DIFFERENT TYPES OF SCHOOLING

 

Today I have spent some time studying the different school systems and I would now like to write a little bit about them.

I have done some research on compulsory schooling, home schooling, world schooling and unschooling and I have learned some things that I thought were impossible.

Let´beginn with the compulsory schooling.. It is by far the most common form of schooling in the world. You go to a school that is normal for us. There you sit with your classmates in a classroom and the teacher teaches material with the aim of preparing the students for the Matura. In Austria this system lasts 9 years. At the right age you start the so-called primary schools and learn the basics like reading, calculating and writing. In the fifth  to the eighth school year, pupils attend the lower school of a Gymnasium or a new secondary school. After the new school year you can decide whether you want to continue your schooling or whether you want to learn a profession.
The second type of school is home schooling. Here the parents teach the children from home instead of sending them to school. More and more parents refer to the possibility to teach their children. There are many reasons for home schooling, but the most common is that parents believe that their children cannot develop optimally in normal schools. Often there are also religious or historical reasons.
Next I would like to write about world schooling. This system has surprised and fascinated me the most in my search.World schooling is a form of learning in which the children do not go to school but learn by travelling the world. In this way they learn one of the most important things in our society. Knowledge of human nature. The students learn at a very early age that it cannot be taken for granted that clean, fresh water comes from the tap and that there is not a supermarket everywhere in the world where you can buy everything you need to survive. The aim of this form is for the children to get to know so many cultures and tribes. This way they learn how to deal with people, no matter what colour of skin they have or what gender they are. I think that this form of learning is very cool and sounds very interesting.
The last type of school I was involved with is unschoolin. The children do not go to a classical school like homeschooling and worldschooling. They choose a certain subject area that they would like to get to know better. They are supported in this by their parents but also by external teachers.

Furthermore, I have been working with a very interesting man. His name is André Stern and he is a guitar maker, musician and author from Paris. He himself says of himself that he has never attended a classical school and that his son would never do so either. In an article I learned a very interesting opinion of André. He said that if a child played happily and said the sequence of numbers 1,3,5,7, many parents would correct that this sequence is wrong. Parents want the child not to train in the wrong order. But Stern thinks that this is exactly the mistake. By constantly fixing it, you take away the joy of learning from the children and that is exactly how it is at school. In classical schools, the pupils are always mended and only trimmed for the Matura, and this is exactly what takes away the joy of learning something new.
Miro and her son Lainie did a form of worldschooling and got to know the whole world. Of course Miro has a similar opinion as André about learning, otherwise she could have sent her son to a compulsory school.

I think it's a pity that such great forms of schooling are being lost under our classical school system. In my opinion, they are worth more attention. I also think that world schooling, unschooling or homeschooling would have saved a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of worries and nerves for many students.