Wednesday 4 August 2010

The triumph of autonomous education!

There are still a few misguided souls who have the vague idea that autonomous education has something to do with home schooling! Nothing could be further from the truth. Autonomous of course means self-directed and really relates to the fact that a child is able to choose for herself what form or direction her learning should take. This can include choosing to study structured courses via the Open University or even going to school or college. This much, all advocates of autonomous education would agree upon. As a number of irate parents who commented on my piece a few days ago called ' A curious case of apparently autonomous education' asserted very strongly, one must always take the parents' word for what the child has chosen to do. Raising one's eyebrows at what a mother calls the decision of an autonomously educated child to study for GCSEs is rude and disrespectful of the whole idea of autonomous education. This seems reasonable because, as I remarked yesterday, we never get to hear what the kids themselves want; so we are compelled to take their parents' word for it.

Having cleared the ground a little, I have to tell readers that I have glorious news for them. Autonomous education seems to be far and away the most popular form of educational technique used in the United Kingdom today! How have I discovered this and what is my evidence for this astonishing assertion? I started from the viewpoint that if, as many of those posting comments here have told me time and again, an autonomously educated child can choose to attend school or college at the age of fourteen in order to gain GCSEs or A levels, then it must logically be the case that a child could also make this choice at thirteen and still remain autonomously educated. And why stop at thirteen? Surely a child of eleven or twelve who wishes to go to school must also be regarded as following autonomous education? I see no reason at all why this principle should not apply right down to four or five.

The beginning of my research was with my friends and colleagues. I only spoke to parents of course, because as we established here a few days ago, one must not doubt the word of parents when it comes to judging the wishes of their children. They know best. I therefore asked parents known to me personally the following questions; 'Did your child want to go to school?' and 'If you gave your child a choice now, would she rather attend school or be taught at home by you?' These questions were asked of seventeen parents having between them thirty six children between the ages of five and sixteen. The results were interesting. All but three of the children apparently wanted to go to school. Only one would choose not to attend now if given the choice. This suggests to me that these four children out of a total of thirty six, amount to a little over 10% of the sample; that is to say that almost 90% chose to go to school and are choosing to remain there and study formally. This is very heartening, but the immediate objection will of course be; how representative do I think my friends are? I have anticipated this. Only two of our friends are not white and most are middle class. Luckily, my wife works with a very working class client group in Barking and I have quite a few parents whom I visit in LB Hackney and Tower Hamlets. Since I was helping out by organising activities at my wife's place of work this week, I had the opportunity to speak to eleven parents there. Between them, they had fourteen children between the ages of five and sixteen. Over half this group are black and minority ethnic. Only one child in this group was reported by his mother to have not wanted to attend school. One would like to leave now. Again, almost a 90% rate of autonomy among the children; they are choosing their own preferred method of education. I repeated this survey with similar results among a group of black and Asian parents in Hackney and Tower Hamlets.

I can see two possible explanations for these findings. The first is that I should take them at face value and assume that autonomous education is the most popular method of education in the United Kingdom today. In other words, most children are actively choosing the educational setting which they wish. I have to say that this does not seem likely to me. The other possibility is less palatable to some parents. It is this. Parents themselves choose the educational setting which they would prefer for their children, whether it is school or home education. After they have taken this decision, they persuade both themselves, their children and everybody else that this is what the children really wanted in the first place. In effect, they rewrite history and kid everybody that the child has had a choice in the matter. I will at once put my own hand up to having done this! Talking to close friends and exploring the questions which I posed to them recently reveals that a similar process has taken place with at least some children who have been sent to school.

Many parents who send their children to school effectively brainwash them into accepting their fate. They buy them books called 'Jimmy has lots of fun at school' or 'Jemima's happy first day at school'. They repeat over and over again, the mantras 'You will make lots of new friends at school' and 'You will have a good time at school'. By the time they get there, the children have been hypnotised and are incapable of resisting all this psychological conditioning. Of course home educating parents do exactly the same thing. I used to point out to my daughter how lucky she was not to be cooped up indoors on a lovely sunny day and how many enjoyable things we did which she couldn't have done if she had gone to school. I know other home educators who did the same thing. In some cases, the kid actually wanted to go to school and the mothers have discouraged them and worked hard to make them change their minds! One reads of such cases on the Internet lists; mothers who say that their child wants to go to school and they want advice on how they can discourage her. Oddly, I have never seen a response to questions like this where the parent is urged to respect the child's autonomous wishes! Instead, a variety of handy tips are offered to get the kid to change his mind. This is just what some parents do who persuade their children against their inclination that they really do want to go to school.

