For many home educating parents, online communities are a very valuable resource. They are a place where parents can exchange ideas, discuss home education in the company of other home educators, reassured by the knowledge that all those on the sites are actually home educators themselves. They are a kind of virtual school gate or playground, where parents can chat with each other and pass on information, ask for advice or moan about their LA. Unfortunately, like most playgrounds, there are bullies around. I have been watching with absolute incredulity in recent weeks as several mothers have joined the HE-UK list and almost immediately been pounced on and driven off by hostile and unpleasant comments from those with a slightly different point of view.
One woman, for example, started by mentioning that her local authority had a number of requests which they routinely made to home educators, none of which she objected to. Within hours, she was being attacked from all sides, culminating in the accusation that she was really me! Her real offence was a simple one; she did not wholly agree at once with some of the more aggressive and vociferous people on the list who as a result felt that they should punish her. The irony here is that some of the worst of these bullies are mothers who actually withdrew their own children from school because of bullying.
This situation, the enforcing of a particular ideology by attacking any who do not subscribe to it, has grown even worse since the publication of the Badman Report. The result is that only autonomous educators are welcome in many of these places and the illusion is thus created that there are very few structured home educators around! The venom and spite used against any dissenters is really amazing. Here is the response to a mother who has withdrawn her child from school but is happy to co-operate with her local authority and who sees good reasons for their desire to monitor home education;
"If you are genuine in what you say (rather than just here to stir up debate), I really, very strongly, recommend that you go and read some websites, books - whatever you like - about home-education, and get yourself better-informed. Because right now, it sounds like you're either here to cause trouble (not acceptable) or like you don't have a clue (which is acceptable, if it comes from being new to home-ed and is accompanied by a willingness to learn)."
How welcoming is that for a newcomer to the list? Strange, she seems to have given up posting lately...... Here is somebody else's response to a mother who asked too many questions;
"Yes, a certain troll is getting my blood pressure up too, I would like sometime to get on with my life again after doing my best to fight the reviewand consultation, but having ignorant trolls expounding on subjects forwhich they have no desire to EDUCATE themselves, really irritates me. A bitlike slugs, of no real use to a gardener, but they keep squeezing throughthe cracks and I keep squishing them."
That's the way to debate the subject you see, compare those who disagree with you to slugs! Notice the use of the word "troll" being used to label anybody who asks questions or does not readily admit her errors. The latest attempt to enforce conformity on this list, comes from somebody who suggests that anybody in favour of regulating home education should be viewed as a troll and "treated accordingly", whatever that means. In other words, ask questions and you are our enemy.
Oh Simon,
ReplyDeleteWhy, when things are bad, do you always want to make things worse? Have you ever heard of the expession 'dignified silence'?{g}
However, such responses as those you quote, to new HE'ers struggling to find their way, are despicable, a sort of intellectual ethnic cleansing. It's been going as long as I can remember. I've also been bullied out of various lists over the years too, (for teaching my kids, for being a *coercive* parent, bullied off one list because I described some ways to help teach reading).
If you are arguing for calm discussion of the issues though, your last paragraph does nothing to move us towards that point, does it?
Mrs Anon
Hi, Mrs Anon....
ReplyDeleteYep agree! Home educators can be an odd bunch.... to put it mildly... and it does sadden me that the atmosphere on some lists is so vitriolic. Undoubtedly though the above post won't help matters, although to be honest it won't do much harm either...the lines are pretty clearly set already....there is a whole bunch of home educators who hate Simon (whatever he actually says) on one side, Simon (who does like to point out the inconsistency between what home educators actually say and do) on the other - and a whole bunch of others (like us?) who may not fully agree with what Simon has to say (eg re Badman) but who do enjoy trying to discuss home ed in general - hmmm...
Going to coerce my daughter into getting up now...hope all is well with you!
Vox Populei vox Dei. I have removed the insulting reference to Julie Garrett from the end of the post. I don't, in any case, think that a plain font like Trebuchet can do her justice. Whenever I read her posts, I imagine them written in spidery capital letters in green ink, rather like the weird letters from loonies that newspaper editors receive regularly!
ReplyDelete"for being a *coercive* parent"
ReplyDelete________________________________
Going off on a tangent, because I am new to HE in general and very new to the UK-HE scene I don't know how the present status quo got to be that way, I have a couple of questions.
I have seen a fair few posts and comments lamenting a lack of support for AHE parents from non-AHE parents with regards to the proposed changes to the law, some with a rewriting of "first they came for the....." and some that echoed the same sentiment.
