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As a child, did you attend a Private School that was Christian based? Or as a adult have you sent your child or grandchild to a Private School? I am looking for opinions both adverse and positive.
If you have any thoughts to share, I'd love to hear them.
Sue
Catholic grade school for me from Kindergarten through sixth grade, public for seventh grade, private for 8th grade and back to public for the rest of my education.
I loved grade school. Blending education with our family's faith was a benefit. My teachers were nurturing and cared about the students. That of course was a different time (starting in the mid seventies).
Disadvantage was that seventh grade "junior high" in a public school was a MAJOR shock. In large part, the shock was going from a small school to a very large school. Many situations in my junior high experience were truly stranger than fiction starting with witnessing one of the only students I had gone to grade school with getting an actual swirly in one of the bathroom toilets as other bullies stood guard around me; that was on the very first day of seventh grade. Harsh.
Due to a slide in grades and the surly crowd I was hanging out with in 8th grade, my parents did what they could to change my course and sent me to a private (non-religious) school for 9th grade. Virtually all the students in that small school had been going to school with each other since Kindergarten, but it was a different Catholic school than the one I had gone to and a large number of the students were from very affluent families. I had an awful experience at that school; it was composed of a few "clicky" groups which shut out anyone else. After begging, pleading and promising, I was back to public high school and things were fine.
I would send my children to Catholic school; Based on my experience, however, I would commit to private education for as long as possible or at least until high school.
Chris L
Pros: You need to wear a uniform so there is not "keeping up with the Johnson's kid", keep some sort of religion in your child's lives, if you are a Catholic you don't have to worry about going to Sunday school.
Cons: You need to pay tuition and for the uniforms,
I went to public school from K-9. 10 and 11 and half of 12 I went to a military academy. The second half of 12 I went to private Christian. I got into more trouble and the kids were worse in the private schools than in the public. In the Christian Academy, most of the girls were sluts. In Military School, everyone was fighting off the oppression by doing drugs. In the public school, there was representation from every category, but it was much easier to be normal because of the diversity.
This school is non-denominational with an avg. class size of 17 and no uniforms. Statistically kids are about a year ahead in most subjects when or if they transfer to public after 6th. grade. Then what? They do offer sports and other extra-curricular activities. The social part is a concern.
What a bad experience Chris. Kids can be so cruel. I still remember being forced to eat a bug when I was in grade school being held or pinned down by several older kids who damned near suffocated me when I fought back.
Sue
K-8 At a Lutheran school. Religious education, conservative values, and enforced discipline. We had a moderate dress code, no uniforms, and tuition was reasonable if you were a member of the church. The class size and indeed the school size was small, and there were ample after school activities with a high percentage of the classes participating.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sue
9-12 At the best public high school in the area (part of the reason we located there). Over 80% went on to college in my graduating class. Discipline was more of a problem than in the private school, mostly I'd say because the school was limited in its options where the private school had greater scope over the students.
Personally I look at much of what is being taught in public school nowadays, or not taught as the case may be, and I just cringe. I want my future child to have a better, even more encompassing education than I had, not one dumbed down so the lest common denominator doesn't fail. I would probably home school or send my child to parochial school if there was any way to manage it, at least till eighth grade. I think public high school might be a good idea, since it would expose them to a greater diversity of the people they might encounter in the world (and have to tolerate/learn to work with/avoid) than you would get in a more limited wholesome environment. I want them to experience that while there is a chance I can guide their steps and keep them going the right direction before I send them out into the wider world of college.
More than half the schools in Belgium are catholic, and virtually all (all?) schools are public.
Uniforms are worn only in a handful of schools, nationwide.
I've always attended catcholic public schools, but as I said, that's pretty normal here. Nobody pays any real attention to the 'catholic' part to choose a school for. Rather, the types of education and other factors like transportation are major factors.
Universities and colleges are also public. I attended a catholic college.
Being public is no detritement to our standing in international circles. Some of our universities have a solid reputation abroad.
