A couple of people commenting here have suggested that if I really wished to understand autonomous education, I should study the document below:
http://www.home-education.org.uk/ac/article-ae.htm
Actually of course, this is already horribly familiar to me in various forms. Most local authority officers involved with home education have several versions of this document in their files. Parents who wish to avoid visits frequently download and then cannibalise it in order to provide 'evidence' of the education which they are supposedly providing. It was written by Jan Fortune-Wood who by some accounts actually invented the very expression 'autonomous education'. This being so, it is probably a safe bet that this represents the mainstream thinking on this topic. Let's have a look and see what we can say about it.
The first thing to strike one about this text is that it is more than a little incoherent. It is hard to say whether the author intends to prescribe a course of action or describe how children actually learn. In other words, is she using the word 'theory' to set out the framework for a practice or is she meaning 'theory' in the scientific meaning of the word as being the confirmation of an hypothesis which has been made by many detailed observations or experiments? It would take too long to go through the whole thing, practically every sentence cries out for refutation, and so I shall today limit myself to one or two of the more obvious absurdities which strike the eye immediately. Tomorrow I shall talk about the wider theory of education upon which this is based, namely constructivism.
Almost at once, we run into difficulties. A quotation by Karl Popper is given, which says:
We do not discover new facts or new effects by copying them
There follows a list of other ways that we do not discover new facts or new effects, but let us look at this first part of the sentence. It is demonstrably untrue to state so definitely that we do not discover new facts by copying them. To be sure, this is not the only way that we discover new facts, but it is without doubt one of them. From our birth we also discover new effects by copying them. A baby will copy what it sees others doing. For instance we might hide our eyes with our hands, thus shutting the light out. A baby copies this and so discovers a new effect. Again, this is not the only method of discovering a new effect, but it is certainly one of them. After throwing in a quotation by Gombrich, although I'm not sure why his ideas are relevant here, the author says blithely:
On such a theory, extrinsic motivation is ruled out as a totally ineffective strategy for learning
This is staggering. It does not in the least follow on from the previous sentences and is really little more than a bald statement of what the writer apparently believes to be true. Nothing has been adduced to support the assertion; it is simply presented as a given! What she is actually saying is, 'I think that extrinsic motivation is an ineffective strategy and so did Popper'. We are not told how or why such a strategy has been ruled out. There follow five points which are it seems the theoretical basis for Ms Fortune-Wood's educational philosophy. Number four begins:
The growth of knowledge is a creative and non-mechanical process within the mind of the learner
Is it? Well it is sometimes, but certainly not always. Sometimes the growth of knowledge is a mechanical process which is anything but creative. Or does the author mean that this is how she thinks the growth of knowledge should be? We face the same problem we saw earlier; it is far from clear whether the writer is describing how she thinks things are or how she would like them to be. It is when we look at the section headed Mode of Learning, that we reach the crux of the matter. The mode of learning described is based upon the constructivist theory of learning. This is pretty much the standard theory of education in this country these days, having edged out behaviourism. I shall go into more detail tomorrow, but this theory is one of the reasons why I did not send my daughter to school. For now it is enough to examine this statement:
In this theory emphasis is placed on the learner and it is the learner who interacts with problems to construct his/her own solutions and ideas.
At once, most readers will spot the problem. If the learner constructs his own solutions and ideas, these may be quite wrong. For example the learner might construct his own solution to the puzzling movement of the sun across the sky and decide that the sun is moving round the earth. This is wrong and if he says nothing to anybody about it, he will go to the grave with this wrong idea. Or again, the learner might meet very few black people. If he only meets two in his childhood and they are both stupid and lazy, then the learner might well form an hypothesis that black people are stupid and lazy. He may not mention this false hypothesis to anybody; just hold it within him. This leads to racial prejudice and it is a very bad thing. One of the ways to deal with this problem is by actually teaching children about other cultures and setting out deliberately to show them that black people are very similar to white people. If we simply allow them to form their own hypotheses about this subject, they may do so without telling us and thus not giving us the opportunity to point out that their ideas are mistaken. This is the problem with the idea of the learner constructing his own solutions and ideas; many of them will be wrong. We shall look in more detail at this problem tomorrow.
Under the heading of Basic Skills, we find this gem:
It is a core assumption of autonomous education that children will acquire the skills they need to take advantage of their environment and pursue their own aspirations.
