Thursday 29 October 2009

The offbeat ideologues of home education

Every discipline has its share of mavericks and oddballs, who are generally eyed askance by other professionals in the field. Fred Hoyle the astronomer springs to mind, as does John Allegro the Dead Sea Scrolls expert. Allegro of course was once a respected scholar, until he got it into his head that the early Christians had belonged to a hitherto unknown cult which worshipped hallucinogenic mushrooms. Often these weird individuals are very well known and admired by the general public, while fellow professionals regard them as either harmless cranks or raving lunatics. They are fond of writing popular books expounding their strange ideas, rather than submitting well researched papers to respectable journals for peer review. Such is the case with the half dozen or so academics who have espoused the cause of home education.

In common with wild cards from other fields such as psychology, astronomy, archaeology and so on, they tend to appeal directly to the laity. There is good reason for this. When John Allegro became convinced that Jesus was a magic mushroom, he wrote a book about it which was serialised in the Sunday Mirror. There would of course have been little point in trying to interest other Orientalists and archaeologists in his theory; they would know at once that it was sheer nonsense. Far better to address the readers of a tabloid newspaper. Similarly, when some professor of education convinces himself that children do not need to be taught to read, there would not be much point in getting an academic journal to take up the idea. The readers of such a publication would require detailed and properly conducted research to back up such an astonishing hypothesis. A crazy idea like this would probably not even make it through the peer review. The answer is to talk to ordinary parents, who do not really know enough about these ideas to see them for what they are and will in any case be very receptive to the idea that they do not have to teach their children, that the whole process of education can take place automatically.

Apart from books aimed at the public, these characters present papers to obscure conferences in out of the way places like Latvia. These papers are subsequently quoted as reverently as if they had been published in "Nature"! Some of the most popular assertions about home education can be traced back to this sort of paper. Books on the subject are often based upon a mere dozen or so families, some of whom are close personal friends of the author. Fortunately, the left leaning, libertarian parents reading them know less about the matter than those actually involved in education and child development and so are not likely to spot the glaring holes in the reasoning presented.

Throughout the world there are many thousands of people studying and teaching education, the psychology of childhood and so on. Few parents ever hear about these people. They prefer to listen to the six or seven who say reassuring things like, "Children learn without teachers. Don't bother to teacher Johnny to read, he'll pick it up of his own accord." They either do not know, or more likely do not care, that 99.99% of these experts' own colleagues view them as amiable and well meaning crackpots.

36 comments:

  1. So, books and theories aside, can you please explain to me how my two grown up children have always been so prosperous and never needed to draw benefits or anything, despite never having been coercively taught anything?

    Because according to what you've said above, this is a complete mystery.

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  2. No it isn't a mystery at all; it is anecdotal evidence from a vanishingly small sample. New theories of learning need to be extensively researched and examined critically by a wide range of those working in the field. The fact that your kids did OK is not really sufficient grounds for throwing out all our current understanding of childhood development and learning. Most families could produce similar stories of children whose development was out of the normal range. It means little by itself. See my reamrks about authors who quote very small samples and try to extrapolate from them.

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  3. "New theories of learning need to be extensively researched and examined critically by a wide range of those working in the field."

    Why, though? Why this apparent need to homogenise everything? I'm not asking anyone to throw out all their current understanding of childhood development and learning - just to accept that there are other effective ways of doing things, which people should be left free to make choices about.

    The anecdotal evidence proves that, if nothing else.

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  4. The reason that a new theory needs to be tested extensively and examined closely is that otherwise children might suffer. If the idea that children acquire literacy spontaneously and do not need to be taught how to read gained currency, it could be adopted in schools. This sort of thing has happened in the past with crackpot schemes like the Initial Teaching Alphabet. If schools stopped teaching children how to read, it might easily result in a massive increase in the level of illiteracy. That would be a bad thing, so before we undertake such a risky experiment, we need to be sure that the new theory is better than the one it replaces. The best way of doing this is to examine a lot of evidence, not just a few families.

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  5. I don't think any autonomous home educators are suggesting that schools should adopt the method, are they? My experience is that it's not really something that would work outside of a high student:facilitator home-based environment.

