Young peoples' identities will be greatly influenced by particular places such as their school. Consciously or not young people will connect and build up social identities in which they categorize their personalities. As such they are racialised, classed, gendered and culturally accepted in specific social groups within school. And as with all students and from my own personal experience, the saying you are who you're friends are is to some extent correct. This is due to some students having the mentality that friends and the popular social status is better to have then high grades. This is why parents get afraid to enroll in public schools as they believe that there is less discipline and structure. This is seen in the article that I read, which I found interesting as the thoughts of some parents reflected in the article was fairly similar to the way in which my parents thought. The article, 'Doing the sums- does a private education add up?' discusses whether or not parents and students are getting the value for their money at private schools. Most parents believe that academic, discipline and opportunity wise, parents are getting great value for the money they spend. "It's worth every cent," says one mother paying close to $30,000 for her daughter's HSC year at Kambala. "Think about how much you pay for a lawyer or a plumber. Considering the quality of the teachers, the educational standards, the people they mix with and all you get, it's an absolute bargain."
photo by Gary Heery.As represented in the picture above which was included in the article, it cleverly perceives how a student can gain so much from attending a private or independent school. Coming from a private school myself, I believe that private and independent schools do a little more extra than public schools, as with my school we had afternoon classes in year 12 to help with our HSC and also we had a great amount of interaction and advice from our teachers. Whereas some of my friends in public schools tended to be a little more stressed and unorganized.
However a problem I find in many private schools, those with not as high academic standing as most of the students in their school, tend to be neglected and gain a vast amount of low-self esteem as they feel they do not fit in. I found this in a journal article were it gives an example of a girl who attends an independent school , she found that the good is only for the good. As the year 10 girl at Halls says, "Our school stresses on getting high marks, If you don't get high marks you are gone, and you are just a person who sits in the back."
Overall in my perspective where ever you place your child, regardless if it was private or public, their results will end up being based on their own identity and their sense of cultural upbringing. Anyone is capable of a great academic standing, work needs to be put in whether a student attends a private or public school.
Read more on the article'Doing the sums': http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/doing-the-sums--does-a-private-education-add-up-20120327-1vw9g.html
Refrences:
-Kenway, J. (1998). Consuming children? Public education as a market commodity. In A. Reid (Ed.),
Going public: Education policy and public education, (pp.47-56). Deakin, ACT: Australian Curriculum
Studies Association.
I tend to agree with your last statement upon a student’s performance being more centrally focused upon the individual than their school, however I feel there is more to the idea of public vs. private school performance than that.
ReplyDeleteIt can be seen that through such stigmas and promotion of private school’s being regarded as better in student performance, reputation and successes, that allow such things to occur. When parents conduct this decision towards their desire for a well-performing child, it is their attitudes as well as incentive that would act to help this child achieve higher, not necessarily the school they are attending. Performance also relies upon a child’s will and desire to perform better above all else, however, in regards to school’s with better resources, better-paid teachers as well as additional programs and support, this would have a significant impact on a child’s attitude towards this. I think we will always stigmatise private education as having the upper hand in regards to student performance, and in some ways this can be justified through the advantages private schools have that public lack. However, it will always boil down to the student and their own incentive, as well as how their teachers perform. Whilst it may be harder for a child from a disadvantaged school to achieve as well as another from a more advantaged school through their lack of necessary resources, similar results can still be achieved. It seems to me that the only real difference would be the level of effort made for such results, something that really should be of more value to a parent.