Monday 22 February 2010

"This autonomous thing works"

Last week I suggested that there was a need for a new Internet list for home educators, one where parents could get accurate and objective advice from professionals as well as other parents. I said that some of the current lists tend to perpetuate myths, half truths and old wives tales. The title of this post is a thread on the HE-UK list which perfectly illustrates this point.

A mother started this thread, saying that she did not teach her child to write and that he has spontaneously begun to do so. This is heartening. It is indisputable that some children will learn to read and write without instruction, although I doubt it is particularly common. At any rate, this was one such child. The theory behind this type of education was neatly expressed by Paul Goodman in his book Compulsory Miseducation , published in 1962. He said;

"....the puzzle is not how to teach reading, but why some children fail to learn to read. Given the amount of exposure that any urban child gets, any normal animal should spontaneously catch on to the code. What prevents? It is almost demonstrable that, for many children, it is precisely going to school that prevents - because of the school's alien style, banning of spontaneous interest, extrinsic rewards and punishments."

The suspicion must be that this is a pretty hit and miss affair and that many children learn to read and write despite this treatment, rather than because of it. Be that as it may, after the mother had posted her success story, another parent posted sadly, explaining that her son was now thirteen and could only write one word - his own name. I found this shocking, that a child's education could have been so neglected that he was wholly unable to write as a teenager, but not so some others on the list. Here is one response;

"I know of children far older than 13 who don't write, but it hasn't stopped them being successful. Why are you worried about him not writing? "

This leaves me almost breathless with horror. Just to remind ourselves again, this child cannot even form the letters of the alphabet. He can write his own name slowly in capital letters and that is the limit of his writing ability. It is true that many children leave school with poor literacy skills, but I would be surprised to hear of a thirteen year old in a mainstream school who could only write one word. Here is another comment from a helpful mother;

"My son is also 13 and only learnt to read when 10/11. His dad is trying to get him to write but I am convinced that he will do so when it is important to him. He finds it difficult as he has dyslexia and can't spell so has to think very hard to write anything."

This is awful. The child's dyslexia may of course be unconnected with the fact that he did not learn to read until he was ten or eleven and is still unable to write. On the other hand an inability to spell might very well have been caused by, or at the very least exacerbated by this bizarre educational method. It is writing words down and thinking of the correct order of letters which helps young children to spell. They need a lot of practice at this from an early age and if they don't get it, they are apt to be poor spellers as they get older. Even using a keyboard does not help sometimes, especially if they have no idea at all how to spell the words they wish to type. I have seen children like this. The spellchecker hasn't got a clue what they are trying to type and the result is complete gibberish.

Being unable to write is a devastating handicap in later life. Why any parent would set out to inflict this upon a child is a complete and utter mystery to me. One of my uncles was a Gypsy who was unable even to write his own name; he had to sign for his wages with a cross. He had never been to school and his family were also illiterate and so had not taught him to read. Funny really, you'd think that the whole bunch of them would just have picked it up automatically from the printed text which surrounds us, but it didn't happen. I cannot tell readers what menial jobs this restricted him to.

It is quite possible that some children will learn to read and write if given no formal instruction. It is equally certain that many will not. What ails these parents that they would deliberately play Russian Roulette with their children's future prospects in this fashion, I really could not say. And still, some people are puzzled that the DCSF and local authorities wish to check that children are actually learning to read and write.......

25 comments:

  1. Yes, as one of the 'some people' I should comment.

    I agree with everything you wrote about reading and writing. It can be taught even to people who might otherwise become labelled as dyslexic. Some kids seem to pick it up naturally, others need some methodical teaching, others through a combination of factors.

    But the way to assist parents with their role as educators is not a draconian licencing and inspection programme. The way forward would be to encourage the membership and use of a good, strong, LOCAL HE communitiy with their mentor-mothers helping out with suggestions and experiences.

    The yahoo groups are not terribly helpful places to go for help, I've found. 'Party lines' prevail. Certain personalities dominate. People with differing experiences/ideas get thrown out, as you know.

    In person support groups, where there is a variety of experiences to draw on, can't be beaten IMO.

    Mrs Anon

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  2. It is vitally important to make a distinction between a parent who simply hasn't bothered to support a child's learning to read, and one whose child isn't interested/can't seem to grasp it. I agree that the former could be considered reprehensible; there could be a number of reasons for the latter.

    My son reports not being 'interested' in quite a few things he has tried repeatedly to do, but can't; hardly surprising really. I feel the same way about team sports and physics. My son's learning difficulties have shed light on the origins of my own. There is widespread ignorance in the educational establishment of the possible causes of reading difficulty, and considerable disagreement amongst specialists about causes. To assume that a child's lack of interest in reading or inability to do it must be due to the parent failing to teach the child runs the risk of overlooking any organic contributory causes.

    In my son's case, his poor control of eye movements mean he confuses letters and the order in which they appear in words. He struggles to track the order of words on the page. He loves reading, and can read well enough to learn through doing so, but he finds it exhausting and often reads inaccurately. We didn't find out about his eye problems until he was nine. If you have any ideas for effective remedial approaches for eye movement abnormalities, Simon, I and a bunch of optometrists and occupational therapists would be interested to hear about them.

