remember a teacher in I think grade 2 who would jab you in the shoulder with the tip of a ballpoint pen, one day she actually broke my skin. I was too scared to tell my parents, who would have been pretty outraged I think. Another thing that comes to mind is having to walk up and down each row in the classroom to show everyone my untidy writing. Despite this, I actually did quite well. When I attended high school all of my reports pretty much said the same thing, could do well but........ I think looking back I was most likely depressed but this was interpreted as laziness. Whilst doing poorly at school I spent my spare time reading about science and astronomy and learning music. I spent quite a few years in the Royal Astronomical Society in Adelaide. These were my passions but was they were not really relevant to succeeding at school. Despite this, I feel I have done alright. I suspect many here would relate to this.

 

I am sure many children do thrive in the school system. Some of my music students are just amazingly smart. I do sometimes get the sense that I am teaching someone who is so much smarter than me and once they absorb the knowledge I have built up over the years I will have to send them off to another teacher.

 

I am sure that there are many things we did not do so well in raising our son but I guess the most important thing is doing what you think is the best.

 

I see that some forumites here have mentioned their grandchildren. Now at this point in time, I am not a grandparent but I imagine that being a grandparent combines concern for your grandchildren without the ability to make major decisions. My suggestion would be this, take your grandchild to the shed and pull apart an engine or build a bookcase, build a model rocket kit or plane, bake a cake etc.

 

 

[spacesailor]

Octave

 

Here's a little secret no-one seems aware of.

 

When you have Grandkids you baby-sit them!.

 

When you have GreatGrandkids, you Never see them, as their Grandparents are baby-sitting!.

 

So you don't get to as your own Kids as much.

 

No wonder the Oldies get a little lonely, sitting at home Alone.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

... My suggestion would be this, take your grandchild to the shed and pull apart an engine or build a bookcase, build a model rocket kit or plane, bake a cake etc.

Excellent advice Octave, which I'd love to follow, except there's so much crap in my shed it's a health hazard!

 

 

[Geoff13]

Ahh Grandkids, natures thanks for not castrating your teenagers.

 

 

[old man emu]

Well, it's started!!

 

The young bloke was taken up to his new school this week for an "assessment". During this time there were three of four of the kids in the room and must have been allowed to play with toys while the teacher observed them. My grandson was playing with a car when another boy came up and took it off him. Obviously the grandson tried to retrieve it, and possibly there was some argy-bargy. When my son cam back to pick the little bloke up, he saw that there was the word 'discipline' on the record sheet.

 

So before he has even formally entered the classroom, he's been given a negative label. Too bad that when we were talking with him about this, I said that the best thing to do when he got to school on Monday would be to search out the other kid and ask to be friends. I bet by the time they are in 6th class, they'll be inseparable - despite the bias of the teacher.

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

OME, did your son talk to the teacher for the teacher's view and in what context discipline was meant on the record? Not that I would doubt what the little nipper has to say, but a dialgoue with the teacher may give a differernt perspective or at least let your son know what your grandson is up against.

 

 

[old man emu]

The Son didn't talk to the teacher, but did see that another kid had "doesn't listen" against its name. I suppose it could be the teacher's shorthand to give a reminder of how each child needs to be handled.

 

Let's see what happens over the next fortnight as this major upheaval in the grandson's life starts to sort itself out. It does a child no good to be living in two houses, week about.

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

We wish him all the best..

 

 

[planedriver]

When we arrived in Oz 41 yrs ago, my daughter who'd only just turned four at the time, she would read a book a day and was able to add up and subtract basic numbers. My now ex-wife spent many hours teaching her the basics, plus she also also had almost a year at a very good Catholic kindergarten in London. She was a very bright little cookie, but when she was enrolled at a school in Roseville, Sydney, she was totally bored after the first week as they were simply learning A is for apple, B is for balloon, etc. My wife and I went to see the principal and explained that she needed to be put up a grade regardless of her age. The only response we got was, "We can't do that, leave her for 12 mths and she'll settle in to be the same as the other kids in Australia". The fact that she would have lost a year of learning didn't even come into the equation. As you can imagine we were not only disillusioned at the system, but also very pee'd off. It was like they have to turn every student out the same regardless of whether the standard is good or not.

