Monday 12 October 2009

Where are those with other opinions?

I have remarked before that the behaviour of certain autonomously educating parents is like nothing I have ever encountered anywhere else in the world. The venom and spite evinced is positively uncanny. Most of it seems to be directed not against the ideas and arguments of opponents but against individuals and their families. Attempts have in the past been made to attack Graham Badman through his daughter, for instance, and this seems to be happening again. Some of the comments about my own daughter have been pretty close to the knuckle as well, but fortunately she finds the whole thing funny and as long as she is not upset, then neither am I. I still find it baffling though that people would try to get at those with a different educational philosophy in this way.

It cannot be just that people's lifestyles are felt to be under threat. I am a Zionist and have discussed Middle Eastern politics with Palestinian refugees in Gaza with less animosity than is currently being shown in the world of HE! There is a ruthlessness and cold determination about the whole business that even I find a little unnerving. These people will lie, cheat, attack somebody's family, try and damage their livelihood; any tactic is seen as acceptable in the cause. This is scary stuff and I am not at all surprised that many people simply stop posting on HE-UK and other lists for fear of the response. Others withdraw entirely from the home education "community" and just focus on their own children. Not to worry though friends, I am made of sterner stuff and I shall be here for a long time to come yet!

Somebody on the CYP message board asked why structured home educators and those in favour of the Badman recommendations are not seen more often on the internet. She seemed to see this as evidence that parents like me are rare. Ha, the fool! Does she really not realise how such people are driven off many message boards by the aggressive attitudes of some of the autonomous educators there? A group of autonomous educators roam round cyberspace looking for anything to do with home education. As soon as they find somewhere, they move in and start trashing everybody else's views. I will not name the person concerned, but one of the regular contributors on the HE-UK list lives in Godalming, the Surrey Stockbroker Belt. Incredibly, her name appears frequently in the comments sections of local newspapers as far afield as Lancashire and Portsmouth. She is not the only one.

The overall effect is that as soon as a debate starts about home education anywhere on the internet, the autonomous educators swarm in and try and overwhelm it, frequently resorting to personal abuse if nothing else will work. As soon as I was chucked off HE-UK and EO I set this place up to muse out loud on the subject of home education. I wanted to make it a chatty sort of a place where I could talk about my family openly and discuss things to do with home education . Even so, I have had to remove a couple of pieces which I wrote recently which mentioned my children, because people were gathering information from them in order to try and persuade the select committee that I should not be a witness. Others have been exchanging messages wondering if they can use information from here to damage me with my employers! I briefly began moderating the messages when one person called me a dog and others suggested that I was mentally ill or autistic.. That's the sort of people I am talking about; humourless fanatics who will take any steps to promote their own view of education. No wonder that we don't see many people "putting their heads above the parapet", as one mother who was driven off the HE lists called it. The current behaviour on the HE-UK list reminds me of nothing so much as Soviet Russia during the Stalin years. The hunt for spies and traitors, the suppression of heterodox views, the sudden disappearance of well known figures; it is a perfect microcosm of a particularly unsavoury kind of political system.

Combine what I have said above with the fact that many home educating parents are simply too busy educating their children to spend hours on the internet attacking those whose views differ slightly from their own and you might see why few but the autonomously educating will be seen much on the internet. Maybe the autonomous educators simply have more time on their hands. While other parents are teaching their children to read, the autonomous types are all too often crouched over a keyboard denouncing anybody who disagrees with them.

I have in the past seen many debates take place about the best educational methods. There used to be pretty fierce articles about comprehensive schools versus selective education, to give one example, although this debate is more or less over now. I can't remember such viciousness as in the present business though. I don't remember anybody trying to attack people through their children, simply because they had written newspaper articles in favour of comprehensive schools. Something is happening here, where anybody who criticises autonomous education is being regarded as fair game for any unpleasantness. I am the first to concede that I may be an ill informed fool who was talking through his hat in those articles I wrote. I don't believe I was, but I must of course be open to the possibility. That still does not explain the fierce anger displayed by these people. I shall write further, after the select committee hearing, about what I feel that it is about some autonomous educators which causes them to conduct themselves in this way.

20 comments:

  1. Simon,

    I do understand how you might be feeling sufficiently wounded by the treatment you have received from a handful of fanatics roaming the internet to have written that impassioned rant, and I actually share your concerns about people who stifle the free flow of ideas within the HE community. However, I must beg you to please not say anything at the Committee inquiry out of anger or in a spirit of revenge. (Vengeance is mine, says the Lord!)