Being public also has the added benefit that tuition fees are 500 euros for a year (excluding books and some basic equipment). My train pass was more expensive for a year. So when I graduated, I had no student loan to pay off.
Unfortunately over here "public" means run by the government so it can have no religious affiliation at all, in fact prayer is frowned upon and teachers have been fired for wearing "religious symbols" (cross necklace). It seems freedom of religion in this country has been misinterpreted to mean freedom from religion, especially in public schools. Add that to a litigious society where a student might sue if touched and the "public" schools are basically a cluster F...k where the envirnmant is no longer conducive to learning, no matter how hard techers work and try.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno
Ah I see.
public here means that
a) schools cannot refuse pupils for discriminatory reasons
b) schools get a certain amount of money per student to pay for teachers, materials, ...
In return for the money, schools have to fulfill some educational criteria. Other than that, schools are free.
Whether prayer is done in school depends on the school.
We used to pray before lunch, and at the end of each trimester we had to attend mass.
Though the school cannot force people to pray or to go to communion of course (freedom of religion), there is no law to prevent the school from doing this. After all, if you don't want to send your kids to a school that does this, then simply send them to another school.
As an aside: even catholic schools allow the parents to choose if their kids follow the course on religion or the one about morals (non religious equivalent).
Over her Public means the same things you listed but no religion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno
Private schools can be of any type (religious or not) they just don't get any government money, though they still have to meet the same criteria. Their main advantage is that they can be more restrictive in admittance, This power of enrollment is most often used to enforce stricter discipline than the public schools are allowed to use, and oddly enough with greater discipline come higher student achievement.
Imagine that! And I thought keeping God out of school and throwing money at our education system was what was needed!:gaah:Quote:
Originally Posted by Wildtim
There are significant differences in discipline between schools, but that is not related to being public or not.
There are schools where the kids are in charge (some kind of social experiment gone whack) where it is really a matter of the inmates running the asylum.
But there are also schools where it is the other way around.
My high school used to be run by nuns. Discipline was very strict. Walking from playground to the class in single file, no talking allowed in the hallways, no running in the hallways, not jumping the last 3 step of the stairs (this earned me a detention once :))... things like that.
I do agree that discipline is for the better. You need discipline in real life as well if you ever want to achieve something.
I am a product of city (not suburb) public education. I went to public schools all the way up untill college where I made the choice to go to a private school. I believe I came out better by going to public school than private schools. There were a lot of programs that I was part of that do not exist in most private schools.
At a young age I was diagnosed ADD and highly gifted and talented. For grade 3-5 I was in a program called Twice Exceptional. There were two teachers and no more than 12 students.
In middle school (6-8) I as in the highly gifted program. The public schools also had shop class which I know the local private schools did not have. My middle school, during the years I was there, was rated the third most dangerous school in the state of Colorado. I saw some fights, got in a few myself, but I believe I am better for it. I learned to not let things get to me. The new principle now requires uniforms and the state of the school as gotten better.
In high school I as in the Computer Magnet Program. It was rated the top magnet program in the country during the time I was there. I had the option of becoming certified so that I could get a good job directly out of high school. I was also part of JROTC in high school. My school made the news for kids having sex in school and we also had a fairly high percentage of drug and alcohol use. The big difference is that the private and suburban schools had the same problems, but they had harder drugs. We had a majority of our graduating students go on to college including Harvard and other highly rated schools. My school district also has a school called Career Education Center, which I took one auto body class at, where students who have no plans for college can go and learn a trade or start getting certified to be a nurse. They offered classes in welding, auto repair, auto body, culinary, news production, and others. We have a very large Latino population in Denver and this helps them and others that have no urge to go to college (a tangent is laying here for another day) get skills that can help them get jobs.
In my opinion the idea that you get more discipline in private school is not always true. I learned discipline both at home and at school. I learned how to respect people in school, which from what I saw of the private school kids, they did not always learn. The parish I attend has a school attached to it, and more often than not the kids coming out of it are very clique and over all jerks. I was very much an outsider in my Cub Scout troop because I did not go to the private school at my parish.
