Friday 5 March 2010

How can parents teach A level Chemistry?


At the second meeting of the All party Parliamentary Group on Home Education, which was held on Tuesday, Baroness Deech distinguished herself by asking some particularly foolish questions. Being herself a former teacher, she really should have known better! Her basic point was that parents could not be expected to teach their children sciences and languages, because they might not know about these subjects themselves.

Those whose friends are in the main teachers will be more than a little staggered at Baroness Deech's remarks. She seems to be under the impression that science teachers know all about science and simply transfer the knowledge in their heads to their pupils. This is not how it works at all. Catch a science teacher at a party and ask him to give you the balanced equation for photosynthesis and he may very well be stuck for the answer! And yet the children whom he teaches will need to know this for GCSE. How will they learn it, if he himself apparently does not remember it? The answer is of course that teachers do not need to be super brain-boxes whose heads are crammed with all the facts which their pupils will need to learn. If the topic next week is photosynthesis, all that is necessary is to prepare the lesson and swot up on the thing yourself a day or two before. After all, the teacher is not going to be tested; he will have all the relevant materials in front of him. Why should he stuff his head full of all this stuff when he can just consult a book?

Parents can teach any subject in precisely the same way if they wish to do so. Baroness Deech specifically asked about A level Chemistry as though this were a knockdown argument against home education. It is not. I know somebody who has taught her child A level chemistry. I am no chemist, but I managed to get my daughter through the International GCSE at A* in this subject. It is not particularly easy to do this, but for somebody to suggest that it cannot be done is very irritating.

In any case, the question is largely irrelevant. As we know perfectly well, many parents would not even attempt to teach their children chemistry unless they were asked to do so. It is true that very few children probably take GCSEs or A levels in chemistry from home, but this is not because the idea is at all impractical; it is due to the ideology of parents. Many home educators subscribe to a theory of education which would prevent them from saying to their child, "Come on Johnny, sit down. we're going to do an hours chemistry." Baroness Deech might have done a little better to concentrate on this aspect of home education. She did at least notice that many of the lists and Blogs are apparently populated by illiterate maniacs, which is heartening!

I must say a few words about Rumer Lacey, the Essex elective home education advisor. She was at this meeting, although strangely reluctant to give her name. Everybody who meets Rumer has the impression that she is a very nice person. It is not generally known that she taught her own child at home. The problem that I have seen with Essex is that although all the people who work in the elective home education department are seemingly dead keen on home education and think it a great idea, their submissions to the DCSF do not always reflect this. When the 2007 guidelines were drawn up, Essex were even then pressing for it to be a criminal offence to teach a child at home without notifying the local authority.


28 comments:

  1. It would be hard to disagree with her that there are illiterate maniacs about the place, although perhaps her assessment of the number of them is distorted by the amount of noise they make. I find the presence of ignorant Lords more disturbing though.

    While I sometimes agree with some of your points about the more extreme interpretations of autonomous education, it's hard to see what the point would be of saying "sit down, we're going to do an hour's chemistry" to a child who was not interested in chemistry. I'd suggest it would be counter-productive, not just in the area of chemistry but to the child's whole attitude to learning in general.

    I recall hours upon hours of being made to sit down and do an hour's chemistry for O Level at school. Some of us found the subject fascinating, had understood within 5 minutes, and thus had to sit for the remaining 55 while a point was re-explained to the rest of the class who weren't interested. Many of them may have ultimately achieved some kind of grade in the exam, but I'm willing to bet they hated chemistry (and probably learning of any kind) for the rest of their lives. What's the point of that?

    The only good thing about this was it distracted the teacher enough to allow me to steal the A Level textbooks from the cupboard and stick them in my bag to read later. I'm pretty sure I would have passed the A Level if I'd taken it instead of the O Level, but that would not have been allowed of course.

    (For legal purposes, it's possible I made that whole story up, and I have no idea who planted these books on my bookcase)

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  2. You say, Ciaran;

    "it's hard to see what the point would be of saying "sit down, we're going to do an hour's chemistry".

    Well the obvious answer to that is that it will enable the child to gain a GCSE in Chemistry! I used those very words regularly. My daughter was not the least bit interested in Chemistry, Physics or Biology, but I insisted that she sat separate sciences because they impress colleges and universities. She realises this now, and is very grateful for my insisting upon it. When she starts applying to universities this Summer, those science subjects at A* will really stick out. One cannot expect a children of ten or eleven to realise fully what will be useful to them when they are seventeen or eighteen; we sometimes have to make the choices for them, based upon our greater knowledge and experience of the world.

