Thread: Your thoughts about private schools

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

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.

Originally Posted by Bruno

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.

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).

Originally Posted by Sue

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

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.

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.

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.