There has been a lot of talk in our house recently about schools and education as we have started to question mainstream schooling and are thinking of alternatives. Our main concerns are that, as we are raising our children to be independent thinkers who love learning, we feel that being put in a class with lots of other children and having to follow the national curriculum will not help them to nurture their own abilities and ideas. We also worry about the way our system works: competing against others instead of cooperating, punishments or rewards for "bad" or "good" behaviour, this effectively kills off any joy in learning, if you worry about being told off or about getting that prize you won't be enjoying your task very much.
We have also noticed that Mr Toddler seems very advanced for his age with things like the alphabet and numbers, I am not sure if this is because he really is brighter than the other kids I know, or just because he loves learning these things, and he has learnt them himself by watching alphabet songs on the Internet and counting alongside the older children, all I have done is give him lots of encouragement and chances to practice. So what are they going to do with him when he's 4 (he's 3 next week), goes to school and can already read... will they fast track him? But then he'd be with older children who are more advanced in other respects, I don't know... If you have a class of over 10 children (and you are not a Montessori or Steiner school) how can you nurture each child and make sure they live up to their full potential? I should know, I taught for 10 years when I lived in Italy and leaving children behind was the saddest and most frustrating thing that could happen.
So we're considering home education, I have been in touch with local groups, we'll go and see how other families are doing it, then we'll decide.
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