For several generations in our country, the school has been an integral part of the lives of children and adolescents. It was there that they gained knowledge, made new acquaintances, learned to emerge victorious from conflict situations. Alas, today it is not at all what it was 20-30 years ago. This makes more and more parents seriously think about finding an alternative to school. Let's deal with this crucial issue more seriously.
Advantages of a regular school
Before considering alternative education, let's look at the advantages of a simple school, in which the vast majority of children and adolescents study.
The most important of them is simplicity. Parents in this case have to take part in the educational process to a minimum. The child is brought to school in the morning and taken away for lunch, and eventually he will be able to go to school and back on his own. Parents have to attend parent meetings only a few times a year. True, if the child is not obedient and zealous, then you may also have to attend school sometimes to deal with difficult situations.
However, most children are relatively easy to receive secondary education certificates. Let not everyone become excellent students, but even with the threes today you can go to universities and build a successful career. Therefore, the child usually does not have to strain again.
Last but not least, the schoolchildren habitually undergoes socialization, becoming part of a more or less well-coordinated team. He gets used to living according to a long-established pattern. First graduates from school. Then he enters a university - usually a paid department. Then he finds a job (most often not for the acquired profession) and works until retirement. The scheme is simple, verified and almost does not fail.
Why do parents drop out of school?
But, despite the simplicity and reliability of a regular school, the number of parents seriously thinking about finding an alternative to school education is growing rapidly. Why so? There are several reasons for this.
First of all, it should be recognized that the modern school is not at all aimed at educating children. Take, for example, education in the difficult nineties, not to mention the earlier 30s of the last century. At this time, teachers, often without receiving a salary for months, tried to give students maximum information, convey to them certain rules, theorems, laws of sciences. What is going on in schools now? Alas, we are rapidly moving along the same path that half a century ago many countries in Europe followed. Now any training is urged to recognize a form of violence against a person. Indeed, the child, of course, is much more interesting to play than to study the rules of the Russian language or theorems on geometry. However, playing, the student will not be able to develop the brain, and this is necessary to successfully find a place in life. Therefore, it makes sense to put pressure on him today, to force him to step over “I want - I don't want” in order to ensure a better life tomorrow.
Unfortunately, modern education holds a different point of view. As a result, the school is not so much teaching as entertaining. And, to be honest, he has been stealing from a child for more than ten years of his life, giving almost no new and useful knowledge, not to mention instilling valuable skills.
It is also worth noting that in a regular class, 25-30 students study. And the lesson lasts 45 minutes. Thus, explaining the topic, even a very good teacher, who feels that learning is his vocation, and who tries to give himself to his students as much as possible, can give each of them no more than 1 minute per lesson. Therefore, for six lessons per day, the student can count on 6 minutes of attention from the teacher. And this is if the teacher really works with full dedication. Not so much, is it?
What forms of training are provided by law?
Now let's look at what forms of home education law provides for.
First of all, this is a regular education at home. The student receives the necessary knowledge from textbooks, independently, with the help of parents or invited tutors. However, he will still have to attend school several times a year to pass exams under the current program. Yes, he still remains attached to the school, although he is free from having to go there five days a week. By receiving appropriate grades in exams, the student will receive a report card at the end of the year, and after 9 and 11 grades - the relevant documents.
Also, some parents should consider the option of home-based education. But it is not suitable for everyone, but only for sick children who, with all their wishes, cannot attend a regular school.
Home training
Let's look at the most common alternative to school - home schooling. There are serious pros and cons. Let's start with the bad news.
First of all, a big additional burden falls on parents - they will have to spend a lot of time or money. If you are sufficiently educated, then you will be able to give the entire school course to your child yourself. But be prepared for the fact that you have to spend an hour, two, or even three a day with a child, to help him comprehend science. Not every parent can afford such a luxury - time is always running out due to work and a round trip. In addition, not every adult remembers the school curriculum well enough to help the child deal with it.
Another disadvantage is the lack of communication. At school, a child willy-nilly spends several hours a day among peers. Here he learns to make friends, take root in the team, somewhere to make concessions, and somewhere to become a leader, dictating his conditions to others. If the child instead spends the same hours at home, he is deprived of such an opportunity.
Often there is a bias on the part of teachers. A child in home schooling is generally a kind of challenge on the part of parents. They seem to say that they do not trust the professionalism of teachers. As a result, some of the teachers break down on the child, deliberately underestimating the grades wherever possible, when passing exams.
Now let's move on to the pluses. The main one is the ability to adapt to a particular student. For example, math is easy for one child, but it takes a lot of time to learn a dozen words in English. Accordingly, you can save time on the first to give it to the second. In a regular school, this is impossible - the teacher is forced to follow the program.
No need to waste time traveling to and from school - in some cases, saving more than an hour a day.
There is always the opportunity to maintain the pace suitable for the child. He can master one subject in mathematics in a matter of minutes, and the other will cause problems. And there is no curriculum that would make him spend several hours on the first, briefly studying the second. This is really very important. It is foolish to drop the topic and move on to the next one if the child has not mastered it. But it’s even worse to force the child to spend extra time studying the topic that he already understood and mastered - this will kill his interest in education and knowledge. And perhaps this is the worst thing a teacher can do for a student.
Some objects with such an education can be crossed out altogether. For example, why should a student spend three hours a week on physical education if he goes for swimming, boxing or gymnastics, which give him much more? Or the same amount of time for work, when parents can explain the same topics more clearly in the home environment.
Quite often, several parents, united, create their own little school. Finding a room, they hire tutors who deal with their children. This allows you to get excellent knowledge with minimal financial costs. For example, one hour of a tutor costs 500 rubles (the price can vary greatly depending on the age of the children, the city and the needs of the teacher). But usually you can agree with him to train a group of 5 people for 1000 rubles. Consequently, for one student you will have to spend only 200 rubles. At the same time, he will receive an individual approach that will make it easy to master any topic. Such family education clubs are becoming more and more popular today, as they have all the advantages of a regular school and are almost completely devoid of its disadvantages.