Yes, it is an assumption and as such completely worthless. If I were to write an educational philosophy and state categorically:
It is a core assumption that children are much better off being at school than they are at home
I would be jeered at and quite rightly. A core assumption indeed! I wonder if the author thought that by describing this assumption as a 'core' assumption that this would somehow make it more respectable than any old assumption? It does not; it is still shocking intellectual laziness.
The fact that so many parents read this nonsense and apparently approve of it so heartily, is worrying in the extreme. They read it, swallow it whole and then regurgitate it to their own local authorities. Do none of them realise what drivel this is? No wonder that some local authority officers get irritated by receiving various bastardised versions of this thing. Horrifying to think that for thousands of children across the country, this mush represents the ideology behind their education!
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Simon wrote,
ReplyDelete"We do not discover new facts or new effects by copying them
There follows a list of other ways that we do not discover new facts or new effects, but let us look at this first part of the sentence. It is demonstrably untrue to state so definitely that we do not discover new facts by copying them. To be sure, this is not the only way that we discover new facts, but it is without doubt one of them. From our birth we also discover new effects by copying them. A baby will copy what it sees others doing. For instance we might hide our eyes with our hands, thus shutting the light out. A baby copies this and so discovers a new effect."
I don't think he is saying that we don't copy things, I think he means that the act of copying is not learning, but that it is the thinking behind the action that creates new knowledge in the child's mind. To use your example, a child may copy hiding their eyes with their hands and find that it shuts out light. Now the child does not know if this is a random effect that will not be repeated (the hand covering the eye could just be causing the eyes to shut and the child probably already knows this shuts out light). The rest of the quote suggests how learning might occur (and does according to Popper).
We use, rather, the method of trial and the elimination of error.
The child may theorise that the effect is random and covering the eyes again will not cause darkness. The act is repeated several times (trial) and the child discovers that actually, covering their eyes with their hands invariably shuts out light (elimination of error). Without this development of connections and confirmation of theories in the mind, no learning would happen. The jump to extrinsic motivation being ruled out as an effective strategy makes more sense with this interpretation because the child can be forced to cover their eyes repeatedly but cannot be forced to think about the effects and develop and test theories. Imagine a stressed baby who is being 'played' with by someone new to them and their parents are not in sight. Some children will go along with this play to some extent but it's unlikely that they will learn much from the experience as stress about the location of their parent will stop them thinking about their play. Do you think a baby in this situation would learn the same 'facts' as a child playing the same game joyfully with their parent?
Simon wrote,
ReplyDelete"After throwing in a quotation by Gombrich, although I'm not sure why his ideas are relevant here, the author says blithely"
The author of this article (Jan F-W) did not include the Gombrich quote, Popper did. Presumably Jan wanted to include the bit about developing and then testing theories that follows after the Gombrich quote. Gombrich presumably influenced Popper when developing his theories.
"We do not discover new facts or new effects by copying them, or by inferring them inductively from observation, or by any other method of instruction by the environment. We use, rather, the method of trial and the elimination of error. As Ernst Gombrich says, 'making comes before matching': the active production of a new trial structure comes before its exposure to eliminating tests." (The Myth of the Framework, pp. 8-9)
Simon wrote,
ReplyDelete"At once, most readers will spot the problem. If the learner constructs his own solutions and ideas, these may be quite wrong. For example the learner might construct his own solution to the puzzling movement of the sun across the sky and decide that the sun is moving round the earth. This is wrong and if he says nothing to anybody about it, he will go to the grave with this wrong idea."
Of course they may be wrong, that's where the process of trial and elimination of error comes in. New knowledge is added to existing knowledge and the existing knowledge tested against the new to check for errors. To use your example, many people will have thought that the Sun travels around the Earth at some point in their lives. They may hear on a TV program that the opposite it true and wonder who is right. They may then hear from another source (or ask someone) and gain another interpretation that adds weight to one theory over the alternative. Gradually, by trial and comparison, errors are corrected. I didn't read 'construction of knowledge' as working it all out from scratch for yourself. I read it as gathering information from multiple sources and testing it against previously gained knowledge, gradually constructing a larger, more accurate knowledge base.
"Of course they may be wrong, that's where the process of trial and elimination of error comes in."
ReplyDeleteThat this can happen is undoubtedly true. That it will always happen in important cases is less certain. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that we must allow children to form foolish and ill inofrmed hypotheses in the hope that these will be constantly modified until they arrive at the truth. Many people are too lazy to do this. Having seized upon an easily understood and false explanation for something, they hang onto it because it is easier than changing their minds. The problem is that such false ideas can be dangerous. If a child forms the false idea that Muslims are mostly terrorists, this can have terrible consequences. Of course some will modify their beliefs; others will not. Why would I want to take a gamble on this with my own child? things like this are simply too important to take a chance on. This is why teaching about such things as religion and culture are needed, to avoid the possibility that false ideas such as racism can take root.