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  3. I don't think that I was talking of children with organic problems here. The mothers concerned simply said that they were "autonomous". One said that she wished that she had been less "autonomous". These are children who cannot write becuase their parents have made a conscious decision not to teach them to write. This is generally a bad idea.

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  4. "These are children who cannot write becuase their parents have made a conscious decision not to teach them to write."

    An autonomously educating parent wouldn't make the decision not to teach their child to write, they would decide not to force their child to learn to write, there's a difference. Children do ask to be shown or taught how to write and if the parent refuses they are not educating autonomously. I have taught autonomously and have had early and late readers and writers, one learnt both from around 2/3 and another learnt from 13, for example. Both are currently at college and have passed GCSE level exams (the late reader/writer has passed GCSE English) and are currently working towards level 3 qualifications. As long as they have had access to a wide range of activities they should develop the necessary pre-reading and writing skills. With writing for instance, they could learn the necessary fine control through model making or drawing and painting. As long as the groundwork is there it takes very little time for them to learn to read and write when they want to (less than a year spending up to an hour a day with my late reader/writer).

    The autonomous education theory is not based on the assumption that learning happens in a vacuum. Your comparison with gypsy relatives fails because there was effectively a reading/writing vacuum around that person. With autonomous education it is assumed that the child will have books read to them, have words pointed out to them and have their questions answered, etc, etc. This would not have happened with your uncle.

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  5. Unfortunately, not all parents who claim, "We're autonomous" have such a grasp of the idea as you seem to have. Some simply leave their children to it. My uncle was certainly disadvantaged by his illiteracy and I think that others will be similarly handicapped, whatever the background was that made them so.

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  6. So do you dismiss the safety of medicine because not all doctors are safe practitioners?

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  7. Some schools simply leave the children to it! they was letter in times about this saying Schools just churning out unemployable. The managing director of a company said this! oxford and cambridge where no problem! it was those from state schools that had many problems.He said it was the first time they had to learn on they own and they failed! He said he had to have staf check emails for speeling misakes and most had a lackadaisical attitude to work and at 5.30 pm they where gone for the day! like teachers who go at 4.30 pm. i guess the ex-pupils are just copying they teachers! He now looks overseas for people to give work to! he said we an english company but we now have no english staff they to much trouble!
    You should be makeing noise about this Simon the failure of state schools!

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  8. "Why are you worried about him not writing"

    Oh you know, little things like being able to

    fill in a form
    take a telephone message
    leave a quick note
    write a shopping list
    write a message in a card being sent by a group of people
    write a love letter from the heart

    Without being forced to be dependant on the willingness of others to offer timely assistance with sensitivity.

    (or where "typing" is achievable but "handwriting" is not, having no option other than to seek a keyboard based option where it is more of a long winded fiddle than just quickly picking up a pen or less appropriate )

    A young adult who is unnecessarily forced into dependence on others, thanks to the lack of a basic skill, is hardly the poster child for the (more typically understood) concept of "autonomy".

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  9. "This is heartening. It is indisputable that some children will learn to read and write without instruction, although I doubt it is particularly common."

    I know approximately 20 autonomously educated children and they have all learnt to read and write, not always without instruction, but all autonomously. The 'without instruction' is a bit of a red herring because it's not a requirement for autonomous education. The main reason that learning to read and write autonomously isn't particularly common is probably because there are very few autonomous educators. I wonder what Summerhill School's school leaver literacy rate is?

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  10. """Why are you worried about him not writing"

    Oh you know, little things like being able to

    fill in a form
    take a telephone message
    leave a quick note
    write a shopping list
    write a message in a card being sent by a group of people
    write a love letter from the heart."

    You are assuming that the original writer meant 'why are you worried about him never being able to write ever', as opposed to 'why are you worried about him not being able to write yet'. In my experience the examples you give and others like them are of often the spur for a child to want to learn to write.

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  11. "I wonder what Summerhill School's school leaver literacy rate is?"

    Not literacy rates but I did find this:

    "The national benchmark of number of pupils gaining five or more grades A*-C was 46% at Summerhill over this period. This compares favourably with the average figure for all maintained secondary schools of 42.7%.

    It should also be noted that 63% of the 35 pupils in the aggregated group did not have English as their first language and that a significant proportion of these could barely speak English at all on arrival at Summerhill."

    http://www.selfmanagedlearning.org.uk/Summerhill/RepMain.htm

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  12. "are you a card carrying member of the Labour party? "

    That makes as much sense as me asking you if you are a card carrying member of the BNP because you don't.

    All over the world, in most countries, HE is subject to rules and regulations that often exceed the stringency of those proposed in the UK. There are more flavours of government involved in the creation, implementation and redrawing of said regulations than there are flavours of ice-cream (have you seen how many political parties there are in Italy alone ?).

    Regulation and HE is not a party political issue.

    If you force HEing parents and the gen pub into dividing primarily along party political lines then you risk alienating a good section of your support base, particularly in the longer term.

