I have been pondering lately the extent to which a certain type of home educator finds it impossible to separate abstract philosophies from those expounding them. I discuss education with many people, practically everybody I meet and know in fact. My views often differ radically from those of the people to whom I talk. Some of my best friends are teachers, for instance, and they do not really approve of the idea of home education. Others are social workers and they have reservations about the practice from a safeguarding viewpoint. I often meet teachers and social workers whom I don't know very well and I talk about education with them as well. Almost without exception, all the parents I know send their children to school and nursery. Despite these great differences of opinion, I find myself able to discuss the topic of home education amicably and am able to keep the ideas themselves quite separate from the person expressing them. In other words, there is no animosity involved and even though we argue strongly about home education, there is never any ill feeling. How very different from the situation when trying to discuss home education objectively with people on the Internet!
Part of the problem when discussing home education on the Internet is that people are typically more aggressive than they would be if they were talking face to face. This is common to all topics talked about online; it is not restricted to home education. The fact that people wish to conceal their names does not help. Somehow the anonymity encourages individuals to make scurrilous attacks on others without fear of any unpleasant consequences. Everybody feels braver if hiding behind a mask. As I say, a lot of this is common to all debates on the Internet, but even taking all this into account, there do seem to be some remarkably bad tempered and aggressive people in the world of home education! I am not thinking so much now of the lists such as HE-UK, but whenever and wherever home education crops up, there always seems to be a really angry person ready to post something sharp and confrontative. I see this on the comments sections of online articles a lot.
The impression one gets is that many of these people take criticism of their educational philosophy as a personal attack. This is a bit strange. Many people have over the years criticised the idea of my home educating my daughter. I have never seen this as a personal thing, as a criticism of me. I for my part have said things to others about the schools that their children attend, again without this being seen as an assault upon them personally. With home educators though, things are often different. An attack on the idea of home education is an attack upon them. I really struggle to see this point of view. After all, some autonomous educators talk about 'coercive' learning and teaching being 'imposed' upon a child. This is a ludicrous misrepresentation of structured teaching, but it does not bother me; I don't get angry about it. I have seen some pretty grotesque distortions of the early education of children as well, made by autonomous educators. One could say, if one wished to use the terminology that some of these parents affect, that these people are 'lying' about structured teaching and spreading untruthful ideas about conventional education. I suppose in a way they may well be, but it does not particularly worry me. I don't think any teacher or highly structured educator would get worked up about such things. Autonomous educators on the other hand do get worked up about it if somebody says something which they feel to be a misrepresentation of their chosen educational methods, it is a personal affront!
A few days ago Kelly Green on her blog claimed that I was a government advisor; a suggestion which has provided a good deal of innocent amusement in the Webb household. When I said on here that I regarded this sort of invention as being qualitatively different from a mistake or exaggeration about an educational philosophy, one of the people who comment on here would not accept this. If she was being honest, and I have no reason to suppose otherwise, she regards any distortion or misrepresentation of her favoured educational philosophy as being worse than if somebody had fabricated a story about her private life. In other words, her personal life and her philosophy are so closely entwined that an attack on one is every bit as offensive as an attack on the other.
So strange do I find this attitude towards educational techniques, that I have to pinch myself to make sure that I am not dreaming when I talk about this. I am not a fan of synthetic phonics. Can it really be the case that among the advocates of this method of teaching literacy there are individuals who would rather have people make up and spread lies about their personal life than see any criticism of the teaching of reading by phonics? Can I for my part imagine that I would sooner have people make up silly stories about me than hear them saying bad things about structured teaching? This is so peculiar that I can think of no parallel in any other type of educational philosophy. The only comparison I can make is with members of certain religions and cults whose beliefs become so important to them that they become one with their life as a whole. All I can say is that using the Look and Say method of teaching reading was never that much a part of my very identity and that when people talk foolishly about 'coercive' teaching, I do not find this the same as somebody inventing fantastic stories about my professional background.
'The fact that people wish to conceal their names does not help. Somehow the anonymity encourages individuals to make scurrilous attacks on others without fear of any unpleasant consequences. Everybody feels braver if hiding behind a mask.'
ReplyDeleteYes, no and not always.
People may have all sorts of legitimate reasons for not wanting their name 'out there' on the web.
Some of us who choose the anon option might have several good reasons, but try not to abuse it by being rude or deceitful.
Mrs Anon
'I don't think any teacher or highly structured educator would get worked up about such things. Autonomous educators on the other hand do get worked up about it if somebody says something which they feel to be a misrepresentation of their chosen educational methods, it is a personal affront!'
ReplyDeleteIt's hard for it to not be a personal affront when the attacks are personal. I've seen some non-autonomous HE'ers attacked mercilessly on some lists. The forbearance they've shown in not returning those attacks has been monumental.
