Dear Poirot,

The attitude of parents is a large part of education but not all of it. Our parents are an important influence in our lives but only part of it. My parents, although intelligent, did not really care about either the arts or literature and regarded science and technology as tools with which one could make a living. As a child I read a lot. My father called me a 'reading fool'. my mother regarded it as a worthwhile career goal to get a lifelong job in a big corporation. A friend of the family who was a chemist at Solvay Process, a company in Syracuse, NY, was pointed out as a role model. I think the only book my father ever read was "Gone with the Wind." He was prompted to do so by my mother as it was a bestseller at the time.

I don't think I am more intelligent than they were, but I have much wider intellectual interests. I owe it to school. I went to a terrific public high school in Syracuse, NY. I remember Miss McBurney, our Latin teacher, with whom we studied Caesar's writing about the Gallic Wars, 'Doc' Poland, our chemistry teacher, and the lecture he gave about Kekule's dream where he got the insight on the Benzene ring and the erudite Jesse Ross, our history teacher. Those people had a tremendous influence on me, and without that influence I probably would not be too different from my parents.

My oldest son is a Professor of Anthropology at William and Mary and quite a scholar. He graduated summa cum laud from university. I think he got far more in the way of attitude toward learning from his public school than he got from either his mother or me. My education in school has broadened my mind so I am still trying to learn and inquire at the age of 87. Not all children will be inspired, but all of them should be given the chance to develop what abilities they have.

I don't think parents have all that much effect on their lids attitudes to education. Mine sent me to school, expected I would do well, but left it to me & my teachers how well.

My 3 kids are an example of how it is up to the kids themselves. They are equally bright, but very differently motivated.

The eldest wanted to be the best. Nothing less than an OP 1 or 2 would do for her, not because she needed it, but because she would not accept less. We supported her, never pushed her.

The youngest only wanted a bit of paper. She found math easy, so did A & B, but apart from that did the easiest stuff she could find. Media studies, dance, anything with no homework suited her. Pushing her would have been counter productive & a waste of time.

The boy needed good results to achieve his plans, but liked being a leader of the sporting group, being a smart ass & playing to the gallery. It took some time to get him to see that the education system didn't give a damn what he did, he could fail if he liked, a not effect them in any way.

I had to sort of set him against the system, with the idea that he beat it if he did well, to start him trying. Until then he was heading for very poor results, & no chance of achieving his objectives.

Being brought up in the same house hold did not result in similar characters, quite the contrary. Each required quite different handling to achieve results.

A few more teachers as good as the ones I had, would sure help with a lot of kids.

Hasbeen,

Yeah, but that's the whole point - your parents EXPECTED you to try and to do okay. If kids have nobody around them who expects anything but sh!t from them, only people who are drop-kicks who implicitly expect their kids to be drop-kicks - these poor little buggers are EXPECTED to get nowhere. And what's the bet that they will get nowhere ?

I've been doing a lot of work on the correspondence of the S.A. Protector of Aborigines, and I'm amazed how little power he and the government had to remove children, except for orphans for whom, of course, in any jurisdiction, the state should have obligations of care.

Many years ago, I got hold of a copy of the School Roll from one Aboriginal mission, all the details from 1880 to 1966, and drew up maps of the to and fro from that school, decade by decade. Almost no new kids were every 'taken' there, perhaps twenty or thirty out of the eight hundred in eighty years, usually with their single mothers. And similarly, over eighty years, only forty five kids out of the eight hundred were ever 'taken away', and all but one came back within a year or so. In fact, in that time, forty mothers died leaving 140 school-age children. Some fathers died and the mothers re-married, so guess what happened to the teenage daughters ?

But back in those days, people looked after their kids a lot better it seemed, even though families lived in genuine poverty and hardship.

So are kids the property of their parents, or their obligation ?

Just wondering,

Joe

Not quite sure what you're getting at, Loudmouth.

(In case it's a dig at my homeschooling - knowing your penchant for sarcastic engagement - I am registered with my state education authority as a home educator)

Regarding the gist of my reply to David f, what I was getting at was the "attitude" of parents regarding education - as even amongst children who are regular and punctual school attendees, there may be very little back-up or general reinforcement of the fundamentals by their parents, and hence a lack of engagement by the child.

david f, I usually find myself in agreement with you, however, "That makes a case for stopping the funding of the private schools. If funding for private schools stops that makes the situation better in two ways. Parents who care are more liable to put pressure to make the public schools better, and children of parents who don't care will mix with children of parents who do care. That can inspire them to care themselves and to improve."

You advocate forcing parents who care to do the impossible, i.e. change the culture of public schools burdened by unruly students whose parents don't care, going to battle with the education minister and the director general/CEO over lax discipline standards, in some sort of concerted group action.

Public school teachers with unruly students are simply left to stew in their own juice by top-brass turning the issue back on them with the charge of insufficiently engaging such students. I believe the vast majority of teachers are doing their utmost to engage students but their efforts are trampled over without proper consequence. There is no process that can permanently relieve their burden, with students going through a revolving door only to land back barely and/or temporarily changed. They (and their parents) are giving the pastoral care and documentation systems of schools a complete work-over. They know their rights, the limitations on teachers and schools, and how to weather any storm. They know that ultimately there is no real consequence for failure to change, abrogating their responsiblity.

Unruly kids have special disciplinary needs and should not be foisted on schools under "inclusivity" requirements that negatively affect average, good-natured kids. What was once a subliminal problem has grown to be of great significance with societal decay and now needs to be directly addressed at a government level.

If needed change occurs and is annunciated clearly there will be a drift back to public schools that were once great.

oops..enunciate