    I'm therefore a bit bewildered by your: "before we undertake such a risky experiment". Before who undertakes it? Why would they want to? Doesn't what they're already doing work OK for them?

    Incidentally, I learned to read by ITA and it doesn't seem to have done me much lasting damage! Also, I taught my children to read using a mixture of phonetics and look-say - because they asked me to. I can't imagine a child not wanting to learn how to read, especially if they've recognised the value of being able to.

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  6. "My experience is that it's not really something that would work outside of a high student:facilitator home-based environment."

    Sorry, that didn't really make much sense. I should have said a high facilitator:student ratio in a home-based environment - i.e. 1:1 or 1:2. Not a class full of school children, essentially!

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  7. just to accept that there are other effective ways of doing things

    ___________________________________

    "Just to accept" is a leap of faith, which is the polar opposite of requiring evidence.

    A leap of faith is what the government is asking parents to take as they push for an even earlier start to formal education.

    Surely you would advise parents against "just accepting that there are other effective ways of doing things" when it comes to the newest offering from the DofE.

    Would you not think parents were better equipped to judge the validity of DofE proposals if they said they would be requiring evidence, from large diverse samples, that had been peer reviewed to ensure cherry picking and bias had not skewed the findings and has been replicated ?

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  8. Nobody is suggesting that one to one tuition is not brilliant and effective way of teaching children to read. Some writers on the subject of home education say though that literacy is acquired without any teaching at all and that simply being immersed in day to day life can make a child literate without the need for any tuition at all. Alan Thoma, for example makes this claim. If this idea were to be true, then obviously there would be no point in schools teaching reading, it would be a waste of time and effort. Jan Fortune-Wood makes this contention; that literacy hour is in effect a waste of time. That is why this theory needs to be examined and tested, because if true the implications are serious.

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  9. Sarah,

    "'Just to accept' is a leap of faith, which is the polar opposite of requiring evidence."

    OK, I can take that on board.

    "A leap of faith is what the government is asking parents to take as they push for an even earlier start to formal education.

    Agreed, but I can't really see the relevance to home education.

    "Surely you would advise parents against "just accepting that there are other effective ways of doing things" when it comes to the newest offering from the DofE."

    I wouldn't really advise parents of anything, except perhaps - at a push - to try to work out what's best for their own individual children and circumstances, be that home, school, school at home, unschooling, a mixture of the above, something else entirely, or whatever. Parenting is generally a process of muddling through in this way, isn't it? Can't remember who said that, but it's a good quote.

    "Would you not think parents were better equipped to judge the validity of DofE proposals if they said they would be requiring evidence, from large diverse samples, that had been peer reviewed to ensure cherry picking and bias had not skewed the findings and has been replicated?"

    No, I'm a parent, not a scientist. I don't really hold with all this evidence-based stuff - it's perhaps more for those people who earn their living working in such fields. For me, parenting has never been about looking at evidence, beyond the evidence in front of my own eyes, in the form of my children, what seemed to work for them and what didn't. People are all so different, aren't they? And if you need or want to use state schools then I suppose to some extent you'll be relying on someone else's interpretation of the evidence of learning theories, but I still don't see how that applies (or should apply) to home education at all.

    Simon,

    "Some writers on the subject of home education say though that literacy is acquired without any teaching at all and that simply being immersed in day to day life can make a child literate without the need for any tuition at all."

    I've known children learn to read at various ages with very little help/input, but they all needed some and the autonomous ones all asked for it when they needed it. You can call that tuition if you like - its technical name is probably 'informal tuition' or something.

    Again, I find your reference to schools and the literacy hour bewildering in the context of home education. It's just not relevant, is it? Like comparing factory farming with organic, free range.

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  10. The way that children learn to read is relevant to both home and school based education. If children really can become literate simply from the experience of moving about in a literate community, then the implications are profound. Clearly, much of the basis for education in this country is flawed. If on the other hand, it is not true and children cannot in general learn to read without being taught, then many home educating parents have been misled and could well be damaging their children's chances in later life by neglecting their education at a crucial period. Do you really say that this is unimportant? That is why we need to know whether or not the teaching of reading is necessary and if it is we need to know the best way of doing it. This as important for both home educated children and children in school.

