Friday 6 August 2010

How do ordinary people see home education?

We have all known individuals with really weird hobbies who get a little bit irritable when you display complete ignorance of their pet subject. I remember working with a guy who could hardly control his annoyance when I revealed that I thought that Stephenson's Rocket was the first steam locomotive in the world! Home education is perhaps a bit more than a mere hobby, but the principle is very much the same. Home educators are constantly surprised and often a little irate to find how little others know about their passion. Witness the reaction when those commenting on online newspapers say something inaccurate about home education. Home educators are usually ready to set them straight, often in the sharpest manner!

When I first started home educating back in the nineties, it was not at all uncommon to come across people who thought that it was actually illegal not to send your kid to school. Things have changed a little since then, to the extent that most people now seem to have heard of home education and know that it happens. They are aware that parents do not have to send their kids to school, but that is often the limit of their knowledge. Since she began college last September, my daughter has been meeting quite a few people, certainly more than she did when she was studying at home for IGCSEs. She is frequently amazed at how little those she meets actually know about home education in this country. This summer she has studied at a summer school at Oxford University, been an intern at Westminster working for a Tory MP and also been pretty active in Ed Balls' leadership campaign. The subject of home education has come up a fair bit, as discussions turn to where people went to school and so on. We are not talking here about Sun readers but among others; three new MPs, a lecturer at Oxford, a peer and various other political and academic types. Not one of these people knew anything at all about home education, beyond the fact that some parents did it.

The immediate reaction among people to whom my daughter has talked in the last month or so has been to ask questions such as: 'Surely you have to ask permission?', 'Do you mean nobody checks up on the children?' and ' How does anybody know if the children are learning anything?' I have noticed the same reaction from most other people not connected with home education, especially parents. Despite all the Bubble Picnics and so on, the first awareness that many people have of home education is when they read about Khyra Ishaq or the Edinburgh case. Failing that, it may be when they hear of a home educated girl who goes to Oxford at fifteen and then becomes a prostitute! Very rare for an ordinary, successful person to come out as having been home educated. The result is that many people think that there is something wrong about home education, something which needs to be checked up on, cracked down upon, or closely regulated.

Whether it is a sensible educational method or not, hearing about autonomous education often makes people think that home education needs to be reined in. My wife has recently started riding with a local vet who did not know that our youngest daughter had been home educated. She told my wife about some children she knew about who were home educated. One is eleven and the other thirteen and apparently neither can read or write. From what she said, I gather that they are being autonomously home educated. The problem is that this woman felt very strongly that something should be done about these children and could not understand why the local authority had taken no action. Before anybody makes any angry comments here, I am just reporting what the reaction was of an ordinary, easygoing and liberal professional woman to encountering this type of education.

I shall tomorrow be looking at the question of illiteracy rates, but for now it is enough to remark that this is a very sensitive subject. Figures are regularly published which show that many eleven year-olds are leaving primary school unable to read and write fluently. All except a handful of home educators find this worrying. For the average citizen, hearing of a thirteen year-old unable to read and write as a direct consequence of never being sent to school sets the alarm bells ringing. They feel that when parents are in a position that they can simply, as they see it, neglect a child's education so shamefully, that something must be done.

I rather suspect that most parents in this country probably feel like this. There may well be a bit of jealousy mixed up with it; after all, their own kids are tested to death, why should other people get away with just letting their kids relax all day or play in the countryside? Be that as it may, it is worth remembering when we are discussing home education that the majority of people know very little about it and when they do find out stuff about it, they are usually shocked and surprised!

15 comments:

  1. There is a big difference between the man or woman on the Clapham omnibus, being unaware of the issues around the law relating to home education, and MPs, LA employees and others whose job it is to make and enforce the law, not being aware of them.

    So one's response to the 'shock and surprise' would depend on whom one was talking to.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "difference between the man or woman on the Clapham omnibus, being unaware of the issues around the law relating to home education, and MPs,"

    MPs are just ordinary people. The new MP for Basildon for example is Stephen Metcalfe who my daughter and I know quite well from our church. He knows nothing at all about home education; why should he? Until a couple of months ago he was running th family printing business. There are so many important things for MPs to learn about, that home education is probably way down on the list. Since they depend on ordinary people's votes anyway to keep their jobs, they would be better following popular prejudice.

