Question:
What constitutes a good learning environment?
I have seen a lot of hatred aimed at the public schools. I can understand a great deal of it, as I worked as a substitute teacher in Seattle for years and know first-hand the chaos that CAN reign in too many public schools. However, I have also seen good classrooms, good teachers, and good schools and programs. I ask that those who blindly condemn all public schooling calm down and not judge all public schooling on the basis of just what you have seen, as you have not seen everything, and often you are advocating throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
The best schools start with a good principal--someone who likes and respects his kids, who is not easily snowed by kids' rhetoric, and who is willing to back his teachers when they are right and not allow non-issues to become important.
Then there have to be teachers who love teaching. A teacher who loves to teach will do so. We can't help it.
I oversee the homeschooling of three children who cannot attend school due to medical constraints--these I see under the auspices of the district in which I am employed; I offer direction for a teen who has mild learning problems and has never been able to succeed in a classroom setting; and I homeschool my niece who decided that she wanted to try it this year. I also serve as a consultant to two districts, working with children with visual impairments. I see a place for both the public schools and homeschooling in providing educational opportunities for our children.
Answer:
I do not believe that any formal school reflects or provides the optimum learning environment. I sincerely doubt that any institutional setting could do so.
Homes do not provide the ideal, either. But, on the whole, they do less damage for many reasons. Obviously, some homes are a nightmare. Most are not. Homes provide the potential to provide the best learning environment available.
One of my colleagues, who also works with homeschoolers, recently had to take a course for recertification. After finishing her course on assessment, she told me, "Teachers spend all day trying to simulate real life in the classroom. At home, we spend too much time trying simulate the classroom."
I don't have to hate the school to recognize its failings, any more than I have to hate my own home to recognize our shortcomings. I have devoted my entire adult life to helping children love learning. When I found that classrooms could not be modified enough to meet the children's needs, I moved to working with parents. As you have noted, parental involvement is crucial. That, and the natural advantages of real life, led me to homeschool my own, to help pass legislation that empowered others, and the last seven years establishing what's called a Homeschool Assistance Program to help parents.
I now give workshops to on 'the A,B,C's of Nurture,' on Learning styles, and a myriad of other workshops for the sole purpose of helping parents. In the last year I have developed an Unschooling scale, a goal-setting and goal assessment process that lets parents facillitate their children's optimum development.
I have worked with 300+ families, some 60 families and nearly 100 students this year alone. THEIR accomplishments are MAGNIFICENT. So long as we live in an imperfect world, we will probably never see a perfect learning environment. Some teachers and schools make truly heroic efforts in that regard.