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  11. No, I can't see the importance of knowing about successful methods of home educating to school children, because most are probably not transferable. I think a schooled child probably needs coercing to learn how to read, or indeed to learn anything much at all, and an unschooled child probably does not. My experience and observation of a lot of children over a long number of years in a variety of family and educational situations bears this out.

    To talk about applying successful methods of unschooling to a school situation is a contradiction in terms, which can't work. I don't know why you're wasting your time and energy trying! This surely isn't the thin king behind the Badman review? I hope not.

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  12. I was referring to the acquisition of literacy, which some believe happens automatically in a literacy rich society such as ours. Whether a child was registered at school or not would make no difference to this process if indeed it exists. Wasting my time and energy, if I am doing so, is my affair. I am actually trying to explain the concerns that some people have about home education. I did not send my own child to school at all; this should tell you where I stand on the subject of home education. On the wider question of the best methods of teaching children, we might perhaps differ.

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  13. Because my children have my attention I can see on a day-by-day basis that their education is working. I don't need a peer-reviewed study to tell me that my children are learning to read without a systematic programme of instruction. I see them learning. There is no leap of faith involved, because the evidence is right there before my eyes.

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  14. Actually, Simon, whether a child is at school or not can make a huge difference to the way they learn. I have seen this in my own children.

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  15. Agreed, but I can't really see the relevance to home education.


    _______________________________

    It's relevant because the principle is the same, it does not matter who is saying "just accept.....".

    I would totally support the right of parents as a group not to be coerced or legislated into suspending their current educational philosophies or practices because the vocal element of the GenPub and officials have a "just accept blah blah blah" mentality. Whilst you can't prove a negative it should be possible at this point to examine and make findings rather than just leap to the conclusion that an AE is no education at all, all of the time, for anybody and needs to be "dealt with". Likewise I support investigation and evidence building where a philosophy enjoys promotion, is in active growth but has little of substance to support its claimed outcomes. From my perspective it doesn't really matter what "flavour" is on the table or who is asking for dispensation from backing up their claims.

    Now I accept that you prefer instinct and faith over investigation and evidence to support claims, but as you say, we are not all the same.

    I'm somebody who does not do "macro" leaps of faith and to ask that I, or others with similar leanings to myself "just to accept that there are other effective ways of doing things", is an act of requesting that your own philosophy of "faith/instinct" is replicated by others, which smacks of an apparent need to homogenise.

    I totally come under the umbrella of "muddling through mother", we just use different tools on our journey.

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  16. No, I can't see the importance of knowing about successful methods of home educating to school children, because most are probably not transferable.

    __________________________


    An exact replication of practice, possibly not. Adapted to logistical needs however is a different story.

    And vice versa.

    Education is not confined to children, it is not confined to an exclusive state, it is not limited to a context of general education as opposed to limited to specifics. What is discovered in one niche can have implications for other niches. Adult literacy, specifically where that takes place in a one-to-one context with a non-professional aide, may have much to gain from what is garnered via investigations into non-formal/self-directed literacy acquisition in AHE for example.

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  17. My children learned to read without being taught in any formal sense and were both reading fluently before the age of six. What they had was hours and hours of being read to - usually one to one - from babyhood. You obviously can't replicate that in a school.

    As well as the practical side of the process (you'd need loads of available adults and plenty of quiet space away from other people) there is the fact that I think this process was bound up with the emotional bonds in the family. From their earliest lives, my children learned that reading was a safe, comforting, happy experience. In my experience of schools, this isn't something you could hope to achieve within them.

    What I have seen among schooled children I know is the slow acquisition of literacy, accompanied by a declining interest in books. I think this is very sad - to take what is a liberating process (the acquisition of a skill that opens whole worlds of knowledge) and turn it into a boring slog, seems rather stupid. I don't say that what we did in my family is transferable to schools, but I do think that there may be things to learn from the experiences of families such as mine.

    Possibly the most important thing to learn is that children are individuals and the best way for them to learn is the way that suits them! I know this won't appeal to Simon, who is determined that we should identify the one true way...