    ReplyDelete
  3. A new MP might know nothing at all about home education, but any MP in post prior to the 2010 election would have had the job of debating legislation relating to its regulation. And the peer should have at least been aware of the gist of the debate in the Lords.

    Following popular prejudice might improve an MPs chances of keeping their job, but giving them a job is not why local people voted for them. The MP is supposed to scrutinise the decisions of government on behalf of the people they represent, and ignorance of the law, although understandable, is no excuse for failing to do so adequately.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "any MP in post prior to the 2010 election would have had the job of debating legislation relating to its regulation. And the peer should have at least been aware of the gist of the debate in the Lords."

    Many MPs and peers simply don't attend debates that don't interest them! The house is empty for a lot of the time. Because home education is important to us, this might seem incomprehensible. I mean why would anybody pass up the chance to discuss home education? Sadly, not everybody, even MPs, feel this way!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm well aware of how they behave - and why. I don't assume they should know about home education because I'm a home educator, but because as an MP, it's their job to know about such things. If they don't know, they should do some information gathering before communicating their shock and surprise.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "The immediate reaction among people to whom my daughter has talked in the last month or so has been to ask questions such as: 'Surely you have to ask permission?', 'Do you mean nobody checks up on the children?' and ' How does anybody know if the children are learning anything?'"

    I'm not surprised that people know little about home education as I often speak to them, but I am surprised by the questions you are asked. I think of all the times I've been asked about home-ed, I've only been asked once about the LA checking on home educators. Every other time I've just been asked about how we do it day-to-day, socialisation, etc.

    I'm more surprised by the number of people that already know about HE, already know someone that does it or did it themselves (I spoke to someone on the phone only last week whilst placing an order for a DVD and discovered that the lady had home educated her 20 and 22 year old sons).

    "Figures are regularly published which show that many eleven year-olds are leaving primary school unable to read and write fluently. All except a handful of home educators find this worrying."

    Are any not worried about this? My son didn't read until he was 13 (and passed GCSE English at 17) and this did not worry me (well, occasionally, if I'm honest, I'm sure everyone has doubts at times). But if that child had been through 6-7 years of school and was still not reading I would have been very concerned.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "I've only been asked once about the LA checking on home educators. Every other time I've just been asked about how we do it day-to-day, socialisation, etc."

    This is probably because people don't know that my daughter was home educated. I have noticd that the sort of things people say is altered according to whether they know that they are speaking to people actually involved in HE. Some people have known my daughter for a year and do not realise that she never went to school. Perhaps under those circumstances they are more unguarded with their opinions?

    ReplyDelete
  8. "This is probably because people don't know that my daughter was home educated."

    How is the subject of HE brought up then? It's not something that has ever cropped up in random conversation without me first mentioning that my children don't go to school.

    ReplyDelete
  9. "How is the subject of HE brought up then? It's not something that has ever cropped up in random conversation without me first mentioning that my children don't go to school."

    Because when teenagers who are not known to each other meet, they often talk about what their schooldays were like. This is particularly the case with sixteen and seventeen year-olds who have just left school and started college. When my daughter shows herself to be pretty knowedgable about things, people have asked if she went to an independent school, which again brings the topic to education.

    ReplyDelete
  10. It seems to me that many people have 2 incompatible views when it comes to freedom. On the one hand the newpapers are full of comments about wanting less Govt interference, particularly in family life; but the same people are the ones who shout loudest for "something must be done" when some particularly disastrous event hits the news headlines.

    I do think that the majority of the UK population don't understand home education; in particular they assume that it is more tightly controlled than it is. The same people who moan in frustration about the stories in the news about people needing CRB's to drive children to Scouts or whatever are puzzled as to why home edded children don't have to face SATs/OFSTED/inspections and so on. It doesn't take many horror stories which mention home education (however unjustly) to sway public opinion against the type of freedoms we now enjoy. Where public opinion goes (especially if it is whipped up by tabloid newspapers) politicians aren't far behind.

