(no subject)
Oct. 29th, 2003 05:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hnpccI dunno. I read this and to be honest my first thought is "well don't send them there then". If you're so paranoid that your children won't be able to decide for themselves at some later date... well, send them to a non-religious school.
What there aren't any "good" state schools in your area, or they're full up? And private's too expensive?
Tough shit. Apparently France is an option though, from what I've been reading.
It's different here of course. Generally speaking private schools are "religious" and state schools aren't, or at most have 1 hour of RE per week, usually run by an outside volunteer. Where I went to primary school had a choice of RE even, Christian or Muslim. Secondary school we had no RE, although we had 1 hour per week of Life Studies, which included looking at the lives of Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther King and others. Dean went to a private school, which was religiously based although not a lot in actual practice. I think they had some RE in year 7 but mostly it was just prayers at school assembly and a couple of church services per year. The CE (Christmas and Easter) approach really.
It's an historical anomaly that Catholic private schools here are heavily government subsidised whereas other denominations aren't - although pretty much all schools do get some level of government funding. This was originally because the State schools were considered to be Protestant, and so the government subsidy of Catholic schools was designed to allow parents to let their child be educated in their own faith. Now that State schools are effectively secular and there are a lot of schools for various faiths (Hari Krishna, Catholic, Islamic, Fundamentalist Christian are just the few that I can think of in my area) there's a lot of debate about whether the high subsidy should continue, or whether it should be extended to all private schools. Personally I think they should drop it completely and put the extra funding back into the State school system, but then again, I'm biased.
The arguments in favour of extending the subsidies go roughly "we're parents and we pay taxes and if we choose to send our child to a private school where we think they'll be better educated then the government has no right to not fund that school". Or somesuch. The argument for dropping the subsidies go roughly "the government's provided you with a perfectly adequate school already, which, if it were properly funded would be equally as good as the private school and a shitload less elitist and why should we subsidise your attempt to have your child join the Old School Tie mob?" Again, or somesuch. I'm paraphrasing about a year's worth of Letters To The Editor here.
It'll be interesting when/if Dean and I get to this point to see what happens. I have honestly no idea which way we'd be likely to jump - as with most things it will probably depend on where we're living, what the schools are like, how much we're earning, what we're prepared to spend... etc, etc etc. I can see Dean pushing his old school on the grounds that it has cadets though. :-)
There are some schools where I would prefer not to send my (hypothetical) child, mostly on academic and social grounds. Whether I'd get around that by using the "elitist" state schools such as Melbourne High or MacRob or whether I'd get around it by moving or getting scholarships, who knows?
I sometimes wonder how much the middle of the road state and private schools really differ though. I mean, the majority of students don't go to either the lowest income state schools or the highest income private schools and we seem to get by OK. Some of us would probably do better in a more academic environment, some would probably do better in a more technically oriented environment. Thanks to the Blackburn report (spit) all schools are equal. In the purely "Animal Farm" sense...
Anyway, back to the Guardian woman. Honestly. Do yourself a favour and take the child out of the school. You'll feel so much better knowing that you're not exposing him/her to the evils of organised religion. Which of course he/she will never encounter in the outside world, ever. Or could ever decide for themselves to be interested in. Or could ever be interested in as a teenage rebellion against your rather strict atheism. Send them to the crummy state school. At the very least they can learn to defend themselves. Or maybe start a very lucrative career on the blacker side of the market. Who knows? Could be the best thing they'll ever do...
I hope they turn out charismatic fundamentalists, that'll learn her. ;-)
What there aren't any "good" state schools in your area, or they're full up? And private's too expensive?
Tough shit. Apparently France is an option though, from what I've been reading.
It's different here of course. Generally speaking private schools are "religious" and state schools aren't, or at most have 1 hour of RE per week, usually run by an outside volunteer. Where I went to primary school had a choice of RE even, Christian or Muslim. Secondary school we had no RE, although we had 1 hour per week of Life Studies, which included looking at the lives of Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther King and others. Dean went to a private school, which was religiously based although not a lot in actual practice. I think they had some RE in year 7 but mostly it was just prayers at school assembly and a couple of church services per year. The CE (Christmas and Easter) approach really.
It's an historical anomaly that Catholic private schools here are heavily government subsidised whereas other denominations aren't - although pretty much all schools do get some level of government funding. This was originally because the State schools were considered to be Protestant, and so the government subsidy of Catholic schools was designed to allow parents to let their child be educated in their own faith. Now that State schools are effectively secular and there are a lot of schools for various faiths (Hari Krishna, Catholic, Islamic, Fundamentalist Christian are just the few that I can think of in my area) there's a lot of debate about whether the high subsidy should continue, or whether it should be extended to all private schools. Personally I think they should drop it completely and put the extra funding back into the State school system, but then again, I'm biased.
The arguments in favour of extending the subsidies go roughly "we're parents and we pay taxes and if we choose to send our child to a private school where we think they'll be better educated then the government has no right to not fund that school". Or somesuch. The argument for dropping the subsidies go roughly "the government's provided you with a perfectly adequate school already, which, if it were properly funded would be equally as good as the private school and a shitload less elitist and why should we subsidise your attempt to have your child join the Old School Tie mob?" Again, or somesuch. I'm paraphrasing about a year's worth of Letters To The Editor here.
