My siblings and our group of kids. My mom had a job connection up there, it was a bike ride away. So the kids in our group, knew the college, the lab, the theater, pool, courts and work shops. The parents often bringing educational toys home. Late in life my mom ran her workshop hobby at the college.
We went to college ourselves, all knew the ritual. It is the original junior college I remember, my model of an education institution from the point of an adolescent.
Later, on the job in Silicon Valley, the same atmosphere appeared in PTA for our own kids. Parents as much a part of the schools as the teachers and students. And we sent our kids to summer program at the local junior college.
Institutional memory, the skill of dealing with schools, passed from generation to generation. Almost a trap, we got too specialized, a tendency to fall back to the institution.
For example, the idea was to always have a quiet well lit space for school prep. Even if you skipped school, it was a rule, keep that handy, just in case and pass that rule to the kids. And everyone become skilled at managing the 'class', even the kids learn it in scouts, well attacked to school. We all got that day care and junior college went together and educational prep work involved the kids. We gamed the financual system. Wise? Maybe as good as hanging out at the factory, or farm or construction site, or being continually involved in sports. U had dentist kin, I hung around the dental lab, some kids grow up in a mechanics shop.
Dunno, families specialize and that can be limiting.
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