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  18. It's all got a bit complicated here, hasn't it? You're not quite right though Sarah, when you suggest that I prefer instinct and faith over investigation and evidence to support claims. I'd say it's more instinct and observation on a daily basis. Trial and error. I never studied a set theory and decided to have blind faith in it, but I tried to remain flexible and above all responsive to my children's changing educational needs, as with all their other needs. Their 'outcomes' were good.

    "I'm somebody who does not do "macro" leaps of faith and to ask that I, or others with similar leanings to myself "just to accept that there are other effective ways of doing things", is an act of requesting that your own philosophy of "faith/instinct" is replicated by others, which smacks of an apparent need to homogenise."

    Woah! What?! I'm not requesting replication of anything by anyone! You just did a fair few leaps of your own there, based on some false assumptions about your reading of what I said. Wanting to retain the legal freedom for people to practice different educational methods according to what they think is best for their family is the precise opposite of a need to homogenise. Sorry Sarah, you completely lost me there.

    Simon,

    "Whether a child was registered at school or not would make no difference to this process if indeed it exists."

    It makes a huge difference, but Allie has explained how far better than I could, so I'll just say that I fully agree with her.

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  19. Woah! What?! I'm not requesting replication of anything by anyone!

    _____________________________________

    You asked people " just to accept that there are other effective ways of doing things".

    I'll freely admit I assumed you wouldn't ask people to "just accept.." were you not prepared to do the same yourself i.e. replication.

    When you ask people to "just accept" you ask myself and others to replicate the processes of others rather than use their own.


    "Wanting to retain the legal freedom for people to practice different educational methods according to what they think is best for their family is the precise opposite of a need to homogenise"

    Not if you are asking that the basis upon which they support rights is via a homogenous process of acceptance, which is unavoidable when asking all to "just accept.."

    Being a person to whom "just accept" is a non-starter does not disqualify me from supporting the legal right of anybody to do anything. The legal right to HE in general and AHE in particular is least served by the promotion of a "just accept..".

    Vast swathes of the GP would have sympathy with a proposal to ban HE full stop because they would most happily "just accept that learning is what happens in school with "proper" teachers with a timetable and a set curriculum with a test at the end".

    If the choice of counter argument chosen is "just accept that it isn't" who do you think will win over a critical mass of support ?

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  20. ???

    Sarah, I'm happy with the current legal position with regard to home education in the UK. It doesn't name any theories or methods or ask for anything to be proved. I have friends who school their children at home and at school, as well as friends who unschool/ autonomously home educate their children and others who use a mixture of methods and systems.

    The point is that I don't require any of them to replicate what I do any more than they require me to replicate what they do. Live and let live! Is there any reason why parents can't be left alone to home educate their children as they see fit - until and unless (as the law currently sets out) there is specific reason to suspect that the educational provision might not be suitable for the child? My answer to that is no.

    Apart from that any other lengthy, pedantic argument based on my choice of two particular words, seems quite ridiculous.

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  21. Apart from that any other lengthy, pedantic argument based on my choice of two particular words, seems quite ridiculous.


    _____________


    Well then I'll take responsibility for not having chosen my own well enough to illustrate my point clearly.

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  22. Fiona, I dare not list the names; I will unleash a hornets nest! One carried out some research on thirty five children about nine years ago. Another co-authored a book on home education which was published two years ago. His co-author was a woman. Two of the people of whom I am thinking are American. Another is an Englishman with a Dutch sounding name.

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  23. Simon said,
    "The reason that a new theory needs to be tested extensively and examined closely is that otherwise children might suffer."

    So you don't think a parent can be aware of their child's learning and also be aware if they are not learning? Why do I need to know if a method has been extensively tested and examined closely in thousands of other children if I can see from day to day that it is working for a particular child? Do you not believe that the majority of parents will have the best interests of their child at heart and be willing and able to change things if their approach obviously isn't working for that child?

    "If the idea that children acquire literacy spontaneously and do not need to be taught how to read gained currency, it could be adopted in schools."