    I can see many possible advantages for a child in having a GCSE in Chemistry; I can see no conceivable disdavantage.

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  3. "I can see many possible advantages for a child in having a GCSE in Chemistry; I can see no conceivable disdavantage."

    Presumably then you either think that Ciaran's suggestion (but I'm willing to bet they hated chemistry (and probably learning of any kind) for the rest of their lives) doesn't happen or is unimportant?

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  4. If you are asking me AnonySue, whether or not I think that Ciaran's example is both true and important, then the answer is yes on both counts. But this is an indictment of schooling and has little to do with home education. I myself detested school and have always thought that the mass instruction of children in this was is a singularly inefficient method of teaching. Ciaran says, for example;

    "Some of us found the subject fascinating, had understood within 5 minutes, and thus had to sit for the remaining 55 while a point was re-explained to the rest of the class who weren't interested."

    Of course this happens in school; that's why I did not send my daughter to school. Home education and school education are two very different things.

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  5. So, in your view, it would be impossible to put a child off a subject or learning by enforcing regular lessons in a subject they disliked at home?

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  6. This is a tricky question to answer. I suspect that most dislike of subjects such as chemistry and mathematics is created at school. Since my daughtr never attended school, I cannot really comment on that sort of thing. I can't really imagine a child who has never been anywhere near a school acquiring an irrational dislike of nature study or history or anything else. I certainly never saw anything of the sort in my daughter, although there were things that she much preferred doing to other things. So although she was not particularly interested in chemistry, she did not actively dislike it. Tell me AnonySue, what have your experiences been in this regard? Very few peole seem to know about this and I am quite interested. I take it that your own child did not attend school. Did she start to dislike things at a certain age?

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  7. "I can't really imagine a child who has never been anywhere near a school acquiring an irrational dislike of nature study or history or anything else."

    Is a dislike of a subject such that you do not want to spend time studying it in detail irrational?

    "I take it that your own child did not attend school. Did she start to dislike things at a certain age?"

    My children have been HE from the beginning. One of my them has never been particularly interested in science and has learnt the basics through day-to-day exposure (TV, museums, incidental science from other subject interests, family discussions, etc) but loves painting, drawing, art history, etc. Another reads science books for pleasure but has no interest in painting or drawing. One is heading for a fine art degree, the other for a science based degree.

    I do have experience of children resisting suggestions and pressure to study particular subjects, yes. From my knowledge of my children I believe they have enough exposure to the subjects they are uninterested in to make rational decisions about how they want to spend their time and have learnt enough so that they are not totally uneducated in those areas - certainly not to an extent to limit their lives.

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  8. You make some good points in the above replies, Simon. I'm struggling to find much to disagree with, which is most unusual.

    I wonder though, do you think all children are, like your daughter, capable of doing well academically? I think some may never be. Others suddenly do well at these things later in life. Unless you think that all children have the potential to achieve well in academic exams during their mid teens, do you not think it might be a bad idea to propel all children in that direction, knowing that some simply cannot succeed, but instead will find themselves labelled as second class. And would it not be more useful for them to be learning things they are more suited to, enjoy more, and are more likely help them in adult life?

    These are genuine questions, to which I don't claim to have all the answers.

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  9. I suspect that many of those illiterate maniacs had a proper school education!

    The noble Baroness is too busy worrying about things that are not specifically to do with home education, such as forced marriages, to spare any of her mental capacity to actually understand how it works.

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  10. I don't have the answers either. I'm a little cautious of branding a child "artistic" or "academic" and then letting the kid avoid those things which conflict with this view. This sort of thing can easily become a self fulfilling prophecy. My daughter far preferred drawing and writing stories to disecting sheeps' hearts, but I thought this made it all the more important that she stuck at the science things as well. As to whether all children can succeed at academic subjects, I don't know. I am pretty sure that school is responsible for turning a lot of children off some things and I think this less likely to happen at home. I rather assume that all children are capable of far more than we expect and I saw it as my job to push my child into stretching herself and finding out what she was capable of.