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  13. Sarah- Said If you force Heing parents and the gen pub into dividing primarily along political lines then you risk alienating a good section of your support base.particularly in the longer term.

    of course HE is a political issue if you vote Labour your get more regulation on home education vote Tory and you wont! The Tory's are against the bill and will vote aginst it and will do everything they can in the lords to stop it. Education has always been a political issue Labour have forced though a number of issues with state schools over the last 10 years and use they whips to force though ideas Balls is good at that but now they are weak because they are going to lose the election the tide is turning.Everyone can sense its the death of a party.you watch them turn on Brown when he loses your see real in fighting its going to be so pleasing to watch!

    Just because some countries subject HE to rules does not mean we have to follow. have you ever thought that those countries are wrong? if i put my hand in the fire will you?

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  14. Polically it's more a libertarian/authoritarian issue and there's not much to choose between the two main parties in this respect though it looks as though the Tories currently tend a little more towards the libertarian side than Labour.

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  15. anonymous said not much to chose between the two main parties.

    Your wrong The Tories have said in very clear terms that they do not agree with the Children's bill and Mr M.Gove M.P outlined in detail in the house of commons the reasons why the Tories would vote against it.

    The Tories will not be bringing a bill before the house to put regulations over home education.

    if you want regulations over home education vote Labour. if you dont want regulations vote for the conservative party!

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  16. "You are assuming that the original writer meant 'why are you worried about him never being able to write ever',"

    No I didn't.

    The young adult I refered to in my post was based on my 9 yo son fast forwarded to 15 and laying out why it would worry me that he couldn't write at that age.

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  17. "The Tories will not be bringing a bill before the house to put regulations over home education."

    "of course HE is a political issue if you vote Labour your get more regulation on home education vote Tory and you wont! The Tory's are against the bill and will vote aginst it and will do everything they can in the lords to stop it."

    Oh boy, do I ever have a bridge to sell you.

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  18. sarah said oh boy do i have a bridge to sell you

    It is Labour/Ed Balls M.P/DCSF who are trying to bring in new laws on home education.

    Its to late for bridge building we just have to stop this bill and so far the signs are good government running out of time delays in the lords election has to be called very soon.

    Ed Balls?DCSF see signs of bridge building as weak you have to destroy they old bridge first and put up a new one!

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  19. "The young adult I refered to in my post was based on my 9 yo son fast forwarded to 15 and laying out why it would worry me that he couldn't write at that age."

    Haven't heard of any autonomously educated 15 year olds not being able to write, the latest I've heard is 14 and it took them 4 months to learn so it didn't stop them writing love letters for long.

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  20. "Haven't heard of any autonomously educated 15 year olds not being able to write, the latest I've heard is 14 and it took them 4 months to learn so it didn't stop them writing love letters for long."

    My post as a response to the original question "why would you worry.." wouldn't change if you knocked the "fast forward to 15" down a few years. Substitute "write a secret message in invisible ink" for a love letter though, cos I'm not ready to deal with his first brush with love just yet.

    Had the given age in the original exchange been 15/16/17/18 , do you think the replies would have been very different ?

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  21. I've no idea as I don't read those forums. But children brought up autonomously without coercion tend to be rational in my experience, they can see the advantages of being able to read and write, so why would they get to that sort of age without choosing to learn?

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  22. @Sarah
    If my 15 yr old wanted to write but was unable to learn, I would be concerned. I would begin to be concerned a lot earlier that that. And I would find ways of helping. However, if my 15-year-old was leading a full, happy and productive life, and could read and type on a keyboard (like the boy in Simon's example), but simply hadn't yet come across a pressing need to write, I wouldn't be. Pressing need is a great motivator, and getting a girlfriend could concentrate the mind wonderfully on the subject of love letters.
    Although I think technology has moved on... my son can write perfectly well but chooses to send love texts. Not the same, is it?

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  23. "Although I think technology has moved on... my son can write perfectly well but chooses to send love texts. Not the same, is it?"

    LOL, no it isn't.

    Thank you for you considered response.

    I know you can't speak for the community as a whole but I am trying to get a feel for at what age the lack of desire to learn would cause concern.

    You mentioned 15, would that be an upper limit for you or was it a number plucked from the air as an example in the same way I used it in my own post ?

    Hypothetically speaking is there an age where you would have been prepared to push the issue if your son had shown no inclination off his own bat to learn to read or write, despite all your efforts to expose him to contexts that would stimulate said interest ?

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  24. @Sarah
    I used 15 because you did.
    Showing no inclination to learn to read or write is very different from being literate, but showing no interest in handwriting, like the boy in Simon's example.
    I'm finding it difficult to imagine a child growing up in a household that takes the view that literacy is useful and desirable, who nevertheless shows no interest in acquiring it, unless that child has a problem of some kind. So I guess I would make every effort to find out what the problem was.

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  25. Sorry Sarah; just realised I didn't answer your question at all!
    My kids were both interested in acquiring literacy from an early age, and both made progress, albeit sporadically, at their own pace, so I had no cause for concern. I guess I would have been concerned when they were quite young if they had had no desire to learn *anything*, but to acquire literacy? I don't know. It would depend so much on the context, which is of course one of the biggest problems with monitoring.

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