Private or state schooling?

[iff]

State schooling all the way for me

 

This was based on discussion in episode of a TV programme I was watching

[LeChat]

Are you only looking for responses from people in Ireland and/or the U.K.?

[Guest]

I did private for grades K, 2, 3, (last part of 5), 6, 7, and 8 (most of 8, not the last quarter)

 

I did public for 1, 4, the first part of 5, and 9-12.

 

I think the public school education was better overall, although I was given a far better English and non-core subject education in private schools. Public schools don't teach logic, rhetoric, or Latin... but private schools (especially church schools) don't seem to teach science well and generally teach very biased history, even by American standards. 

 

[Blue eyes white dragon]

Homeschooling is the best option, if done CORRECTLY. I was homeschooled for the majority of my schooling. Public school was crap and private school was also crap. And I'm meaning quality of education. Homeschooling is more personalized for the child.

[iff]

10 minutes ago, LeChat said:

Are you only looking for responses from people in Ireland and/or the U.K.?

Any one can answer. 

 

Actually I originally had it as public (instead of state) but the meaning of public school in UK is different to public school in US. 

[LeChat]

@iff Cool. Okay; I answered the poll.

[fragglerock]

@iff I assume you're asking about what schools people went to, rather than where they think people should go to?

 

I went to public schools but the public school in my area was extremely good.

 

25 minutes ago, Bringer of Woe said:

Homeschooling is the best option, if done CORRECTLY. I was homeschooled for the majority of my schooling. Public school was crap and private school was also crap. And I'm meaning quality of education. Homeschooling is more personalized for the child.

That "if done correctly" is the kicker Obviously you know that and emphasized it clearly. Homeschool can be better than either and worse than either. And can be paired with intense isolation.

[A User]

private schools until 13

currently public school and it might stay public school because if I ever move house then the area has overpriced private schools as opposed to here so my parents can't do it for long

[iff]

16 minutes ago, - 𝕱𝖗𝖆𝖌𝖌𝖑𝖊𝕽𝖔𝖈𝕶 - said:

I assume you're asking about what schools people went to?

That is correct

[Gloomy]

I always went to public school. It kinda sucked.

[TormentDubz]

Homeschooling

[Jaylee]

well i never had a choice since my mom's antivaxx so from my (only) experience, homeschool all the way ig

[SithLord]

3 hours ago, Bringer of Woe said:

Homeschooling is the best option, if done CORRECTLY. I was homeschooled for the majority of my schooling. Public school was crap and private school was also crap. And I'm meaning quality of education. Homeschooling is more personalized for the child.

I disagree, but mostly because I'd say what's the best option depends on the student. My mom considered homeschooling my siblings and I but concluded that socialization was vital to our education and home schooling would've made it much harder. She was right. We're adults now and still almost all socially awkward without many friends.

 

Home schooling is also more difficult to do correctly. It takes a lot of time and dedication from the parents, and some parents can't afford to take that much time to in essence do a second job. Imagine working all day only to get home and have to teach your kid(s) for 3 more hours at home? 

[Blue eyes white dragon]

17 minutes ago, SithLord said:

socialization was vital

Hence the done correctly part. Socialization is not an issue if there are meet ups, co ops, field trips, events. In fact because of that there is often more Socialization and it is encouraged and you can meet a more diverse group of people.

 

20 minutes ago, SithLord said:

Imagine working all day only to get home and have to teach your kid(s) for 3 more hours at home? 

There are a wide variety of programs that accommodate that so the child is self sufficient but has access to tutors or online programs. It comes down to what program is chosen and having the necessary tools for help provided. It does take dedication and possibly some extra time but its a very flexible accommodating thing

[Guest]

I picked other, because it really depends on the country. In the US, private education is the better education by far, even if it's religious (I went through and still came out atheist, like a good 50% of their graduates). Our public schools are underfunded, the curriculums are poor and fail to teach functional literacy, critical thinking or life skills, and many (at least from my experience in Florida) are dirty and dangerous. Public schools in social democratic/democratic socialist countries are the best options in the world, with Finland ranking #1 consistently and Denmark, Norway and Sweden always in the top 10 of global rankings.

[iff]

4 hours ago, RoseGoesToYale said:

I picked other, because it really depends on the country. In

I meant the question as "what Schooling did you have?" 

