"Real School"

[sadiegirl]

My 3 nieces go to a "real school" in their small town and they do "real movies" every Friday...and this is not just an occasional activity. They do similar activities like that and yet they still think that we don't do "real school."

[Tea Time]

Well, not "traditional education", but "traditional schools", sure they are. A variant of them... Traditionally, if one says "school" one means a classroom with several unrelated kids and a teacher. That doesn't have to mean "late-19th-to-early-21st-century-mandatory-public-school-system"... But it indicates education taking place outside of the home with an outside teacher and children from beyond a single family.

 

"Traditional school" can cover a range of things, from government schools to parochial schools, prep schools, and even one-room school houses.

 

What we do is not *particularly* more traditional. We're not hiring a tutor or a governess. I'm not teaching my kids only the trade the I know in order that they can get by with limited academics and the knowledge of how to carry on the family business (whether that's cultivating rice or cobbling shoes or serving in an aristocrat's house). I don't teach my children wildly different things based on their genders.

 

That is an excellent distinction... "traditional education" vs "traditional schooling."

 

But, I feel like you are missing my whole point though, which is that semantics do matter. They form thought, or they try to. To give the term "traditional" to something implies certain things about that thing, like a long history of legitimacy which may or may not be appropriate. I think it normalizes the concept far more than that concept warrants (I use the term "normal" because it is so important to humans to belong and feel normal.). It also sanitizes it of certain disturbing characteristics that you are seeing listed here, namely that modern schooling is institutional and state led, taken out of the family. And it makes it hard to continually critique those schools to see if they are delivering what they promise to deliver. After all, they are "traditional." What could go wrong?

 

And that goes for some of the types of schooling you listed, including parochial schools. The one room school houses were closer to tutoring in many ways so that is quite different. Teacher to student ratios and the way in which the teacher answers to the parents are critical issues. Those are all important ideas that should not be glossed over with the casual use of semantics. Not that you are doing that or that people using the phrase "real school" would not understand that. We can't communicate in that depth all the time, but those ideas do influence us.

 

So calling modern schooling "real school" potentially exposes fundamental thought processes which are far from irrelevant. THAT is why it makes me sad and some people "twitch."

[ScoutTN]

Probably in the same way it makes others twitch when I refer to ps as government schools, or institutional schools.

 

:lol::lol:

[Wheres Toto]

I've never had it come up but I think it's because a lot of people around here don't go to the public schools. Both homeschooling and private schools are popular choices. Someone may ask "Is your child going to attend xyz school?" or "where is your child going to school?" but they don't usually bother with any qualifiers like "real".

[Jean in Newcastle]

I've never had it come up but I think it's because a lot of people around here don't go to the public schools. Both homeschooling and private schools are popular choices. Someone may ask "Is your child going to attend xyz school?" or "where is your child going to school?" but they don't usually bother with any qualifiers like "real".

 

The only context it has come up for us is when disapproving relatives ask the kids "When is your mom going to let you go to real school?" There isn't anything neutral about the term in that context.

[Wheres Toto]

The only context it has come up for us is when disapproving relatives ask the kids "When is your mom going to let you go to real school?" There isn't anything neutral about the term in that context.

 

Wow, definitely not. In that context, it would definitely really bother me.