Wednesday 11 August 2010

Romanticism in the British classroom

I suggested earlier this week that the Romantic view of childhood and education was alive and flourishing in British schools. Several people, including a couple of teachers disagreed. Let's have a look at how teaching takes place in schools in this country and see if it can provide a clue about this question. This is of relevance to home educators here, because they often see their pedagogy as being diametrically opposed to that of schools. It is not: it is in fact almost identical, both being the product of so-called 'progressive education' which invaded our schools like a plague from the 1960s onwards.

One of the first things that an objective observer notices about British classrooms is that the teachers have a positive aversion actually to teaching their pupils. They speak disparagingly of this activity as 'chalk and talk'. It is regarded in almost all schools as being a bad thing and the infallible sign of the inferior and unimaginative teacher. Instead, at both primary and secondary level, they try to get children to discover the information in the curriculum for themselves. This is done not from books, to which there is the same kind of deep seated aversion as is felt for teaching itself, but by activities designed to allow the kids to stumble upon the facts by themselves. This is an extraordinarily inefficient way of learning, as study after study has amply demonstrated.

I have in front of me a report called, Schooling as preparation for Life and Work in Britain and Switzerland. It was written by Helvia Bierhoff and although it was published fifteen years ago, its observations are still spot on. In science lessons, the whole idea in British schools is for the children to find out for themselves with minimal guidance from the teacher. Many teachers hesitate to interfere for fear of strangling the 'holy curiosity' of their pupils. The result is that children often go away with a distorted or wholly mistaken of what they have observed. An example given in the report was that of a group of children in a science lesson who believed that the vigorous froth produced by a tube of sugar and yeast at boiling point indicated that the enzymes worked best at that temperature. The teacher did not like to correct this ludicrous mistake explicitly and the bell for the end of the lesson went before he could, by means of a Socratic Dialogue, show them their error. This is typical of teaching today in schools in this country.

In Switzerland, on the other hand, the teacher demonstrated the experiment beforehand and told the pupils precisely what was happening. He then explained the scientific principles involved. Only then did the pupils undertake their own experiments, once they were in full possession of the facts. Not unnaturally, the scientific understanding of Swiss pupils was found to be far in advance of those in this country.

This sort of 'teaching' takes place at every stage of the pupil's life in this country. Want a history class to learn about the Black Death? Don't tell them about it! Instead, get them to write a story telling you how they would feel if they were medieval peasants whose best friend had just died of the Black death. Studying geography? Don't teach them about the principle exports of Pakistan or its rivers and mountains. Rather, tell them that Ali works a twelve hour day for 50p a day. Ask them how that would make them feel. Every subject thus moves from being an objective discipline to a vague, subjective mush. Little wonder that our schoolchildren learn less than those of many other countries. The progressive/Romantic educational methods are directly to blame.

The rejection of books in our schools is not, as one person commenting here seemed to think, a consequence of economics. The dislike of books and reading was an integral part of Rousseau's ideas on education: he talked of books as 'the curse of childhood'. These idea were taken up by his two stooges Pestalozzi and Froebel and still have a stranglehold on educational theory in the UK. Many children go through secondary school without even touching a book. They are not expected to read an entire book, even for GCSE. Instead, they are given photocopied extracts. They only ever need to be familiar with Chapter 2, say or Scene II, Act 1. Why bother with the whole novel or play? There are no maths books or textbooks for any other subject either in most schools. Is this to save money? It is unlikely. Ask yourself which would cost more: a new system of electronic whiteboards and laptops for every pupil, together with an IT contract from BECTA, or a few books? For a tiny fraction of what the average school spends on IT, all the children could be provided with books. But that would look so old fashioned and be in any case opposed to the prevailing ideology. Who wants a bunch of smelly, germy old books , when we could have a new IT system? At one time, books were at the heart of education. Now they have been squeezed out completely in many cases.

It was for these ideological reasons among others, including of course religion and the undesirability of peer pressure, that I decided not to send my young daughter to school. I can however assure those who have kept their children at home because they prefer to pursue a child centred and progressive education, that our schools today are still hotbeds of such ideas and that they would receive just as 'progressive' an education there as in the home of the most dedicated autonomous educator!

39 comments:

  1. I think you are conflating a number of ideas because they have superficial similarities. As in:

    Rousseau didn't use books.
    Teachers don't use books.
    Ergo:
    Teachers embrace Rousseau's educational methods.

