Sunday, September 09, 2012

School cramping her style?

So, my unschooled daughter started school. Grade 9.
As school folks know, the school year began on Tuesday.
Daughter went on Tuesday. She went on Wednesday, and Thursday. On Friday, recognizing an opportunity when she saw it, she accompanied her father and grandmother to the nation's capital city for a visit to her cousin's.
Should I have let her skip school? Barely days into the new experience and she is already taking off.
I've said it before, once an unschooler, always an unschooler.
I ask her about her first impressions of high school are: how was her first day? She notes how easy it is to slip into a situation where she's done almost no 'desk work' and it's not  a disaster.  "How little most kids actually know- facts included."

What really left an impression was that the school day is so long. "Why does it have to be this long? We could do all that in half the time. We could go in twice a week."  Her sister agrees: "There should be an 'intense school' option that goes for three months or so."
It doesn't have to be the 6 hour day every day plus homework.

I hate waste of any kind.The fact is, school is a time guzzler. If you're going to insist on school, then for pity's sake make it worth people's while. Stop wasting their time, their youth their energy their creativity, their LIVES.
With school, it's a drawn out affair. It's inefficient. It's expensive. It uses up far too much of our resources; human and otherwise.I know, I know. It's a multi-billion dollar business. I get it.
Even the structure of the day revolves around the school year and while everywhere work is becoming more flexible school remains as rigid as a ruler.
So? What happens now? "Testing, testing," daughter says. She'll see.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I agree. As a school teacher, I think we could be a lot more efficient with time. For the most part, school doesn't offer a whole lot to disadvantaged kids once they know the basics. We should be really opening it up and hearing from the kids what they want to learn and facilitating that instead. We might not have such a high dropout rate if we listened to kids and respected their needs.

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