NEW SCHOOL TIES

I went to a private school and now teach at a public technical school, so you'd think I'd be well placed to join the Private/Public debate. I mean, I'm not the only person to tread the path in that direction, but you never know, I might offer some new perspective. Yet I've been looking at this first paragraph for around an hour now, and I've got rock-all worthwhile to add. Not even sure I want to add anything.

What I will say is that I don't like Linda Withington. It's not just "I don't want my daughter to grow up to be pretentious but I want her to be nurtured educationally" bad as that is. It's the whole thing.

At a playgroup in Malvern, Linda Withington, is talking about private schools for her children - Stella, 4, and Leo, 2.

Educated at government schools in Broadmeadows, Withington is a believer in state education but, as university entry becomes tighter, she does not want to take the risk.

She has her children's names down at Caulfield Grammar, Xavier, St Kevins, Lauriston, Maundeville [Mandeville, aaactually], and Sacre Coeur

"I believe so strongly in government schools but I didn't want to interfere with my kids' options in life," says Withington, a former teacher in government system.

"I think it comes down to policies by he Kennett and Howard governments - they (government schools) have been so strongly undermined and underfunded, ostensibly to offer a choice of types of school, but actually we lose. I feel I have no other choice," she says.

"I come from a working-class background. I don't want my daughter to grow up to be pretentious but I want her to be nurtured educationally."

From yesterday's Age.

Comments

[DJ]

"I don't want my daughter to grow up to be pretentious but I want her to be nurtured educationally" is Pretentious for "The kids at a posh school looks better than a BMW."

A public school teacher blaming Kennett and Howard for something is like a Collingwood fan blaming the umpires.

[beastor]

So, should we bash ‘er as well then?

[Tony.T]

DJ: It's something I hear at least once every day.

B: Make her do tuck shop duty.

[Scott Wickstein]

Of course public education is the least best option- it should be the safety net option for those that can't afford the best for their kids.

We don't expect the government to be able to provide the best services in anything else, why should we in education? People that are 'passionate' about public education are as bizzare as.. erm.. Collingwood supporters.

[Tony.T]

To be fair, some of those who are passionate about public education have teeth.

[Clem Snide]

I went to a public primary school and a private secondary. A lot of what is said about under-resourcing in the public sector is bollocks unless you're talking about extracurricular stuff like sports and boarding facilities. In the prestigious private school we were crammed 40 to a class in unheated rooms sitting on hard, wooden desks vandalised with ancient carvings of genitalia. One of the lads, pointing to a particular penis carving, once proudly boasted that his father had carved it when he had been a student at the same school. An air of sullen philistinism prevailed throughout. The grounds were almost completely lacking in vegetation, being mostly asphalt-covered. While their parents may have been well-heeled, little money was evident among the pupils, and many kids would try to scrounge change off each other to buy snacks from the tuck shop. Nevertheless the private school was an academic high-flyer. The big advantages the private school had were that the teachers were slightly less maladjusted than in my public primary school, and cosiderably less mentally unstable than the social sciences/humanities faculty misfits I saw at uni. Also we didn't have to put up with violent, inbred, disruptive, gangsta students of chronically low IQ.

Frankly, the best thing public schools could to improve their pupils' performances would be to hire disaffected and otherwise unemployable sociology/peace studies/NIDA graduates as teachers on the cheap, and put signs above their heads saying "Work hard or you'll end up like him".

[hungbunny]

Stella and Leo? What is she, a fucking astrologer?

(I went to a posher-than-posh prep school, and I'd still like to give her a kicking. With well-polished shoes, obviously.)

[girtbysea]

the word at playgroup is that it's still ok to send em to public primary, but enough people have voted with their feet/wallets to make a noticeable difference at secondary school.

i am sick of the loaded "which school" question. it's getting to the point where I am not enjoying enjoying my latte. in fact it makes me feel like I am not worthy of drinking latte at all.