    The reasons teachers don’t use books is because they are expensive, and schools will get more brownie points by investing in IT equipment instead, and also because they don’t need to use them. When I asked the literacy co-ordinator at my children’s junior school how children were supposed to be aware of what literature was available to them if the NC (and the school) didn’t have a literature strategy (as distinct from a literacy strategy), she looked blank for a moment and then said “But they have texts… that they study…” Michael Rosen, who is not, as far as I am aware, an ardent supporter of ‘chalk and talk’ has drawn attention to the possible unintended and unwanted outcomes of this oversight.

    The 15 year-old text that you cite was quite likely drawing on examples gathered from before the introduction of the NC. Since then, explicit learning objectives and highly structured lessons have become the norm. You have only to watch Teacher’s TV to see how much chalk and talk dominates the classroom. Except that now it’s an ‘interactive whiteboard and talk’, that doesn’t quite have the same pithy quality. Nice example was when Steve Jones, the geneticist, did a guest lesson with a group of Y6s. The children clearly had a great time and attained their learning objectives and more. Their class teacher’s comment was that Professor Jones ‘had them moving about the room too much. Ofsted like to see a quiet, calm classroom.’

    If you had written this piece thirty years ago, I probably would have agreed with you. Except that then, of course, books were generally considered quite important. More evidence required, I feel.

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  2. Hi Simon,
    I have too little experience with classrooms these days to know whether what you are describing is an accurate portrayal. But, I did want to comment on this:

    'I can however assure those who have kept their children at home because they prefer to pursue a child centred and progressive education...'

    Keeping their children at home? What does that mean? Condoning truancy? Abusing children by refusing to let them out of the house?

    Are you seriously describing home education here?

    It makes me livid when silly, ignorant people describe what I did for 15 years with my kids as 'keeping them at home'. We were hardly ever at home, we were out almost every day learning, observing, socialising, engaging with the world.
    The only time we had to cut that back and stay at home more was in preparation for those annoying GCSE's.

    You may think this unimportant. A phrase like people 'who kept their children at home', no matter what it is followed with by way of some description of their activities, simply serves to reinforce inaccurate stereotypes of HE'ers as Weirdos whose children need protection from their parents.

    Did you keep Simone at home? I doubt that you did.

    Mrs Anon

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  3. "I can however assure those who have kept their children at home because they prefer to pursue a child centred and progressive education, that our schools today are still hotbeds of such ideas and that they would receive just as 'progressive' an education there as in the home of the most dedicated autonomous educator!"

    No they wouldn't, because of 'get them to', as in:

    "Instead, get them to write a story telling you how they would feel if they were medieval peasants whose best friend had just died of the Black death."

    I think either teaching method works well, as long as it's done properly. But you can't help a child to explore the world in his/her own time and way and then make them write essays on the subject and expect him/her to still have a sufficient interest in learning and motivation to really stick at it.

    It has to be one or the other. Either parent/teacher led, or child led. Both have pros and cons, but it's best to pick one and stick to it properly.

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  4. "It makes me livid when silly, ignorant people describe what I did for 15 years with my kids as 'keeping them at home'."

    I should perhaps have said, 'keep them from school'. (Explains a silly, ignorant person).

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  5. "Rousseau didn't use books.
    Teachers don't use books.
    Ergo:
    Teachers embrace Rousseau's educational methods."

    As a teacher, I think that you know better than this, suzyg. A better syllogism would be:

    Rousseau condemned the educational value of books

    Followers of Rousseau developed educational philosophies which have been hugely influential in modern schools

    Therfore, Rousseau's views on the educational value of books have an impact upon today's schools.

    As regards the attitude to books, we need to examine the whole idea of the 'New Literacy' to get a handle on that. It is about far more than the cost of IT systems and is really an ideological matter.

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  6. "Did you keep Simone at home? I doubt that you did."

    No, 'home' education was a very inapt description of what we did when she was small! I am aware though that for many people the terms' not sending her to school, and 'keeping her at home' are interchangeable. I am easy about this personally, but I can see why it irritates you.

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  7. Could you expand on the ideology? My understanding of 'new literacy' is that it's a pragmatic approach to the use of words in different media. Is that what you mean?