Perhaps we are all of us deceiving ourselves. I think that what really happens might be that rather than carefully respecting our children's choices, we simply make what seems to us the best decision for them and forge ahead regardless. I rather think that home educating parents are just as apt to do this as anybody else. I'm sure that if I carried out a survey among home educating parents I should find just the same results as I did among the parents of school children. I've no reason at all though to think it any more likely that these children were really having their own free and unfettered choices acted upon.

35 comments:

  1. You might get a better idea by asking children themselves. I don't do this exactly, because if they're school children + have no choice over it, I would see it as interfering/possibly upsetting to ask them what they'd like when they don't actually have a choice! However, I ask schooled friends of my children how their day was, what they did at school etc. and the response is usually negative, although when the children were younger there would be a few positive responses about whatever project the class was doing at the time.

    Rambling a bit, but what I mean is that in my experience, schooled children that I know would leave in a flash if they were able to. They might be relunctant though if the parents believe school is best and tell them that, which is to be expected.

    All the HE children I know who've asked to go to school have been allowed to. That's four children out of about 60ish.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very good point. I deliberately did not do this because a few days ago people were getting quite tetchy with me when I suggested that perhaps a mother would mislead anybody about her children's wishes. I decided to stick to the idea that parents know best what their children want and that we should always take their word for this where their children are concerned. This is of course one of the reasons that home educating parents do not want local authority officers to speak alone to their children. The parents feel that they alone should be the ones who tell the world what their children have chosen.

    ReplyDelete
  3. But even when children tell someone what they want you appear to believe that they are influenced by their parents. Remember the example of the third world country where the children were asked when they wanted to receive education and they chose evenings so that they could continue to work?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Here's a children's survey. Do you believe this, or do you think it was completed by parents?

    http://www.ukhome-educators.co.uk/Survey/childsurvey0609.htm

    Maybe we aught to force children to sit a survey in exam conditions?

    ReplyDelete
  5. "One reads of such cases on the Internet lists; mothers who say that their child wants to go to school and they want advice on how they can discourage her. Oddly, I have never seen a response to questions like this where the parent is urged to respect the child's autonomous wishes! Instead, a variety of handy tips are offered to get the kid to change his mind."

    I suppose it depends on where autonomousness begins and ends within a family. In our family it covers our whole lifestyle and because of this, some of my children have attended school for short periods (those that have gone have gone once, the longest time being a term). Other families limit autonomousness to education within the home - thus they would not give their children the choice to brush or not brush their teeth and similarly not offer the choice to go to school or not.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Besides, it would be a bit silly to go through the rigmarole of enrolling in school if the child really only wanted to wear a uniform. Much better to check what the child actually wants and then attempting to provide it if they don't actually want everything that school offers.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "Here's a children's survey. Do you believe this, or do you think it was completed by parents?"

    Absolutely impossible to say anything about this survey. How were the children selected? Were they all members of one home educating organisation such as Education Otherwise? Were they selected at random from a large group consisting of children known to the local authority, children unknown and so on? Were the questionnaires distributed to parents or to the children? Was this exercise conducted at home educating groups? Were they filled out in the presence of parents? Who oversaw the process and monitored the gathering and collation of these data?
    Get back to me with this information and we can look in detail at this.

    ReplyDelete
  8. It depends on what the question is though. You said:

    "we never get to hear what the kids themselves want; so we are compelled to take their parents' word for it."

    No mention of a need for them to be a representative group of any kind. I direct you to the opinions of 591 children's and you move the goalposts. Maybe you need to be clear in your own mind what you want to know and ask a clear question?