    Please don't do or say anything which would help to prevent people making the choices you yourself did about the best way to educate their own children.

    You have a responsibility to speak the truth calmly and not to exaggerate your experiences or extrapolate too far from them. (It's a human tendency we are all prone to at times!)

    It sounds as though Simone was blessed by her HE experience. Please remember those who are at the start of their HE journey and who would wish to benefit from the same freedom of choice which you have had.

    Psalm 19:14

    Mrs Anon

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  2. You know what Simon? For once I totally agree with you...even though I do understand why people may feel a bit threatened and tense, I can understand why the likes of Badman is fair game - at least he is being paid to be insulted - but the attempts to silence and humiliate other home educators (who don't seem to even have committed your sin and supported Badman) is beyond comprehension- in fact it is completely counterproductive and makes me view the previous "good works" of the offenders as worthless. No one deserves the contempt of their fellow home educators in the way ot is being dished out at the moment - in fact the whole episode is reminiscent of the playground bullying we have chosen to walk away from.

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  3. Mrs. Anon, I have no intention of raving on at the select committee. I shall only be making the points that firstly, nobody knows what most home educators think about the Badman Report and secondly that i believe some of his recommendations to be sensible. As far as autonomous education goes, I shall if asked say that although I am sure that it can work, I think that a good deal more research is needed about it and that personally I do not think it as effective as conventional teaching. i shall make it plain that I am speaking in a private capacity. Vengence, indeed! I might get a bit irritate with these people, Mrs. Anon, but I am not seeking revenge! Life is too short and I feel more often amused than angry about the things said about me!

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  5. Simon, thank you for giving a rough idea of what you may say to the select committee.

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  6. Yes, a lot depends upon what questions I am asked Allie. I have to say, I am very dubious that anything I say will make any diffrence to teh final outcome. I can't really speak, of course, for autonomous educators. I think that the fairest thing would be for me to direct questions on that subject to either Fiona Or Jane Howe.

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  7. Simon you need to understand that this is not about getting shirty over differences of philosophy or lifestyle choices - what you are seeing is parents who are incandescently angry at the attempts of the State to claim ownership of and jurisdiction over their children's lives and to interefre in how private families conduct themselves, to abolish parental responsibilty. Parents are defending not an idea or concept but the right of their children to own their own lives and be raised by their own parents. (Who doesn't think that parents who refuse to comply will be threatened with having their children taken?)

    If a man tried to snatch my child off the street I would defend my child with everything at my disposal, I would defend my child to my own death. I would not engage in civilised discussion I would shove my doorkeys in his eyes and bite his testicles off.

    The attacks on autonomous education by Badman and supported by you amount to much the same thing. You are arguing that parents may not parent according to the promptings of their souls and may not raise their children to own their own lives because children are the property of the State and must therefore be raised and educated in State approved fashion. Flight or fight mode is fully engaged. Parents are scared and they are angry. Don't berate them then for not observing social niceties or for fighting dirty.

    Were you ever stupid enough to approach a female tiger with a view to weighing, measuring and assessing her cubs and possibly removing them to a zoo, you would be thoroughly warned by her defensive snarls and growls before you were eaten. Would you stand there and continue to threaten the cubs whilst moaning about whether she snarls with appropriate decorum?

    No, I thought not.
    Joely

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  8. I hardly think Joely, that it will be necessary to bite anybody's testicles off, although I don't know enough of your character to know whether you view this prospect with relish or disgust. You ask, and I assume it is not a rhetorical question;

    "Who doesn't think that parents who refuse to comply will be threatened with having their children taken?"

    Well I don't, for one. Tell me, what frounds do you have for this fear? I have few enough social niceties myself, Joely, and so am hardly likely to berate others for their lack!

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  9. Well because it happens already!! Under the existing regs if a LA inspector is anti autonomous ed he simply refers the family to social services. He calls it educational neglect and so makes it into a safeguarding issue. Unlike the judge in the Harrison case and like Badman who selectively quoted him and like you, family court judges and social workers have no idea what distinguishes autonomous parenting from laissez faire. I am personally aware of around half a dozen cases in my immediate area where autonomous (and they *were* autonomous and not laissez faire) educators were told to put their children into school or face care proceedings. Had the LA taken the appropriate action and commenced SAO proceedings, the families concerned would all have had a chance to demonstrate their provision to the judge. Under the new proposals there will be no SAO procedure. An anti autonomous inspector will have a green light to refuse or withdraw permission to HE and call it safeguarding concerns. I see no proposals anywhere about training social workers and family court judges and so have no reason to expect they will be any less ignorant about autonomous education if the proposals are enacted than they are now.
    Joely

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  10. Why on Earth do you think that there will be no school attendance orders under the new system? Recommendation 14 specifically says that these will remain. There is no intention of scrapping the provisions of previous Education Acts here.