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  8. "They speak disparagingly of this activity as 'chalk and talk'. It is regarded in almost all schools as being a bad thing and the infallible sign of the inferior and unimaginative teacher. Instead, at both primary and secondary level, they try to get children to discover the information"

    I have had stand up, knock down rows with colleagues who use "caring and sharing" or "dogme" like a yoke for all their students, all of the time and work themselves up into a massive superiority complex in the staffroom.

    Not that I am setting myself up as invulnerable to this, “the communicative approach” and I had a love affair that drove the other teachers half mad, what with my endless monologue in praise of it. I didn’t even have the excuse of not knowing any better, having recently limped away from being “the natural way-ed” into a small heap of missing self esteem by a Thai language school.


    So I can totally believe that you come across these teachers by the handful. Education does have its fads, fashions and obsessives seeking "the ones true way for all of the people all of the time and if it isn’t working you are doing it wrong, cos if you were doing it right it would be working and all my anecdotes are solid data but yours are worthless cos they are tainted by your prejudice and a product of your brainwashing in teacher training (and something incomprehensible to do with the CIA?!?!?) " like any other field.

    The reality is though that much is probably just talking the talk rather than walking the walk, to keep one’s end up in what can be a highly politicized working environment, where much of your progress or image can be linked to the yammer outside the classroom rather than what is actually going on inside it.

    So if you peek inside the classroom what you might see is most/many teachers offering a variety of methodologies that will include different forms of “presentation, practice, production” (what many I guess would define as "chalk and talk" although it doesn't do the strategy justice) and “Discovery” (huge array of possibilities within this from heavily guided to far freer)


    Within each principle approach you are also likly going to see gear changes when it comes to which areas of learner autonomy are being focused on and how learner centered the micro staging is.

    Typically I think teachers are going to be aiming to keep up a mixed approach simply because the realities of a classroom of many means if you don't you are screwed. Thanks to chunks of people getting left in the dark or zoning out in boredom if you go all mono-methodology on them with one that doesn’t suit them at all.


    You are going to get ebb and flow as "new" (this time round, under this shiny, never-heard-before name) ideas come in, become popular and then go out of fashion again as the some of people who pride themselves on being trailblazers drop them like a hot potato the second they get popular cos at that point they lose their appeal.


    It all has its use in stopping things getting stagnant. The last thing you want is for teachers to stop thinking about what they do and how they do it. But I reckon there is more noise about sea changes in the “talking about teaching” arena than in the “actually teaching” arena.

    Well anyway that is what my (UK) BIL (former secondary school science teacher) and I reckon.

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  9. "Michael Rosen, who is not, as far as I am aware, an ardent supporter of ‘chalk and talk’ has drawn attention to the possible unintended and unwanted outcomes of this oversight."

    Extract-itus ?

    Where the value of reading of a whole book has been undermined/forgotten with the focus being on concentrating on a constant series of extracts instead ?

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  10. If you have an education system that assesses children's ability to analyse and use various specified styles of writing, what teachers need to focus on is ensuring that the children they teach can churn out comments on and usages of those specified types of writing. They do not need to encourage the children to fall in love with Edwardian children's books, or explore the further reaches of science fiction or read everything a favourite author has ever written.

    I think this outcome of teaching to the test affected my children especially, because they happened to be in KS2, and KS2 SATs results are very important performance indicators for primary schools, but I've seen many more examples of this approach during the last decade, than the romantic, exploratory one that Simon describes.

    So far, he has cited one overheard conversation from one school, one set of four lessons from another, and a 15 year-old text from a Swiss writer to support his thesis. I agree that romanticism and exploration have been used in the classroom, and indeed dominated education theory for a long time. But the evidence I've seen suggests it hasn't done so for many years now. I'm just intrigued as to why he thinks that isn't the case, and so far, I'm not convinced he's right.

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  11. "Either parent/teacher led, or child led. Both have pros and cons, but it's best to pick one and stick to it properly. "

    Why ?

    My overarching premise is parent led. Even if I didn’t have a broad curriculum imposed I would still be using one. In the details of the day there is a spectrum of parent-led and child-led learning, with a goal of ever increasing learner autonomy (although my vision of LA isn’t fully interchangeable with how it is perceived in HE I think) so he doesn’t leave compulsory education under the impression that he needs me (or anybody else) to be constantly available in order for him to learn.

    I don’t think either of us would be happy or best served if I went for a black or white approach.