Is the use of loaded language, like "coercion" for example, a cause of, a result of or irrelevant to a perceived splintering in the HE community ?
To what extent is the splintering, noted in on-line formats, an accurate representation of the situation on the ground ?
And a question for Simon, you said "HE-UK list", are newsgroups still a popular choice in HE circles ? I thought they had rather faded into the mists of time with the advent of web 2.0.
Use of the word coercion is related to the popularity of something called TCS - Taking Children Seriously - Google it. Not my cup of tea (I'm not inclined to define my parenting by an acronym and am a bit paranoid about things being cults!) but I think that quite a lot of home ed parents get a great deal from it.
ReplyDeleteI wish the atmosphere would improve. There's a lot of mis-trust around but that's not surprising when people feel so threatened. Best not to stoke the fires, really. Of course, there's no way Simon can resist, can you, Simon?
ROTF Oh how we laugh.
ReplyDeleteYou ol' Hypocrite you ! :oD
Allie - TY for the heads up re TCS.
ReplyDeleteI guessed that the terminology used was tied to a common source, but it's useful to have confirmation and background.
"To what extent is the splintering, noted in on-line formats, an accurate representation of the situation on the ground ?"
ReplyDeleteIt happens sometimes. I described my experiences here a few days ago. But generally home educators are some of the most open-minded and tolerant people I have ever met, no matter what their approach or philosophy.
Rows such as the ones Simon refers to here don't happen very often, and tend to result from someone making insensitive and judgemental comments, either by accident or by design, about another's chosen style of HE and often, by implication, about their beliefs and lifestyle choices. It is inevitable that they are more frequent at the moment, because we are all feeling sensitive and vulnerable as a result of the situation with the Badman report.
One of the people Simon is referring to misunderstood the situation and was rather ferociously jumped on; apologies were made and no harm was done. The other person was making deliberately provocative comments about autonomous home educators, and is well known for doing so. IMO she deserved everything she got, which wasn't a lot, actually.
Simon loves posting about imaginary rifts in the HE community, and blaming autonomous educators for them.
I suggest that you look at Simon's recent articles for the Independent and the TES, which I think are here on his blog. They may help you to understand why many of us are feeling so sensitive. Read the critique of the Badman report on the AHEd site. And maybe join HE-UK and take a look for yourself.
HTH.
I agree that some comments overstep the line into bullying and there is no excuse for this. However, there is an element misinterpretation involved sometimes. In much the same way as some school using parents perceive our decision to home educate as a criticism of their choice to use schools, some home educators see others choosing to educate autonomously, without coercion, as a criticism of their choices. Each family needs to find an approach that suits them. Once they are comfortable with an approach, they need to avoid seeing others who choose alternative methods as criticising that choice. Often even someone asking questions are wrongly perceived as criticisms and I think autonomous educators are possibly more vulnerable to this error because they are even less mainstream than 'normal' home educators who use a mixture of informal and structured approaches within their home education.
ReplyDeleteSharon said "some home educators see others choosing to educate autonomously, without coercion, as a criticism of their choices."
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that "coercion" is rather emotive language; I have no problem with the fact that I am a structured home educator rather than an autonomous one, but since the parallel thought is clearly that I am "coercive" as opposed to whatever the opposite actually is, I am unhappy with the implications of the word. Coercion is not how I would view my parenting style; yes, I do direct the actions of my children (as far as I am able - I do have a lot of children and am inclined to occasionally fail to keep my eye on the ball!!) but I do so not because of some desire to have power over my children, but because I consider directing them to be a loving response to my parental responsibilities. So we have "rules" at home that the children have to keep, and if they wilfully choose not to, we have punishments too.
Clearly this is on an age appropriate scale - I have grown up sons who are responsible for making their own choices, but for those living within the family home (the 2 eldest have moved 3 doors down) they are expected to do as we ask. Inevitably they eventually realise that beyond a certain point, "rules" only work with mutual agreeemnt to keep them but generally they have also realised the necessity of certain actions - ie someone has to fill the dishwasher or there will be no dirty plates next meal time, or teeth need to be clean to avoid decay - but until they recognise that neccessity, they are expected to keep to those rules. For me, that is parenting; now I have no objections to people holding different views for their own families....but somehow I feel that usinga word such as cooercion to descrivbe my standarsd is somehow negative and emotive.
Waffling - must stop....
"And maybe join HE-UK"
ReplyDelete_______________________________
After a few fruitless hours trying to persuade my email software to load newsgroups that DIDN'T have Microsoft in the header I went off in a sulk and googled HE-UK, found the email group and discovered I am actually a member. Cleverly of me I set it to read on the web and then promptly forgot that I had joined anything. I've turned it to daily digest.