I would look at what the schools and school districts offer in the way of programs and opportunities. I would also spend some time walking the halls, playgrounds, and after school if possible to see what the over all attitude is at the school. Most importantly remember that faith, discipline and respect are primarily taught (through example) in the house not at school.
In Switzerland we have a very different system from the one in the US. We have a federal agreement for the obligatory school (roughly from 4 to 16 - I am talking here about age) and high school (from 15-16 to 18-20) establishing the requirements that must be met in term of teachings, but each states has its own laws...
I made all my studies from 4 to 20 in public schools (obligatory school than high school: 4-6, 6-12, 12-15 / 15-20) in a catholic environment in a bilingual (French - German) state of Switzerland, the Valais (one of the highest ranking state concerning eduction, but without a university!). The reason for the catholic environment is that my state is one of the few states that remain catholic after the reformation; it is not that the schools are catholic, but more that Catholicism is a quite diffuse environment in the whole state (for instance one of the three public high schools in my state is under the direction of Canons); in catholic states, the schools have almost always been of a higher quality than in the protestant states... for instance, in Geneva where I made my University years, the protestant Rome, the schooling scheme is 4-6, 12-15, 15-18 (two years less for high school)... Geneva is the worst state - "schoolingly" speaking - in Switzerland.
The private schools (I am not speaking here of professional schools like the hotel school) in CH are usually designed for two kind of students: for those with difficulties (behaviour or/and learning ), or for those with a lot of money; but their quality is usually less good, or equivalent, but very rarely superior than the public schools. Disciplinary problems are usually issues for both, and drugs and posh behaviour for the latter.
The story is quite different for the Universities and higher grade schools (like Polytechnique); they are state based (not every state has one) and all public (they are no private universities in Switzerland, only private institutes) with no religious orientation, with the notable exception of Theology Faculties (for instance in Geneva there is a protestant faculty and in Fribourg a catholic one).
There are disciplinary issues everywhere nowadays, drugs, violence and the like... stupid teachings theories are hitting hard both private and public schools (imagine that in Geneva some very "learned" people in child psychology said - and it came into application from the 90ies until last year - that grades must be left aside because bad grades are traumatizing young school boys... *hitting head against desk*) as are financial problems; but one in another, public schooling still remains the best option for the "regular" students in CH.
An interesting subject that can become passionate long before it suffers from being articulate.
My children went to some of the most diverse schools in Iowa, all public. They were well known for all the social and cultural problems that have been listed, drugs, gangs etc. But, my kids learned to live in those environments and to find their own way. Mostly because I had to learn to talk to them. This left an avenue of discussion about how to handle some of the stuff they were being introduced to. The schools are not very good at that part and sadly, a lot of parents just dump their kids into the system (whatever kind) and expect the teachers to work magic.
This is where I advocate public education. It's a wonderful thing to have a school where your kids are protected ideologically and get a good education. If they both occur in the same building it's a bonus. But, eventually, they will have to enter the world of work and deal with the bullies in the real world, who can't read their graduating diploma and can only talk sports, who have been Peter Principled upward to a high level of incompetence. Moving into that world suddenly can be very harsh, nearly abusive.
We moved when two of the youngest were transitioning from K-6 and 7-9 and entered a system where it was all white and seriously biased against anyone that wasn't born in that town. It was a disappointment all around. The oldest did okay and being a natural leader (sorry, bragging) survived by taking over her social group. But it set her behind and took her a couple years after school to realize that some education was not the best for her.
When the youngest was making a transition into the upper grades, instead of allowing her to stall like her sister did, we took her to a charter school. Here it's a semi-private arrangement where the school can get money from the state to support their program and they can provide an alternative to a traditional classroom.