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  12. "Could you expand on the ideology? My understanding of 'new literacy' is that it's a pragmatic approach to the use of words in different media. Is that what you mean?"

    This is relevant to autonomously learning to read and I plan to do a complete post about it in the next few days.

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  13. Simon wrote,
    "It is not: it is in fact almost identical, both being the product of so-called 'progressive education' which invaded our schools like a plague from the 1960s onwards."


    I was educated in the 70s and 80s and your description of teaching bears absolutely no relation to what I experienced. In every class we had a teacher at the front lecturing and drawing or writing key points on a board, maybe asking a few questions (usually a white board, very progressive), then we were set work, usually involving a text book. There were no discussions, no independent research or self discovery. I think we carried out a handful of carefully guided science experiments but we knew in advance what we were expected to see and why.

    When my children were due to start school I had no reason to expect school to have changed much in this respect, but I didn't like the NC or repeated testing mainly because of the inevitable teaching to the test and the pressure that would be put on children to do well in them. I wanted my children to learn because they were interested in something, not because it would gain the school a higher place in the league tables. I had also seen how much my children were learning at home and saw no reason why this couldn't continue. Autonomous education stemmed from our general approach to parenting rather than the other way round, so maybe this is why we viewed informal learning as just another way to gain knowledge alongside text books, TV programs, taught courses, visits to museums, etc. etc.

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  14. " I'm just intrigued as to why he thinks that isn't the case, and so far, I'm not convinced he's right."

    This is a fair question. Part of the problem is that there is a huge difference between what is siad publicly about education in this country and how teachers in schools actually go about it. I don't want to fall back on anedata and so I shall have to give some thought about how to pesuade you!

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  15. m"I think this outcome of teaching to the test affected my children especially, because they happened to be in KS2"

    I have a vuague memory of an article in TES about extract-itus and I think it related to what you are saying. Going to see if I can find it.

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  16. I'm sorry that I phrased that badly. I meant to say that when I am questioned by people who know nothing about home education asking me about why I kept my children at home it bothers me no end! I wasn't actually meaning you. LOL! I am quite sure that you were out and about as much as we were.

    Mrs Anon

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  17. "I don’t think either of us would be happy or best served if I went for a black or white approach."

    Well then you've got to do whatever works best for you and your child, but our experience is that the child wants to know for sure who's in charge of his/her learning. Either the child is, or the parents are. This gives them the confidence and the security needed to make good progress, either way.

    Just my family's experience with seven children, each one very different with a different preferred learning style.

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  18. "Either parent/teacher led, or child led. Both have pros and cons, but it's best to pick one and stick to it properly. "

    I answered this, but my comment hasn't appeared yet.

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  19. Simon wrote,
    "I can however assure those who have kept their children at home because they prefer to pursue a child centred and progressive education, that our schools today are still hotbeds of such ideas and that they would receive just as 'progressive' an education there as in the home of the most dedicated autonomous educator!"

    But autonomous education is not progressive education. Autonomous education may include progressive education (along with other styles of learning), it may all be progressive or there may be none. It depends on the child, being self-directed learning. I have one child, for instance, who has always loved work books and enrolled on several correspondence courses over the years before attending college at 16. She loves learning from books whilst also enjoying practical arts, crafts and writing.

    Didn't Simone write poetry? Isn't this a form of progressive education as the process of composing a poem and putting it down on paper teaches much than reading about the process could? Or is this stretching the concept of progressive education too far? It's a bit like the way teaching something to someone else really helps the 'teacher' gain in understanding themselves. I often see this in my children when they pass on their learning to me. The process of explaining it to me reinforces their understanding, it forces them to organise the information logically so that they can explain it in an understandable way to someone else.

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  20. "Autonomous education may include progressive education (along with other styles of learning), it may all be progressive or there may be none."

    Having read a little about progressive education it seems to depend on which definition you use. The meaning of Progressivism seems to vary from person to person, place to place, and era to era. So maybe it would be helpful to hear how you define progressive education so that we know we are discussing the same theory/process?

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  21. "but our experience is that the child wants to know for sure who's in charge of his/her learning. Either the child is, or the parents are. This gives them the confidence and the security needed to make good progress, either way. "

    __________

    I absolutely agree with you in terms of consistency in the sense that telling a child that they are “unschooling” and then trying to chivvy them into learning something (or having a pop cos of something they haven’t learned) is confusing for them and leaves them feeling insecure because they have no firm idea of what your expectations are of them and mindreading isn’t a skill they have mastered yet.