[Armaniac]

I went to both. My impression was of teaching being at a similar level (and certainly no more lefty) at public as private. Where the difference really lies is in the ability to enforce a higher level of discipline through expulsion- public schools are the default fall back for kids in trouble.

[13thMan]

Well, I've taught in both. From where I stand, the real difference is in the support that teachers are given. Don't get me wrong - the private system has it's own insidious little ways of undermining staff, but public just kicks our fucking teeth in. Two years ago I had a scalpel pulled on me by a miscreant at the public shitheap I was at, and nothing happened to the little bastard. Well, his father was informed, but as he saw no problem with his spawn's actions... Mind you, this kid - in Year 9 - had just spent the first two terms of the year banged up, so he was always going to be a star. The Principal of the same school once told me - when I was in dispute with a kid - that he would always take the word of a student over a member of staff!
To me, that's the crux of the problem - the kids run riot, and we aren't allowed to stop them. Instead of support from admin when we occasionally muster the energy to attempt to save a class from the depredations of a bucnh of juvenile delinquents, we are constantly undermined.
The teachers at public schools are just as good as those at private - in fact given that most private schools are merely TER factories, I'd say that public teachers are often better. We're certainly more battle-hardened, and we have had to deal with issues that private staff have never encountered. We just cannot effect beneficial change, and until the rights of the many (an entire class, for example) are rated more highly than the rights of the few (that ever-increasing percentage of shitheads that only come when they absolutely have to), we will never win.
Frankly, Im sick of admin cretins, and fucking clueless youth workers, telling us that we have to take extra care - and extra shit - from 'at risk' students. The entire fucking class that has to put up with them is 'at risk', not the arseholes that we are supposed to be focussing on.

[Scott Wickstein]

You'd think that public teachers, who no doubt know all about what 13thMan is talking about, would be right-wing authoritarians in general....

[carneagles]

I went to State schools, and it didn't affect me none. (Twitches)

You can't help but wonder whether all this talk about grades, peer groups and "educationally nurturing" Stella and Leo is just a smokescreen for the real agenda, namely, turning the little snotnoses into good little networkers.

[Tony.T]

State school? You poor thing. Foreigners, bullies AND girls. How did you cope?

[fm]

I'm up for offshore detention for miscreants.

[Nigel Molesworth]

A government primary education followed by a grammar school secondary education, must produce a snotty hoodlum.
With regard to 'foreigners' in State schools, I would like to suggest that the diplomatic corps provides grammar schools with a League Of All Nations too.
The clear advantage of a grammar school education is that they produce a child with team spirit and a responsibility to a group.
and Chapel. Chapel is good for a child. Immunises them against becoming fanatical god-botherers in later life.

[Saltation]

umm... has something changed since i was in school in australia? public schools were essentially lotteries re final results, due to the potentially HUGE distractions of ratbags and yobbos and so on. if you got lucky, they didn't stop you studying and having a fair crack at uni entrance. but if you got UNlucky, you were STUFFED.

as previous commenters- the difference tends to be Discipline, both by students and by staff. but also, social peer groups among the students can influence kids to try less hard, even if only by an environment of "lowered expectations".

so... while i deplore the (whole other topic) social reasons that tend in state schools to prevent useful discipline and to reduce kids' ambition/drive, i can't blame a woman for trying to give her kids the best shot at having (and, as importantly, believing they have) ALL their choices still available to them when they're 17.

[Yobbo]

I went to both and there's no contest. Private schools are of a much higher quality in pretty much everything (except for the whole "no girls" thing).

But then again, no girls has been put forward as a contributing factor to why boys in private schools do better than those in public, too. Less time spent trying to impress girls and more time spent working.

The funny thing is, the best way to get the highest possible TER score is to go to a private school until semester 2 of year 12, then transfer into a poor public school and sit your exams there.

The relatively low scores of your classmates will see everyone's score from the school scaled upwards, but you wont have had to suffer the disadvantage of having to actually learn anything there.