Sunday 3 October 2010

Autonomous education in practice

I have been criticised here recently, and not for the first time, for my portrayal of autonomous home education in the two newspaper articles which were published last summer. Among the accusations levelled at me in the past was that I had put forward a grotesque caricature of autonomous education and thus misrepresented the whole thing to the readers of the Times Educational Supplement. I wrote of autonomous education;

' The idea is that the child should be free to follow their own interests at their own pace. They may, for example, look out of the window and see an unusual bird. This may cause them to investigate ornithology and then study biology generally. Of course, this approach just might work with a bright and inquisitive child whose parents are on hand to facilitate their learning. Equally likely is that the child will see the bird, mutter “So what?” and carry on playing Grand Theft Auto IV.'

Before we watch the clip below, which is from a BBC programme about home education, let us look again at what I wrote. Looking out of the window at birds; this leading, perhaps, to a study of biology; the possibility that kids would rather play computer games. I mean, preposterous! Where do I get off trying to foist such a monstrous and distorted idea of autonomous education upon readers? Now watch the clip below, which is about an autonomously educating parent.




The first thing to strike any impartial observer is how spookily accurate my description of autonomous home education proves to be in this particular case. One gets the distinct impression from his body language and general demeanour that young Christopher is indeed muttering 'So what?' and hoping to continue playing Grand Theft Auto IV, or in his case Super Mario. Anybody would think that I had based my article upon this programme! Since it was filmed six months after the publication of the piece in the TES, this is hardly possible. There is of course no mystery about it. The 'Let's look out of the window and study the birds in the garden' line is a pretty popular gag with autonomous educators hoping to get their kids interested in nature. They don't even need to leave the house! The preference of some children for playing computer games as opposed to studying ornithology is also a general theme among many autonomously educated children, as well as those attending school. Let's face it, an awful lot of eight year old boys want to do little more than run round like mad things until they are worn out and then flop down and watch television or play computer games. Why would autonomously educated children be any different? I also have quite a few people, including autonomously educating parents, contacting me privately to discuss this sort of thing.

The real reason that I enrage some parents is not because I am a know-it-all Smart-Alec and irritatingly smug bastard (Although it would be a rash man who discounted this aspect of my personality entirely when seeking an explanation for my spectacular lack of popularity among autonomous educators). The truth is that I often describe how things are rather than how people wish to pretend they are. This can indeed be annoying. I am no ideologue and am hugely interested in how things really work, as opposed to how they are supposed to work. Hazlitt said, 'Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.' This is why I gain such keen enjoyment from the observation of certain types of education; because of the yawning chasm which separates theory from practice.

Incidentally, lest anybody suggest that the clip above is highly artificial because the mother and child might have felt under pressure due to the presence of a camera crew; this was not the case according to everybody involved. The team actually spent a couple of days there and after a while the child more or less took them as part of the background. These people were quite shocked to find that it was possible to keep a child out of school in this way. Their views on this kind of 'education' were well worth hearing and cast light upon how ordinary people see autonomous learning!

21 comments:

  1. 'The team actually spent a couple of days there and after a while the child more or less took them as part of the background. These people were quite shocked to find that it was possible to keep a child out of school in this way. Their views on this kind of 'education' were well worth hearing and cast light upon how ordinary people see autonomous learning! '

    Where would we be able to hear them?

    Mrs Anon

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  2. On cannot, alas, hear them Mrs Anon. This is what they told me.

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  3. I think you'll find that the child in question does have an interest in biology and can go days without watching the TV. Computer games include such things as the Science Museum's Launchpad stuff and various maths and other educational games. He does play Wii games, but not every day.

    There is also the point that a lot more was filmed than was shown, and the 'team' was one person with a camera.

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  4. I'd like to see the whole programme. Is it available to watch anywhere? I don't think any conclusions can be drawn about anything from a 2-minute clip, or actually, in this case, a series of clips of a few seconds which were then edited together. I also know, having talked to home educators who were involved in 'Castaway' and the series where a group of people re-created Iron Age life, that the bias of the film makers strongly influences the impression that is given by the final product.