    Well obviously it wouldn't work in school unless they had a 1:1 or 1:typical-family-size ratio. Children need to be responded to in whichever way they need and ask for, as and when the need arises (or as soon as possible). So if a child wants the book on reptiles read to them, the teacher would have to drop everything (within reason) and read it to them. Obviously this wouldn't be possible in most classrooms. You are not comparing like to like. Formal, organised teaching is probably the only practical way for a child to learn to read in school (though I suspect a majority of school children do most of their learning to read at home anyway). But as the article on curriculum Fiona gave the link to says, this is unnecessary in informal situations.

    "As Cornbleth (1990), and Jeffs and Smith (1990, 1999) have argued, curriculum cannot be taken out of context, and the context in which it was formed was the school. Curriculum theory and practice only makes sense when considered alongside notions like class, teacher, course, lesson and so on. You only have to look at the language that has been used by our main proponents: Tyler, Stenhouse, Cornbleth and Grundy, to see this. It is not a concept that stands on its own. It developed in relation to teaching and within particular organizational relationships and expectations."

    "What is being suggested here is that when informal educators take on the language of curriculum they are crossing the boundary between their chosen specialism and the domain of formal education. This they need to do from time to time. There will be formal interludes in their work, appropriate times for them to mount courses and to discuss content and method in curriculum terms. But we should not fall into the trap of thinking that to be educators we have to adopt curriculum theory and practice."

    "and that simply being immersed in day to day life can make a child literate without the need for any tuition at all. Alan Thoma, for example makes this claim. If this idea were to be true, then obviously there would be no point in schools teaching reading,"

    That depends on the day to day life experiences available to the child. If they are like those Alan Thomas describes, very rich and varied with responsive carers and a small child:adult ratios, they may not need tuition, however they do need help and input, being read to, access to lots of resources and materials. But very few schools provide a rich enough environment so they need to fake it and gain control of a large group with structure and a curriculum.

    continued...

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  24. ...the rest.

    "If on the other hand, it is not true and children cannot in general learn to read without being taught, then many home educating parents have been misled and could well be damaging their children's chances in later life by neglecting their education at a crucial period."

    I know children can learn to read without direct tutoring (one of mine did), but others asked for help with learning to read and we worked out how to do this together. Why do we have to have a rule that says they all have to learn the same way? All of mine have learnt in very different ways but they have all been effective. What do you consider the 'crucial period' for learning to read?

    "I was referring to the acquisition of literacy, which some believe happens automatically in a literacy rich society such as ours. Whether a child was registered at school or not would make no difference to this process if indeed it exists."

    Of course registration at school is important, unless you believe that all homes are equal. The home environment and parental involvement are the vital factor in a child's education whether they are at school or not. Lots of research has shown this over the years.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/student/magazines/home-help-parents-play-a-vital-role-in-learning-395323.html

    " Getting parents involved in their children's learning, especially what you do at home, is known to make a real difference and potentially has a much bigger impact on a child's success at school than anything else.

    Research has shown that the effect of parents and what they do at home to support learning can account for 80 per cent of a child's academic success. This compares to school being directly responsible for around 20 per cent of factors leading to academic achievement."

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  25. Sarah said,
    "Would you not think parents were better equipped to judge the validity of DofE proposals if they said they would be requiring evidence, from large diverse samples, that had been peer reviewed to ensure cherry picking and bias had not skewed the findings and has been replicated ?"

    But even if they found an excellent teaching method, do you think it would work for 100% of children, or maybe 95% or 80%? When you are with your child every day, watching them learn, you can see what works and what fails and adjust as necessary. My child might be part of the 5% for whom a particular method does not work. Does that mean I should persist with a failing method because research with millions of children has shown that it works for the other 95%? I would rather know of a range of methods that has worked for at least a few children and use mine and my child's judgement to decide which is appropriate for them as an individual, often through trial and error (try one way for a day/week/month, switch to another if it's not working well enough).

    It's only really schools that need mass research if they are determined to dictate the methods for all children in their schools. They can then be sure that at least 80%, or 95% will succeed. A bit tough for the 20% or 5% that fail as a result of that system, but mass education judges it's success or failure by the proportion that succeed. Of course, much successful research is carried out in controlled situations by people devoted to, and well trained in that method, but the scientifically proven successful method later fails to transfer successfully to mass situations.