Therefore, it is safe to say that home schooling has certain advantages and disadvantages. What is more important is for parents only.
Finish school externally
Very often, parents who value the time of their child are interested in how to finish school externally. This is a very reasonable decision. Experienced educators acknowledge that modern education is artificially protracted. With the right approach and organization, an 11-year training program can be mastered in 6-8 years, depending on the abilities of the student. Just imagine - a child saves from 3 to 5 years! How much more useful knowledge he can get before the age of 18, when most of his peers will only graduate from school. At least one secondary specialized or even higher education (full-time or in absentia). And after all, for this it is enough to know how to finish school externally. And the answer to this question is quite simple.
It's nice that external training is quite legal - in fact, this is home schooling. That is, the student, passing the school curriculum at home, takes exams at school. But it is not necessary to follow the program - if there are experienced mentors and an interest in learning, why not take the annual course for six months? The schools still provide the opportunity to take a two- or even a three-year program in one calendar year. A talented child will easily be able to finish school at the age of 14, after which they can decide independently or with the help of their parents how to manage their free time - go to college, university, find a suitable job or do something else.
It is foolish to deny - this is a very good alternative to a school, especially a modern one, which belongs to a structure that is not at all interested in smart, strong and decisive people living in the country. Remember that only you are responsible for the education and, accordingly, the future of your children.
Remote education
In recent years, online learning has become increasingly popular. What does it consist of? In fact, this is a kind of correspondence education. But for training and passing the exam, students and teachers do not need to be in the same room. Fortunately, modern technology allows the teacher to communicate with the student, being hundreds or even thousands of kilometers from each other.
In fact, this is one of the varieties of family education clubs or tutoring. A plus is the fact that you do not need to look for a suitable room if you plan to assemble a group of children in one place. There is also no need to spend time on the road - in megacities this is an extremely important advantage. Indeed, in some cases, the tutor, in order to spend one hour with the student, has to spend the same amount of time or even more to get to him and return home. Of course, this causes unnecessary trouble for the teacher and forces him to increase his prices, which affects the family budget of the student’s family.
But still, certain disadvantages of online learning also have. If only because most students feel more comfortable when the teacher is nearby, and not on the computer screen. However, with this minus most often you have to put up to win in another.
You can also receive secondary education remotely by studying in special schools. Indeed, today in our country there are quite a few schools that have a state license, but their program is very different from the standard one used in simple secondary institutions. We will tell you more about them a little later. It is worth mentioning here that with distance learning, the student or his parents receive an approximate program that the student must master. They get in touch with the teachers to submit the finished work, as well as in cases where there are some difficulties in its implementation.
Alternative schools
For our country, such schools are quite unusual, unusual. But in Europe and the USA there are many of them. Moreover, programs are very different everywhere. Some try to develop something completely new, while others take as the basis the program used in schools in the late nineteenth century. Surprisingly, graduates of recent institutions often demonstrate the highest level of education.
You should not consider such a difference in the number of alternative schools as a backwardness of our country. Quite the contrary - in the West, the need for their appearance arose much earlier because in Russia until recently, secondary schools provided all the necessary knowledge. Alas, today, in the course of numerous reforms, education is getting worse. Parents, wanting to give their children the best knowledge, are looking for ways to get it. And alternative schools help them with this.
There are a lot of such schools: Montessori, academician Shchetinin, with the Waldorf education system - it will be difficult to list everything. Each has a specific program, advantages and disadvantages. Some of them are free, but getting there is quite difficult. Others are paid, and very few of our compatriots can afford to pay for training. Of course, you need to take your choice of school very seriously - it will have a significant impact on the life of your child.
Fighting the lack of socialization
Parents who choose home schooling as an alternative to school often complain that their children as a result are not very sociable, almost devoid of communication skills. This is really a serious problem - even a genius who does not know how to communicate and make acquaintances will not be able to achieve much. But it’s easy to explain: while other children communicate in schools (alas, today they communicate much more than they study), they develop communication skills and learn to integrate into the system. With home schooling, the child is deprived of this opportunity.
Fortunately, the problem is easy to solve if you notice it in time. After all, there are many creative and sports clubs where a child can meet with peers. And it’s even better than school. Still, children gather in the classroom, often having nothing in common except age and an approximate place of residence. In circles and sections, the child meets like-minded people. Here they are engaged in a common cause that is interesting to everyone. This can be bullet shooting, making airplane models, beadwork, playing the guitar, drawing, orienteering - the choice is huge. Making acquaintances in such an environment will be quite easy. And two or three of these sections will be a great addition to an alternative education system.
Choosing the best option
So how to be - to send a child to a regular school or to attend his education independently? In fact, the question is much more complex and deeper than it might seem at first glance. First of all, you need to study the aspirations of the child and his inclinations. It is foolish to try to raise a young genius from an ordinary child who is capable of entering a university at the age of 14, or even graduating from it. He will simply be uncomfortable among more intelligent peers, here he will become a black sheep. In a regular school, he will feel “his”. In addition, he will not fly high, but will not fall low - he will follow the beaten and familiar path: kindergarten, school, university, work.
But the parents of children with really serious inclinations should still try. Let it be necessary to spend more time, effort and money on their education, but there will be an opportunity to give the child a ticket to the great future. In an ordinary high school, he is too crowded, there is no way to realize his potential, but there is a risk of becoming an outcast, a black sheep. He is better suited just an alternative education, adapting to it, and not requiring the opposite.
Conclusion
On this our article comes to an end. , , , . , .