    Having said that, I didn't see Kit expressing a preference for computer games over ornithology anyway. I certainly didn't interpret his body language as indicating that. He appeared to be quite excited about the birds.

    The clip gives the impression that he was expressing a preference for computer games over times tables, but it's impossible to tell if that is the correct impression because of the way it is edited.


    However relaxed they were in the presence of the camera, this clip is nevertheless highly artificial.

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  5. Blimey, Simon, you seem to have contacts everywhere - presumably you're claiming to have spoken to the TV people?

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  6. Has anyone queried this particular passage from your article? It sounds reasonable to me. Not everyone is interested in birds. I created a book about birds (in my own time for my own enjoyment) - a page per bird - when I was about 7, so at that time I was obviously interested in birds but I'm not that bothered now. I certainly wouldn't expect every 6-7 year old boy to b be interested in them, why is this strange or wrong? Why choose this particular quote and not those that are incorrect such as the following?

    "The problem lies not so much with those who teach their children at home as with those who don’t teach them - strange as it may sound, a very large number of parents who have withdrawn their children from school are opposed on ideological grounds to teaching them anything at all."

    Autonomous educators are not ideologically opposed to teaching children anything. They are opposed to teaching them things against their will.

    "Even if a child is enthusiastic about acquiring knowledge, their education is liable to be scrappy and unbalanced."

    You have no evidence for this - this is just your opinion, and in my experience of about 15 AE children, it is incorrect.

    "Many home-educating parents are furiously asserting their “right” to educate at home. But it is the children who have the right - to receive a proper education. Parents have instead a duty - to make sure our children receive an education."

    My children (now young adults) strongly assert their right (when younger and now) to an education that is suitable for them. From experience of both types of education (they have experience of college where, though they were there by their own choice, they saw the results of those there by their parent's choice) they know that autonomous education was the most suitable education for them and they want that option for their own children in future.

    "Autonomous education is not a fringe faction in home educating. Many of the most strident and vociferous critics of the Badman review - the ones lobbying MPs, writing to the newspapers and involved in groups such as Education Otherwise - are autonomous educators."

    It is a fringe faction. A minority of home educators are autonomous. The fact that they felt more threatened by the Badman review than parent-led educators and as a result were more vociferous critics does not change this.

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  7. "Of course, this approach just might work with a bright and inquisitive child whose parents are on hand to facilitate their learning."

    Maybe AE only works when the child is bright and inquisitive and if a child is not they may drop the method? I do know of people who have tried AE and have subsequently dropped it. Mind you, I've not met any young children who were not bright and inquisitive, but maybe I've been lucky?

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  8. @allie - he was on the programme, so would have had a chance to talk to whoever turned up.

    It was shown in February this year, and was about ten minutes, including interviews with Simon and his daughter, an inspector and coverage/interviews of the family. Two days of filming condensed into probably three or four minutes at most.

    I probably ought to admit to some knowledge of what went on.

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  9. "Incidentally, lest anybody suggest that the clip above is highly artificial because the mother and child might have felt under pressure due to the presence of a camera crew; this was not the case according to everybody involved."

    However relaxed they were with the person filming them it can still not be described as 'normal' or 'natural' which really only leaves artificial. Unless you normally have someone filming your throughout the day? There would still have been a pressure to produce results of some kind within a certain pre-set time frame. Not normal AE by any stretch of the imagination.

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  10. 'Of course, this approach just might work with a bright and inquisitive child whose parents are on hand to facilitate their learning.'

    @anonymous - would you agree that AE also only works when the parents (or someone else) are on hand to facilitate learning (if needed)? Otherwise it's not AE; it's neglect. I don't agree with Simon's implicit assumption that some AE parents are *not* on hand to facilitate their children's learning.

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  11. 'I probably ought to admit to some knowledge of what went on.'

    Since it was your own wife and child, it seems only reasonable that you should do so!

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  12. "@anonymous - would you agree that AE also only works when the parents (or someone else) are on hand to facilitate learning (if needed)? Otherwise it's not AE; it's neglect."

    @Claire - Definitely. At best this would be laissez faire parenting but I agree with you that it is more likely to be neglect. It certainly is not AE. For one thing, I don't know any child (except maybe older teenagers and even then this is unlikely to be 100% of the time) who does not want someone available to help and support them as necessary so not being available to give them this help and support would be coercive and against one of the main principles of AE.

