Attitudes toward private school

dragonlady wrote:

The bad news is -- it's fairly prevalent. You are going to encounter
this from time to time. Hell, even I have to fight that attitude in
myself, and I do know better! In my defense, it is helped along by the
people who ARE snobs who put their kids in private schools.

That's quite true.

"*I* would never subject *my* children to public schools -- though I
suppose they're good enough for *your* children." (Picture slightly
upturned nose, accompanied by delicate shudder of distaste.)

There is also a kind of reverse snobbism sometimes. I went to Roland
Park Elementary School which in the days when I went there was a VERY
good albeit public school. Claire McKeldin, daughter of Theodore R.
McKeldin who was then Mayor of Baltimore and went on to be Governor of
MD was in my sister's class. There was also a Roland Park Country
School which was a girls school which was more like a finishing
school. The boys equivalent apparently was Gilman. We looked down on
RP Country School.

When you are doing something that so many people misunderstand (and
object to) you have two choices: you can either smile, acknowledge that
they disapprove, and change the subject, or you can view it as an
opportunity to educate people. What you'll be TEMPTED to do is get
defensive, but that doesn't ever go anywhere.

I think that is the time for a Miss Manners type put down. Because
these people are rude, and can be dealt with in the same way any other
rudeness is dealt with.

And you WILL be up to it -- you will continue to do whatever it takes
that is best for your daughter.

grandma Rosalie

On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 06:07:47 EST, "Rosalie B."
wrote:
I think that is the time for a Miss Manners type put down. Because
these people are rude, and can be dealt with in the same way any other
rudeness is dealt with.

This just make me realize that while beeswing is working out how she
is going to respond to these people, she's also at least indirectly
teaching her daughter how to respond. Other kids at soccer, Scouts,
the neighbourhood, old classmates, and nosy adults are going to ask
her daughter what school she goes to, and she'll need some responses.

"I go to Girls Academy."
"How come?"
"I used to go to Abraham Lincoln Elementary, but this year my
parent(s) suggested I try GA, and I really like it there/it's too
early to tell how I like it.."

"Are you religious?"
"It's not a religious school; it's just a different kind of school
with all girls."

"Does it cost a lot of money?"
"I don't know, you could ask my mother."

"Didn't you like our school?"
"Yes, and I still like you guys, but my mother wanted me to have a new
challenge. Do you want to come over on Friday?"

"Do you wear uniforms?"
"Did you get kicked out of your old school?"
"Do you go there because you have something wrong with you?"
"Do you go there because your mother doesn't want you to hang around
with boys?"
"Is the work harder than at your old school?"
"How big are the classes?"
"Are they strict?"
"Do we know anyone else who goes there?"
"Are you going to go to private school for high school too?"
"What are the other girls like?"
and so on.

Louise

"beeswing" wrote
I won't get into the details of the private school except to say that
the school is not at all exclusionary. The school seeks out diversity;
has a strong financial aid program; and strives to include girls from
all backgrounds, regardless of their financial situations. This, in
fact,is a large part of what makes the school so attractive to us. So
I was caught totally off guard, yesterday, when I mentioned in passing
that I was nervous about whether or not The Kid would get in. Without
knowing anything about my daughter or the school we are applying to, a
woman in the room asserted point blank "I don't believe in private
school" and then went on to call me a snob. (The conversation didn't
get any better from there on out.)

There's nothing inherently "snobbish" about choosing a private school for
one's child. That said, I'm sure that many private school families are
snobbish. They may have started out that way and that's why they put their
kids in a private school. But I also think it's true that a lot of people
who choose privates do end up feeling superior about it. Then again, many
people will find any excuse to feel superior about whatever choices they
make. In any case, this lady sounds like a bit of a crank. Unless she's a
good friend, which it doesn't sound like she is, it was wrong of her to be
so openly judgmental and free with the name-calling. (I think name calling
and being openly judgmental should be reserved for loved ones. ; )


This is the first time I've had occasion to run into this kind of
prejudice -- and, frankly, I hate it. It assumes things about me and
my family that just aren't true. Does anyone have a feel for just how
prevalent this attitude about private schools is?

