Craig blog 4

The chapter this week was mainly about the Canadian school system and how it's governed. One thing I didn't know was that kindergarten isn't a mandatory thing for all provinces. The book even says that "most pre-elementary programs are not mandatory". (pg 90) The book says that in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Ontario, British Columbia, and Prince Edward Island pre-elementary schooling is mandatory. As far as I know Manitoba is the same, so I'm not sure where the mandatory provinces are. In my school I had half days everyday for kindergarte. I thought this was  a good routine for children. Now my school does every other day as a full day. This is nice for students to have days off, but parents do comment that a full day is sometimes too much for 5 year olds. Another thing I found interesting was the part on home schooling. This is permitted in all provinces and territories, and I think can be just as good, if not better sometimes than public school. (pg 106) I know people who were home schooled who are very well equipped for the working world. This might not be very important in the city, but in rural communities is quite useful. Not that all homeschooled people learn the same things, but the ones I know possess skills in mechanics, carpentry, cooking, and other very useful life skills that they lerant from their parents and having to do the work. Public schools teach these types of skills in an extremely basic sense, and students usually don't retain much of what they learnt. In this way I feel home schooling has great advantages, assuming there is motivation in both the parent and student. I have heard conversations of teachers that just heard of students taking home school instead of public, and the teachers feel sorry for the students "having to go through that". I don't feel that children should have to learn everything the public school system teaches, and think that home schooling is a very viable option for parents to consider.
Discussion: Is there some way that the life skills of home schooling could be taught in public school?