My dear genius of a nephew is going to start kindergarten this fall. My brother and sister-in-law were hoping to send him to the school closest to their home, which they have heard really great things about. However, their current childcare provider has refused to find someone to walk the kids to school and is going to continue charging the same rates even though the kids will only be there half days.
The search for quality education and childcare has led them down some different paths, which has led me to more carefully consider my own thoughts and feelings on public education (prior to now, this kind of reflection has been primarily centered on my role as an educator and my hopes and dreams for our system rather than on the reality for children I love).
My nephew could go to a very good daycare located downtown. They would bus him to and from a public elementary school. This elementary school, located in the core of our city, has an incredible range in student diversity. There are kids coming into kindergarten at this school who have never been exposed to print in a meaningful way and other kids, like my nephew who can already read. How, do you suppose, will a teacher be able to provide the necessary remediation AND enrichment to all students? They won't. This is not to say that they won't try, but it is not humanly possible in our model of public education to offer the kind of individualized programming necessary for kids to reach their highest potential. I truly believe that in such a setting, my nephew will be forced to thrive in spite of his environment. Middle of the road kids will do just fine because that is to whom it is easiest to teach. My nephew is not a middle of the road kid. (I realize everyone thinks this about the kids in their lives, but please keep in mind that I have worked with children ranging in age from 3 months to 18 years for the past 14 years of my life-- I do have some credibility here and this kid is exceptional)
This real life fact butts heads with my personal ideologies about education.
I believe that education has the potential to alter the path of the individual for better or for worse. It is my hope that as an instrument of the system I do more of the former and less of the latter.
I believe that diversity of student population has the potential to teach students lessons of empathy and at the very least, tolerance, for others different from themselves.
I believe all people, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, class, and physical and cognitive ability deserve the best education that can be offered.
I believe that students' needs should be met-- education should be tailored to them-- and that they should not be asked to fit in some socially constructed box.
Do I believe that our public education system rises to its potential? No. Are there private institutions that do? In my opinion? Yes. Mostly.
My brother and sister-in-law are currently investigating Montessori school for my nephew. There, he would be able to explore and learn about the world in the way he learns best-- through play and through his interests. And starting this year, Montessori will go all the way up to grade 6. This is one of the only non-religious based options for parents and it is only an option to those who can afford it.
So here's the pickle: do you send your child through public education in the name of an ideology in the hopes that it will eventually become reality? Or do you look at the reality and refuse to deny your child what is best for him in spite of the fact that it reinforces classism and privileging the privileged?
For all my ideals, when it comes to my nephew, I have no qualms advocating for the private system. It will serve him best and my brother and sister-in-law have no obligation to the System or its improvement. He should be their first priority.
Now I am a different story. As an educator in the public system, is it hypocritical for me to have the same desires for my daughter?
When N turns 18 months, I fully plan to send her to a daycare that offers a Reggio Emilia philosophy. These daycares are more expensive and will be filled with other middle and upper-middle class kids like herself. If, as she grows, we see that Montessori would be a good fit for her, that is where she will go.
At first, discovering this about myself made me feel very hypocritical. The more I have thought about it, though, the more I have come to see that it is not me failing our education system, it is our education system failing its students. Why shouldn't we have choice in where to send our children to school? Better yet, why is one choice (Catholicism versus secularism) given preferential treatment to others? There is no one-size-fits-all or "best" practice for all students. Shouldn't parents have the option of deciding what is best for their kids-- whether that be an Open School concept, a Montessori school, a traditional classroom, a religious education, or an interest based school?
If our government, like those of other provinces, opened up to the possibility of choice schools, there would no longer be the classist divide there is currently with only those who can afford it able to do what is best for their kids.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
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5 comments:
I also believe we should have a choice as to what time of educations program to send our children. It is unfortunate that the public systems caters to the middle of the road. We are currently sending our 4yo son to a Montessori preschool which has been great for him but it only goes to kindergarden When he is in grade one we will send him to the catholic school with french immersion. I wish there was a public school with a more divers population available with the some option.
You can call me an old-timey socialist, but I'm afraid I have to disagree pretty strongly here. It's a big-picture question: if better education is something you pay for, everyone who can afford it sends their kids to better schools, and suddenly no one in a position of wealth and relative power has a personal stake in improving the public system and it gets even worse. Maybe we should have choice -- but we should all have choice; until we do, the privilege of choosing private education will make the public system worse. Admittedly, it's tough when it's personal... just like it's tougher to bike or take public transit than to drive everywhere. But if the bigger picture doesn't trump our personal interests, we're all screwed. (Of course, I'm a hypocrite in this regard; but I'm working on it.)
Well, I won't go calling you any names, but I'm not sure your argument is on point here. Choice Schools in BC, Alberta, and the like are a part of the public system (they don't pay anything extra for it) and originated because private schools existed in the first place. They did not go down the slippery slope you envision and if our government would allow this model here, neither would we. I do have a stake in improving the public education system because given a choice, I would prefer not to pay taxes to a sub-par system AND $5000+ per year in tuition.
And I'm not sure about your environmental analogy. Driving a car is a matter of convenience-- it does not actually enhance much of my life or ensure a brighter future for my child. N's education is not about convenience and I do not consider it a luxury like driving a car. Just as it is not my right to pollute recklessly and risk the earth's future for her sake, do I have a right to put her into an educational environment that does not best meet her needs? If we lived in a place where the public medical system was as antiquated as our educational system and N got sick, you can bet I would pay a doctor who was up-to-date rather than making a "big picture" point by sending her to some guy using 150 year old methods.
