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Because our public school system has now considerably deteriorated, many
parents, teachers, and individuals have taken it upon themselves to
create public and private alternatives to that traditional system which
is definitely failing. It is important for parents to know that they now
have choices, alternatives to the neighborhood school. How do you know
that it is time to look for another educational approach for your child?
Here are some of the signs:
1. Does your child say he or she hates school?
If so, something is probably wrong with the school because children are
natural learners. When they're young you can hardly stop them from
learning. If your children say they hate school, listen to them.
2. Does your child find it difficult to look an adult in the eye, or
to interact with children younger or older than they are?
If so, your child may have become "socialized" to that very narrow group
which many children ordinarily interact with in most schools, and may be
losing the ability to communicate with a broader group of children and
adults.
3. Does your child seem fixated on designer labels and trendy clothes
for school?
This is a symptom of the shallowness of the traditional schools'
approach, causing children to rely on external means of comparison and
acceptance, rather than deeper values.
4. Does your child come from school tired and cranky?
This is a sure sign that their educational experiences are not
energizing but are actually debilitating.
5. Do your children come home complaining about conflicts that
they've had in school and unfair situations that they have been exposed
to?
This is a sign that your school does not have a proper process for
conflict resolution and communication.
6. Has your child lost interest in creative expression through art,
music, and dance?
These things are generally not encouraged in the traditional system
today and are not highly valued. They're considered secondary to the
"academic" areas. In some cases, courses are not even offered in these
areas any more. This tends to extinguish these natural talents and
abilities in children.
7. Has your child stopped reading for fun, or reading or writing for
pleasure? Are your children doing just the minimum for homework and
going off for some escapist activity?
This is a sign that these spontaneous activities are not being valued in
their school and another sign that they are losing their creativity.
8. Does your child procrastinate until the last minute to do
homework?
This is a sign that the homework is not very interesting to, is not
really meeting his or her needs, and is tending to extinguish their
natural curiosity.
9. Does your child come home talking about anything exciting that
happened in school that day? If not, maybe nothing exciting is
happening for your child in school. Would you want to keep working if
your job was like that?
10. Did the school nurse of guidance counselor suggest that your
child has some strange three lettered disease, like ADD, and that they
should now be given Ritalin or some other drug? I suggest that it is
more probable that the school has the disease, EDD--Educational Deficit
Disorder, and time to get your child out of that situation!
If your child has exhibited several of these characteristics, it is time
for you to start looking for an alternative. In most parts of this
country today, there are many options to choose from. For example, 30
states have now enacted legislation which allows groups of parents and
teachers to create charter schools, schools which are not stuck with
having to fulfill the myriad of state regulations but can create their
own individualized approach. Four years ago there were only five of
these charter schools in the country. By the end of this year there will
be more than 1000 of them! Also, there are 4500 magnet schools
throughout the country, public schools which specialize in a an area of
expertise, and draw students from a wider area.
In most communities there are many private alternatives quietly offering
a different educational approach. For example, there are over 4500
Montessori schools based on the experiential approach designed by Dr.
Maria Montessori, and hundreds of Waldorf schools which put equal
emphasis on traditional academics areas and the arts. There are hundreds
of independent alternative schools, many emphasizing participant control
with parents and students taking responsibility for their own
educations.
Many public school systems have a variety of alternative programs within
their systems. These are divided into two general approaches: 1. Public
Choice; those programs which are open to any student in the community.
Sometimes they are called Schools Within Schools. 2. Public At-Risk;
those programs for children who have had a variety of problems coping
with school. These programs run the spectrum from helpful to dumping
ground. Examine them closely before making a decision to enroll.
Parents of over a million children in this country have checked off
"none of the above" and decided to teach their children at home. It is
now legal in every state and does not require teacher certification.
Homeschooling has taken a variety of approaches. Some try to create
"school at home" with a fairly standard curriculum, the main difference
being that they can teach it one-to-one with their children. Some
families have signed up with a curriculum which has been designed by an
umbrella school. This school will help the parents with the curriculum
and in some cases, grade homework, providing a basic curriculum for the
parents to follow and helping with any report forms that are necessary.
A third approach is one which is called "unschooling." In this case the
parent bases their educational approach on the interest of the child and
builds on that rather than a pre-set curriculum. It could be said that
in some of these cases they design their curriculum "retroactively,"
keeping records of the activities throughout the year and at the of the
process dividing the experiences into the appropriate subject area.
Overall, since most states require some form of testing of homeschoolers,
it has been shown that remarkably, as a group, they average in the 85th
percentile compared to the 50th percentile of the average public school
student. There are now so many homeschoolers around the country that
virtually all homeschoolers are part of some kind of homeschool group.
Some of these groups have coalesced into homeschool resource centers and
some of them will operate as often as four or five days a week.
Generally, colleges have discovered that homeschoolers make such good
students that they welcome homeschooling students to apply to their
schools.
As more and more parents become aware of these choices and as they make
these choices, we hope that the system will evolve into one which meets
the needs of an increasing number of students. Meanwhile, don't wait for
that system to change. Take responsibility for your child's education.
Find out what your choices are and choose what is best for your child.
None of these signs by themselves should be taken as a reason to panic.
But if you have noticed several of them, you should certainly explore
educational alternatives.
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