Simon wrote,
ReplyDelete"It is a core assumption of autonomous education that children will acquire the skills they need to take advantage of their environment and pursue their own aspirations.
Yes, it is an assumption and as such completely worthless."
So is it your core assumption that healthy, well adjusted children in well resourced, stimulating environments with helpful, concerned and loving parents will choose not to become literate and numerate? This seems a worthless assumption and not born out by my experience of children or people.
"So is it your core assumption that healthy, well adjusted children in well resourced, stimulating environments with helpful, concerned and loving parents will choose not to become literate and numerate?"
ReplyDeleteThis is most definitely not an assumption of mine. It is one possibility among many. A good deal of research will be needed to establish the falsity or truth of this statement. Since this work has not yet been carried out, I am open minded about the possibility. Theories about educational attainment in children should be evidence based in just the way that theories about astronomy are.
"If I understand you correctly, you are saying that we must allow children to form foolish and ill inofrmed hypotheses in the hope that these will be constantly modified until they arrive at the truth. "
ReplyDeleteIt's not a case of allowing children to form faulty hypotheses and modifying them with new information to happen, it will happen whatever we do. Have you never had one of those moments when you suddenly realise that you have had a misapprehension about something? Even something as simple as pronunciation of a word you have read but not heard?
"Many people are too lazy to do this. Having seized upon an easily understood and false explanation for something, they hang onto it because it is easier than changing their minds."
The theory is not that people choose or choose not to learn this way. The theory is that all people everywhere construct their knowledge base in this way, even those taught in schools, by structured home educators, autonomous educators, adults in the workplace, etc. Were you never been taught something at school only to learn latter that it was wrong and corrected your knowledge base? The autonomous aspect is that someone is more likely to choose to learn something when their existing knowledge base is sufficient and ready to deal with the new information. Or they will recognise that they need to search out information to bridge the gap between existing knowledge and something they want to learn.
"The problem is that such false ideas can be dangerous. If a child forms the false idea that Muslims are mostly terrorists, this can have terrible consequences. Of course some will modify their beliefs; others will not. "
So you think that structured education can cover all (or most) bases and corrects all (or most) misconceptions? That's a big claim. How many schools formally teach that most Muslims are not terrorists? It certainly wasn't covered in my school yet I know it. I must have learnt it autonomously by absorbing it from literature, TV, discussions, etc. How did you learn it?
"Why would I want to take a gamble on this with my own child? "
I have not specifically taught my children that most Muslims are not terrorists but all of them know this (I've just asked them). Why do you think I took a gamble on this? Did you sit your daughter down with the aim of specifically telling her that not all Muslims are terrorists? It seems such an obvious thing to know that I suspect you need to be actively taught the opposite to continue with that misapprehension for any length of time.
"So you think that structured education can cover all (or most) bases and corrects all (or most) misconceptions? "
ReplyDeleteIndeed no, but just because they cannot cover everything does not seem to me a good argument for teaching nothing.
"Did you sit your daughter down with the aim of specifically telling her that not all Muslims are terrorists? "
Yes, of cours I did. After the 9/11 attacks there was a lot of anxiety among children and silly stories going round. Muslims certainly featured as folk devils in these rumours. I took active steps by organising a visit to a mosque, asking a Bengali friend of mone if we could get together, comparing the Bible with the Q'ran and various other things. I didn't think it likely that this particular virus could take root in my home, but I was not going to take any chances. this is perhaps the diference between my approach and those of autonomous educators. I am quite prepared to teach if and when i feel it to be necessary. Religious studies were already a part of our life, but I thought it wise to extend them in a certain direction and emphasise some aspects.
"Yes, of cours I did. After the 9/11 attacks there was a lot of anxiety among children and silly stories going round."
ReplyDeleteThat's fine, but we didn't find it necessary to go to that much time, trouble and effort. General discussions showed that they had not gained the false impression you were concerned about. Both your and ours know that not all Muslims are terrorists, so how can anyone claim that one method is better than another using this example? It's a pointless point. Spending that much time on one or a few simple points that could be covered in a short conversation must limit the number of points you can cover overall though. I can see the point in spending that much time on something that a child is particularly interested in, but general knowledge... not so sure about that.
"I can see the point in spending that much time on something that a child is particularly interested in, but general knowledge... not so sure about that."
ReplyDeleteIt is impossible to make sense of much of what is happening in the world today without a pretty solid grasp of Islam. To take one small example, the war in Afghanistan is incomprehensible without this knowledge. Suicide bombers, whether in Kabul or on the London Underground are also impossible to understand without a quite detailed knowledge of this subject. I wanted my daughter to know what was happening in both Kabul and London; therefore I taught her about Islam. You may regard this as mere 'general knowedge', I regard it as crucial information needed to make any sort of sense of the world around us.
Did I say it was unimportant general knowledge or not worth knowing and understanding?
ReplyDelete"Did I say it was unimportant general knowledge or not worth knowing and understanding? "
ReplyDeleteYou said that you could see a point in spending time on something a child was interested in, but were less sure about general knowledge. My point is that this is a matter of life and death both to those in Afganistan and America, but also to us in this country. When a subject is of world- historical importance, as militant Islam surely is, I don't think it makes sense simply to hope that a child will stumble across accurate information more or less by chance. Whether a child is interested in this or not, it is vital that any citizen has a well informed view of this matter. I cannot imagine why I would avoid dealing with this and ensuring that my child had the necessary facts to make her mind up about the presence of British troops in Afghanistan, popular opinions of Islam and so on. You feel differently and regard even discussion of this as ' a pointless point.' We must simply agree that we have a different perspectives.
Australia has troops in Afghanistan too. If you asked our citizens why our soldiers are there, I doubt if even 5% of them would come up with an answer other than "As a favour from John Howard to George W. Bush". Seriously.
ReplyDeleteYes, I doubt if many citizens in this country would be able to discuss this intelligently. I worried when my daughter was small that she would pick up ignorant and irrational views which are very common. This was why I felt it wise to arm her with facts, so that she could decide for herself what she thought.
ReplyDeleteSimon wrote,
ReplyDelete"You said that you could see a point in spending time on something a child was interested in, but were less sure about general knowledge."
No, I said I was less sure about spending *that much* time on it. I am happy that my children have gained (and continue to gain) an understanding of the issues autonomously (conversations, TV news, newspapers, etc) without the need to, "organising a visit to a mosque, asking a Bengali friend of mone if we could get together, comparing the Bible with the Q'ran and various other things." If your daughter was interested in the topic then fine, spend as long as you want on exploring it, but if a child is not particularly interested in an issue, enough information can be gained through conversations during car trips to other activities or whilst watching the news - taking up much less time but covering the same basic information - then I cannot see the point in spending that much time (visits, organised visits, sit down lessons) and effort on it.
"I cannot imagine why I would avoid dealing with this and ensuring that my child had the necessary facts to make her mind up about the presence of British troops in Afghanistan, popular opinions of Islam and so on. You feel differently and regard even discussion of this as ' a pointless point.' We must simply agree that we have a different perspectives. "
I didn't say that learning about Islam was pointless, I said that using that particular piece of knowledge (most Muslims are not terrorists) as some kind of evidence that structured education is better than autonomous education is pointless as both your child, my children, and I have gained knowledge about Islam. Your child gained it in a structured way but lack of specific lessons on the topic has not prevented either my children or myself from learning the same information autonomously.
"I didn't say that learning about Islam was pointless, I said that using that particular piece of knowledge (most Muslims are not terrorists) as some kind of evidence that structured education is better than autonomous education is pointless as both your child, my children, and I have gained knowledge about Islam. Your child gained it in a structured way but lack of specific lessons on the topic has not prevented either my children or myself from learning the same information autonomously."
ReplyDeleteBy the way, how did *you* learn that most Muslims are not terrorists? Were you signed up to a lecture on the topic by someone who decided you should know? Or told which newspaper articles to read or assigned a task of finding a Muslim in order to discuss the issue? Or did you learn autonomously?
Simon wrote,
ReplyDelete"I am open minded about the possibility. Theories about educational attainment in children should be evidence based in just the way that theories about astronomy are."
This is fine for large groups of students (especially when public funds are involved) but is it necessarily best for individual children? I agree that research can point a parent towards the best initial methods to try but no one method works for all children. If you are one of the 10% a particular teaching method fails it doesn't matter how much research evidence is produced to show that it is the best method *on average*, it is not the best method for you. Parents should be allowed to judge which method works best for their child because they know their child best.
If the government were able to veto teaching methods, wouldn't it open them to litigation if their approved teaching methods failed the child? At the moment parents are responsible for their child's education and litigation against LAs for inadequate education provision fail, but if it were taken out of the parents hands this would change.
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