One of the things which those who are not home educating parents sometimes fail to realise is that an awful lot of home educators are very odd people who think completely differently from everybody else. It is not as though home educators are simply a random cross-section of the population who simply failed to send their kids to school. Many home educators conform to a particular type. This does not mean that they are all left wing or all atheists or anything like that. There are many Christian home educators and also many who, if they lived in the USA would probably be anti-Federal Government survivalists. They are all of a type though to the extent that they reject the government's right to intervene in the lives of their families except in the direst need and with clear evidence of neglect and abuse. Those who feel this way can be socialists or fascists, Christians or atheists; this desire to avoid government interference is their common feature.
School and nursery and all that goes with it permeate the lives of most families to such an extent that they hardly notice it. It is like the water surrounding a fish; it is just a fact of life. Government busybodying goes with this way of life as a given. The government gets worked up about climate change, they force it into the curriculum and the result is odious little prigs coming home from school and shouting at their parents because they have left the light on and so are destroying the planet. This might seem like a trivial example, but it is one way that those with children at school find the government poking their nose in. Some parents feel strongly that abstinence from sexual activity is a good thing for teenage children. The government arrange that school nurses will hand out contraceptives and arrange abortions. They also set up the sex education classes in such a way as to avoid criticising early sexual activity. This is another way that the government interferes in family life. As I say, this is simply a background which most parents hardly notice. The government becomes a third parent to their children and they seemingly accept it without question.
Home educators, whether they are devout Christians or rabid atheists, do not approve of government interference in their lives and those of their children. They see it happening and wish it to stop. Now the difficulty is that although the government can be exceedingly annoying and have a habit of sticking their noses in where they have no business and are not wanted, they also have duties to fulfil. In this country, we cannot do what we will with our children. Whether they are at school or home, certain laws apply to them all. They must not be beaten or starved, for instance. Nor must they be murdered or married off at the age of nine. They must be educated between the ages of five and sixteen. The attitude of most home educators about this sort of thing is very straightforward and seems to them to be blindingly obvious. Only if evidence emerges that a child is being starved or her education neglected have the state any right to take an interest in the matter. Otherwise, it should be assumed that parents are the best judges of their children's interests and should be left alone to get on with the job. For many in ordinary society, used as they are to involvement with the school nurse, Health Visitor and so on, this is an odd notion. They cannot see why home educating parents would mind a local government apparatchik asking them about their kid's education or diet. After all, schools routinely confiscate unhealthy food from pupils' lunchboxes, they hand out condoms, monitor the education of the children; surely that is normal? Why are home educators so precious about these things?
I do not think that there can ever be a satisfactory resolution to some of the things which irritate home educating parents. Their worldview is so completely different from that of parents who send their kids to school, that they might as well be speaking different languages. I find myself torn between these two points of view. Most of my friends are teachers and social workers and their concerns are very real. They are not actuated by malice, but by genuine concern for the welfare of children. In general, the same can be said of local authority officers and those working for the Department for Education. They set up a marvellous system for the benefit of children, a system which provides them with all that they could possibly require and then a handful of cranks not only refuse all these benefits but go mad and threaten legal action if you so much as ask after their kid's welfare! They must be mad. I would be curious to know how this will ultimately work out. Will the government and local authorities back off and abandon any attempt to monitor children who are not at school? Or will the prevailing common view become codified in law and enforced on home educating parents against their wishes? It is an interesting point.
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Interesting post, much of which is a fair assessment of the current disconnect between HE'ers and people who delegate their responsibility for their children's education to schools.
ReplyDeleteOne group you've not mentioned in your overview though, is the significant proportion of ex-teachers who are HE'ing. I've always found that fascinating. Most of the ones I know are doing it because of their inside info on the institutions they could be sending their own children to.
'It is not as though home educators are simply a random cross-section of the population who simply failed to send their kids to school.'
No indeed. They didn't 'fail to send their children to school' at all. (That makes it sound like they just forgot!) They *chose* to educate their children outside the school system. There is a world of difference between those two concepts.
Mrs Anon
I'm not driven by a worldview that is particularly against state intervention. I'm more concerned that the state (in the form of LAs) needs to recognise its own limitations. When it comes to home education there is a pretty woeful lack of understanding on the part of many employees - from EWOs to social workers to health workers. That leads to silly, ill-informed and time wasting interventions that cause a lot of unnecessary stress. In that climate I don't think it's a good idea to increase the powers of the LAs.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to a wider worldview, I think that one of the problems for home educators is that, not only do we not have anything that particularly unites us, we actually have profound differences. There are things I believe that run far deeper than my identity as a home educator and some of these are in conflict with the deeply held beliefs of other home educators. I guess that's why I think we need to make pragmatic alliances based around real world situations and not try to find common cause for the future of the world!