Mrs Anon
'Some of us who choose the anon option might have several good reasons, but try not to abuse it by being rude or deceitful.'
ReplyDeleteI certainly wasn't making a coded reference to you, mrs Anon! I was thinking more about some of those who make hit and run attacks here.
I realise that, Simon, but you do often refer to people's choice to be anonymous in various places and often 'out' people here or guess at their 'true identities'. There could be very important reasons why people wish to remain anon, that's all I was saying.
ReplyDeleteMrs Anon
' There could be very important reasons why people wish to remain anon, that's all I was saying.'
ReplyDeleteWhich is a very resonable point. For example it might be to protect the privacy of a child. Nevertheless, there is something about being anonymous which does tend to bring out the worst in people, regardless of the initial motives for witholding one's identity!
Well, I don't do anonymous because I do tend to feel that it weakens your argument somewhat. But I appreciate that people may have perfectly valid reasons for witholding their identity.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to whether or not we take attacks as 'personal' I suspect that this depends quite a lot on the relative power and influence of the people on either side of the argument. When you feel yourself to be in a minority, or you feel your choice is being characterised as 'cranky' in some way and against 'common sense' which is agreed by 'everyone else' then I think you can develop something of a siege mentality. It also gets tiring having to constantly defend your choices and that can lead to a weary sense that *you* are under attack.
I was once given a piece of advice that has stood me in good stead for many years. I was sixteen and trying to organise some events for international women's week at my sixth form college. I spent half my time in corridors having arguments and a substantial part of the other half taking porn down off our publicity posters or reading the homophobic graffitti in the toilets. One day I was gloomy and moaning to a friendly teacher and she advised that it wasn't always necessary to argue and justify yourself - you could just keep going with what you were doing. If I start to feel personally drained or attacked then I generally back away and just get on with life for a bit. It works well for me.
Of course, sometimes you have to take things on and it isn't always going to be mild mannered exchanges. I don't mind a bit of that too :-
'When you feel yourself to be in a minority, or you feel your choice is being characterised as 'cranky' in some way and against 'common sense' which is agreed by 'everyone else' then I think you can develop something of a siege mentality.'
ReplyDeleteWell of course I was in that position myself when my daughter was aged 5 - 16! I suppose that when we take a decision of this sort, that is to say to do something completely different from everybody else, then it is only to be expected that criticism and disapproval will follow.
old Webb says-Well of course I was in that position myself when my daughter was aged 5 - 16! I suppose that when we take a decision of this sort, that is to say to do something completely different from everybody else, then it is only to be expected that criticism and disapproval will follow.
ReplyDeleteyou get criticism from teachers LA workers ex heads Balls/Badman had very little from joe public! some one sent us 50 pound for Peter to help him with his education very nice of them!
Hi Simon,
ReplyDeleteWhere I would characterise most home educators' reactions as frequently reasonably defensive in the face of unreasonable attacks (witness you and your daughter's reactions to attacks by Rod Liddle et al. on the Wright Stuff), I am not convinced that you are not exempt from more serious charges, whereby you deal with critics and criticism very unfairly.
For example, you routinely employ ridicule: eg: in post above: tittering about Kelly's remarks.
Further, often coupled with your appeals to ridicule, you routinely use straw men, setting up your opponent's argument completely incorrectly, so that you can easily make them look stupid...eg: in post above:
"After all, some autonomous educators talk about 'coercive' learning and teaching being 'imposed' upon a child. This is a ludicrous misrepresentation of structured teaching,..."
Whether or not this is innocently misinformed, it remains none-the-less pretty aggressive/defensive.
I am therefore not convinced by your argument that anonymity is a very significant problem. Revealing your identity doesn't stop you using these techniques after all.
>>>"After all, some autonomous educators talk about 'coercive' learning and teaching being 'imposed' upon a child. This is a ludicrous misrepresentation of structured teaching,..."
ReplyDeleteWhether or not this is innocently misinformed, it remains none-the-less pretty aggressive/defensive.<<<
Could you explain a little more, Anonymous? I don't understand your point here.
Mrs Anon
'For example, you routinely employ ridicule: eg: in post above: tittering about Kelly's remarks.'
ReplyDeleteWhen somebody like Kelly Green invents a story that I was an advisor to the Department of Children, Schools and Families and then uses her blog to disseminate this nonsense across the Internet, then a little gentle ridicule is the least she can expect! Some people might have been seriously annoyed about her doing that.
'I am therefore not convinced by your argument that anonymity is a very significant problem. Revealing your identity doesn't stop you using these techniques after all.'