[everywhere and nowhere]

Neither applies because I went to three schools of various types.

1-3 grade schools used to be typical for Ursynów* - the idea was to separate the smallest children from 12-, 13-, 14-years-olds who may bully younger children just for fun or even be violent to them, likewise**. So I went to a state school for that time. Then I went to a so-called social school, which can be considered something between state-owned and private - it is paid, but cheaper than private schools usually are, run by an association or foundation and is supposed to give better conditions such as smaller groups. As for secondary school, it was a state school again - a fairly good high school with broadened German.

Fun fact: during elections, the voting point for my area is always in my first school; the commission for my block and some neighbouring ones is usually in my old day-room.

*I think that they were converted to typical primary schools later, after the educational reform (grades 1-6: primary school, 7-9: gimnazjum, 10-12: liceum - or 10-13: technikum, a professional high school which gives both graduation exams with possibility to study and immediate preparation for a given profession, such as railways, agriculture, car repairs...). After PiS unfortunately revoked the reform - I don't know why, maybe, with their authoritarian mentality, they liked the communist school system so much (they consider themselves big right-wingers and anti-communists, but as some people say, the only thing Jarosław Kaczyński didn't like about communism was that he wasn't First Secretary...) - I guess they might have been converted back to 1-3 grade schools. I consider the previous educational reform very good because it extended the period of obligatory general learning by one year, and was therefore at least potentially more effective in levelling differences between children from various social backgrounds - unfortunately, PiS just threw it away.

**A lighter American example from a game:

A more serious Polish example, from a book by Antoni Kroh, an etnographer who was born in Warsaw, but raised mostly in the Tatra Mountains, and in this particular part he tells how in the early 1950s, everyone kept saying that another world war is nigh. Also a shocking example of totalitarianism in practice as seen by a child:

Quote

In our Warsaw school there was a wall bulletin about the Korean war, we saw pictures with scorched trees and Koreans with strangely askew heads hanging on them, and our teacher explained that American agressors would surely be defeated and nations of the world would win and that we have to listen carefully because she would examine us in this material. Older kids were playing Korean war, they dragged some first-grader to the toilet to hang him, he was saved in the last moment, our mathematics teacher kept screaming and he tore off the bulletin, and then someone else taught us mathematics.

 

[Guest]

In France, private schools are really rare and there is no real notion of quality here... people putting their kids in private schools generally do it because they want a boarding school or because they want a catholic school.
There is a startling difference of level between establishments in both, but kids being sent to school depending on which geographical sector their house belongs to  (... if you want to go somewhere else, you have to ask for a derogation and it's a pretty arduous process) it depends on the socio-economic factors pertaining to the kids' families more than anything else.
I've been in public schools from preschool to the end of university. I've received a very high quality education overall. 
I'm regularly invited to give talks in front of classes (age 9 to 18)  in both private and public establishments and the education received is the same in both. It's the same program and the teachers are as invested in both. Of course, you'll find stronger students in private schools... they come from richer families (you can't expect the children of minors out of job who've never been in a museum to have the same cultural background as children who take ballet lessons and spend their weekends watching plays) but I meet a lot of great educators in both and I'm often amazed by the efforts deployed by teachers dispatched in very harsh places.

[Guest]

8 hours ago, iff said:

I meant the question as "what Schooling did you have?" 

Ah, ok. In the second sentence, it sounded like you were watching something on the pros and cons of both and wanted to know which was better.

 

Well, I've had both, four years of private, the rest public.

[Libellule]

Public elementary school from year 1 to 4, private secondary school from year 5 to 12. Though I think if I hadn't grown up in a town with a private school, I probably wouldn't have gone to one. They're not extremely common in Germany. 