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  13. Hi Simon,

    Absolutely every AEor worthy of the name wouldn't be in the least bit annoyed if child looked up and said "So what?" though, as a matter of fact, most of them probably wouldn't be playing GTA because the game play is apparently pretty clunky and fairly limited.

    I can give you the example of two children/now adults, one of whom did nothing other than play Doom until he was 15. He is now in an extremely well-paid programming job having achieved a top degree at a top university. Another AE boy excelled at various games, being European champion in several of these and now after completing a college course, writes for a gaming magazine.

    Just in case you are wondering, neither of these people are violent in any way. In fact both are pacifists, kind and gentle souls who took great care of younger children in the group.

    Just because the adults in this world can't get appreciate the educational value of games, doesn't mean that they don't contain value. In fact, have only just come away from a long decontruction of the Gears of War series, (books and games) which was all the more rigorous for these not being of the highest literary merit!

    Even a child who focuses intently upon these things clearly can gain the skills they need in order to lead a good life. A child giving only half their mind to some barely absorbing subject is much more likely to struggle.

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  14. I only claim some knowledge because I was at work much of the time.

    I think the anonymous up a couple got it right though, there's a difference between AE and neglect.

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  15. "These people were quite shocked to find that it was possible to keep a child out of school in this way. Their views on this kind of 'education' were well worth hearing and cast light upon how ordinary people see autonomous learning!"

    Should we be concerned about what they think? Don't most of the population think much the same about any home education?

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  16. I would also point out that the impression I got from the 'team' was different to the one Simon got, so perhaps they're just good listeners who are able to act interested in the argument of the interviewees to get them to better express themselves for the camera.

    I'd also point out that even once you're mostly used to the camera, it's still a bit artificial, and with true autonomous education, there would be a finite chance that he'd choose not to do anything for the days in question so yes, some of it was more contrived than it might be, but still representative of a part of what we do (or did, he's moved on since then and some things have changed).

    Sadly, one of the best bits was audio-only and not recorded. At the big gathering at the church, my son (while wearing the radio mike) confided in one of his friends that the man with the camera was an inspector who was going to send him to school. I haven't yet decided whether he was trying to wind up his friend or the reporter.

    I'm interested, Simon - did you get to see any of the footage of us before or after your interview, or just what appeared in the programme. I know the inspector got to see some of it because that was part of the exercise. His comments were what inspired me to write my submission to the CSF Bill committee about inspector training .

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  17. Was this all they showed from your filming Simon or is this a reduced version?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZtp44TqAvM&feature=related

    I'm surprised Simone didn't mention her meetings with other home educators and maybe her sister and her school friends when the socialization issue cropped up.

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  18. 'I'm interested, Simon - did you get to see any of the footage of us before or after your interview, or just what appeared in the programme.'

    No, I didn't see any of the footage beforehand. What happened was rather curious. I was talking about home education on camera and mentioned the idea of a kid looking out of the window and seeing the birds. They then started laughing and stopped the filming, telling me that I couldn't say that! I was naturally curious to know why not and it was then that we began talking about what had happened at your house. The story of the cinnamon toast emerged and this led to a discussion of their views on home education in general and autonomous education in particular. I dare say that it is entirely possible that is they had filmed us first, then they might have told you that I was strange!

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  19. To me that's a standard technique I've used, seen used and had used on me - the sympathetic listener. People are much more open with those who apparently agree with them.

    As for the toast, what you saw was staged because the camera had been put away at the end of a session and then the matter came up. Out came the camera again and they did a re-run. We are a very Google-friendly family, there's usually a computer on and questions can be researched quite quickly to produce at least an initial answer. I know I've expanded my general knowledge store by answering Kit's questions with a search engine and then browsing on for more details and to verify the initial results.

    I've also worked out why I had such trouble posting comments to your and some other blogs - I have my Firefox security buttoned up tight and it appears that third-party cookies are required to make it work.

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  20. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZtp44TqAvM

    Mr Webb himself, were you aware of any of the other footage, before your piece was filmed?

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