She absolutely blossomed for the next four years. The lock-step, treat everybody the same (stupid) traditional classroom of lecture (if you don't care about learning, go ahead and lecture), was painful because they ignored a bright kid in favor of the behavior problems. Her new school was based on Project Learning. They still have the graduation standards to meet, history, math etc. but the entire responsibility for learning rests on the student. They pick what they are interested in doing and have to make sure that they include some history, some math, some hands on, whatever the list of requirements are. The teachers function completely as facilitators helping them find resources and staying on track. But the student has to manage their time, and do what we, as adults, all recognize as the world of work. Think about it. The boss says, I want you to take on this project. You have to organize your resources, plan, execute, evaluate, correct, re-execute and then do a presentation. The program was modeled on what we have to know to succeed in university and the world of work. Once she realized she could go as fast or slow as she wanted, she took off. She could feed her interests and still realized the responsibility of not necessarily liking everything that had to be done.
Example: She's very much interested in drama, video, stage arts. One of her graduation requirements was Home Economics. Usually something like kitchen or making clothing and not one of the most fun classes in a traditional school. She combined that with a history credit and a stagecraft credit and made a Victorian period dress for a play they were doing at the school. She wore it to a Renaissance Festival and was astounded by the number of offers to buy one when she explained she'd made it. If she was more interested she probably could have retired as a costumer. Even now, when she's involved in a play, she's always pulled out to keep an eye on the costumes as a side job.
The Bill Gates Foundation has seeded money all over the US for programs of this model. It'd bet you have one nearby and don't know it.
IF your kids are bright (meaning they come home bitching about being bored to death in school), this kind of program will set them up to take over the world. The teachers are happier because the students are learning. Parents are happier because it's obvious about how much happier the kids are and how much they work on things that are interesting for everyone.
To quote our current president: It's much easier to succeed with success than it is with failure.
I attended a private, liberal arts focused school until the 9th grade. While I know some public schools are excellent, and they play an important role socializing you into your community, I wouldn't trade my by private school experience for anything. It exposed me to a lot of things many kids my age, or older, would never know. Its an important part of who I am. If it feels right, and you trust yourself, give it a try.
Jordan
I went to private school and now i am all ****ed up. I blame the system! No no, private school is great to n exten IMO just like there are pro's and con's to public school, in a private school you take the good with the bad.
I went to private school (properly called parochial school since it was Catholic affiliated) and got a much better education than I would have if I had gone to public school in my area. Additionally, the college application process was much easier on me as I had built in public service (my school required it), and the diploma requirements involved more credit hours than the public school graduation requirements. Grade school was in uniforms, high school had a dress code. There are some incredible public schools and there are some crap factories too. Same with private schools. On the whole, do the research for what is available to you in your area and price range. Interview everyone, sit in on some classes, find out graduation rates, college acceptance rates, and extra curricular participation. The higher the better on these. Ignore test scores. That is my opinion.
-Rob
Sent my youngest to a private(christian)school for her first 6 yrs, I wished I could have done it for the others. The private school taught kids to question and prove/disprove for themselves, critical analysis, very unlike the public schools which simply teach kids to follow the herd and act like the mob. Learning by rote if they learn anything.
I think it depends on the area to be honest. There are quite a few private Catholic and Christian schools around here that I am familiar with that I would think twice about sending a child to. From what I'm used to, I would still rank certain private schools over most public ones. However, tops to me is homeschooling.
Don't let the "lack of socializing" trash fool you when considering even private schools. The fact remains that there are a ton of really screwed up kids in this country that are products of the "great" social environments of public schooling. To me, if you don't have enough faith in your parenting skills to believe that you can equip your child with the abilities to socialize well with others, maybe school choice isn't your biggest problem.
parents play a very limited role in the development of young adults. Their peers are more influential. My family's experience seems to confirm that. However, our experience probably will not have any relation to what you decide. I think that volumes are written about this subject by experts.
I am one of four modestly successful public high school educated kids. Each of us became able to put a house over our families' heads, put food on the table and save for college for our children. I'm not impressed with the relationship among us as adults, however.
