Saturday 6 February 2010

Day 1

I officially started a new word today on wiki, micro-schooling.
(see here )
I have been floundering around trying to find a term to descibe what are I am trying to do, which is simply to get a better education for my children.

As any parents with kids in London know, trying to find a school nearby, that you would be happy to send your kids to is nearly impossible. If it isn't the exhorbitant cost of sending them to a private school, then it's having to fake your religious convictions. Then, there are the waiting lists...

All this hassle, stress and compromise, and at the end of it, there's no guarantee that they are even going to get a good education!

I got to thinking that there has to be another way, and this is what I'm thinking.

Why not hire a private teacher and share the cost with like minded parents? That way we could keep the student/teacher ratio low, keep costs low by doing it at our homes, choose when to take our holidays, go on lots of field trips, be far more creative and inventive, and nurture and celebrate our children's individuality instead of standing by and watching it get systematically squeezed out of them.

So, the first hurdle was explaining to various people what I have in mind. It's not home schooling - the 'home schooling' crowd have made that very clear to me (some nicely and some not so nicely). And it's not an independent school (according to my local Camden council), as that would include a dedicated premises. So far the progress I have made is only that really - that no-one knows how to help me, because they have not come across what I am proposing, before.

This blog is going to chart my journey from idea to conception and I would really welcome input from anyone who is doing anything similar.

7 comments:

  1. I would love to hear more. We're doing something similar, but with a group that some parents home school and for other things, like math and Spanish, we'll get a tutor. For me, I want more free time and flexibility in my kids' lives, and for our schedule since I'm taking them with me while I tour to promote my novel this fall.

    I look forward to following your journey. Here's our fledgling blog:

    http://hoffmansathome.wordpress.com/

    Best, Chandra

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  3. This idea is not new in any way.
    Several parents in our home education group have organized sharing the cost for tutoring in different subjects and activities. The reason why they never did it for all subjects? Cost, one of them!
    If you add up all the tutors you need to hire and all the hours you need to pay them for, the cost quickly becomes prohibitive for most families.

    Maybe by sharing the cost amongst 25+ students would make it cheaper, but then that would defeat many of the benefits you listed. How would you be able to take a holiday whenever you please, when you need to agree about a time with 15+ other families?? What about following a child's individual interests and pace, when the tutor has to worry about teaching 18 other kids besides your own?

    If flexibility and support of a child's individuals interests and challenges are your main objectivities, the truth is that you will be hard pressed to achieve it fully in a class with more than 5 students per tutor...

    Then again, if you will make sure to keep the classes tiny, then the cost won't be that different from how much you would be paying for independent schools...

    Another thing to keep in mind, is that tutors tend to stick to the national curriculum rather than to follow the interests of the children, and they do tend to stick to their carefully prepared schedules. So for example, if the kids have learned all about what adverbs are and want to move on to the next thing, but the tutor had planned to teach adverbs that whole week, that's just what they will be learning... Only in an environment when the child is in the center, instead of the schedule of the professional you are paying, will there be real freedom and flexibility to learn.

    Oh, and dont forget that by officially starting a group, you will be under closer scrutinity of your Local Education Authority than if you were home educating, because they WILL see you as a mini-independdnt school, no matter what they are telling you now requirement for tight control in regards to health and safety, liability, amount of hours of teaching per week etc, etc...

    Wishing you good luck in your endeavor, but hoping you keep in mind the points I raised

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  4. As a teacher, I think the idea is very interesting. Depending on the age of the children you are looking at educating, you really could hire a teacher as opposed to several tutors who may specialize in only one subject, which would bring down the cost quite a bit, but may still be expensive. Depending on the requirements of your local education authority, I bet there are teachers out there who are very willing to be flexible and might welcome this unique setting.

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  5. I am a "former" teacher, one of a growing trend in Canada. I literally woke this morning withe the idea of micro-schools in my head, and thought someone must have had this idea already. I have slightly different ideas than what you are doing and what others have posted, but the ideas are so raw and new that they are bound to evolve. I'm really interested in seeing how you manage this challenge and will find the time to participate in the discussion. Congratulations on what you are doing and may you have profound success!

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  6. I think "teachers" will become extinct, as surely as the sun. I do not have children of my own, yet. But I have been a great parent,uncle, friend, many times. When I do have more children, I will not own them, nor dominate their education. At 46 I am still a child of this time. As such, I have discovered my latent genius was so severely curtailed by teachers, it should be considered criminal, and a crime against raising the intelligence of a pretty dumb human race, to exact/ inflict any corriculum upon a child. Except that of language, for obvious reasons. Having said that, if a child of mine expressed the desire to communicate, or not, in his/ her unique way; whether that meant grunting, or elaborate drawn symbols, high pitched dolphinesque shreiks, whatever. I would not stand in the way. I would provide a platform for the evolution of such desire.
    Back on earth, I would simply provide Google, and 1.8 Billion results in 3 quarters of a second to a child I wanted to steer in the same direction as myself. If they wanted.

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  7. So, my version. Macro-schooling Step One: Home Birth. Then keep child away from the system. Is there a law that says you must register a child like a dog? Or can you simply nurture as you please while avoiding all conformist ideals and associated profiles. Keeping It Simple Stupid, we are 3/4 DNA identical to dogs, so for me I look at how canis lupus puppy's learn in the wild, then transpose that to modern life, and voila, all the answers can be found there. I think. Just a theory at this stage.

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