RE: Kids Learn Naturally. Why Compulsory Schooling is Unneccessary and Even Harmful (A "Case Study" with My Son)

[canadian-coconut]

I have read about how private schools work so much better than public schools in parts of Africa.
The tuition is really, really low, and they run on a budget less than half (maybe it was a quarter) what a public school runs on,
yet the education is outstandingly better than public schools.
The thing is, that government run projects seem to always go way over budget and do a poor quality job.

Comments

[lenskonig]

What do you think it is specifically that makes state schools poor? Homogenisation perhaps?

[canadian-coconut]

It's at least partly because they feel that they don't have real competition. Most people will keep using the 'free' education/baby-sitting.
So their jobs are secured whether or not they give a satisfactory performance.

[lenskonig]

What about testing? Do you think there's a way to get rid of it?

I had a passenger in my Uber recently who told me about an awesome-sounding system called Waldorf education.

[canadian-coconut]

Definitely, if they wanted to get rid of testing they could.
Finland did it!

Jeremy Stuart: Yeah, it’s totally dysfunctional, and you’re absolutely right. It seems to be, More testing, then. The school day needs to be longer, then. These measurements aren’t stacking up to our expectations, so let’s add on more layers of work and stress and homework to make those scores go up. As if somehow those scores are the measurement of what learning is.

In fact, it’s completely the opposite. There’s been so much research done and available out there about other countries who have implemented things that are really effective.

Finland, for instance, is the big one that everybody looks at these days. In Finland, you don’t start school until you’re seven. And they also do not organize subjects into neat little packages or separate them out from each other. They’re very integrated.

There’s also no homework at all, period, until you’re a teenager, and then it’s very minimal. And there’s also absolutely no testing until you’re a teenager, and then there’s only one test, one standardized test that all kids of teenage years take. They also get 75 minutes a day of recess, as opposed to 27 minutes in the US. Their school days are far shorter.

There’s no measurement or grading for six years, and they spend 30 percent less on students than in the US, and they outrank 65 other countries in performance results. It blows my mind to read those statistics and then hear things like, Well, we need longer days, or, We need more testing, or, We need more grading. It’s just completely the opposite direction of where we should be going.
https://chriskresser.com/rhr-unschooling-as-a-cure-for-industrialized-education-with-jeremy-stuart/