Old School vs. New School

I took my kids into town with me today (like we seem to be doing everyday lately it seems.) Of course, someone had to ask about the fact that the kids were not in school. Then since Walmart’s lines were absolutely so long we had plenty of time to chat with each other.

She was from an older generation. We got to talking about how different schools were when she was growing up verses now for our kids. She stressed that when she went to school she actually learned things to the point that when she went to college she was actually prepared to learn and didn’t have to study quite so hard.

However, her kids were nowhere close to prepared for what lay ahead for them in college. They ended up struggling in college and having to study almost nonstop. In many ways, they were behind the eight ball. She commented how her grand kids are not learning anything in today’s school systems.

She also shared with us stories about how her son who was defending someone else in his class got expelled from school because he had to get mean to get his point across. Yet, he did nothing really wrong until he was pushed to the limit. She stressed that when she went to school the guilty parties were the only ones who suffered and teachers were allowed to discipline kids.

It was similar to the same stories I had. I can remember when the teacher’s hand got wrapped up. It was around my Junior or Senior year of high school that the whole self-esteem issue came about. People started caring more about protecting a child’s so called precious “self-esteem” than about them actually being prepared for the real world and life as we all know it.

I have similar stories myself with my own kids in the public and even private schools in our areas. Our kids complained about not learning anything in their schools due to all the distractions. My boys jumped in and talked about how mean the kids were in school to them.

It all boiled down to the fact that this woman was very supportive of our decision to homeschool our kids because she knew it was a far better route for them in our society today. She also commented that she could tell that I made sure to keep them inline. (She must not have seen how hyper they were earlier in the store in certain sections!) However, it does make a difference that our kids are with us all the time.

What makes it bad is far more people are in agreement with that position than not. I seen a huge number of families changing their kids over to homeschooling with each passing year. There are a lot more shootings that seem to be taking place in our kids, the bullying is getting worse, and our level of kids actually learning things has drastically decreased.

I’m not saying my kids are learning at the level I want them too all the time, but I am saying that we know what areas they need improved on because we see their hard core scores daily. We know when they are just having a bad day and when they just flat out don’t know something.

I believe in the olden days teachers could tell that in an actual classroom. Kids were in a school to learn not play. No one gave a rats behind whether or not they were harming a child’s self-esteem because they knew their job was teach a child what they needed to know to survive in the real world. They weren’t worried about making things entertaining because guess what in a real job, life isn’t always fun and games.

I’m not all hardcore homeschooling. If I had a school system close to me that would actually show that they cared about their kids LEARNING things and keeping the kids in line using discipline techniques that could work even on gentle approaches then I’d be all for sending my kids to it.

What are your thoughts on the topic?