[Rhyn Corinn]

I was homeschooled and after my brief experience with going to a driver's Ed class at a private school, I'm honestly glad I was. Despite the fact that my homeschool group is a toxic place that's dead to me now, I think public or even private school would probably have traumatized me. (Which is not to say it couldn't work for some people, I just don't think I would have done well there)

[Cosmic Latte]

I attended public school the whole way, K-12, USA

 

I considered going to a private school that was more focused on The Arts during my middle school years (grades 6-8 age 12-14) because I was going through a lot of bullying at the time. My parents were the ones who suggested it, but I was surprisingly wise for a middle schooler and turned it down thinking,  "if I can't figure out why the other kids didn't like me here, then all that would really change is the setting"

 

Overall, I believe public/state school has the most potential for a well rounded education and socialization

[Larkaloke]

I was homeschooled until college; unschooled for the primary/elementary age range (meaning that I didn't have a set curriculum for those years) and for highschool following the basic state curriculum (in terms of credits required, but with some tailoring with regards to what types of science and math and so forth would be studied to fulfill those requirements). My family also attended local group outings with other homeschooling families and my brother and I were very involved with theatre.

 

For me it was the best thing, but it certainly is not for everyone and needs to be done well and by parents who have the resources and knowledge to pull it off.

[Ceebs]

Ontario public school system.

 

For a while when I was about 11, I became enchanted with this private girls' school in the nearby city where my aunt and uncle lived and wanted to go there. I think it's called Trafalgar Castle School. Looked like something out of Harry Potter (although Harry Potter didn't exist back then, and I've never read any Harry Potter).

 

Edit: yeah, this is it:

 

 

In retrospect, I don't think I would've fared well there. Although the public system wasn't for me either, but that's just cos I'm... damaged or whatever. Not the school's fault.

[The French Unicorn]

My grand-parents was very vocal about wanting me and my brother to go to private school : they even offer to pay for it. My parents say no and my brother and I go to public school. I have no regret. And then I have a laugh for the exam we had at the end of high school, when guys from a private school made a stupid mistakes nobody in my class did (not saying all people of private schools did the mistake, and all people of public schools didn't, but... It was funny).

 

[Guest]

Went to private majority of my life. Was in a government school for about 9 months and wow that was wild. Wanted to stay private because well more options. At one point was also home schooled but that was through a private system. 

[ElloryJaye]

I attended a series of government-funded Catholic-denominational schools.  For historical reasons, any given location in Ontario may be served by up to four individual government-funded school boards:  English Public, English Separate, French Public, and French Separate.  "Separate" almost always means "Catholic" (there are a few exceptions).  My hometown had English Public and French Separate schools, and my parents thought the principal of the English Public school wasn't very good at his job, so they sent me to the other one for elementary school even though my family is neither francophone nor Catholic. 

 

The high school situation was no better, and I ended up being sent out of town (to an English Separate high school).

 

I had a pretty miserable history with bullying throughout, but I doubt it would have been better anywhere else (homeschooling wasn't a thing back then for the most part).

 

[Skycaptain]

State schooled for both 

[Grumpy Alien]

I went to private preschool (ages 2-5), public (state funded/free) elementary school (ages 5-14), private high school (ages 14-18)

[Since]

I was completely homeschooled and I loved it. 

 

I usually don't tell anyone bc when I do everyone's like "Oh poor you, you were completely isolated and never got to socialize with anybody." 

My entire life my relatives were like "You are going to completely fail in life and will never go to uni bc your parents are messing your life up." 

 

They couldn't have been more wrong -- homeschooling actually helped me succeed in life: 

(disclaimer: I'm not saying that those who go to school can't have this, or that all homeschoolers do -- this is my experience)

1)  Being homeschooled gives a lot more flexibility. I got involved in theatre and started co-directing productions when I was young. I had time to explore my artistic interests. I also didn't need to finish high school bc I started university at a crazy young age. 

2) I view my professors as my equals and build personal relationships with them. I'm not afraid to challenge them when they are wrong and I view learning as a cooperative process in which both the teacher and student participate. 

3) I never had to experience bullying, I've never really felt like I was worse than other people, I've never experienced peer-pressure, I never had to go through sex education...

4) I LOVE learning. I had the freedom to explore what I loved and I didn't have to waste time on things that I didn't want to study. I find that a lot of my uni classmates were a lot more tired and were resigned to studying things that didn't interest them. 

5) There isn't really a 'normal' the same way when you're homeschooled. I've never really had a problem with being different -- it's just so normal to be yourself. 

 

There are some parents who don't care about their children or homeschool for the wrong reasons. But it's not that hard -- if the parents are actually trying, it will work out -- even if it doesn't work the first time, you'll make your way through it together.