Our oldest son elected to attend public high school - he tested into the private Jesuit school but he wanted to be with his friends, which we agreed to. He is a very smart and intelligent young adult, but he was influenced by the extreme interests found in a public high school. He recently dropped out of a very prestigious private college after two + years - to my chagrin. He also seems to be more detached from family then our two younger sons. However, he has a very good "fast track" job with a prominent software development company, so he is happy and he is doing what he wanted to do ever since he was able to think about what he wanted to do when he grew up.
Our other two younger sons attend a private Jesuit college-prep high school - the middle son, a senior, is energized about going to college. Our youngest son is a slow learner - but I think his school cares for him more than the public school would have, and I think he would also have been easily influenced by the fringe groups in a public high school. There are "fringe groups" in the private HS, but they seem to be less extreme. I'm glad that they both are in this environment, however they also are not exposed to the same kind of "real world" that seems to be what they will experience when they enter the real world work force. Both of them are very concerned young adults -- the senior spent his spring break in Ecquador serving poor kids in a catholic mission - and he returned very proud about it.
My view is you need to determine your child's strengths and weaknesses and decide with him or her what you think is the best place for them. Never an easy putt.
Good luck, there is no right answer on this one! :bow
RalphS
I went to a very good public school outside Boston for K-10th grade [ranked 100th inthe country in some poll I saw], went to a private American school in london for 11 and 12.
I always thought public schools were the right way to go - more diversity, and it seemed like all my firend that left public to go to private schools did so because they weren't doing well in public school, so I had the silly idea that private schools were for dumb rich kids. Then I went to a private school and honestly the qualtiy of education was twice as good at least, and in college for the most part I thought the kids that went to the snotty private schools really had an advantage (not insurmountable, but an advantage).
The main difference for me was that in public school it was hideously uncool to be smart, even though my town literally had some 3 nobel prize winners and tons of kids had professional parents or harvard prfoessor parents. I was a jock on top of being a brain, so I was left alone, unlike some of my smaller brain friends, but it was a real energy drag to always feel like you were going out on a limb if you were too enthusiastic about something the class was doing, and the cliqueiness was awful. Then again, I'm sure I had a good dork vibe going, just fortunately I was a big fast dork. In the private school, it was cool to be smart and you had no anxiety about getting into shakespoeare or whatever you were into. And all my competitors in class were the same guys I was competing with in sports. I was co-athlete of the year, and the other guy was valeditorian and I was third
Having said that I'm planning to send my kids to a public school, and I paid an obsence amont for a basic house in a town with a great school system, partly because I think part of education is going to school with different kinds of people, but in my own experience, private school was better.
I have every belief in my own abilities. But Social interaction with a diverse group of people is invaluable too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quick Orange
Friends of mine are kindergarten and first grade teachers.
On the fist day they can tell which kids stayed at home /with grandparents, and which kids had gone to daycare or daycare parents.
Kids that have had interaction with lots of other kids are way ahead of the rest in social aptitude and skills (younger kids learning from the old).
My kids went / go to daycare parents as babies. They like(d) ever day of it, and felt really good over there. The fact that there were 9 other kids to play with really was a benefit to them.
The same applies to homeschool.
My wife is a bachelor in chemistry, and I have a masters degree in electronics engineering. But even though we would successfully be able to teach our kids, they would miss the whole social development.
They wouldn't have to learn to interact with other people and to compromise
They wouldn't have to fight their own battles with outsiders
They wouldn't see the diveristy between people.
