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Parenting
chardonnay24
member
If you are not religious
chardonnay24
member
in Parenting
would you send your child to Catholic school?
Our public schools are terrible and our non-religious private schools are either on the other side of town or outrageously expensive. My sisters and I went to Catholic school for elementary even though my family was fairly agnostic. My older sister just toured that same school for my nephew and she was very impressed. I brought the idea up to my husband and he was very much opposed to the idea. Of course, religion is part of the curriculum but they also teach evolution in science class and sex ed in health. I would rather have my child go to a top rated (less than conservative) religious school than a crappy public school. What are your thoughts?
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Re: If you are not religious
I'm not religious and I went to a Catholic high school and christian elementary and middle schools. Kids are going to come into contact with religion in this country, so why not at school? Then you can have an open and honest conversation about it at home as they grow? They can tell you what they are being taught and you can tell them what you believe. I put a huge emphasis on a good school, though, so that may just be me.
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I'm in a similar conundrum as you and your DH are with regards to private preschool. The best rated ones are crazy expensive, public school isn't an option, and there's a religious one that's very well rated and affordable.
I'm with you that I'd rather my child go to a better rated religious school. My DH is not. We'll have to see who wins out. He's agreed to tour the school and we'll see how he feels after that.
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If it's any consolation, catholic school turned me into an athiest.
Me too.
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I can't get the ticker to work, but I have two sons:
Baby RJ, born 1/25/2014
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There was a Muslim girl in my Catholic school. She wasn't required to go to church on the few occasions that we did have to during school, but she did have to participate in the "religion" class. I put that term in quotes because it was very rarely about the Catholic religion. I remember watching Lifetime movies about teen pregnancy, and having some pretty good discussions about life in general, without a Catholic slant.
lifetime movies? sign me up!
No.
DH and I are both atheist and neither of us are comfortable with the idea of sending our children to Catholic school.
We have no interest in something we don't believe in being the basis of their lives from 5-18. Which is what it would be. My younger sisters are in Catholic school and everything from math to history is based off of the Catholic ideology.
Because of this we've opted to home school. Our schools don't suck but they're not great, spend more money on sports than replacing books and curriculum. And the only private schools are religious.
BFP #2 11/30/09 EDD 08/12/10- Sophia Grace born 8/1/10
BFP #3 11/16/10 EDD 08/04/11- Samuel Richard born 7/28/11
BFP #4 01/04/12 EDD 09/19/12- Simon Nathaniel born 9/6/12
BFP #5 03/27/13 EDD 11/25/13- Savannah Lee born 11/18/13
DH is catholic and would like to send DD to a catholic school, but it depends more on which school offers french immersion. I am hoping the public school in our neighbourhood will have french and the catholic won't (they are slated to open in 2014), because I have something against sending my kid to catholic school.
ETA: catholic schools here are very well funded and usually have very good sports and/or arts programs, so that might be a consideration for us too.
bfp#4 3/19/2014 edd 12/1/2014 please let this be the one!
beta @ 5w0d = 12,026! u/s 4/22/14 @ 8w1d it's twins!
On a kind of related note, my nanny went to Catholic high school where they offered extra credit for protesting. Not that all schools or teachers would do the same, but I hate extra credit that doesn't involve academic work or extend the classroom.
I'd be on the fence. I was raised Catholic and went to 12 years of Catholic school. However, between my experience and the experience of my half-brother who went to a secular private school, I'm just not convinced that ANY private school is really worth the extra money you pay for it. Issues like kids teasing/bullying each other come up in private as well as public schools. And my experience was that, in the Catholic school, it kind of got dismissed because "our little angels wouldn't do stuff like that." Granted that was 30 years ago, and there wasn't the same focus on bullying as there is now.
But, private schools tend to be small and there are less resources. As a result, you have less options for the types of classes you can take, there's usually just one or two teachers in a given subject per grade level, so if the teacher isn't good, it's not like you can easily switch classes. And, in my case, there were at least three classes that I should have been in an Honors level for, but we didn't get to be because there weren't enough kids to make up an honors class. So, we weren't challenged as much as we could have been.
My DH and I aren't in a position to send our kids to private school--and don't really see that changing in the next 4 or 5 years--but honestly, I feel like even a mediocre public district is in some ways better than a private school.,...although I do worry about stuff like whether or not they'll teach him evolution, accurate sex ed, etc. But my DH was a former science teacher. Guess we can unofficially home school him in those subjects if we're that concerned!
That's a great question.
H and I are discussing it now. We're both atheists, but also VERY academically oriented. Are the public schools crappy in that they're not safe, or that the academics aren't high quality? H's opinion is that he doesn't expect any school to push DD as much as we would at home and would lean toward the crappy public school. I, OTOH, would lean more towards the Catholic school--at least for elementary school. Despite that I'm very anti-religion, I think it's important to understand what it is that people around you believe. I also think that a strong academic focus is very important for young children.
Absolutely. I am not religious at all and I went to catholic school until 10th grade. The education in the basics was great and I felt that learning the bible gave me a good foundation for other subjects. There are so many biblical references in literature and and religion has played a major role in history and even world culture today. I also learned a lot about Judaism and Islam because they all originated from the same basic concept. So I felt like I had an advantage over my peers when I went to public high school. And I kick butt at the bible categories on jeopardy.
I also really appreciate the civic education I got from catholic school. Catholic school taught me to be polite and respectful towards adults and my peers. When I transferred to public school I was surprised by how kids would just swear casually in conversation, went to the bathroom without even letting the teacher know, spoke without raising their hand, etc. It's not like they had terrible manners, I was just taught to be a little more courteous in school.
Schools aren't supposed to teach you courtesy, though. That should be the parents, don't you think?
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I agree that parents should be teaching respect, courtesy and manners-but a lot of parents don't. Kids then begin to mimic those around them and if the majority of kids are from a home environment that doesn't value respect and education-you fight an uphill battle with your own kids.
I am Catholic and plan to send my children to Catholic school. If there was a situation where I had to choose between a not so great public school and a private religious school that was NOT Catholic, I would choose the private no matter how different the religion taught was from Catholicism. I would encourage my child to learn about all types of subjects, to include other religious beliefs. I think it can only make for a better and more well-informed child that can then make decisions about religion.
I may be in the minority as a Catholic, because I converted for my husband after we got married, so I'm still pretty open to other options. I have also been a high school teacher in the public school system and even though I was in one of the top-rated districts in the country, you couldn't pay me enough to ever do it again. So many kids were just hateful little jerks ( like the ones from that video where they berated the bus aide) with parents that either didn't care or blamed everyone else for their lack of parenting. The good ones were there, but I think with private schools in general it is way easier to kick out the really bad seeds.