    The same would be true in reverse, tell the child there are firm expectations of what and when they must learn and then fail to provide a framework that support and guides them into achieving those goals. Which is a bit like casting somebody off in a boat with no oars yelling, “row dammit !!” from the sidelines.


    On the other hand the two strategies are not drawn into conflict when, rather than trying to squash both into the overarching methodology, you instead employ them on a spectrum at a “micro” level.

    For example, way back last October my son wrote a story starter (parent-led activity that involved much whinging at initial presentation because he thought, like at school, I was just going to cut him loose into an “insta-prodution stage with no help and he had no idea how to start). By the time the activity was “done”, he didn’t want to stop with the beginning of the story and I don’t see any need to tell him to do it in his own time (12.30 till afternoon social life begins) because as an activity it is at least as valuable as things I would plan, if not more so. So, as and when he wants to he is free to continue the story instead of what I have prepared. Sometimes he leaves it for weeks, sometimes he is on a roll and will keep it up for a week solid. It’s all swings and roundabouts, I only have one child to consider so I don’t need to worry about the global progress happening on a tightly programmed timescale. If he is fully engrossed I don’t make him stop cos “it is time for maths”, I let him carry on till he wants to stop. Again, swings and roundabouts. Typically he stops after an hour or so and wants a change of pace and topic, although he’ll happily go back to it later in terms of brainstorming if not actual production once we are into the “fully autonomous, mummy back off and stop getting all 'elf'n'safty on me” afternoon stage. As long as I stick to my guns about the telly anyway. Otherwise Zac and Cody (failing to fulfill my fantasy of them falling overboard, drowning and stop irritating me) is the order of the day.

    His Italian has come on so much that this year that rather than any tight planning I’m thinking of floating the idea of just having the official curriculum available to him (in words he can understand) so he is clear on where we need to be by the time exams come around again and letting him take full control of which activities he would like to do and when. We have a real life box of stuff and an online “box” of stuff where he can access resources, so in theory it could work. Just a bit worried that perhaps it is my “autonomous learner” sub-agenda getting over excited and maybe trying to get him to run before he has walking down pat with a risk of setting him up to fail. He would find a second bounce back from feeling like he'd failed so much harder than the one we are currently struggling with. So I can’t really decide whether to take the leap or try a scaled back version first and see how we go. Can't even decide how much or how little to scale it back to. Still chuntering and mumbling over that for the minute.

    I know I’m rambling ( :



    (cont cos rambled on even more than ususal)

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  22. cont. massive ramble.....

    Just wanted to try and illustrate with an example of how “child led” both features and is valued on the spectrum of our day to day home ed and doesn’t necessarily have to be in conflict with a lack of overarching principle of the same flavour.


    The balance between parent led and child led, in my world, is a journey where my role is diminishing and his is bulking up. The rate to which one steps back in favour of the other is an organic process which is centered on him. It is prone to fits and starts, because he still has a few residual issues left over from school which knackered his self confidence when it comes to taking the reins (and in his head scary, horrible responsibility), but the overall pace is one of moving forward towards making myself redundant.

    At which point I will probably have a major crisis about my lack of role and/or imminent empty nest, culminating with my running off with a toy boy and rediscovering my affection for wonder bras ( ;



    NB Simon, if I am taking things wildly off topic feel free to tell me to knock it on the head and I'll take it to email only.

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  23. Anon, I did respond by email (same as post) but got this

    "These recipients of your message have been processed by the mail server:
    XXXX@XXX.XXX; Failed; 5.1.2 (bad destination system address)"

    It might be my end, alice.it just decided to inflict new software on us for email. Will try again later.

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  24. "that our schools today are still hotbeds of such ideas and that they would receive just as 'progressive' an education there as in the home of the most dedicated autonomous educator!"

    Really? They wouldn't have to go in if they didn't want to? Could choose which lessons to attend? No tests? I'll send them in tomorrow! (if they want to go). Are you sure you're not getting confused about the meaning of 'autonomous' again?

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  25. Hi Sarah, of course you don't need the approval of others but your current methods seem to work well for you both so why change? It sounds as though your son can take as much or as little autonomy as he is comfortable with. The only limits appear to be set by the requirements for outside testing (state required?) and particular hours during the day that you require him to be learning.