Old Webb says-. Most of my friends are teachers and social workers and their concerns are very real. They are not actuated by malice, but by genuine concern for the welfare of children. In general, the same can be said of local authority officers and those working for the Department for Education. They set up a marvellous system for the benefit of children, a system which provides them with all that they could possibly require
ReplyDeletethat is not true a lot of teachers have been taken to court for all sorts of bad things which there have done to children in there care.
its not a marvellous system that has been set up many schools fail to teach children how to read and write etc. and schools do not provide all that a child could require where is the evdence for this statement?
you then say -Will the government and local authorities back off and abandon any attempt to monitor children who are not at school?
yes the government will give up but it wont tell any one it has but of course the government does not care about a few home educated children why would it when in truth no government cares about us! only time m.p's want you is when it is near election time!
I find that the HEers who express these sort of views are in a (very vocal and articulate) minority. Unfortunately they can alienate other HEers- those who have found that school doesn't suit their child/ren- for whatever reason- and are just doing their best to educate their child/ren themselves. In this they, the majority, do not differ greatly from parents who choose school; they are doing what they think is the best for their children in a given place at a given time. In my personal experience, most folk are happy to meet up with a representative from the LA once a year, have a cup of tea and a hob nob and show little Olly's scrap book off. They do not see it as State Interference; just a small price to pay for a big freedom. And HE *is* a great freedom. I've heard new home edders say, with delight "I can't believe you're actually ALLOWED to do this!"- I know I have!
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that abuse/neglect cases are easier to pick up when a child is in school- at school a teacher (or, if you prefer, Agent of the State) sees the child every day and so (hopefully) notices changes in behaviour, appearance, injury and so on. HE children are a blank. The authorities don't even know if they are in the country, let alone whether working under age, being abused, neglected etc etc. It is, I believe, essential for an LEA to monitor all HE children. The HEers who are vocal about monitoring are, I think, being selfish. They know that their children are not being abused, and so resist any state 'interference' under any circumstances. That's ok for their kids. But what about the child four doors down, who never leaves the house?
The trouble is there are a few HEers who assume they speak for all. They don't. A lot of us have no political angle and are just trying to get on with it- at art clubs, adventure playgrounds, with tutors, in front of the computer, in the museums, in the woods and so on. They are not members of online forums, they don't blog or lobby. And I'd be willing to bet that there are a lot more of this particular type of home edder than the other, shirty type.
Decca
An exceedingly sensible post, Decca and I agree with every word of it! Most parents are indeed happy to boast of their children's achievements and many children like to show off as well. I have to say that the local authority officer who came to visit our home must have dreaded the annual ritual. She had to listen to my daughter play the recorder, piano and guitar, read her poems and generally show off. In addition she was obliged to hear me raving on about home education for an hour. I have often wondered what she got from the visit!
ReplyDeleteanon says-The fact is that abuse/neglect cases are easier to pick up when a child is in school- at school a teacher (or, if you prefer, Agent of the State) sees the child every day and so (hopefully) notices changes in behaviour, appearance, injury and so on. HE children are a blank.
ReplyDeletethat is not right a number of children are abused for years and often teachers do not spot it! there was a case in news only time child was allowed out was to school when child was at home it was kept in a cage no one from school noticed this!
you then say-It is, I believe, essential for an LEA to monitor all HE children
a once a year visit will not stop a child being abused so when LA officer has gone parent will be free for whole year to abuse the child! a box ticking LA officer will not stop abuse.
you all so say-In my personal experience, most folk are happy to meet up with a representative from the LA once a year, have a cup of tea and a hob nob and show little Olly's scrap book off. They do not see it as State Interference;
what evidence do you have for this statement?
im afraid it is state interference to want to force your way into a private house to see a child on its own just becuse it is home educated! will you do what Webb did with his daughter and wait in anther part of the house while the LA staff interviewed his child?
'They know that their children are not being abused, and so resist any state 'interference' under any circumstances. That's ok for their kids. But what about the child four doors down, who never leaves the house?'
ReplyDeleteVery strong point indeed and one of the main reasons that local authorities are so keen to monitor home educating families. One of the objections raised to this by some parents is that if they are educating their children autonomously, then visits might disrupt and even destroy the informal nature of this type of education.
' will you do what Webb did with his daughter and wait in anther part of the house while the LA staff interviewed his child?'
ReplyDeleteTo be precise, I used to go off and make a cup of coffee for the LA officer and then get on with any odd jobs while the hapless woman was used by my daughter as a captive audience!
old Webb says-Very strong point indeed and one of the main reasons that local authorities are so keen to monitor home educating families.
ReplyDeleteLA's and SW allready have power to take action if a child is not being educated or abused. it would be a comple waste of time and money to visit every home educated child!
We know that some one in England is going to try and attack this country with bombs so should we search every home just in case? of course not and the police would not want to waste time doing this it is far better to target some one via information this systen works well and has helped to keep UK safe from attack!