    ReplyDelete
  11. "Because when teenagers who are not known to each other meet, they often talk about what their schooldays were like. "

    You've lost me now. I was wondering why people asked your or Simone the type of question copied below because they seemed so different to those people ask me:

    'Surely you have to ask permission?', 'Do you mean nobody checks up on the children?' and ' How does anybody know if the children are learning anything?'

    You said they probably ask this because people don't know your daughter was home educated, but then why would the topic even arise? I've never known anyone start a conversation about home education unless I've mentioned that we home educate, even when discussing education in general.

    "Perhaps under those circumstances they are more unguarded with their opinions? "

    Home education must be more known and talked about than I'd realised, at least in some circles. I've just asked my two who are at college and also mix with university students (parties and visits to friends and such) and home education has never been mentioned, let alone discussed. You obviously move in more enlightened circles!

    ReplyDelete
  12. "I was wondering why people asked your or Simone the type of question copied below because they seemed so different to those people ask me:

    'Surely you have to ask permission?', 'Do you mean nobody checks up on the children?' and ' How does anybody know if the children are learning anything?'


    Yes, these are precisely the sort of questions that my daughter has been asked over the summer. I have altered the case and rearranged them for clarity. The actual questions asked were along the lines of;

    'Don't you like, have to ask the council?' and ' How does anybody know if you're really doing stuff and not just watching telly all day?'

    I thought that it would be better to tidy up the verbatim questions and put them into a neater form. When sixteen year olds are first getting to know each other, conversations about school are pretty common. This is especially the case when some of them have just left.

    "Home education must be more known and talked about than I'd realised, at least in some circles. I've just asked my two who are at college and also mix with university students (parties and visits to friends and such) and home education has never been mentioned, let alone discussed. You obviously move in more enlightened circles!"

    No I don't think so. When a group of supposedly bright young teenagers who wish to apply to Oxford all meet at a summer school at the university, it would be surprising if the conversation didn't turn to education, both among themselves and also with the tutors. This is because the whole aim is to widen access by getting state pupils in and so the type of school attended is of interest to everybody. Some, for example, went to grammar schools, others to comprehensives. My daughter is fortunate to attend a pretty lousy FE College.

    When she was working with the MP, he was naturally interested to find out about my daughter's past. he was a new MP and frantically trying to make connections and find out what young people in his constituency thought about things. there are some pretty awful schools in the area and he wanted to know if she had gone to any of them. Home education thus naturally came up.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I'm hugely confused, Ted... You said earlier that people may ask these different questions because they don't know your daughter was home educated. Now you suggest that they are as a result of Simone discussing her education with people. It's not really important obviously, but I'm just struck by how different these questions are compared to the ones our family have been asked. They seem so much more negative and inquisitorial than anything we've experienced.

    ReplyDelete
  14. "Now you suggest that they are as a result of Simone discussing her education with people."

    It really isn't that complicated. Some of the lecuturers and students at the college which my daughter has attended for the last year are still not aware that she was taught at home. When the Khyra Ishaq case came to trial earlier this year, there was a discussion about it. My daughter therefore heard people expressing views on home education and the need for monitoring by people who did not know that she had herself been hme educated. After she was halfway through the internship with the MP, after she had already heard his views on education, he asked her about her own education. He knew nothing about home education and so asked her a series of questions. He did not know about it and therefore expressed surprised at the lack of monitoring. Often when somebody learns early on that another person is a home educator, it will affect what they say. I have noticed that when people do not know that I am a home educator, then something like the Spry or Ishaq case will prompt them to say that it is time that there was a crackdown on home education. Perhaps most of those whom you know also know that you are a home educator.

    ReplyDelete
  15. "I have noticed that when people do not know that I am a home educator, then something like the Spry or Ishaq case will prompt them to say that it is time that there was a crackdown on home education."

    You do move in more enlightened circles then. Whenever I've brought up the case, people appear to know very little about it, least of all the home education issues.

    ReplyDelete