    If your family is comfortable with this and it's working couldn't you continue encouraging any autonomy by allowing it as now rather than pushing him towards it? If you 'encourage' autonomy too much it eventually stops being autonomy! Autonomous education and parenting seems to work for our family - we've tried alternatives, without success - but there's no reason to assume that full autonomy would work as well in other families or even with other children if we had more. That's the beauty of home education, we can find what suits our children and family best.

    I suspect the vast majority of home educators use a mixture of parent-led and child-led, probably a normal distribution with a few completely parent-led at one end of the scale and a few completely child-led at the other. This seems to be true of many areas of life and I do worry sometimes that there are so few fully autonomous educators for a good reason! However, we see it working and our children are happy and learning, which is reassuring. If our parenting and educating styles appeared to be harming our children we would change. If your child is happy, why try to fix what isn't broken?

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  26. A Q about the use of "child-led"

    I coincidentally (like just this minute) came across Sandra Dodd sounding a bit hacked off about the use of child-led or child-directed learning being a corner stone of unschooling (I've been reading USA based forums for the last ten days and can't see that much diff. between unschooling/RU and AHE, if I've missed the obvious please feel free to bring me up to speed) here

    http://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2010/04/unschooling-what-do-you-think.html

    SD snippet to ease locating comment "I can't get behind that phrase either, nor "child-led" nor a child being "in charge of his own education." They're all irritating and keep people who are trying to unschooling from doing it smoothly and well"

    and then points readers here

    http://sandradodd.com/nest

    where I read this post (a snippet so you can find it)

    "This is why some of us dislike the term "child-led" or "child- directed" learning — unschooling is not child-led or child-directed learning — that makes it sound like the parent should just be a "follower." Not so — parents are active participants and part of the job of an unschooling parent is to keep the child in mind and to fill his/her life with just the right amount of interesting new experience, chances to repeat experiences, down time, and so on."

    Is it that the concept of "child-led / child-directed" within the concept if US/RUS/AHE is something that is hotly debated or just the opinion of a small group that happen to be well known ?

    Or is just that the words fit the concept just fine, but because they are used (potentially with a different interpretation in other educational flavours) that they are being pushed out because confusion is being created as two people who think they are talking about the exact same thing are actually taking apples and oranges to each other and ending up at cross puposes ?

    She often comes up as an authority that “newcomers” are referred to, but is that still case as the concept of US/RUS/AHE evolves and develops ?

    And are US/RUS becoming less relevant to AHE for the same reasons even if they may seem to share strong similarities/history to outsiders ?

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  27. "Is it that the concept of "child-led / child-directed" within the concept if US/RUS/AHE is something that is hotly debated or just the opinion of a small group that happen to be well known ?"

    I don't think so, at least not with the autonomous educators I speak with, though I must admit I've not read much on-line recently. I've not read Sandra's articles before, maybe because we are contemporaries (our children are almost identical in age). The child-led aspect just seems the most obvious difference to 'normal' home education, I suppose. I would assume that most/every home educating parent does the things Sandra suggests (and probably most school using parents who are involved closely with their children, certainly my school using friends do). I think I take this type of behaviour for granted and assume others do to. Maybe this is a mistake? Here are the bits that stand out to me as 'normal' behaviour that does not require mention normally (though Americanized, I don't think I've every said 'oh my gosh', and it sounds forced compared to real life):

    I've heard of unschoolers who say they never bring home anything for their kids, because they feel that puts subtle pressure on them to learn what the parents are promoting. I say hogwash to that. I pick up stuff ALL the time — STILL do it and mine are 14, 18, and almost 21. If I see an unusual fruit in the grocery store, I buy it and take it home and put it on the table for others to notice. If a kid is in the store with me I might say, "Oooh look at this. Let's take it home and cut it open."

    Or buy a coconut—shake it to see if it has liquid inside. Let the kid pound on it with a hammer until it cracks open. While they're doing that, do a quick google on coconuts so you have some background knowledge. Don't "teach" them—but if something seems cool, just say it as an interesting, cool thing to know, "Wow, coconuts are SEEDS! And, oh my gosh, they sometimes float in the ocean for years before washing up on some island and sprouting into a coconut tree."