In terms of the "big picture"-- what if that means protesting the current state of things by choosing an alternative? What if that means supporting and endorsing the style of education after which I believe the public system should be modeled? I'm using my wealth and relative power to send a message-- I want a choice. Is being able to afford to have one parent at home to home school a child any different? It is still opting out of the system and any stake you have in improving it and something that you have to have some amount of privilege to be able to do.
Let's not forget that formal education as we know it used to be a luxury afforded only to the upper classes and because of the perceived inequity was eventually made accessible to everyone.
I am not saying I would send her off to a private school and give up on the public system (sucks to be you poor folk!)-- I plan to continue working on those from the inside out-- but change is slow and I'm not going to cross my fingers and hope it happens in time to give the kids I love what they need.
That's a well-thought-out, provocative reply, but I still have some concerns.
If you don't like the environmental analogy, let's go with your health care one. What you're suggesting would be analogous to participating in for-profit health care in order to improve the public system... dubious logic, to say the least. You can't improve public institutions by opting out; they don't operate on a free-market logic. (I'm tempted to stick in a diatribe here against the idea that one can use one's buying power to effect major social change -- one of the biggest reasons for the total inefficacy of the contemporary left, in my view -- but I'll refrain.) That's why private clinics are seen as a threat to the public health care system (at least by loony socialists like yours truly). Advocate for public support of better schooling or more choices, by all means. But we don't have them here yet. By refusing to participate in the public system, you turn any advocacy you do into charity work rather than solidarity. And until another system is in place, you still risk eroding the public system by exercising your power of choice. Of course, there's nothing wrong with charity work -- except that it does nothing to alter the broader conditions that make it necessary in the first place.
Of course you'd prefer not to pay both taxes and tuition -- many others would agree (although your point here could just as easily be used to support the neoconservative argument for eliminating publicly funded institutions... and one could also make the Thoreau-esque point that if you don't want to pay property tax, you could always refrain from home ownership). But a financial stake isn't the same as having a kid enrolled. And we aren't talking about the equivalent of life-and-death surgery here; we're talking about developmentally "healthy" kids who will be just fine _even if they attend mediocre schools_... and also kids that have plenty of other advantages.
The idea that public accessibility of education was an effort to correct inequality is, at best, an oversimplification. I'm not exactly a historian, but it seems to me that the rise of mass formal education has more to do with the rise of nationalism (and the concomitant need for mass indoctrination into nationalist identity politics and standardized national languages) than it does with people perceiving inequality... to the extent that equality plays a role, it's as a supporting ideology for nationalism -- the idea that we are all "equal" because we are all citizens. But the details don't matter much anyway; the point is that perceiving inequity doesn't change anything.
Finally, I want to make it totally clear that I don't mean to tell you what to do, or suggest that what you do professionally isn't valuable -- I have a great deal of respect for what you and C do, and I know that making the public system better is something you both work hard (and well) at. And if we have to agree to disagree on the implications of putting kids in private educational programs, no problem.
We may just have to agree to disagree, but I need to throw this out there-- what about the case with midwifery in this province? Up until last year, midwifery existed outside of the publicly funded system, but because people believed in their right to choose, they lobbied the government and now it is regulated and paid for by the system (this does not mean they sucked it up and used the system they did not believe in until it happened-- they went around the system while simultaneously working to change the system). Prior to now, was choosing to have a home-birth also a choice against publicly funded medicare? Or could choosing to have a midwife attend a home birth be seen as an act of solidarity when it comes to a woman's rights to choose just as my daughter attending a Montessori school would be an act of solidarity for "alternative" forms of education?
And if we don't want to use a life or death analogy, what about naturopathy and other alternative forms of medicine? These are private forms of health-care that are allowed to exist in our province and have not threatened the publicly funded system. Am I to stop using my reflexologist and herbal remedies because there are those who can't afford them and our system does not recognize their medicinal value? Prescriptions are not covered by our system, either, and so am I adding to the inequity by getting mine filled and not striking against the drug companies by refusing to refill my inhalers (I can live without them, I just can't run...)?
Moving out of comparisons and ideals and back to reality-- private schooling has been around for a while and I don't think it can be linked to the current issues plaguing in our public system. Our declining enrollment and funding is not because of Montessori or the Huda School. Plenty of affluent, powerful people send their kids to public schools-- public schools that are more homogeneous in their make-ups than the private schools because of their location in the city. In spite of their continued participation in the system, things have not improved and public meetings about any exciting innovations are still filled with people asking, "But how will our kids learn if they are not in desks doing seat-work? Will they still be prepared for University?" It is in the best interests of those with wealth and power to keep things the way they are because the status quo keeps them in their position of privilege. Their kids do "succeed" in this system (read: they leave school, go to university, and get high paying jobs-- success!). So while your way sounds good in theory it doesn't seem like it works in reality. Change is necessary, but if you only work within the parameters set by those who built and continue to be served by the current system there is little hope for it.
In spite of my own personal issues with capitalism, big business, the private sector, and consumerism, I suppose I just refuse to see things in such black and white terms-- all privatization is bad and mean the destruction of all socialist initiatives; all publicly funded endeavors are good and even if they are not, it must be better than the alternative. I believe such inflexible thinking has led to many political discourses failing when put into practice (but, perhaps that is just my lack of education speaking). I don't think Montessori schools are inevitably going to lead us down the same path as our neighbours to the south. My hope is that they will lead us to be a little more like B.C.
And don't worry about telling me what to do-- you guys should know by now I'm not so easily swayed :)
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