Reply to Subjective capsule reviews of MD private elementary schools

Forum Index » Private & Independent Schools

Reply to "Subjective capsule reviews of MD private elementary schools"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What are these teaching methods you mention?  How do you know what methods would be best for your child?  If you are not an educator, this entire thread is bogus.

I'm so sick of parents thinking they 'know education'.  They don't and neither do you.[/quote]

NP here - parents may not "know education" per se but I think they do know their own children.  I think for the majority of children, they can thrive in a variety of educational environments - but for some kids, the educational environment can make a big difference.  Granted, there are probably plenty of parents out there that erroneously believe their kid is "the one that is different"; that just makes it harder for the families that have a valid case.  For the families I know that have a child where educational environment makes a big difference, it is not the parent being hyper sensitive - it is also the school and teachers giving them feedback, usually from early ages to help the family guide the child to the best match for success.  Schools and classrooms can vary quite a bit on dimensions that don't make a difference to most families, but do make a difference to others. 
[/quote]

OP here.  I agree with the respondent above.  There are two important sides to the coin here; what the educators have to offer, and the child to whom it is being offered.  Professional educators have the most information about the first, and parents about the second.

Every child is different.  For one child, McLean might be a fine choice and Norwood a problematic one.  For another child the reverse might be true.  There is no objective best/worst school -- it's an interaction between the child's needs/learning processes, and what the school offers.

In our case we have learned a lot about how our child learns, and the circumstances that enable her to thrive vs becoming frustrated.  That experience has been borne of years of experience with schooling, extracurricular classes, social skills teaching sessions, testing, home instruction, and much else.

We have learned to be wary of any teacher/institution who approaches things from the perspective of, "This is what we do because it works best for everyone."  In our case that often wasn't true. Fortunately we adapted, and found settings that worked, and now we have a high academic achiever in our household.

Again, I would reiterate that the title of this thread is "Subjective capsule reviews," and that the first post took pains to point out that the reviews referred to the specific match between child and school.  If someone objects that some schools that were less attractive to us are objectively "better schools," then they are missing the point of the thread as well as the larger point that what's "best" is a function of several variables, including the child being placed as well as many others ranging from location to price.  As the original post noted, Charles E. Smith might be a perfectly fine school, but the percentage of the day spent on Judaic studies made it a suboptimal choice for us. That's not a criticism of Charles E. Smith or of Judaic studies.

In our particular case, we had a strong academic performer needing a socially nurturing environment, so Barnesville rose to the top of our list, and St. Andrews was right behind it.  Other parents' priorities may differ.  Contrary experiences with the 14 schools reviewed are more than welcome.[/quote]

I am the poster who spoke about some kids needing specific environments while others don't.  I find it amazing that so many parents out there are so critical of others and don't understand that not everyone's child is the same as your own.  And...just because one child might need something specific to really thrive, it doesn't mean that the child's parent believes their child is any more special than other children - it is because they are trying to help their child.  It has nothing to do with other parents/children or what they even "think about other parents/children".  In fact, they are probably not even thinking about other parents and children at all...not nearly as much as other parents are "thinking about them".

As I noted earlier - I know a couple of these kids via family and via friends we met when kids were very little.  I see these families get judged all the time (even by close friends and family!!) and people project all these erroneous ideas onto them - it's ridiculous.  [/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