@CheerBear
I want to share some things with you. This can of worms involves shame, vulnerability, values, privilege and identity but I am actually really grateful to have it raised an an opportunity to work through some things. The can of worms was about your child’s schooling.
I want to share my experiences and thoughts about it.
I grew up in a family of teachers, married one and my best friends are as well. I may not have been in education for a long time but still have conversations about education and schools. My friends and family teaching experiences go from elete private schools to difficult low socio ecomomic schools and their positions from teacher to principal. I still have a passion for education.
My personal experience is that I attended a pretty rough high school where I was happy but easily lead. My family were not happy about this and my mum went back to work to send me to one of the elete private single sex schools. I hated it at first but in the end I loved it and made lifelong friends. I am currently grateful that I had the opportunity to go. Academically I didn’t achieve much but I think lots of my values came from that school. The positives in my experience was that the people who went there were mostly goal oriented and for me that meant I was dragged upwards rather than down as far as doing school work. It was cool to excel and I grew up with a lot of boarders from farms as my friends, it provided me with a pretty stable foundation. I will add I was one of the poorer kids and that provided some discomfort at times. I could only afford clothes from target but you can imagine all the brand names and life experiences from many wealthy friends that I could never dream of. I think once I got passed the mid teens though that got easier, it was more about personalities developing than competition on clothes and money.
When my eldest came to going to high school I went through the enrolment process to a middle range private school for him but realised it was impossible with his brother a year behind him. My current belief is that maybe it was better for him to have gone the difficult way he did to succeed at uni. My second one would have succeeded I think at most schools as he was internally and academically driven. My third child needed an alternative school, he was not made for public or private school, mainstream schooling was not his thing. My youngest struggles unless the teacher is good and then he shows what he is made of, he is just beginning to understand much more about his learning styles and his capabilities and I think he may end up doing some adult education at some point. Now for one of the points that made me think as I was writing this. I couldn’t think of many of my friends who haven’t sent their kids to private school, none of them have been on religious grounds, all for resources and academic achievement. Most are mid range ones. Majority of those are all going on/ have gone to university. Just adding I really don’t see university as being the pinnacle. Some kids are made for it and thrive in careers after uni and some don’t my family has both. I value them equally 💜.
So my thoughts on this come from many varied places. I think if you have a child that is driven and motivated and you can manage it I would be a fantastic opportunity for them. If you have a child that will struggle with the social stuff and middle class competition it may make schooling just as difficult as other schools near you. One friend is thinking of taking her child out for that reason. Over here there is university high school for Yr 11 and 12 which is popular (and expensive) because it’s just like early university with less hype about the social stuff. It seems to work really well for strong minded kids that aren’t worried about things like formals or end of school celebrations etc. ( believe me those two things can take up every waking thought for some kids)
knowing who your child has for a mum I’d think sending them is a fabulous thing if you can do it, I know you’ll be able to work out the resilience things and social stuff as you go. I also think it is just one of the ways you can change the world 😘.
PS edited
i went through much of brene browns stuff to work through writing this and had to explore much about myself. I discovered there is a thing called privilege shame. I also discovered a long felt shame I hadn’t recognised cognitively before and thought long and hard about vulnerability and courage. I read a really vulnerable post on the forum today which also helped me to find the courage to post this 💜🤗