Given how raw I was after a three year battle for permission to HE, I was hard pushed to be civil in RL let alone on the net which is so much easier to let myself fly off the handle on. Still, looking on the bright side at least I no longer have to put up with being polite to a couple of people in the village, cos they scuttle off like their knickers are on fire as soon as they see me. Probably not "HE in Italy's" biggest PR gain but something of a silver lining from my perspective.
I should imagine that since so many people have dedicated themselves for years to their children's education, which they now feel is threatened, it would be quite a feat if a few bust ups didn't happen in a format known for it's ability to turn a carelessly worded phrase into a Molotov cocktail.
"some home educators see others choosing to educate autonomously, without coercion, as a criticism of their choices."
ReplyDeleteThe use of coercion in that phrase implies a heavy handed, if not draconian, state of affairs that can only be avoided/rectified by choosing AHE.
Many people who do not chose AHE would feel that was not only a statement that criticised their practices, but did so on a misrepresentation of what those practices were.
I don't doubt that many AHEing parents react on the much same basis when they are faced with statements like
"some home educators see others choosing to educate with a structured approach, without a laissez faire attitude, as a criticism of their choices"
"The problem is that "coercion" is rather emotive language."
ReplyDeleteIf you have ever caused your child to do something when they would have preferred to do something else, you have been coercive and I doubt there is a parent in the world who has not been coercive with their children. You have described being coercive with your children and are happy with this approach, so why do you consider the word emotive? I have been coercive with my children. I see it as something to be avoided where possible, much as you may see shouting angrily and loudly at your children as something to be avoided. It's a different approach but it doesn't necessarily imply a criticism of someone with another.
""some home educators see others choosing to educate with a structured approach, without a laissez faire attitude, as a criticism of their choices."
ReplyDeleteBut laissez faire parenting is not autonomous education whereas we all coerce our children to some degree.
Sarah said: "Cleverly of me I set it to read on the web and then promptly forgot that I had joined anything. I've turned it to daily digest."
ReplyDeletelol! I know what you mean; I've got so many bookmarks I might as well browse the entire web every time!
"... it would be quite a feat if a few bust ups didn't happen in a format known for it's ability to turn a carelessly worded phrase into a Molotov cocktail."
And it's a measure of how threatened I feel that i was absurdly relieved to discover that you understand this :-)
Julie said: "I have no problem with the fact that I am a structured home educator rather than an autonomous one, but since the parallel thought is clearly that I am "coercive" as opposed to whatever the opposite actually is, I am unhappy with the implications of the word."
I agree that "coercion" is too emotive a word, but it's hard to find another that conveys the meaning that I think Sharon intended. Her use of language is usually very precise. I think she was using it in the TCS sense of anything that results in the child's learning becoming extrinsically, rather than intrinsically, motivated; for example, if I am more interested or approving when my child reads Shakespeare than when he plays on the Playstation, I am being subtly coercive.
Although I define myself as an autonomous educator and you define yourself as a structured one, I suspect that there isn't very much diference in the way we handle day-to-day life with our children. I expect my children to attend to their personal hygiene, clear up after themselves and go to bed at a sensible time, and there are appropriate consequences if they do not. They will find that I won't take them out if I am embarrassed to be seen with them, that their cherished creations will end up in the recycling, and that they won't wake up in time to do everything they want to do the next day. One of my children has even discovered that if all the household crockery ends up in his bedroom covered in alien life forms, his pocket money is not forthcoming. Not such an appropriate consequence, and not one that I'm proud of, but born out of sheer desparation! But again the terminology is difficult and can lead to misunderstandings: we don't use the words "rules" and "punishment", which have loaded connotations for me, but talk instead of respect and appropriate consequences. But they are only words. I'm absolutely certain that in the things that matter the most, our love and respect for our children and our commitment to parenting them as well as we possibly can, we are no different.
I'm also aware that truly autonomous and consensual families strive not to do some of the things that I do, and perceive me as coercive. I am. My children are educated autonomously, but they don't *live* entirely autonomously yet. But I know my limits. Without a certain amount of coercion, I simply can't cope.
We are all doing the best we can, for *our own* children, in whatever way we believe to be right. We all need to respect each other for that.
And going back to the word thing for a sec (I really am waffling now, so I'll stop soon), I personally have a bit of an issue with the juxtaposition of "autonomous" and "structured" as opposites. It implies that they are mutually exclusive, which as has been pointed out before, is not the case: a child can create his own structure, or make an autonomous decision that he wants an externally imposed structure for a particular learning experience, or make an autonomous decision to enter the highly structured (and coercive) world of school. It leads to the misinterpretation of the practice of AE that you describe above, Sarah.