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  11. you say you have seen no provision for training around home education for local authority workers, but Recommendation 9 specifically says that this should take place and that representatives of the the home educating community should be involved in the training. Do wake up!

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  12. I didn't say LA workers, I specifically said Social Workers and family court judges. Do wake up Simon. There will be no SAO's because they will be redundant. LA's don't like the hassle of judicial oversight now, Badman's proposals allow them to shout "safeguarding" and from then on it's all opinion and hearsay and who shouts the loudest or plays golf with the judge. Have you ever been on the recieving end Simon do you have *any* experience?

    Simon there are children out there who wanted to kill themselves when they were in school and are in a state of terror now over these proposals. Can you not try for some empathy from your ivory tower? At the very least could you please listen to what people are trying to tell you about the abuses (of home educators by LAs) that occur now and which the new system will do absolutely nothing to improve - instead of adopting that maddening paternalistic attitude and speaking to people as if they must be slightly simple not to believe your platitudes that the State has their very best interests at heart and really does know what's best.
    Joely

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  13. Social workers are local authority officers. Yes, I do have experience of this because I act as advocate for families containing children with special needs. I sit on interviews with social workers and also attend court with families. The SAo's will not be redundant at all. Read the report.

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  14. "I shall write further, after the select committee hearing, about what I feel that it is about some autonomous educators which causes them to conduct themselves in this way. "

    It's this, this exactly that infuriates people Simon. You diagnose and define them and no matter how many authentic human beings you hear from on this, nothing will alter the picture you set out to paint.
    Joely

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  15. Being an authentic human being is no virtue in itself Joely. I dare say that Stalin was an authentic human being and the same could probably be said of the Yorkshire Ripper. It is what we do and say as authentic human beings that matters, not simply the state of being "authentic".

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  16. But you cannot see past the picture you have created to the people that you are painting over. And then you show your picture to the world and you say this is what autonomous educators authentically look like and we have been erased by your painting.
    Joely

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  17. Simon, I am not an autonomous HEor, we have a structured faith based approach and I can honestly say that you are one of the most obnoxious, egotistical person I've come across in my 12 years of HEing. Some of the others were autonomous, many were the opposite. My HE life is neither list-centred nor EOcentric but has included active support of new HEors and representing HE rights and it's my experience the disproportionately those who share your approach to things, that show intolerence of others opinions and approaches. Most, but not, all those at the autonomous end, show a great deal more respect for other HEors and defend their right to HE their way. The opposite is rarely true.

    My biggest fear for tomorrow is not that you will in some way make a case against allowing the autonomous to continue as they do but that you will make such a fool of yourself that the secular friendly committee identify structured faith based HE as having the biggest danger of abuse.

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  18. Hmmm, one of the the most obnoxious and egotistical people you have come across, eh? Without knowing how strong the competition for the title is, I do not know whether I should be flattered or disappointed. As for my making a fool of myself tomorrow, yes that is always a possibility. Still, it wouldn't be the first time and I doubt it will be the last......

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  19. Sonia thank you so much for that post. It is really good to hear HEers like yourself take a stand against Simon's anti-autonomy, anti-diversity campaign. It does concern me that Simon and his mole(s) are really bringing non-autonomous educators into disrepute with this campaign. If it is unethical and immoral to forward posts from private forums from which journalists are banned, it is certainly unethical and immoral for a journalist to publish them.

    I hope other non-autonomous educators will be inspired by your post to disassociate themselves from the activities and writings of someone apparently determined to make everyone do it "his way".

    Whatever our personal approach to HE, we cannot afford to be divided by campaigns like Simon's. The Govt may be after outlawing autonomous ed now, but Badman yesterday was quoting from Daniel Monk who believes that the State has a role to play in protecting children from indoctrination by faith parents, so it's only a matter of time before they come after us all, in my opinion.
    Joely

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  20. Thank you for this.

    Although I do not agree with many of your views I and my family have been subject to considerable abuse by a specific group of HE people when on a blog I tried to express a different view to theirs. I actually believed we could have a discussion - how wrong!

    I have home educated in the past and fully support home education but the activities of a small group who make up stories about individuals to fit their own prejudices, swarm around the internet throwing insults at anyone who disagrees and threaten others gives all home educators a bad name.

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