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  26. There's also an issue about areas of research interest and funding. As you will no doubt be aware, Simon, the research world is prone to 'me too'ism. A great many needless studies are funded because they happen to press buttons popular with funding bodies, and a great many useful stones left unturned because they have been eliminated prematurely.

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  27. Trying again with acceptance and homogeny

    1)

    I see a contradiction between the following:

    A belief that people are different including the way they learn. Requests that all people fall into line and undertake a homogenous approach to education are UNACCEPTABLE.

    A belief that people are different including they way they evaluate, (e.g. some debate or request evidence to back up claims rather than make a leap of faith). Requests that all people fall into line and undertake a homogenous approach of acceptance (= leap of faith) when presented with alternative theories in education are ACCEPTABLE.

    You have a shared context (people being different) two linked contexts (choice of educational theory and practice / evaluation of educational theory and practice) and a principle of "the right to dissent" that is applied to the first and then denied to the second.

    You can't possibly expect to strengthen your right to walk to the beat of your own drum by telling the people that disagree with you that they must put their drum (debate etc) down and use the regulation one called "acceptance" when it comes to their criticisms of your educational philosophy. It's contradictory.



    2)

    Asking for acceptance of statements is asking for a circular argument.

    "why can't you just accept that your idea that learning is what happen in schools is incorrect and different people learn in different ways and trust me that I can provide an education for my children"?

    "No. Why can't you just accept that it is not, they don't and you can't"?




    3)
    A strategy of asking for face value acceptance of pro HE/AHE statements denies the possibility of challenging face value acceptance of anti-HE/AHE statements without looking hypocritical.




    4)
    I've been reading blogs, articles and their comments recently about the proposed changes to the law. Naturally people have been trying to defend themselves and their choices in the hope of fighting back and stopping it from happening, I found a great similarity between your post and many of theirs. As a defense I think it is counter-productive and what I wrote above is my analysis of why.


    I accept you probably won't agree with my analysis or conclusion, but I hope at least it clarifies what I was trying to say. Because I missed two episodes of Casualty last night to write it and if I have messed it up again I will be miffed.

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  28. Sarah, I don't think Anonymous was asking for acceptance that s/he is right (sorry to speak for you, Anon, but this has just occurred to me on reading Sarah's latest post). I think the argument is about accepting that people have the right to be, in your terms, wrong. So it's not about "Why can't you just accept that I'm right?" but "Why can't you accept that I have a right to my opinion, even if yours is diametrically opposed?"
    It's about tolerance, not homogeny.

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  29. Sarah, since you sacrificed your Casualty watching for that, I will do my best to reply.

    I too see that contradiction, but am struggling to see its relevance to our earlier conversation - my side of it anyway! - because I don't want to base my arguments on any of the four points that you make. I didn't request that all people fall into line and undertake a homogenous approach of acceptance (= leap of faith) when presented with alternative theories in education. The UK legal debate is not about the validity or otherwise of various methods of education - it's about who has the right to judge the provision and to what extent they should have that right.

    The current situation in the UK is that parents don't have to justify their methodology to anyone - only the option to provide such information, if asked by their local authority, as would dispel any specific concerns that the provision might not be suitable for their children, or otherwise to be ready to defend their provision in court.

    This system has worked really well in most areas, because it's allowed us the freedom to educate our children as we see fit, whilst providing the safety net of enabling the LAs to seek information to dispel specific concerns and, in the absence of this, to issue school attendance orders.

    So when I said "Why can't people just accept..?" I was actually lamenting the proposed change to the system I've just outlined, but I could and probably should have phrased it differently. I certainly would have done if I'd have known how it would affect you!

    I don't personally think we stand a chance of winning the battle on the strength of science, statistics and methodology because the dice will be loaded against us at every turn in the interests of the prevailing system and associated industries, which is why I usually try to restrict my arguments accordingly.

    Thanks for the clarification :)

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  30. Sharon


    With regards to my "Would you not think parents were better equipped to judge the validity of DofE proposals .."

    I should have made myself clearer. I was referring to parents with children in school when confronting changes in policy presented by the DofE (like lowering the school age, introduction of SATs etc).