    ReplyDelete
  9. "I started from the viewpoint that if, as many of those posting comments here have told me time and again, an autonomously educated child can choose to attend school or college at the age of fourteen in order to gain GCSEs or A levels, then it must logically be the case that a child could also make this choice at thirteen and still remain autonomously educated. And why stop at thirteen? Surely a child of eleven or twelve who wishes to go to school must also be regarded as following autonomous education? I see no reason at all why this principle should not apply right down to four or five."

    One of mine was 5 and the other 7 when they decided they wanted to take a look as school. The 5 year old stayed for a term, the 7 year old stayed for half a term before choosing to return to HE.

    "The other possibility is less palatable to some parents. It is this. Parents themselves choose the educational setting which they would prefer for their children, whether it is school or home education."

    I think this is true. Very, very few parents educate autonomously (the vast majority use a mixture of parent and child directed) and only a proportion of these extend choices outside education. Parents might let their children choose what and how they study but not give them choices about brushing teeth or school or home. Their education content alone is child led. I don't think anyone disputes the fact that very few children have a free choice of where they are educated, but why does this mean that you do not believe that a tiny minority do without actually speaking to the child yourself?

    From speaking to various children I would guess that more home educated children are happy with the location of school educated children but this is obviously anecdotal. I'm not sure that anyone responsible for funding research is going to be happy asking school children this question, to be honest.

    ReplyDelete
  10. "I would guess that more home educated children are happy with the location of school educated children"

    should have been,

    "I would guess that more home educated children are happy with the location of their education than school educated children"

    ReplyDelete
  11. "No mention of a need for them to be a representative group of any kind. I direct you to the opinions of 591 children's and you move the goalposts. Maybe you need to be clear in your own mind what you want to know and ask a clear question? "

    Once again, I observe how asking questions brings out the pugnacious streak in some people. This is an interesting document about which I would like to know a little more. Since you are unwilling to help, I have emailed Ann Newstead for more information.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Why pugnacious? It depends on the tone of voice you use when reading it surely and I didn't write it intending to be pugnacious at all.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Slightly exasperated maybe, on reflexion.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Parents controlling their child's education choices can potentially have negative effects at all levels:

    ‘Helicopter’ parents should buzz off, says survey

    ReplyDelete
  15. Another survey for you. This time, 40,000 school children from Kent. According to this one,

    85 per cent of children (aged 7-11) reported enjoying school at least sometimes and 55 per cent of young people (aged 11-16) reported that they liked being at school.

    NFER survey, Children and Young People in Kent

    ReplyDelete
  16. How far our children (or, indeed, any of us) can make truly autonomous choices is debatable. Human relationships are complex and involve us all making judgements about what we think others want and how we want to respond to that. It can, therefore, be difficult to unpick matters of choice in education as in every other area of life.

    I would say that my children are autonomously home educated but I fully recognise my own role in their choices. I can't write myself out of the equation - any more than I can remove the influence of anyone else. All I can do is assure them that I respect their choices and want nothing more for them than that they be true to themselves. That's what I do. I then accept what they say they want.

    ReplyDelete
  17. "I only spoke to parents of course, because as we established here a few days ago, one must not doubt the word of parents when it comes to judging the wishes of their children. They know best."

    The difference though is that in the autonomous education cases you mention the parents actually ask the children what their wishes are, the don't make a judgement as you suggest here. You then seem to decide that the parent is lying about asking the child or about the child's response. Should we now repay the favour and decide that you are lying about your 'survey'?

    ReplyDelete
  18. "Oddly, I have never seen a response to questions like this where the parent is urged to respect the child's autonomous wishes! Instead, a variety of handy tips are offered to get the kid to change his mind."

    Times must have changed since I stopped reading email lists then, as at least one reply usually suggested letting them try school in the 'old days'.

    ReplyDelete
  19. "You then seem to decide that the parent is lying about asking the child or about the child's response. Should we now repay the favour and decide that you are lying about your 'survey'?"

    More talk about lying. People fail to tell the truth for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they are mistaken or forgetful, other times they leave out things or exaggerate some things. Mostly it is a combination of all these things. I'm not sure how helpful it is to suggest that every time somebody tells less than the precise, unvarnished and unadorned truth that they are 'lying'.

