So why do we send our kids to school anyway?????????

Socialise and chat about other areas of your life
What's the ultimate goal of education?????
I look at it like this. This is what education should produce. I want the kids to turn out to be.....
be lifelong learners
* be passionate
* be ready to take risks
* be able to problem-solve and think critically
* be able to look at things differently
* Be able above all to respect Truth
* be able to work independently and with others
* be creative
* care and want to give back to their community
* persevere
* have integrity and self-respect
* have moral courage
* be able to use the world around them well
* speak well, write well, read well, and work with numbers.
* truly enjoy their life and their work.
Yes, that covers it all, that's how I tried to bring both mine up. I worry that today's children are mollycoddled far too much, and not left to explore the natural world, play in muddy puddles, have imaginary games etc., so when my grandson is here we are always in the garden, where he can explore and discover what truly gives him pleasure. At the mommnt he loves his go kart and trailer, which he learned to reverse properly before he was four years old. So whilst school is there for formal learning, home is for informal learning, loving life.
Ha, muddy puddles ,i remember playing cowboys and running through a puddle up to my knees ,i was about 3 i think .We lived at Atcham and my mum said i escaped and was by the side of the old A5 when she came back from Wellington on the bus ,she told me she screamed at the driver ,THAT'S MY BABY :D
Muddy puddles lol a nice memory for you David? :D

Actually, most teachers I know are well aware of the stuff I posted and do their best to OPEN minds. They are educationalists after all and know education doesn't stop at the school gate, nor when formal education ends. But are very bogged down with so much to cram in.
Depression rates increasing in the profession.

And of course so many kids AND adults are constantly on the verge of internet addiction. Which complicates matters.
I believe kids learn as much, if not more from what they witness.the lil ones particularly are sooooo impressionable.

Glad mine are adult now.....being a grandmother and a great grandmother is so much easier. There is a practical reason for the
Due to brain damage my son M can't read, write or do any maths, but can live alone with carer support for shopping, cooking meals and money management. He learns entirely from watching and listening. In some areas he's better than me, reversing a trailer with his tractor, for example. In the days before state education, this was how most people learned their trade. When I was at college, the formal textbook term for watch and learn was "Sitting by Nellie"!
I think school is there to teach academic matters to enable us to read bus timetables, check our change and so on but it also helps with socialising, hopefully the best thing will be the mates you make, I think education is viewed more broadly now than when I was at school, its not just about exam results more things like respect for diversity which is good.
INdeed Peter :)
I think schools should also teach 'decent behaviour'. Yes, parents should obviously teach that, but if they don't, children MUST learn it somewhere. They must learn that we can't always do just what we want, that we are part of society with obligations to each other as well as our endless 'rights', and that being a good, decent human being, with compassion and kindness and consideration is FAR more important than being clever.

I think schools should also teach 'Home Economics' - by which I don't mean cookery (though I think they should be taught that too!), but how to manage their own finances both as young people and later on as adults.

It would be good if schools didn't have to teach the things that parents should be teaching children, but alas, 'rubbish parents' (and there are some!) won't be willing or able to do so, and so school has to become a kind of 'surrogate parent' in that respect.

The values a school teaches are essential - ie, if a school has 'bad values' (eg, focus only on winning and achieving in the world's eye, teaching hatred and intolerance, tolerating bullying, etc etc) then its pupils will pick that up.
Interesting points you raise there Jenny. I agree with you, school is used a great deal now to teach what parents and society should teach, and the ethos of being a "winner" i.e. earning a lot of money or getting top marks is pushed in some schools. Perhaps we could (if we were in charge of education! lol) give the highest marks to those schools who practiced and promoted being decent, inclusive, etc.