We will have to agree to differ on this. I was raised to believe that I should not say or write anything which I would be ashamed to sign with my name. This has not always worked to my advantage. If I had adopted a false name on the HE Internet lists, then nobody would have known that I wrote those articles last year. After all, everybody els on those lists uses false names, why shouldn't I have done so? If people wish to use false names, this is fine by me, but it means that I am less inclined to take what they say seriously.
"After all, some autonomous educators talk about 'coercive' learning and teaching being 'imposed' upon a child. This is a ludicrous misrepresentation of structured teaching,..."
ReplyDeleteThis is a misrepresentation of structured teaching, but I'm not sure autonomous educators use it. If they do, it's an incorrect usage in my view. However, I would say that these comments are true of parent-led home education. Unless you are suggesting that you did not impose this style of education on your child? After all, f you didn't impose it on her, if she chose that form of education herself, she was autonomously educated.
The use of coercive is another example of lion speak, I think, and it can be a problem even within home education. When I use coercive I mean causing a person to do something when they would rather be doing something else. I also believe that no parent is 100% non-coercive. So calling you coercive is not as significant a comment as you might suppose, as I also apply the same to myself even though I aim to minimise coercion and attempt to find common preferences wherever possible.
' Unless you are suggesting that you did not impose this style of education on your child?'
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting point, Janice. To what extent can you impose learning or anything else on a child, short of chaining them up? We are a vegetarian household. Would you say then that we 'imposed' vegetarianism upon out children? Is that how other vegetarians see the situation? One cannot force a child to eat a carrot, so whatever is on offer, it is impossible to 'impose' the eating of vegetables upon a child. Similarly, it is quite impossible to 'impose' learning upon a child. It is always a matter of cooperation and teamwork. This is true in autonomously educating households just as much as it is in the more structured set-up which we had here.
What would you have done if your daughter (say aged about 12) had decided one morning that she didn't want to study what you wanted to teach her and explained that she had decided to follow her own interests by finding study materials herself and working through them as and when she felt she wanted to? Would you have allowed this, or would you have imposed your teaching by persuading her that her idea was a bad idea?
ReplyDeleteAh, I see. You seem to be saying that using persuasion and rational argument robs people of their autonomy? I'm not sure that I would agree with you there. We often talk to children about why we think that they should follow a course of action which we recommend. 'You must clean your teeth or you will have tooth decay when you are older', 'Unless we go to the opticians, you might have eye problems', 'eating vegetables is good for you because of the vitamins', 'We don't eat meat because it is cruel to the animals'.
ReplyDeleteAre you saying that the use of reason in this way is really no more than a tool for imposing our will upon children and depriving them of their autonomy? Presuambly if at the age of twelve, my daughter had decided that she wished to have a boyfriend, go to the pub and so on, then it might have been a bad thing to discourage her 'by persuading her that her idea was a bad idea?'
"Are you saying that the use of reason in this way is really no more than a tool for imposing our will upon children and depriving them of their autonomy?"
ReplyDeleteNo, of course we share our knowledge with our children, it's integral to good parenting in my view, anything less is laissez faire. It's the parents willingness, or lack of willingness, to accept the child's choices if they disagree with them that makes the difference. This is only a problem if you assume children are largely irrational and will not listen to reason. In my experience of 4 children through the teenage years and beyond, this was not the case. They have at the very least been amenable to changing their plans to account for my feelings even if they didn't agree 100% with my evaluation of the risks (like allowing me to be there when they met someone they knew from the internet for the first time, even though their sibling would have been with them too, for instance). Maybe if they had behaved differently I would have felt forced to change my parenting methods, but attempting to be as non-coercive as possible and finding common preferences when we disagree has worked very well for our family. Common preferences are not necessarily the first ideas either the parents or child began a discussion with but solutions we are both happy with, not solutions we are putting up with because we have no choice. It takes a lot of work and effort to find common preferences sometimes, but in our experience it has helped develop strong family ties and problem solving skills!
Anonymous said...
ReplyDelete>>>"After all, some autonomous educators talk about 'coercive' learning and teaching being 'imposed' upon a child. This is a ludicrous misrepresentation of structured teaching,..."
>>"Could you explain a little more, Anonymous? I don't understand your point here.<<
Hi Mrs Anon,
I haven't read all the comments and suspect that Janice may have answered your query, but just in case she hasn't, in brief:
It is wrong to characterise autonomous educators in the way Simon has, since if someone were to make the mistake of thinking that structure is necessarily coercive, they are almost certainly not actually autonomous educators since they would otherwise have to accept that a learner may well request structured teaching.
Structure and autonomy are not mutually exclusive. A child may request structured learning either of their own accord, or if they see the arguments for doing it when it is suggested by someone else.
On the other hand, structured teaching can most certainly be coercively imposed in that it can be pressed upon a mind that is not ready to accept it, only partially accepts it, is unable to engage with it, or unable to act upon it critically or creatively.