That will probably depend on your geographical area and the socioeconomic
status of the people you tend to encounter in your life. There are groups of
people for whom private school is a perfectly normal option. I know lots of
people who do or have sent their kids to private schools. Among this circle
of my friends and family, when a kid gets to be a certain age, you start
getting questions about where they will go to school. It might be one of
many privates, a Catholic, or a public school. (It's funny, though, that
even within that group, some people will either look mildly askance at or
claim snobbishness on the part of other people due to just *which* private
schools they send their kids to. You'll never please 'em all. )

In my actual neighborhood, which is working class to lower middle class,
private school choice is rare. But because this general area is littered
with a wide range of privates and our neighborhood is adjacent to some
wealthy neighborhoods, private school choice would not be considered
outlandish. It would be more on a par with driving an expensinve luxury
car -- most would probably like to be able to do it, and they might wonder
how their neighbor manages it, and they might feel a bit jealous and
defensive about their 1998 Civic, which is, after all, quite a good car for
its class. The lady who was harrassing you may well have felt jealous and
defensive. It may have been like someone trying desperately to make the
month's rent listening to another person worrying over whether they'll be
approved for the mortgage on that Nantucket vacation home. We should all
have such worries! Maybe this lady is someone who could never afford a
private school for her kids and who therefore felt a bit stung by your
conversation. She was still wrong, though, and you still have every right to
make the best education choices for your child that you can afford.

Assuming my daughter
does get into the school, is this something I and my family are likely
going to have to deal with on a regular basis over the next four
years? I'm not entirely sure I'm up to that....

I think you need to get tough (inside). I homeschooled for 2 years, which
few parents are actually jealous of, but I still received what I would
characterize as vociferously defensive reactions from other parents. I
learned to (a) not bring up my nonstandard schooling choice unless it was
extremely relevant to the conversation at hand and (b) never say I chose it
because of the inadequacies of the local schools. That, understandably, got
people's backs up. When I stopped homeschooling and put my kids in public
school, I felt defensive about both my old homeschooling associates and some
of my private schooling friends. There will always be someone
second-guessing and naysaying, but especially if you do something for your
kid(s) that they don't do for theirs. Parents are very sensitive that way. .
..

Good luck -- I hope she gets in!

In article , Beeswing wrote:
....
I was worse than defensive. I felt hurt, and it came through.

My kids go to a public school and happen to thrive
there. If they didn't, you better believe I'd be
school shopping.

My daughter has done very well academically in public school up till
this point, but she's sort of a square peg in a round hole, so she
hasn't been all together happy. I've really liked her public elementary
school, but I think that this particular private school would be a
better fit for her for middle school. Our neighborhood public high
school is supposed to be one of the best in the district, so if that's
still the case in a few years, I anticipate we'll be back to the public
schools soon enough.

We have gone through the public/private decision every year that my
son has been in school. So far we have opted for the public school
each year, but it has been a hard choice---particularly for the two
years that the school board was threatening to close the school my son
went to. (Their final decision, implemented this year, closed two other
schools.)

I am a great believer in the value of a strong public school system,
and have donated time and money to helping the underfunded public
schools in our town. I'm not, however, willing to sacrifice my son's
education if they can't do a good enough job. The schools, by
necessity, put most of their resources on the average students, and by
law have to accomodate students with disabilities---there is very
little money or time left to help the gifted students.

So far, we've been able to get a good enough education by using the
school programs in unintended ways and supplementing at home. For
example, he has been in a bilingual classroom since kindergarten, and
we have had him take literacy instruction in Spanish with the native
Spanish speakers, though he is a native English speaker and neither
parent speaks Spanish fluently. He is now reading and writing in
Spanish at grade level (his English reading, for which he has had no
school instruction, is several years above grade level). Math
instruction has happened mainly at home, but he does get some
accomodation at school (he teaches himself out of workbooks that are
more advanced than what the other kids are doing). Art and science
have been a rather haphazard mix of school and home education, and
social studies haven't really had much attention in either.

The public school provided something that we could not provide at home
or through any local private school: immersion in Spanish with 20
native speakers of the same age.

We are quite likely to end up in a private school next year, because
the bilingual program only goes through 3rd grade, and the math and
science curricula at the public school are a bit weak. The big jump
in class size at 4th grade (from 20 to 33) would mean much less time
for the teachers to come up with challenging material for him. There
is a very good private school for gifted students (Spring Hill School)
about the same distance from us as the public school, and we are
seriously considering making the switch next year.