It'll be interesting when/if Dean and I get to this point to see what happens. I have honestly no idea which way we'd be likely to jump - as with most things it will probably depend on where we're living, what the schools are like, how much we're earning, what we're prepared to spend... etc, etc etc. I can see Dean pushing his old school on the grounds that it has cadets though. :-)
There are some schools where I would prefer not to send my (hypothetical) child, mostly on academic and social grounds. Whether I'd get around that by using the "elitist" state schools such as Melbourne High or MacRob or whether I'd get around it by moving or getting scholarships, who knows?
I sometimes wonder how much the middle of the road state and private schools really differ though. I mean, the majority of students don't go to either the lowest income state schools or the highest income private schools and we seem to get by OK. Some of us would probably do better in a more academic environment, some would probably do better in a more technically oriented environment. Thanks to the Blackburn report (spit) all schools are equal. In the purely "Animal Farm" sense...
Anyway, back to the Guardian woman. Honestly. Do yourself a favour and take the child out of the school. You'll feel so much better knowing that you're not exposing him/her to the evils of organised religion. Which of course he/she will never encounter in the outside world, ever. Or could ever decide for themselves to be interested in. Or could ever be interested in as a teenage rebellion against your rather strict atheism. Send them to the crummy state school. At the very least they can learn to defend themselves. Or maybe start a very lucrative career on the blacker side of the market. Who knows? Could be the best thing they'll ever do...
I hope they turn out charismatic fundamentalists, that'll learn her. ;-)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-10-29 03:31 am (UTC)I can't think that I would ever place my child in a religious school - how hypocritical would it be if I don't believe what my child is taught as truth?
As for the private vs public school funding, I do not believe the private schools should receive anything near what the Fed govt pours into them so they can build that swimming pool or tennis court etc. My state high school didn't have a school hall (just a draughty open canteen where we had to put up black plastic along a wall to stop the rain coming in) and the english books were literally falling apart. My first copy Tess of the D'Urbervilles was missing the last 2 chapters, then my second copy was missing about 10 pages in the middle. How they can justify the funding to private schools when state schools can't cover the basics of books is beyond me. A decent education system makes for a better society and gives an opportunity for anyone, of any income level, to do what they want.
So, with all that, I don't think I can even bring myself to send my kids to a private school. I don't want them to believe in elitism and I want them to mix with people of adifferent backgrounds. I hope these words don't come back to haunt me :-) I think I've got a while to worry about that yet.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-29 07:43 pm (UTC)I can't think that I would ever place my child in a religious school - how hypocritical would it be if I don't believe what my child is taught as truth?
I think the hypocrisy of the whole thing was what was really annoying me the most. "I'm going to send my child to a church school because they're good, but encourage them to be an atheist because I don't accept the school's values". What also annoyed me was that the school had given parents who weren't necessarily of that faith an out (take the kids out of RE) but she didn't want to take that in case it made her child stand out! I mean, huh? Like the parents who send their child to a private school with a strict hair/dress code who then get outraged[1] that the school dares to suspend their darling when they turn up with bright pink hair. I've never quite understood that, I have to admit. Personally I'd be siding with the school: you knew the rules, you still chose to dye your hair that colour, tough shit, the colour's coming out again. But then again, I'm likely to be a complete bitch of a mother. ;-)
My school wasn't quite as bad as yours - being a reasonable size town we had a lot of local fundraising and fairly OK copies of things. And an OK hall, which was built between the high and tech and shared. It was pretty old (I think 60s) by the time I was in school though, and apparently it's now been replaced.
A decent education system makes for a better society and gives an opportunity for anyone, of any income level, to do what they want.
So true. One of the revelations that truly stunned me[2] during the 2000 US election campaigns (we were there) was that in Los Angeles some schools (Beverley Hills High) were putting in broadband connections, while others (Compton?) didn't have tables and chairs. How the school board could justify the disparity in spending was just beyond me. How can you even function without tables and chairs? But then again - it's the same justification the Federal and State govts use, which is to say "my kids are going there, they deserve the best".
As Dean pointed out (numerous times) to me though, the majority of kids at private schools are from the middle class. Once you take out the high level schools (here that'd be MLC, Scotch etc) then there are an awful lot of small business people who are choosing either for reasons of faith or perceived quality to send their children privately. I think Dean went because at the time his local state school was pretty ordinary. My parents switched my brother and youngest sister out of our local high school and into private schools after the school was forcibly merged with the tech (and the academic standards started freefalling). This, incidentally, was despite both of them working at that school. In more affluent (cue Kath and Kim) areas you find a fairly equal drift between state and private, mostly because the state schools are well funded by the community as well. In rural areas it's pretty much all state, because private requires a lot of travelling and/or living expenses.
I don't want them to believe in elitism and I want them to mix with people of adifferent backgrounds.
*grin* don't send them to my ex-high school then. 99.5% Anglo. Unlike Dean's school, which was a broad mix of Asian, Skippy, Greek, Italian, and overseas. And now is getting quite a few kids from Somali backgrounds as the local demographics shift again.
[1]And go on "A Current Affair". But then again, I fail to understand anyone voluntarily going on ACA. And hasn't it just improved Ray's standing as a "journalist"?
[2]As distinct from the election result itself which was just... WTF??? And still is.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-30 12:38 am (UTC)Have you read that Mike Moore book, the name of which has escaped me in my just-came-home-from-work-after-a-day-of-training mind? The extraordinary illegality of the election is unbelievable. I wonder if I am just naive or we should be outraged by such things. Or should we just accept the corruption of the system?
Of course, we have no say in US democracy and after the performance in parliament last week, we have no say in our democracy ;)