    ReplyDelete
  20. OK, I'll rephrase that. We never get to hear what Simon's friends say; so we are compelled to take Simon's word for it.

    Is that better?

    ReplyDelete
  21. BTW, the above should be followed by:

    People (including Simon presumably) fail to tell the truth for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they are mistaken or forgetful, other times they leave out things or exaggerate some things. Mostly it is a combination of all these things.

    ReplyDelete
  22. "People (including Simon presumably) fail to tell the truth for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they are mistaken or forgetful, other times they leave out things or exaggerate some things. Mostly it is a combination of all these things. "

    Certainly I was including myself in that.

    ReplyDelete
  23. "Certainly I was including myself in that."

    So you lie (or 'exaggerate' if you prefer) and you think everyone else does too, possibly because it seems so normal to you. This doesn't mean that everyone else actually lies (at least not to the extent you think, I agree most people lie to be kind on occasion), it just means you think they do and therefore distrust everyone (or, at least those that disagree with you).

    ReplyDelete
  24. Remember what I said about an obsession with 'lying'?

    ReplyDelete
  25. "and you think everyone else does too, possibly because it seems so normal to you."

    I was explaining why people might fail to speak the strict and unvarnished truth at all times. You are so keen on accusing people of telling lies that it seemed a good idea to point out that not all failures to speak the truth are actually lies. God preserve me from the stiff-necked and righteous man who claims never to tell a lie, or cheat, covet his neighbours goods, fornicate, take the Lord's name in vain or break the Sabbath. My experience with such people has not been good. As soon as I meet a person who says, 'I never lie' or 'I never break the Sabbath'; my heart sinks!

    ReplyDelete
  26. Why so mealy mouthed about lying? Since when has failing to tell the truth not been classed as lying? You think everyone lies, that it's fine to write a blog article claiming that a mother lied about her child studying GCSE sciences without structured courses and you make fun of people for thinking that lying is wrong (calling them po-faced) so presumably you think it's normal, so why this obsessional dislike of a simple, descriptive word?

    ReplyDelete
  27. "that it's fine to write a blog article claiming that a mother lied about her child studying GCSE sciences without structured courses"

    A perfect example of not telling the truth without actually lying! Are you sure that you are not really my sock puppet anonymous? In the blog post I reproached the mother for misleading us by not mentioning a key fact at first. This led to several people, me included, to think that her child had taken GCSEs without attending school. I do not think and never did that she was lying and neither did I say this.

    Do you see how easy it is to say things, as you do, which while not actually lies certainly give peolea false impression?

    "why this obsessional dislike of a simple, descriptive word?"

    I do not have any dislike of this word. If I have a dislike connected with it, it might perhaps be people who proclaim their honesty and detestation of lying and then immediately try to mislead others.

    ReplyDelete
  28. "In the blog post I reproached the mother for misleading us by not mentioning a key fact at first. This led to several people, me included, to think that her child had taken GCSEs without attending school."

    I didn't feel mislead at all. It was clear that her child had taken a course in the hope that she would consolidate her knowledge of science but was disappointed that she learnt nothing new. It was clear that she had followed some kind of course, either correspondence or taught, but did not learn anything beyond what she had already taught herself.

    As you quoted before, she said,

    ' My AS child took science GCSE's as a way of consolidating her knowledge, and was very disappointed when she realised that her knowledge already far exceeded that which was necessary for the GCSE course. She got A*s without doing a stroke of work. She is completely self-taught, and was teaching me by the age of 11.'

    If you take the first phrase literally (as you appear to have done) and believed that she just took the GCSEs exams without some kind of course, she would hardly have expected to consolidate her knowledge. She then goes on to mention a 'GCSE course'. What did you think she meant by this? It's obviously something more than a syllabus or textbook.

    "If I have a dislike connected with it, it might perhaps be people who proclaim their honesty and detestation of lying and then immediately try to mislead others."

    I must apologise to you then if you genuinely did not realise that she had taken a GCSE course after reading this quote. It seemed so obvious to me that it never crossed my mind that you would not see this also. It was certainly not my intention to mislead others into thinking you lied, I genuinely thought you were. Obviously I was mistaken.

