Monday, January 17, 2011

Purpose of education

Pam posted this on the CA HSC mailing list:

"The single most important contribution education can make to a child's development is to help him towards a field where his talents best suit him, where he will be satisfied and competent. We've completely lost sight of that. Instead we subject everyone to an education where, if you succeed, you will be best suited to be a college professor... And we evaluate everyone along the way according to whether they meet that narrow standard of success. We should spend less time ranking children and more time helping them identify their natural competencies and gifts, and cultivate those. There are hundreds and hundreds of ways to succeed and many, many different abilities that will help you get there."
- Howard Gardner 'Multiple Intelligences'

This reminds me of the recent video of Sir Kenneth Robinson.

I argue that in general parents who homeschool have a much better chance of recognizing a child's interesting and talents, and then providing opportunities for the child to flourish, then ever could be done in the factory setting of government schools.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I disagree because i believe that being homeschooled isolates the child. therefore they are not use to socializing in crowds.

Unknown said...

My daughter rides her horse with a 29yr and a 32 yr ladies. She has friends that range from 3yr to 84yr old. School keeps kids isolated from other kids of different ages. Ask your 3rd grader if they talk to 6th graders. The answer will be no. They would get all kinds of grief from trying. That is really teaching kids socialization skills.
People that post Anonymous are just afraid that they are wrong. My daughter speaks her mind and is proud of her stand, not a schooled coward.

Henry Cate said...

Anonymous, my guess is you haven't hung out with children who have been homeschooled. As a group they know how to socialize just fine. You may find an exception, but that what it is, an exception. And there are plenty of children who have gone through public schools who don't know how to socialize properly.