The bottomline is always "what will provide the best educational
experience for my child?" Sometimes the answer is not the one that
our initial prejudice (whether for or against public school) leads us
to.

------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
Senior member, IEEE Board of Directors, ISCB (starting Jan 2005)
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Affiliations for identification only.

In article , Beeswing wrote:

Thanks for the nice response. I just wanted to say that I didn't get
defensive, and I did try to educate. It was like trying to teach a pig
to sing. Next time, I'll smile sweetly and say something noncommittal
like "Oh, you don't believe in private schools? Well, that's
interesting." Or at least I *hope* that's what I'll do.


My response when this comes up (and it really doesn't come up that
often) is something like, "I would prefer to be able to send my
children to the public schools, but they weren't meeting my kids'
needs." If they go on, I usually say that I agree that it is
important to support the public system, but that in the end my
own children's needs and education are my first responsibility and
my first priority.

Good luck,
--Robyn

In ,
Rosalie B. wrote:

* in school will affect college choices! At least I
* hope it is, my 6th grader is way behind the times
* otherwise Does a 4th-grader even understand
* what constitutes a good college?
*
*DD#2 told us when she was about 8 years old that she was going to grow
*up and go to the Naval Academy and fly planes like her daddy. We said

And I was a 5 yr old 1st grader when I wrote my first "essay" on what I
was going to be when I grew up. It read "I will be a vetnarian. I will
take care of ellipunts and dogs and horseys." My mom still has it,
actually. And I *have* had the opportunity to care for both horses AND an
elephant, although I mostly focus on dogs and cats at this point.

--
Hillary Israeli, VMD
Lafayette Hill/PA/USA/Earth
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is
too dark to read." --Groucho Marx

In article ,
beeswing wrote:

Louise wrote:

This just make me realize that while beeswing is working out how she
is going to respond to these people, she's also at least indirectly
teaching her daughter how to respond. Other kids at soccer, Scouts,
the neighbourhood, old classmates, and nosy adults are going to ask
her daughter what school she goes to, and she'll need some responses.

That's a scary thought.


I've never coached my kids on what to say. In the rare instances that
it comes up, they seem to handle it ok, though perhaps not with as
much humility/subtlety as I'd have suggested.

--Robyn

"Scott" wrote in message
...
beeswing wrote:
Oh, I don't know -- I think 4th grade is a wee bit
young to be thinking about how one's performance
in school will affect college choices! At least I
hope it is, my 6th grader is way behind the times
otherwise Does a 4th-grader even understand
what constitutes a good college?

Mine sure did. My son, by 4th grade, was comparing Harvard to MIT, good and
bad, and making the decision as to which one he wanted to attend. In 5th
grade they were asked to write a letter describing their lives for the 25th
elementary school reunion committed. Of the 4 5th grade classes, about 80%
chose Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, Stanford, Princeton, Colombia, and UCLA as
their colleges for undergrad. The attorneys unanamously went to Harvard or
Yale, the doctors to Harvard Med.

Nobody chose a local state college.

In article ,
Kevin Karplus wrote:

I am a great believer in the value of a strong public school system,
and have donated time and money to helping the underfunded public
schools in our town.

Would you (be able to) keep doing this if you moved your son to
a private school? Most people do not (and cannot) and I think
this is the crux of the argument the "I don't believe in private
school" people make. And it's a reasonable argument. If everyone
with time and money to spare goes off to find something better
for their kids, the public schools get worse and worse for those
whose parents can't afford an alternative.

I'm not, however, willing to sacrifice my son's
education if they can't do a good enough job.

This is the reasoning I use for having my children in private
school as well. And, indeed, I no longer donate my time or
money to the public schools, as our private school (even more
underfunded due to trying to remain affordable) needs our
assistance even more. So, the public school has suffered for
our children being removed from it, but they didn't leave me
any alternative. ;-(

--Robyn

I am in year seven and I go to a private school, my dad also works in a
private school, but my mum works in a government school. The additude
is definatly there in my friends as our teacher last year moved from
public to private and treated him differently to other teachers.