    But if you dislike being connected with the word, why do you think it acceptable to throw it at large groups of people and then be surprised when they become upset?

    ReplyDelete
  29. "was very disappointed when she realised that her knowledge already far exceeded that which was necessary for the GCSE course."

    The child could easily have been planning to study for a GCSE and then after glancing through the syllabus, realised that it would be a waste of time becuase she knew all the stuff already. She then simply sat the examination without studying. this is certainly one construction which could be put upon the situation. Combine this with the assertion, "She is completely self-taught" and the conclusion which many would reach is that the child has had no formal instruction in science.

    "But if you dislike being connected with the word,"

    I don't at all mind being associated with the word 'liar'. There are only two possibilities when this is done. Either I am a liar in which case I can hardly object to being called one. Or, on the other hand, I may not be a liar, in which case I can afford to ignore the suggestion. I am more intrigued with the character of those who are constantly seeking out lies and denouncing them. This smacks of a displeasing and puritanical attitude, but it is really no affair of mine. Most of the time, the discussion of lying has no relevance to the topic which I have posted on and so it is an irritating distraction, but the fact that I use no moderation here means that I have to endure such things!

    ReplyDelete
  30. "The child could easily have been planning to study for a GCSE and then after glancing through the syllabus, realised that it would be a waste of time becuase she knew all the stuff already. She then simply sat the examination without studying."

    Possibly, hence my apology. My immediate understanding happened to be accurate, yours was wrong. I may have misunderstood your misunderstanding, thinking you understood but did not believe that she learnt nothing new on the GCSE course.

    "Combine this with the assertion, "She is completely self-taught" and the conclusion which many would reach is that the child has had no formal instruction in science."

    But this applies equally to both of our understandings of the forgoing comments. In my version, she took a course but added nothing new to her knowledge, therefore all of her science knowledge was self-taught.

    "I am more intrigued with the character of those who are constantly seeking out lies and denouncing them."

    I'm just trying to understand why you distrust others so much. One theory is that you lie so much that it seems normal to you with the result that you believe everyone else lies. Any history of lying on your part (such as about being a teacher or not) is going to reinforce such a theory and make anything you say in future less believable, a bit like the boy who cried wolf. As in the boy's case, you may have been telling the truth this time.

    "This smacks of a displeasing and puritanical attitude, but it is really no affair of mine."

    Again you seem to disapprove of people who believe that others should not lie.

    "Most of the time, the discussion of lying has no relevance to the topic which I have posted on"

    Not if you include the number of occasions in which you demonstrate your distrust of others as in this thread.

    ReplyDelete
  31. "The child could easily have been planning to study for a GCSE and then after glancing through the syllabus, realised that it would be a waste of time becuase she knew all the stuff already. She then simply sat the examination without studying."

    It was a GCSE, wouldn't she have had to do some kind of course in order to have the coursework verified?

    ReplyDelete
  32. "Not if you include the number of occasions in which you demonstrate your distrust of others as in this thread."

    I do not distrust people, particularly those whom I have never met. Nor do I trust them implicitly. I am usually open minded about the possibility that they may be telling the truth. I am also open to the possibility of their being forgetful and making mistakes, as well as the chance that they are telling deliberate lies. If somebody tells me something, I feel quite happy asking questions to clarify what is being claimed. If I see an apparent contradiction, I don't mind pointing this out. You yourself seem to have no problem with doing this, although I have no idea whether it stems in your case from a distrustful nature. There is a difference between being open minded and empty headed. I am always keenly aware that what people are saying may not be the entire truth. If you wish to work upon the opposite assumption that what people say is always the truth, then that is fine; why should it affect me?

    ReplyDelete
  33. "It was a GCSE, wouldn't she have had to do some kind of course in order to have the coursework verified?"

    No, not if it was an International GCSE.

    ReplyDelete
  34. But then she would have said IGCSE. Most people do not make such a simple mistake.

    ReplyDelete
  35. On the contrary, I often refer to my daughter's qualifications as GCSEs because these are what people are familiar with. Not everybody has heard of IGCSEs and so it avoids having to explain things. Besides, International or not, they are still GCSEs.

    ReplyDelete