    Child-led doesn't mean that we don't make suggestions and bring lots of resources home after a trawl through the local charity shops together. When we are bored we often have a rummage through our 'treasures' to see what we've forgotten. I've bought things that didn't take anyone's attention for years before it triggers a new hobby or interest. To be autonomous we just need to be aware of when interest is lacking and shut up! Sandra says much the same but probably phrases it better:

    The only way to make it "just right" is to offer and not coerce. If you don't "offer" stuff/ideas/experiences, then the kids aren't going to even know what's out there. If you push too much on them, they can feel pressured and that their learning is being taken over by you.

    For me, autonomous just means that the child has the final say about what they learn and how. It doesn't stop us interacting as a normal family and discussing things that interest us, the adults, or that we think might interest them with our children in the same as we would with each other or any other friend/adult. It also doesn't restrict the style of learning to something like 'informal learning', for instance. Ours has included informal learning of course (doesn't everyone's) but it has also included taught sessions at museums, music lessons, correspondence courses, home phonics courses, workbooks, text books, lots of books (we need more shelves again), home educating group activities and social meetings, libraries, museums, voluntary work, etc., etc.

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  28. "Extract-itus ?

    Where the value of reading of a whole book has been undermined/forgotten with the focus being on concentrating on a constant series of extracts instead ? "

    Children moving on to college at sixteen are frequently horrified to be told that they must read Great Expectations or Pride and Prejudice. They genuinely don't get it. They ask, 'What, do you mean the whole book?', as though somebody has asked them to memorise the Bible or something.

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  29. "Didn't Simone write poetry? Isn't this a form of progressive education as the process of composing a poem and putting it down on paper teaches much than reading about the process could? "

    She did and you are right, this teaches as much about reading as a bout anything else. Of course a child who could not read would hardly even be aware of the difference between poetry and prose. It is usually only after exposure to poetry and a bit of prompting that a child attempts to write poems of her own.

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  30. Just catching up here. Thanks for trying to reply to my email Sarah, and apologies if the reason it didn't get through is anything to do with my email client.

    I think that, with the amount of input and support it sounds like your son is getting, you won't go far wrong however you term or frame your educational methods.

    My experience (from *outcomes* - dreadful word that's been much overused recently!) is that pure autonomous learning works/worked very well for most - but not quite all - of my children. This means no "my time and your time", no expectations or requirements to produce work and no issuing of dire threats of what might happen if they didn't, or bribes of what they might get if they did produce work or work hard.

    The times when learning became less enthusiastic and efficient were the times when I tried to dilute this freedom with some parent-imposed structure, dire warnings and so on. Basically, whenever I tried to impose my ideas of what I thought they should be doing on them. This gave the mixed message that they didn't really own their own learning after all and that I didn't have full confidence in them to do so. My original point was that this is why I think use of such ideas in schools isn't effective and probably never would be without sufficient 1:1 support from someone.

    I can definitely relate to how you describe the overall pace of such things between you and your son. I'm going through much the same with one of my daughters at the moment, who seems to want or need me to have more of a deciding role in what she does than some of the others have.

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  31. Anon - “mixed message”

    I think to some extent it is impossible to avoid at least a little message mixing along the way. It’s easy when it is “a student”, it’s less of a cake walk when you bring the emotional weight of “mummyness” to the table.

    I’ve spent a year assuring him that I’m not going to cut him loose and leave him by himself to cope with the expectations that I have, that the state has.

    Yet here I am, at the end of what was more of a transitional year than the fresh start I had anticipated, champing at the bit to get on with the process of doing just that.

    Which takes me to the point AnonySue raised

    “why change”

    Change to go from high dependency to high autonomy over time so he is ready for uni (or similar) is fine. But why champ at the bit to start that change at a faster pace NOW !! (he is only just 10) ?

    Having slept on it (or more accurately tossed and turned on it) I think it’s the mummy emotional baggage. Made up mainly of fury and guilt.

    I want my baby back, the one that earned the nickname “Son of Thor” for his fearlessness and “GEROFF !!!do myseff !!! “ attitude.

    This is the kid who, unbeknown to me until it was done and dusted, pootled off every night to independently transfer reading skills in Italian to English.