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  11. I spent today with 112 home educating parents and children at a science and technology centre.
    (www.intech-uk.com for the interested!) In a lull I had an interesting conversation with another family about the aspirations of our children; we agreed that although we didn't know what the future held for them, giving them real options meant (for us) making sure they were as well qualified as they could be at GCSE level. Now we are realists - there was never any point in trying to make my daughter play a musical instrument or study music - despite the fact that I suppose the musical talents of her sibs mean that she probably is capable, because she hated the whole idea, but I wouldn't have let her develop the same phobia about maths for example. She also hasn't much ability at English (I have previously explained that she is autistic) but again we persevered against the difficulties, because I consider it to be an essential (and she has at least developed a love of reading.)

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  12. Do people really need to know the facts necessary to pass GCSEs or to have the GCSEs to keep their options open? As long as they gain the ability to learn, research and study in 'an' area of interest (even if you can't take a GCSE in it), how difficult would it be for them to transfer these skills to another subject later if their interests change or they can see a need for specific qualifications or knowledge? Yes, it may add a year or two to their time in education if they have a change in direction but is this the end of the world? It happened to me despite gaining a broad range of qualifications at school. I suspect that most home educating parents would be willing to support their child a little longer than the average if necessary if it means their child makes better choices (for themselves and their future).

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  13. This was all very well a few years ago, but the whole educational system is becoming more and more rigid. If a teenager wishes to study for A levels in say mathematics or physics, then it is pretty well impossible to find a college which will take him without having already a GCSE in the subject. It is not a matter of adding a year or two; in many areas it is just not possible to study A levels without having GCSEs. This situation is becoming worse every year. I would be willing to support my daughter for as long as necessary, but the fact is that without GCSEs, she would not have been able to get a place at college to study A levels. While not every teenager wishes to do this, it is at least good if they are given the option.

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  14. Couldn't you study Maths, for instance, at home up to A level without taking a GCSE qualification? Correspondence schools recommend that you have Maths GCSE but it's not a requirement so you could study the GCSE material in preparation for the A level correspondence course. I did much the same before taking an OU maths course when I studied an A level text book over about 4 months before the course started (I had previously studied to GCSE level and the OU course recommended A level).

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  15. It is doubtless possible to do all sorts of things without going down the "normal" route - but it can be time consuming (and take more years/expense) and it seems to becoming more difficult due to financial issues. Some home educators have little choice due to the prohibitive costs of taking exams out of school, but others recognise that if it is possible it may be the simplest solution in the short term. Some young people may benefit from delayed going to uni (if that is where they are heading) until they are older, but looking at rising costs it may be a case of "better to get it over now!"

    It isn't just HE students who can be in difficulty....my 15 year old schooled dd is looking at colleges for A levels to enter in Sept 2011. At an open evening this week she discovered that the best academic college locally is no longer offering A level music (being told you can do a BTEC is no help as she intended to take it alongside maths/physics/bio A levels). So if she intends to stick to her choices she will be competing with other surprised candidates for a place somewhere else. The proliferation of alternativce courses actually seems to be restricting choices!

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  16. "It is doubtless possible to do all sorts of things without going down the "normal" route - but it can be time consuming (and take more years/expense) and it seems to becoming more difficult due to financial issues."

    I've seen an A level Maths course for £299 so maybe 3 A's and possibly 2 or 3 GCSEs in other subjects over 2-3 years at home would work out as more economical and less time consuming than 8 GCSEs followed by As at college?

    "Some young people may benefit from delayed going to uni (if that is where they are heading) until they are older, but looking at rising costs it may be a case of "better to get it over now!"".

    Or take it with the OU for free? You could even take the first year or two with the OU and then transfer to a 'real' university if you prefer.

    "So if she intends to stick to her choices she will be competing with other surprised candidates for a place somewhere else. The proliferation of alternativce courses actually seems to be restricting choices!"

    Yes, we've had problems caused by colleges changing the availability of courses from year to year and the need to wait for results so close to enrolment dates doesn't help either. Even more reason to consider going it alone for longer!

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  17. George Stewart6 March 2010 at 02:43

    Simon, you are implying that government run schools are "teaching" chemistry to all students and doing it well!!

    They are doing a horrid job at it.

    Every year, the UK falls further and further in world wide educational measurement.

    The government needs to fix its own mess before even starting to worry about home educators.

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  18. I'm sorry if I gave that impression! I was advocating studying chemistry at home and not relying upon a school at all. I do not regard schools as brilliant places to learn about anything. It is much easier to study chemistry and every other subject at home.

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