    I found very little interest in findings with regards to "The Italian Paradox" as it related to new proposals over here (when Son of Thor was still at school). The upshot was that the pro-parents took the government at face value, the con-parents rejected it at face value, both sides happy to base their position on their own anecdotal evidence and once again both the party in power and the opposition got to continue the game of political football with education which renders the learners a necessary evil rather than the whole point.

    With regards to research. We seem to be on the same page (I think).

    Evidence that points to a benefit for the majority has different implications for a context of group education compared to a context of individualised education. A half decent study is going to go a little further in their findings than saying 80% no, 20% yes so therefore we find the theory to be a pile of poo. It should be defining to some extent who falls into the majority and who falls into the minority. So as you seems to saying yourself, what a HE parent might find is that research showing 80% no/20% yes, actively supports the potential successful nature of the methodology for their child because, as shown by the study, they fall very squarely into the 20% that did have a good outcome or find a benefit. When I speak of research I do intend to suggest that a HE parent should be forced to implement strategies with a positive outcome for the majority when all the evidence from the same studies supports the use of strategies that have a positive outcome for a minority, of which the child in question is patently a member.

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  31. Anonymous said...


    The UK legal debate is not about the validity or otherwise of various methods of education - it's about who has the right to judge the provision and to what extent they should have that right.

    ________________

    Now that I think is where to some extent the HE community may be at cross purposes with "the authorities" and the GP as a whole (my obsession with the GP is to do with the issue of gaining or losing critical mass of support, I'm coming to the end, I hope, of a protest, not HE related, and the extent to which sympathy for our position from the GP has placed pressure on the politicos has been significant so I regard the need to PR them onto my side as a fundamental and essential strategy).

    I don't see the public debate, from the perspective of the authorities or GP, as being too concerned with the "who and extent of judgment". The majority will fall into the default position of "the government, via law, to whatever extent is required".

    I see their focus more on evaluating what they see as the shortcomings of the practice and the practitioners before deciding to what extent they need to address the balance between the parental right to chose their child's education and the child's right to an education.

    If they are looking at HE community arguments with that lens then the message received from the HE community may be becoming skewed accordingly.

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  32. "I see their focus more on evaluating what they see as the shortcomings of the practice and the practitioners before deciding to what extent they need to address the balance between the parental right to chose their child's education and the child's right to an education."

    Yes, and this explains the way the launch of the review was spun. These buzz phrases "Rights of the parent -v- the rights of the child" are trotted out at every opportunity, to reinforce the message to the general public when in fact there's no specific conflict between parents' and children's rights in respect of home education.

    If they are looking at HE community arguments with that lens then the message received from the HE community may be becoming skewed accordingly.

    They will and there's been some countering efforts on our part, but against the media clout of the PTB, we can't do much. There is, however, a media-driven backlash against some more general incursions into family life that have been coming thick and fast recently, so perhaps we'll gain a little more GP support from that perspective.

    Trying to convince the average UK person in the street that autonomous education is a really good idea is an uphill struggle. I actually agree with Simon in that respect: most people think we're a bunch of nutters, despite the dignified eloquence of our arguments.

    Now, if we can only persuade them that we're a harmless bunch of nutters who should be left in peace... ;)

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  33. Trying to convince the average UK person in the street that autonomous education is a really good idea is an uphill struggle.

    ________________________


    Substitute an Italian for Uk person and AHE for any form of HE whatsoever, I know what you mean.

    There are days when I think attempting to climb Everest in ballet shoes would be less of a challenge.

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  34. Oh dear, good luck with that. Still, if there's so few of you to be able stay under the radar, or to not be potentially profitable to anyone, or to not threaten the state school system, you'll probably be ok? Hope so.

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  35. Probably going to be much the same as in the UK, based on growth in uptake and what kind of attention you get in the media.

    I'm starting to see more references, mainly in education journals and from time to time in the mainstream press, but it mainly refers to the USA and the UK.

    When I start seeing pieces in "women's mags" pointing to the mainly evangelical nature of HE in Italy I am going to be bracing myself because in a fairly universal catholic country the word "evangelical" is going to be a red rag to a bull.

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