    The education he was getting at school was so sub-par and I wasn’t at all happy (the sort of not happy that includes extended rants invariably beginning with “your bloody country… !!), but what really hacks me off is how two new teachers in the third year compounded that and took to a whole nother level thus turning him into a child who is now afraid of control over his own learning, cos he is so damn phobic about making a mistake.

    He doesn’t slap himself around the head any more calling himself stupid cos he sees the 2 questions he got wrong rather than the 8 he got right, or the single missing full stop instead of the 8 commas that are present and correct.
    But he still craves dependency in a way that is contrary to his nature and it is an entirely “created” need.

    So my mixed message is quite clearly the potential for telling him, “fraying the educational apron strings at your pace sweetie” compared to a non verbal communication of “I can’t stand this, I want to kiss your psychological version of a well bumped knee better, so it goes away and I don’t have to keep on facing how you having that badly bumped knee just about kills me as a mummy cos I am supposed to be the one who protects you from the nasty people and I failed.”

    This has been a most enlightening chat. I don’t think he can fully “move on” until I do, so rather than focus on his “moving on” maybe I need to concentrate on getting me past what happened first.

    I know he is a resilient little boy and will get there pretty much unscathed. As long as I let him, by working on my own “resilience” muscle rather than …. wallowing in the past.

    Which I totally admit I have been doing. I’ve made it an integral part of my “defense” for HEing so I have had a real motivation to hold on to it, blowing regularly on the embers rather than let time heal.

    Oh bugger, all the work involved in “moving on” is such a pain in bum and I was looking forward to doing nothing more taxing than playing with the “Romans” lapbook thingie that I am fleshing out.

    Thank you both very much, I know I’ve taken the discussion off at a tangent and made it all about me (again), but you have been a real help because I’m not sure I would have got there on my own.

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  32. Simon wrote,
    "She did and you are right, this teaches as much about reading as a bout anything else. Of course a child who could not read would hardly even be aware of the difference between poetry and prose. It is usually only after exposure to poetry and a bit of prompting that a child attempts to write poems of her own. "

    My point was that the process of writing poetry taught her more about poetry than just reading poetry or reading about writing poetry ever could. Isn't experiential learning part of progressive education? You have to do it yourself to really understand something, not just read about it in text books.

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  33. "

    "
    Child-led doesn't mean that we don't make suggestions and bring lots of resources home after a trawl through the local charity shops together."

    Exactly, so I'm not sure why she doesn't like the term. It seems like a good fit to me.

    Is it something to do with "child-led" being interpreted as so utterly "parental hands off" that they became leery of doing anything that could be seen as influencing their child’s interests ? That would tie in with the debate about "strewing" being manipulative v vital.

    Less a case of her not liking the term and more a case of not liking the way it is being defined to exclude a parental role in terms of sparking interest, creating opportunities to discover interests ?

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  34. "Less a case of her not liking the term and more a case of not liking the way it is being defined to exclude a parental role in terms of sparking interest, creating opportunities to discover interests ?"

    Yes, you've put that better than me. I think it's the way it could be misunderstood and lead to an artificial limit to what I view as normal family (or human) behaviour. Within our family we often begin conversations with, 'did you hear/see/know...' or 'would anyone like to go/do/try/make/read this... These comments/discussions/ideas pass parent to parent, parent to child, child to parent and child to child as I'm sure they do in most families.

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  35. I'm sorry, the post at 9:49 on the 13th August was from AnonySue, not Anonymous Y. We are friends who visit each other often and use each other's computers to check emails, etc. I must have clicked on the wrong name from the drop down menu. Apologies for any confusion caused!

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  36. "was from AnonySue, not Anonymous Y. We are friends who visit each other often and use each other's computers to check emails"

    Thak you for this, AnonySue! I was curious about Anonymous Y, who was commenting here a week and this makes matters a little clearer.

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  37. Yes, I must thank you, Simon. We haven't really discussed autonomous education much in recent years, it's just 'normal' life these days, but we have been discussing it much more recently! It all helps to keep ideas and motivation fresh and your blog has certainly stimulated some good discussions.

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  38. It is of course no affair of mine AnonySue, but I cannot help but wonder if you are a member of what I call privately the Shefield Mafia, people like Fiona Nicholson and Janet Ford? Or are you down in the Somerest end wit Tania Berlow & Co.?

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  39. No, we live well away from both areas and are not really active on any national email lists (I post very occasionally), so you are unlikely to 'know' us from anywhere else.

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