Friday, March 06, 2009

Answers to questions

But what if you miss stuff?

Every system of education misses stuff. I'll miss stuff. I don't think I'll miss much important, though.

What about the things they teach in school that you can't teach at home?

I've never worked out what these are. What is impossible to teach at home? And why?

What about learning to socialise with large age-sorted groups?

I can't say this is something I think is useful or necessary. In fact, for a lot of people, it's actively harmful, as far as I can see. Learning to socialise within large groups of any kind is a useful skill, and there are lots of places where people can learn to do that. I learned to do it fairly well aged about 25, myself, after unlearning a lot of what school situations taught me was "normal behaviour".

Doesn't anyone check?

Not as much as I do, no, but there are circumstances under which various state-sanctioned individuals or bodies can and do check up on whether one is fulfilling one's legal obligation to provide a child with an education. One could wish they were as rigorous in schools but obviously the sheer numbers make that impossible.

How will you know whether you're covering the whole curriculum?

Whose curriculum, and why would I want to cover it? Many curriculums(a?) are available for free or for sale, so I could just look it up, if I decided that a curriculum was the best thing for my children, or that that was a useful way to guide my own work.

What if you don't want to teach her long division because she'll never use it in real life?

Basic practical skills which are used in real life are kind of automatic. Things which are no useful in real life might be learned for sheer joy of them, and if not, does it really matter?

Are you really allowed?

It's legal, if that's what you mean.

How will you know you're doing it right?

How does anyone? How do teachers, schools, examining boards, anyone?

What if she's not normal?

What's normal?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I suspect people believe you can't teach:

physics (because you need all that equipment) and chemistry (dangerous chemicals, bunsen burners)

PE - that is, Team Games - because there aren't enough of you for a team

Stuff that you don't know ;-)

Julie paradox

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