They have to learn to be independent, and that is not something that I associate with homeschooling.
looks like a lot of pluses and minuses of both got covered.
at the end it will depend on the specific situation - what are the concrete school options and what would be more beneficial to the kid.
growing up i didn't have the option of private school and the public school i went to was the one that i could walk to 10min. not a particularly good one i general, but as far as learning goes i could excel there under good and under bad teachers. at 7 grade i chose to go to the 'elite' school in town, even though my parents strongly preferred that i go to the trade school where my father went to. they let me do as i liked.
the kids in the better school were better, both intellectually and personallity-wise, although in my first month there i got one of my front teeth crooked in a fight (the only serious fight in all my schooling) with a bully 2 grades senior (he was really an exception to that school).
the only experience with private school i had was when the most spoiled of my friends in that elite school got sent after a year and a half to a private school - that just exacerbated his problems and he never got where he could've gotten to (he was quite smart).
personally i will never have my kids go to private school so that they can get properly indoctrinated. i feel that they must get their values from the family and i think a sheltered atmosphere is a disservice. to me it's more important that they end up well-rounded people, and not necessarily getting the best possible education. the parent's role goes only that far, the children are individuals and they are entitled to have regular life with their own struggles failures and successes.
i think kids being in average circumstances is a pretty good deal - then they can succeed with their own abilities. and yeah, i don't have kids, but i've seen my nieces and nephews grow up and the smart ones do better no matter what, and the ones with better families (supportive, but not overbearing) do better no matter what, as well. may be i'll feel different about my own kids wanting them to be successful, but at this point i don't think i want to provide them with any possible advantage. all of my close friends have become what they are despite, or may be because of various disadvantges.
I have been to private and public schools, as has my wife. All of the private schools we attended were protestant Christian types.
Compared to public school in my area (DFW) private schools are overpriced and offer a completely inferior educational experience. Your situation may be different. The public school system I was enrolled in was quite excellent, and the Christian school my wife attended was appalling. YMMV.
At the university level, I went to a Christian school and my wife attended the public school. While we both received a satisfactory educational experience, mine cost six times as much and I grew to hate all religion due to the constant harassment I received from other students who claimed to be the same religion as me but had different ideas.
I think it depends on the individual schools more than anything.
I think it just depends on the school in question. There are some general qualities that are often associated with public or private, but I think such an important decision requires the schools in question to be evaluated individually. There are some private schools I would never send my kids to, and many public schools I would never send my kids to in the Tulsa area.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sue
I myself am a product of small town Iowa public schools of the '50s through '65. This was a period when Iowa's education standing was very high.
My children attended public school in the Atlanta area for the first two years, then we moved to Tennessee. My wife was most distressed about the quality of public education in Tennessee, and I had moved to where the schools were very good (in the opinion of locals). My children finished their education in a private Christen school. Cost a bit (we received a volume discount), but two of my kids have thanked us, and the other received a much better education than he would have in public school.
My wife had more influence on my children than any school. Thank heavens.
They are well balanced happy and live rich fulfilling lives.
I think you're blowing it a little out of proportion. Hypothetically speaking, if you homeschooled your children, would you just keep them locked inside to do school work all the time? Of course you wouldn't. Besides what I would assume to be a very thorough curriculum from education to social studies, I should think that they would be interested in some sort of sports activity- and that would be bare minimum. I'm not trying to convince everyone that public and private schools are evil. In fact, homeschooling is certainly not for everyone. Just don't let social stigmas overshadow the facts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno
Anywho...off the soapbox. Sorry for the thread jack:gaah:
What are my thoughts on private schools?
http://www.gossipgirlinsider.com/ima...schoolgirl.jpg
Quote:
Originally Posted by English
I wold agree full-heartily, my parents had a bigger influence on me than my friends in the long run. They shaped the beliefs that are at my core.
I would have to say that in my experience, this really isn't the case. YMMV. "Real life" informed a lot more of my decisions than my parents did.Quote:
Originally Posted by English
Quote:
Originally Posted by Akady
YMMV truly is the phrase of the day.Quote:
Originally Posted by jockeys
I've had the exact same experience as Alex in that although the peer group I chose to associate with was much stronger in shaping my behavior and my beliefs during my age range of 14-25, in the long run, thankfully, it was the value system my parents taught me that prevailed.
Chris L