BAYGON and Antiseptic,

I checked out Waldorf/Steiner education when I first began to investigate alternative modes of education. It is so very different to anything in mainstream education. It does seem to me a superior education in that it's likely to give a child a far more comprehensive skill base for independent learning....Montessori is another style which I found quite inspiring, and one I would be more inclined to recommend for an autistic child. In the end, I decided to just "free-range" as then my son could follow his inclination (with a certain amount of guidance).
I also agree that it's not necessary to matriculate to have a fulfilling and productive life....and in the case of alternative education, there are many avenues these days into higher education if one is so inclined. Often it's better to have gained a certain maturity before embarking upon such a course, in any case.

Just to cover the social aspects of home education - we mix with other homeschoolers, my son also attends a dance class and he has friends in the local neighbourhood who come to our house or congregate in the tree-house next door.

BAYGON,
I appreciate how difficult it is in a mainstream classroom environment to allow the freedom for students to self-direct. The system is set up so that they are directed in what they should learn and how they should learn it...not compatible with independent thought and action.

BAYGON,

NAPLAN is a good case in point - it's modelled on the now discredited American idea. In fact the woman who was instrumental in setting it up during the Bush years has written a book panning it.
I know that much time is spent by teachers now to "teach to test" - preparing the students to achieve well in these tests. I believe considerable time is now given over to this specific preparation, which could alternatively be used for "real" learning.
I discovered that NAPLAN was not compulsory for home schoolers so I gave it a big miss. Obviously it is all about measurement and comparison and not about education.
As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I don't usually mark my son's formal work as I'm aware if he's having trouble grasping something, and then we find an alternative method to approach the problem. I do have stamps and stickers, but most of the time he doesn't even look for that sort of recognition. Also a lot of our stuff is practical and, therefore, it's more a matter of his interest in the subject and his feedback in my direction that allows me to understand how it has impacted him.

Poirot - your approach to your son's education seems to be fine. I would only add that stamps and stickers can be over rated - people know when they have done well and equally know when something is crap - honest, supportive feedback is all you need.
I essentially a reasoning test - aim is diagnostic I have used with people of all ages (age 7 - 60) the idea is that you give them the same test at 12 monthly intervals simply to see how their reasoning skills have developed. I have found that from yr 7 upwards there is no improvement in people's reasoning skills unless they have been exposed to programmes that are designed to improve their reasoning skills.

BAYGON,

I agree about stamps and stickers. i don't even know where our stickers are at present And we only ever seem to use stamps as an afterthought, so they aren't an important feature or reward.

You are right that engagement and enjoyment at discovery or the mastery of a practical skill are reward enough for most people. I do like my son's enthusiasm when he decides to investigate something he's interested in. It's wonderful to see him take a project from start to finish, and my job at those times is to provide as much stimulus and material as I can to facilitate his learning.

"Enthusiasm" seems to be the key word for anyone earning at any time.

Baygon
“So the essay needs to be seen not as discussing the nerits or other wise of state versus private education but rather on the assumptions that policy makers make about what constitutes a good education and therefore merits funding.”

Surely that begs the question?

If the problems under discussion necessarily inhere in state control of education - and cannot be remedied by changing particular policies while retaining it - then the interests many thousands of children are being sacrificed every day each year for … what? The emotional benefit to adults of not having to critically examine beliefs that are well-intentioned but badly miscarrying?

Furthermore since the whole purpose of state funding is to provide education otherwise than on the basis of profit and loss, then *how* will anyone determine whether we are getting value for money? What will it mean? Who’s “we”? The teachers’ federation? Since neither the people paying for the education, nor the people receiving it nor their parents, are to be permitted to decide, how could the decision be anything but arbitrary?

Since we are all agreed that the process and results are unsatisfactory, why should the starting point be to exclude the possibility that problems in state-sponsored education have something to do with it being state-sponsored?

In order to eliminate that obvious possibility, we would need to conclude that state provision could *avoid* the problems arising from the original split between paying and receiving the service which is inherent in state involvement. But given that split, how could the decision-maker know what are the values he is trying to satisfy that “merit” funding?

What would stop him substituting personal or irrelevant or wrong decisions? What cost would he pay for getting it wrong? What account will he take of the alternative competing values for the same resources – e.g. hospitals, defence, roads? What would stop the whole system from being biased in favour of the interests of union leaders, and departmental officers, and politicians?

How would any state provision *not* result in the creation of guilds and privileged castes?
(cont.)

I read an article recently about private tutors, whom many people hire to try to compensate for the shortcomings of the system. The monopoly state-granted privileges of state education are *economically* no different from the mediaeval guilds. They jealously agitate for the banning of competition that the consumers prefer. The reasons given are always to protect the consumer but it’s always the *producers* calling for these regulations. Since the foundational idea is that parents and children are *not* to decide, there is less and less escape from a uniformly uncaring and sub-optimal system. State provision creates serious intractable social problems.

What reason is there to think that, if we give the state the power to do what you think good, it’s actually going to do it in fact?

How do you account for the thousands upon thousands of lives bullied, worsened, and turned into clones by the current system and its indifference to individuality?

How could the question of meriting funding, or what constitutes “good” education, ever be answered without answering these questions?

Besides, what happened to “well-educated misfits”? How can we hope to produce such, if we’re not even willing to countenance the possibility that the state may be wrong? Whatever happened to the values of creative thinking, and caring, and social justice, and critical thinking, and avoiding a sausage-machine approach, if at the first sign of questioning the state’s legitimacy, you circle wagons and say the question is out of order?

I asked what makes you statists think you haven’t been brainwashed for good reason. Here you are, in the most highly educated group in Australia, all agreed that the system is highly unsatisfactory, and yet apparently unable or unwilling to even consider what a great diversity of better options might be made available by stopping doing what’s causing the problem.

Poirot
LOL thanks.

Obviously we can’t have a paradigm change if we are not willing to change, or even to question, the dominant paradigm which in this case is state education.

(cont.)