Reply to I never understood the difference between public and private until today

Forum Index » Schools and Education General Discussion

Reply to "I never understood the difference between public and private until today"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I'm gonna agree with PP to some degree that interest in acquired.  I can't comment on whether it's right to teach in a style that isn't motivating but I will say having studied piano with some big names who are classical recording artists, I had a very strong education in music.  I'm not a concert pianist and I went to a combo of public (tops in my state/county)/private schools personally.  I will say that based on my experience in learning piano - to some degree it's about practice.  I see all these posts from parents about dropping their kids from the instrument after like 2-3 months or even 6 months and being disappointed about that.  Well, you have to learn the basics before you can really decide whether you love it.  Takes some time and you have to force the practice.  It's not about inspiration - you have to know what you're playing before you know if you like the piece.  Many just give up or think that you love it so you practice.  Discipline is more important that inspiration sometimes.

I'm also the child of 2 immigrant parents who early on explained to me that the teaching style overseas is very different than it is in the US and they both admired and envied that I was given a chance to "enjoy" my studies because the way they learned their lessons was by cold hard studying.  You have to get the basics down before you can leverage that knowledge and gain the interest to delve into it.  So yes, I do agree that a lot of public schools is about fluff.  Here in the US, there's a great emphasis on independence, freedom and choice.  But there's no responsibility and no discipline that comes with it.  When you go to other parts of the world, there's less choice.  You just do.  There's no other way.  There's an urgency and a commitment and that's why many immigrants or families who emigrated to the US succeed so often.  It's not about how much you'll enjoy your studies, it's about needing to have a foundation of knowledge in order to develop further.

My kids go to public (people love it but it's not considered a Nottingham LOL or other high ranked academic elementary - maybe a 6/10).  I personally struggle more than DH on whether we will actually finish in our current school.  I have always supplement school work.  We read every night with the younger and we take turns reading pages with older.  We started as babies and they both love to read.  We make the older one write in a journal, we've always worked math above his current grade level to introduce him to what's to come.  The younger one listens in on the older's work. Both kids are 2 grades above their current grade level in school work.  It does take more time for me and I am more exhausted and I'm not the perfect mom and I can't do it every night but I feel very strongly about always giving more than assigned work and also paying very close attention to the kind of school work they are doing in class because I have such little faith in the school system.

I personally feel that school's a hard one.  It's a hard thing to weigh that a school has the right teachers, community, personality fit for your kid but also academically is actually teaching them shit. On some level, I have toured the privates and fell in love with them but don't have the money and can't get the scholarships to get them in, but wish I could.  But in the end, I think that they are happy, we will continue to supplement and my hope is that they find something in their life to do that they love.  Ultimately, that's going to determine how well they do what they do and for success, $, etc.  But yes, when I became a parent, I realized that US education is messed up.  The kids do on some level have to learn.  It's a fine line and I think PP admits that it's tricky to go deep without too much comfort in learning, and yet to not be well rounded in studying more than academics like music, art, etc isn't right either.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics