Monday 23 August 2010

Home education as a Pavlovian reaction

There has in recent years been a great deal of research on free will. By this I mean scientific, rather than philosophical enquiry. The general consensus is that the study of the brain leaves little room for the exercise of free will. It looks as though we act first and then a split second later rationalise our actions after the event. I have been thinking about this process in connection with the decision by parents not to send their children to school. Of course all home educating parents, including me, like to guy up our choice as being based purely upon the best interests of our child; a decision made after carefully weighing up all the pros and cons. Imagine though, if this 'decision' were really to be no more than an instinctive reaction, no more under our control than the salivation of Pavlov's dogs when they heard the ringing of a bell!

When we look at the lives and family backgrounds of home educating parents, certain themes merge. Not all parents of course, but enough to see patterns. Sometimes, parents will have several of these major themes running through their past lives. Let us look at a few of them. To forestall any accusation that I am breaching or invading anybody's privacy, I can assure readers that any information about named parents is taken from the public domain and not from private Internet sites. In other words it is stuff that they have told to reporters or put on open blogs. Something one notices with many home educating parents is that their own schooldays were very unhappy. This was sometimes the case with both mother and father. Ann Newstead of Education Otherwise and her partner Roarke fall into this category. Both have very bad memories of school and so when their child became unhappy, the obvious solution seemed to be to remove school from the equation. Another well known example of this is Paula Rothermel. Talking to parents who home educate reveals a very high proportion who have extremely negative memories of their schooldays. In many cases, the decision to educate their child at home looks simply like a decision to remove from the situation a major cause of their own unhappiness as children; that is to say school.

Another curious pattern is the number of either single children or children who were born with a gap of ten years or more between them and their siblings. Maire Stafford of course falls into this category. I have before speculated that this could have the effect of making this late child somehow more precious and the mother less apt to let it leave her and go to school. Once at school, any slight excuse is sometimes enough to justify the decision to de-register the child and bring her back as a fulltime companion to the mother.

Something else odd is the number of really tragic lives of which one hears. Some home educating parents give accounts of their life and early history which sound like the sort of 'misery memoir' one sees on sale in supermarkets! Rape, childhood abuse and drug use, for instance, often deature in these narratives. Could this be connected with the decision to home educate? Might it be that having had pretty awful times themselves as children and teenagers, these parents are determined to make sure that their own children are not unhappy and that they know how much their parents love them? Are they in some weird way trying to rerun their own childhood through their children in order to make things right the second time round? Not only do quite a few parents present as being tragic, not a few are also very angry. The tragic, angry mother is almost a leitmotif of the home education world. This is not of course to say that their are no jolly and well balanced home educators, but that there is a particular type of mother who is anything but and that this type is commoner than in those who send their children to school.

I must say at once that I can see several of the above ideas at work in my own life and that no matter how much I portray my decision to home educate as being based upon strictly rational considerations, it must have been greatly affected by my own life experiences. We all like to feel that we are masters of our own destiny and few of us relish the idea that we have only behaved in certain ways because of how our childhood was. I am no exception. I have not touched upon several other themes which are quite prominent in home education, for example the child as nurse-companion or the folie-a-deux of mysterious maladies such as ME which seem to afflict mother and daughter combinations in HE families more than in the general population.

42 comments:

  1. Sorry, Simon but not very impressed with this. Yesterday was all about the fact that we have no idea how many home educated children there are and today you want to make claims about things in home ed families that are more common than "in the general population". How on earth can you make that claim?

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  2. 'Something one notices with many home educating parents is that their own schooldays were very unhappy.'

    I haven't noticed that with the HE'ers I'm friends with. Most had normal/average experiences at school. (I really enjoyed most of mine.)

    Perhaps it's just 'people on the lists'?

    I think you're WAY off track here, Simon. Perhaps trying to rationalise or justify your dislike of a certain characters?

    Mrs Anon

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  3. This is not the result of any extensive study, Allie. More just a few things which I have noticed over the last fifteen years or so that I was home educating. If you associate with members of a certain community and read a lot of what they have to say, then I think that it is quite reasonable to identify certain trends. I am not stating any of this as fact, more simply mentioning a few observations which have struck me.

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  4. 'The tragic, angry mother is almost a leitmotif of the home education world.'


    ROTFLOL! You mean a leitmotif of certain internet lists? I'm not a member of them any more, so couldn't comment on that. But back in the real world, one rarely encounters such types.

    In 15 years of HE and numerous groups, many friends etc, I can think of only ONE such.

    Mrs Anon

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  5. "I think you're WAY off track here, Simon. Perhaps trying to rationalise or justify your dislike of a certain characters?"

    If so, then it indicates perhaps an unhealthy degree of self loathing on my part. I said that I had noticed some of these things in myself. I am not taking this from the lists but from personal correspondence and parents whom I have met. Often, the things that parents say when they open up a bit, strikes a chord in my own feelings.

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  6. "You mean a leitmotif of certain internet lists?"

    Well, I wasn't really thinking of the Internet lists at all, but of local parents. But you are right, there are plenty to be found there as well.

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  7. Ann, Roarke and Marie are all local parents?

    Come now, let's be truthful, Simon.

    Mrs Anon

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  8. "Ann, Roarke and Marie are all local parents?

    Come now, let's be truthful, Simon."

    I gave these as examples because they have made their stories public property and are well known in the world of home education. If I cited Ken from round the corner or Caroline from Epping, then these could just be imaginary figures whom I had created to prove my point.

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  9. I take it then Mrs Anon, that you have not yourself noticed any sort of themes or common characteristics? No resentment about schools based upon the parents' own experiences? No anti-teacher sentiments? Your thesis is that the decision to home educate is generally, if not invariably, taken upon purely rational and balanced grounds?

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  10. "'The tragic, angry mother is almost a leitmotif of the home education world.'


    ROTFLOL! You mean a leitmotif of certain internet lists? I'm not a member of them any more, so couldn't comment on that. But back in the real world, one rarely encounters such types."

    Perhaps instead of the 'tragic, angry' I should have said 'neurotic, anxious'. I am honestly surprised that you do not seem to know what I am driving at here. I cannot think that it is only the parents whom I have come across and corrsponded with.

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  11. I'm not sure it's curious or irrational to not use a school for your children when your own experience of school was bad! Or to want to make things great for your children if you had a bad childhood!

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  12. "There has in recent years been a great deal of research on free will. By this I mean scientific, rather than philosophical enquiry. The general consensus is that the study of the brain leaves little room for the exercise of free will. It looks as though we act first and then a split second later rationalise our actions after the event."

    It looks like that but since brain function is the product of the activation of complex distributed networks and feedback systems, it is, not surprisingly, not quite so simple. And I believe the research you are referring to was about simple actions and conscious awareness of the action, not about a choice to undertake a process as complex and long-winded as home education.

    I am prepared to believe that there are people who have decided to home educate, questioned their decision and then rationalised it in order to minimise cognitive dissonance, but suddenly home educating and then rationalising that 'act' a split second later is a physical impossibility.

    As for parents who had bad experiences of school; one would expect a higher proportion of parents who didn't enjoy school to opt for EHE, surely. They are going to be much more aware of the damage that can be done to children by school, than a parent for whom schooldays were the happiest of their life.

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  13. "more common than "in the general population". How on earth can you make that claim?"

    I made this claim with regard to what I described as, ' the folie-a-deux of mysterious maladies such as ME which seem to afflict mother and daughter combinations'. I have to say that I have never encountered this anywhere in the ordinary world.On the other hand, I know of no fewer than seven cases among home educators. This suggests to me that it might be a more common thing in the world of home education. Some of the cases are quiye well known; Janet Ford and her daughter for example.

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  14. Simon said, 'I take it then Mrs Anon, that you have not yourself noticed any sort of themes or common characteristics? No resentment about schools based upon the parents' own experiences?'

    I already answered that, with 'In 15 years of HE and numerous groups, many friends etc, I can think of only ONE such.'

    You said, 'No anti-teacher sentiments?'

    Sure. After your child has been treated badly at school it's quite possible to develop those. I WAS a teacher and even I ended up detesting the teachers at my daughter's school.

    You said, 'Your thesis is that the decision to home educate is generally, if not invariably, taken upon purely rational and balanced grounds?'

    Is it? LOL! I think many, if not most HE'ers react to a situation which schools cannot deal with. My experience has been that most times, this is done in a quite rational and balanced way. Most have sensibly concluded that home education would be a better way for their child to be educated.

    Mrs Anon

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  15. As for ME being a folie-a-deux...

    The symptoms of ME and CFS are just that - symptoms. They could be caused by a whole range of things. In one study, a group of ME/CFS patients (diagnosed by GPs) was then also diagnosed by a panel of experts in different fields. The patients were then grouped according to the second diagnosis. Many of them tested positive for viral infections, notably enteroviruses and Epstein-Barr virus. A not insignificant number had symptoms of clinical depression but no physical indicators of disease. Other studies have found a whole range of viral antibodies and bacterial infections in ME/CFS patients.

    Patients with ME/CFS symptoms turn up in GPs surgeries very frequently. One GP I spoke to estimated 20 patients a week. Most recover spontaneously. Finding out what's causing the problem for the ones that don't, requires a long process of elimination of possible causes, and a lot of specialist lab tests - which are expensive. In many cases there is no treatment available.

    Genetic susceptibility to certain types of infection and to a range of medical conditions is well-established, as is the likelihood of several members of the same family picking up infections from one another, so it wouldn't be surprising if a parent and child both contracted the same viral infection and reacted in the same way to it.

    Jane Colby, of the Tymes Trust, is a former headteacher who is now an advocate for children with ME/CFS. She got interested when a viral epidemic swept her school and many staff and children took months to recover.

    Suggesting ME is a folie-a-deux without eliminating possible organic causes is pretty sloppy thinking, in my view, and extraordinarily insensitive to people who are, in some cases terminally ill.

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  16. Well, I don't find myself in your descriptions, Simon - I ended up home educating because I had a special needs child for whom school was a disaster,and I knew I could do better. Simple decision. I am a teacher - I enjoyed my paid career teaching and I enjoyed teaching my daughter; so now I teach others children again in an HE setting.

    Yes, I can see some underlying themes amongst home educators, although the most common one is not listed above. Some parents withdraw their children from school because the parents themselves can't cope with what they perceive as the constant criticism from the school. I think this is a result of modern educational ideas - it seems to be "in all circumstances, inform the parents". Now some people may think that this is a good thing (and often complain they aren't kept informed) but many teachers seem to delight in regailing parents with a constant stream of the slight mishaps and misdemeaours that many children get up to on a daily basis. Whether it is to cover themselves because of fear of "not telling" or because since they seem unable to discipline children, they hope the parents will, I don't know. I have been on the receiving end myself; I can remember the sinking feeling in the stomach as the infant teacher sailed across the playground to tell me just what my daughter had or hadn't done today. At the secondary level parents get called into meetings, either to discuss special needs or behavioural issues; many of the parents I come across tell me they just couldn't take any more and so withdrew their child. Some parents find dealing with anyone they see as an authority figure very difficult; and this is why the same parents later find themselves in trouble with their LAs- because they don't know how to cope with a different set of outsiders who are apparently "telling them what to do". I don't think that there is neccessarily anything in the parents background that can be "blamed" for this; it may a combination of lack of previous experience with so called "professionals" and this persistent desire on the part of teachers to "whinge" is the root cause.

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  17. "and extraordinarily insensitive to people who are, in some cases terminally ill."

    More research needed here. I have never heard of anybody who died of ME. I was not in any case suggesting that the syndrome itself is non-existant or a folie-a-deux. I talking about mother and daughter cases, where both are apparently suffering from this problem at the same time. The only examples of this happening that I have heard of are in home edcuating families. This struck me as odd.

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  18. Very interesting, Julie. You are right about this of course. Being called up to the school, particularly for a stream of trivial reasons has caused some parents I know to begin wondering if their kid is awful and if they are bad parents. Not everybody enjoys being patronised by teachers on a regular basis! I can see that a stream of communications along the lines of 'we are concerned about Jimmy's behaviour...' might be interpreted by parents as 'your son is very badly behaved and it's all your fault'.

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  19. Simon said "The only examples of this happening that I have heard of are in home edcuating families. This struck me as odd."

    -actually we have a mum and grown daughter at church who both have ME- (and never have HEed) -although interestingly several folk from church have done this "Lightning Course" and seem completely better - including the mother in this case ( haven't had a chance to talk to the daughter!)

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  20. "More research needed here. I have never heard of anybody who died of ME. I was not in any case suggesting that the syndrome itself is non-existant or a folie-a-deux. I talking about mother and daughter cases, where both are apparently suffering from this problem at the same time. The only examples of this happening that I have heard of are in home edcuating families. This struck me as odd. "

    The immediate cause of death would be most likely to be organ failure or a secondary infection. ME is unlikely to be recorded because it's an umbrella term for a bunch of symptoms with unknown causes.

    With regard to mother-and-daughter cases, sex-linked genetic susceptibility is well-documented, and the likelihood of two members of the same family contracting the same viral infection and developing the same symptoms is high.

    Quite a few children with ME end up being home educated since it is the most viable option for them.

    Why mention folie-a-deux if you didn't mean that ME was a folie-a-deux? What you've spotted is most likely to be the outcome of the interaction of a number of well-established factors.

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  21. "Why mention folie-a-deux if you didn't mean that ME was a folie-a-deux? "

    I used the expression to suggest that perhaps two close people could encourage each other in this. Sometimes when one person has a vague and ill defined problem, he or she will minimise it or recover fairly easily. This is often the case when there is little sympathy and therefor no reward. When two people are involved in the case, they may encourage each other and this provides a motive for not recovering. So an initital, ralatively mild disorder can become established as a lifelong and possibily debilitating condition. In such a situation, the term 'folie-a-deux- may not be wholyy inapt. One might observe this with other similar conditions such as chronic fatugue syndrome, fibromyalgia and so on.

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  22. "although interestingly several folk from church have done this "Lightning Course" and seem completely better - including the mother in this case ( haven't had a chance to talk to the daughter!) "

    Which argues overwhelmingly for a psychosomatic origin, at least in these particular cases. At £500 a throw, the so-called lightning process is one of the best rackets on the market! One is sworn to secrecy and must not ever tell others about the course, otherwise the disease will return in an even worse form. Tell me, was somebody touting this round your church Julie? if so, were all those who signed up for it women?

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  23. No, actually; the first person who did it was a man - and the change in him was so remarkable (ask his wife!) that of course others went as well. The other 3 that I kbow about were all women, but that is the entire cohort of the ME/CFS sufferers in church.

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  24. "I used the expression to suggest that perhaps two close people could encourage each other in this. Sometimes when one person has a vague and ill defined problem, he or she will minimise it or recover fairly easily. This is often the case when there is little sympathy and therefor no reward. When two people are involved in the case, they may encourage each other and this provides a motive for not recovering. So an initital, ralatively mild disorder can become established as a lifelong and possibily debilitating condition. In such a situation, the term 'folie-a-deux- may not be wholyy inapt. One might observe this with other similar conditions such as chronic fatugue syndrome, fibromyalgia and so on. "

    Folie-a-deux is, by definition, a delusional belief shared by two people. The scenario you paint is indeed possible, but to assume that this is what is happening in cases where one or two members of a family are showing symptoms of a physical debility without first eliminating organic causes for the symptoms would be considered poor clinical practice, if not downright irresponsible, since it could put the patient's health at risk.

    The symptoms of ME are rarely 'vague'. It, like CFS, is an umbrella term to denote a cluster of symptoms that varies between individuals. Any lack of clarity arises from the variation between individuals, not because any given individual is unclear about their symptoms.

    There's nothing unclear about being out of breath or dizzy after climbing the stairs, having severe muscle pain, having poor thermo-regulation or disrupted sleep. Nor about having antibodies in your blood that indicate a recent viral infection.

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  25. "where one or two members of a family are showing symptoms of a physical debility....being out of breath or dizzy after climbing the stairs, having severe muscle pain, having poor thermo-regulation or disrupted sleep. Nor about having antibodies in your blood that indicate a recent viral infection. "

    And yet as Julie's story shows, sometimes a dramatic cure may be effected in such cases by nothing more than a piece of quack medicine designed to rid the sufferer of negative thoughts.

    "There's nothing unclear about being out of breath or dizzy after climbing the stairs, having severe muscle pain, having poor thermo-regulation or disrupted sleep. Nor about having antibodies in your blood that indicate a recent viral infection. "

    A horrible suspicion is creeping up upon me that you are yourself a victim of ME! In which case I must apologise for my insensitivity.

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  26. I'm not a victim of ME in fact; but I used to babysit for one of the first people to be diagnosed with it, and therefore developed an interest. Before that, it was known as 'yuppie flu'.

    A couple of comments with regard to Julie's mention of the lightning process; I did point out that some patients diagnosed with ME/CFS by their GPs were later diagnosed as suffering from clinical depression. Because depression is seen as originating in the brain, rather than in the body (although given the complexities of physiology, that's not necessarily the case) it's often seen as not real. It's real enough. All our functions, mental or otherwise, are mediated by physical mechanisms. Depression is known to respond well in some cases to talking therapies. So it's quite possible that in some cases ME/CFS can be 'cured' by talking therapies - CBT is a treatment recommended by NICE, for example.

    It's important to avoid a) the conclusion that because a condition doesn't have obvious physical origins it doesn't exist, and b) assuming that because a treatment changes people's thinking it must be 'quack' medicine. If you have the symptoms of ME/CFS because you have negative thoughts (not impossible) then it wouldn't be surprising if a bit of positive thinking did the trick.

    If, however, you have the symptoms because your physiology has been disrupted by a viral infection, the lightning process wouldn't have much effect, though it might make you feel a bit more positive.

    Again, ME/CFS are clusters of symptoms. There is a substantial body of evidence suggesting that they have a number of different causes - different causes in different people. It's vital to identify the causal pathway for each patient before assuming that there's nothing wrong with them and/or that they are delusional.

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  27. Simon wrote,
    "I made this claim with regard to what I described as, ' the folie-a-deux of mysterious maladies such as ME which seem to afflict mother and daughter combinations'. I have to say that I have never encountered this anywhere in the ordinary world."

    Apparently it's very common. Does Chronic Fatigue Syndrome run in the family?

    What's more, a remarkable 24% of mothers had at least one child suffering from CFS or chronic fatigue.

    Chronic fatigue syndrome (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis)

    The main factors that contribute to CFS are thought to be:
    * inherited genetic susceptibility (it is more common in some families),


    Simon wrote,
    "More research needed here. I have never heard of anybody who died of ME."

    Sophia died from ME.

    Simon wrote,
    "So an initital, ralatively mild disorder can become established as a lifelong and possibily debilitating condition. In such a situation, the term 'folie-a-deux- may not be wholyy inapt. "

    MS used to be called 'female hysteria' and thought to be all in the mind. Genetics are likely to play a role in MS an identical twin of someone with MS runs a nearly 30% chance of acquiring MS compared to 4% in non-identical twins or 0.15% if you are not related to someone with MS. It seems likely to me that ME/CFS is likely to be explained either by misdiagnosis (as suggested by Suzyg above) or eventually the biological cause will be discovered.

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  28. "Sophia died from ME."

    Possibly. When a young woman who has been detained in a psychiatric hospital against her will, dies of a kidney infection, my thoughts would be turning more towards an untreated infection of the urinary tract combined with dehydration. I am aware of the verdict of the inquest, but in dubious cases where self-neglect might be involved, coroners bend over backwards to make things look better. More information needed.

    "Apparently it's very common. Does Chronic Fatigue Syndrome run in the family?"

    Data from crank site selling weird treatments for CFS and ME.

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  29. "Data from crank site selling weird treatments for CFS and ME."

    Probably not the best choice of site, I was in a rush. No comment on the NHS Direct link?

    Here's another couple of links:

    Genetic background of chronic fatigue syndrome

    Genetic evaluation of the serotonergic system in chronic fatigue syndrome.

    Certainly it seem to be a known 'fact' that multiple cases of CFS/ME within the same family are quite common and not a feature limited to home educating families with ME as you suggest in the article.

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  30. I note that although you dismiss AnonySue's citation as 'data from crank site selling weird treatments for CFS and ME', you have cited no evidence to support your suggestion that mothers and daughters with ME (diagnosed with ME? think they have ME?) are engaged in a folie-a-deux, nor that this phenomenon occurs with greater frequency in the home-educating population than the general population, nor if it does, why it does.

    Why should more credibility be attached to an unsupported assertion, than to a 'crank site selling weird treatments for CFS and ME'?

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  31. "Why should more credibility be attached to an unsupported assertion, than to a 'crank site selling weird treatments for CFS and ME'? "

    The simple answer to that is, it shouldn't! This is a personal blog, not a peer reviewed scientific journal.

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  32. Nor is AnonySue's comment...

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  33. "The simple answer to that is, it shouldn't! This is a personal blog, not a peer reviewed scientific journal."

    Great blog. Suggest that lots of home educated mothers and their daughters who happen to have the same symptoms of illness suffer from a rare psychiatric syndrome (a madness shared by two) on a whim. Way to kick people when they're down. When are you going to start on diabetics - that runs in families too. You'll be suggesting Munchausen's next and sending the SS round to take the children away.

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  34. "You'll be suggesting Munchausen's next and sending the SS round to take the children away."

    Well of course according to Paula Rothermel, this is precisely what Graham Badman did last year. He is not the only one; I have seen references to Munchausen's by proxy among home educating mothers elsewhere.

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  35. MSBP is another 'condition' frequently cited on a whim. That's precisely the point I was making. Imprecisely defined psychiatric conditions bandied about as explanations for certain types of behaviour without sufficient evidence for their existence in those cases, tend to become reified, extended to other cases, and muddy the water considerably.

    Folie-a-deux isn't limited to home educating mothers.

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  36. "Folie-a-deux isn't limited to home educating mothers. "

    Of course it isn't. I did not suggest that it was. I speculated that there might be more than the average number of cases involving things like ME in the home education community, but even if true, that would only be a very tiny percentage of the total number of cases of this rare syndrome.

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  37. It's a bit pointless speculating about something you obviously know so little about. A simple google search revealed that ME is commonly found within the same family yet you speculate that, because you've never seen it elsewhere, this phenomenon must be peculiar to HE families. For one thing it's relatively common in the general population, and for another you have no evidence that ME is a folie-a-deux.

    You displayed your ignorance on this subject on the 5th November 2009 with your 'Munchausen's by proxy and certain home educating parents' article. Do you really have to keep recycling the same old rubbish?

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  38. "A simple google search revealed that ME "

    "You displayed your ignorance on this subject "

    Not sure if somebody whose information on the subject is limited to a quick trawl on google is really in the best postition to criticise others for their ignorance!

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  39. At least I bothered to Google, which is more than you did! Besides, I read extensively on this subject a few years ago so knew you were wrong. The quick Google was just to find a few links to get you started on the further research you mentioned you needed.

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  40. "At least I bothered to Google, which is more than you did! "

    I didn't have to google. I have worked with people with this syndrome in the past and know about from other sources than the Internet.

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  41. So how did you get it so wrong?

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  42. "I speculated that there might be more than the average number of cases involving things like ME in the home education community, but even if true, that would only be a very tiny percentage of the total number of cases of this rare syndrome."

    No, you speculated that mothers and daughters who claimed to have ME, were in fact, engaged in folie-a-deux. This seems to be not only a speculation based on no evidence whatsoever as far as I can tell, but it's also likely to be very unhelpful, because, in such cases, you would need to rule out a bunch of somatic and psychological conditions before you even started considering folie-a-deux.

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