 

Now living in Melbourne with three boys of her own who have had much disruption at two public schools, they are now all attending private school (sadly at great expense for the parents), but not only do they absolutely love it, and they are all doing really well now. The big difference seems to be that feral attitude is not accepted in any form from either the pupils or their parents, or you are out the door, and the school teaches discipline and self-pride principals.

 

There is certainly a need for stricter standards, whereby teachers and kids are not threatened with violence.

 

Sadly, this seems to be thing of the past in so many cases, as the feral ones are often the product of their parents teachings..

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

I benefitted from both a state and private school education (see a few posts up). Re state schools, the reality is tha the quality of education, or probably more accurately, the education output will be tied to the socio-economic area. The better performing state schools tend to be in socio-economic areas where, as you say, the parents' teachings are a little more in tune with setting expectations and boundaries for their behaviour. When I was in state secondary school (high school, as it was known), the state schools to beat, apart from Melbourne High, were Waverly and McKinnon; I think Camberwell was up there, too. Many state schools in top notch areas probably did OK, too, but most of the kids from these areas were in private school. Waverly and McKinnon are (or were) very similar suburbs; mainly upper middle class, fairly gentile and, well, pretty boring, actually. The kids are easier to teach, more even-tempered and of course, teachers are drawn to these schools - which gives them a lot more to choose from than, say, Broadie high, etc. I went from an APS private school to a state school (affordability for my single father finally became an issue); the state high school had a reasonable reputation and it was not that bad. However, in earlier years, I was forced to leave a state primary school in an inner-eastern leafy suburb of Melbourne to embark on a new life with mother and soon to be step-father in a vitually barren suburb not far from Broadie. The new primary school was equally barren, that those dark grey breeze blocks and dilapidated; facilities were in various states of disrepair and the "sports ground" was mainly earth with scattered tufts of dry grass and a few thistle weeds eeking out an existence. A coupe of concrete cricket pitches at the end of the field encased by rusty cyclone wire nets was the cherry on the cake.

 

I had heard my first swear words and apart from my mother, hadn't known anyone to smoke - these were grade 4 pupils. One even rolled his own from some dried grass he recovered from the paddock across the road. Then I saw my first ever fight - I am not talking grabbing jumpers and jiostling, but proper fisticuffs... It wasn't long before my face was at the end of some of these; not really knowing what to do. Easy target, so the bullies congregated. One took pity on me and after he gave me a blood nose, showed me how girlie my feeble attempts at punching were and showed me how to do it properly (I don't think he was really a bully, but because he was good mates with them, had to put up a face). When I played footy at the leafy suburb, we were taught to play hard (for our age), but fair. One season later, I am being taught how to elbow my opponent in the guts when going for a mark and how to punch him when laying a tackle so the ump can't see.

 

You will get some from the lower end of the socio-economic scale going to private school, however, their parents are generally those that are seeking a brighter future for their children and have the same principles as those in higher socio-economic areas.

 

Of course, nothing is ever as black and white as the above; there are problems in higher-socio economic groups - more money = things like drugs, alcohol, etc are more readily available. And there`s also domestic violence, bullying, etc. It happens everywhere. But in terms of education, they are generally more focussed and this stems from within the home. Happens here, too. I used to live in Richmond, which is the equivalent of probably combining Malvern and Kooyong... I lived on the outer. We sent our kids to the local primary school, who rubbed shoulders with children of top financiers, lawyers and the like. However, the UK mandates all local authorities provide a certain amount of social housing and as a result, there were a small percentage of children who went to the school from lower socio-economic backgrounds. The behaviour differences were quite stark; there were two in my son's class who taugh the class the meaning of blow-jobs and lesbian sex.. in grade 3, I think. The parents were not ashamed to say they engaged in purveyance of pornographic movies shortly after their kids went to bed - obviously didn't check to see they were asleep. The educational attainment and general behaviour of these kids were also markedly lower than that of the average of the class. The UK has a benefits system that, in my opnion, is (or was) properly funded but chronically mis-directed and their parents could basically have a 3br home in a daned good suburb with money to spare... Why would they teach their kids to do anythning different?

 

Also, in Richmond (well, London... Well, overcrowded UK in general), competition is fierce for good secondary spots - public or private. We hadn't realsied as everyone was secretivie about it, but almost all kids were being hot-house tutored from grade 1. We fell for it for a bit, but pulled out..