Maybe talking about intrinsically and extrinsically motivated education is better. Maybe that would solve the problem of "coercion" as well. Or maybe using any words in an oppositional(is that the right word?) context such as this (autonomous/structured, laissez-faire/coercion) inevitably causes those words to acquire an emotive connotation.
Mmmm...I don't know about the words thing, Erica. Both 'coercive' and 'structured' were descriptors forced on home educators who were not autonomous home educators. When I started 14/15 years ago (I can never remember when it was) we were all just home educating parents. Then the Libertarian/TCS thing gathered momentum and the word autonomous was born and then suddenly AHE'ers felt the need to describe what they were not.
ReplyDeleteI remember when the 'structured' label was starting to be foisted on me and my ilk, in newsletters, at meeting etc. It made me very angry, mostly, I think, because it was always said with a sneer.{g} I rejected that term for years, but then lately (in the last 7--9 years maybe?), people started describing *themselves* as structured/semi-structured etc because there was nothing else considered suitable by way of describing someone who was not doing AHE.
People have tried other terms. Recently some AHE'ers on the Christian HE forum, where I sometimes hang out, tried to tell me I was an AUTHORITARIAN HE'er!!! (This person did not know me, btw. The only thing she knew about me was that we did not home educate autonomously.{g})
I argued vehemently against that term because I grew up with authoritarian parents. I know exactly what that means and how damaged my siblings and I are as a result of it. I've spent my entire aprenting career making sure I was NOT authoritarian.
So, it's been my experience that AE's seem to need to call non-E'ers *something* : 'structured' (always delivered with a sneer), 'coercive' or 'authoriatian'. When, in fact, all we are is:- not autonomous.
Which is fine. Live and let live, please. I'm saying that to the AE'ers who attacked me for teaching my kids to read at 4. To the ones who told me that I was a Nazi for teaching them to say 'please and thank you' (in one memorable EO newsletter, after which I left EO forever), to those who said, 'You are doing exams with your son? What for? Are you one of those coercive parents then? Don't you know you are not supposed to do that? They don't need exams. They can get into university without any. Don't you know? How long have you been home educating?'
And of course, I also say the same thing, 'Live and Let Live', to Simon. All parents need to be respected in their parental choices and left alone, unless it can be proved that they are neglecting or abusing their children.
Mrs Anon
"But laissez faire parenting is not autonomous education whereas we all coerce our children to some degree."
ReplyDeleteAnd coercive parenting/educating is not the opposite of AHE, those who do not AHE use a huge variety of techniques and have wildly different philosophies and practices.
What leads us to cross purposes is the definition of "coercive".
My feeling is that taking a concept that demands descriptive range (shades of grey) and forcing it into a single, extreme position (black and white) pushes people, that have more in common than they imagine, into an ever more polarised state.
The definition of coercive, according to my Oxford Dictionary:
ReplyDelete"Constrain into obedience etc; use force, secure by force, coercion, constraint, compulsion, government by force."
I don't use, and never have used, force or the threat of force in my HE. Hence my dislike of the word coercive.
When intrinsic motivation isn't sufficient, I use a technique best described by an old fashioned term, that of 'jollying along' (encouragement?). LOL!
Yes, I believe you are right, Sharon. These false alternative extreme descriptors are unhelpful.
Mrs Anon
"My feeling is that taking a concept that demands descriptive range (shades of grey) and forcing it into a single, extreme position (black and white) pushes people, that have more in common than they imagine, into an ever more polarised state."
ReplyDeleteYes. I think that's what I was trying to say, when I should have been in bed!
"Yes. I think that's what I was trying to say, when I should have been in bed!"
ReplyDeleteYou and me both. You lot keep me up all night thinking thoughts that tiredness addles so it takes ten times more effort to achieve 10% clarity LOL.
Thankfully, im thicker skinned than most folk ) Just been busy sorting out learning materials for the kids from end of Nov onwards, we've already started by reading Uncle Toms Cabin, I think its time my children were gently introduced to what life is really like out there.
ReplyDeleteAlthough that said, im still pretty shocked at being deligated troll status simply for having a preference for taking a structured approach, god perish the thought of us trying the free approach up here, our lives would fall apart as would our farm and all that we have worked for thus far, and when the farm feeds us, we cant let that happen. Learning has to suit the lifestyle or its all going to end up in a mess.