To be precise, I used to go off and make a cup of coffee for the LA officer and then get on with any odd jobs while the hapless woman was used by my daughter as a captive audience!
ReplyDeletehow nice of you Webb did you give her some cake as well?
We find it very strange that you would leave your daughter alone with a stranger in your own home you would have no idea what was going on or being said?
why would there come round every year to your house when there knew you where doing such a good job? her time would have been better spent on a child there had concerns about?
Peter and Carol-
ReplyDeleteIn my personal experience, most folk are happy to meet up with a representative from the LA once a year, have a cup of tea and a hob nob and show little Olly's scrap book off. They do not see it as State Interference;
what evidence do you have for this statement?
I do not profess to have "evidence" for my statement. It is, as I say quite clearly, my personal experience.
If you like, I can do the rounds at our groups next week with a clip board and a tick list- yes or no- and put the question to all the HEers who happen to be there. Then perhaps I can get the kids to represent it as a pie chart.
Oh, and yes I do leave the LEA staff with the kids while pretending to make a cup of tea. In fact I use the time to whip the dogs into a murderous frenzy so they can chase her off the premises...
just a quick one:
'The government gets worked up about climate change, they force it into the curriculum and the result is odious little prigs coming home from school and shouting at their parents because they have left the light on and so are destroying the planet.'
I think a lot of children come to this opinion by themselves. Schools can and do- believe it or not- encourage discussion and dissent as a way of finding one's own opinion. I know this for a fact as my schooled son (a wolf raised by bleating sheep) came home the other day with an essay on the possible rehabilitation of Thompson and Venables in which he concluded "if after 50 years they are released and consequently reoffend they should then be put to death"
I have of course de registered him.
Decca
anons says-f you like, I can do the rounds at our groups next week with a clip board and a tick list- yes or no- and put the question to all the HEers who happen to be there. Then perhaps I can get the kids to represent it as a pie chart.
ReplyDeletewhat a good idea!
you then go on to say-Oh, and yes I do leave the LEA staff with the kids while pretending to make a cup of tea
so your happy to leave your child with a stranger in your house alone? this stranger is looking for evidence that you may have failed your child and comes to your house with this view until you have ticked all of his boxes!
the best way to stop child abuse is not to look in every house but to target parents who appear to be failing the child it is a comple waste of time to visit all home educated children.
We will NEVER allow any LA staff from Hampshire to come into our private house. put us 3 down as 3 no in your tick box chart!
"The HEers who are vocal about monitoring are, I think, being selfish. They know that their children are not being abused, and so resist any state 'interference' under any circumstances. That's ok for their kids. But what about the child four doors down, who never leaves the house?"
ReplyDeleteDecca, if I thought that monitoring would result in more good than harm I might agree with you. However, I think the risk of false positives and the harm this would do would outweigh any benefits. I don't think an annual visit of an hour or so is going to spot many genuine cases of abuse but differences of opinion on what is 'normal' are likely to result in many false positives - the house is too tidy/untidy, the curtains were drawn and they had candles lit, the 8 year old is not reading (even though the 12 year old didn't read until the were 10 and are reading at an age appropriate level now) etc.... These are actual examples that lead to further 'involvement' with families that caused harm and stress to the families involved.
Various health authorities in various countries have considered routine monitoring of all families for abuse. They all reached the conclusion that this process would cause more harm than good and have decided against it. Why do you think an LA employee would be better equipped than health professionals to attempt this task?
"The trouble is there are a few HEers who assume they speak for all. They don't. A lot of us have no political angle and are just trying to get on with it- at art clubs, adventure playgrounds, with tutors, in front of the computer, in the museums, in the woods and so on."
A lot of us have no political angle but are concerned for the harm that may be done to families in the name of 'saving the children' whilst also attempting to get on with it as you say.
"They are not members of online forums, they don't blog or lobby."
I also know families that are not members of online forums and don't blog or lobby but who do not want visits because they know they will be harmful to their family.
Think also of the cost and workload created by false positives. There will be less money available to spend on genuine cases if 100s of false positives are thrown into the system. When low risk groups are monitored, research shows that the false positives outweigh the true positives to a significant degree. This was why the health authorities mentioned above decided against routine monitoring of all families.
ReplyDeleteSome further reading if you are interested:
http://www.annfammed.org/cgi/content/full/2/2/161
Screening Children for Family Violence: A Review of the Evidence for the US Preventive Services Task Force
"False-negative tests may hinder identification of those who are truly at risk. False-positive tests could lead to inappropriate labeling and punitive attitudes. Additional possible harms include psychological distress, escalation of abuse and family tension, loss of personal residence and financial resources, erosion of family structure, loss of autonomy for the victim, and lost time from work. Children could lose contact with established support systems including neighbors, siblings, school contacts, and peer groups."
http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/familyviolence-questionsanswers#screen
Family Violence - New Zealand Ministry of Health
"Should you screen for child abuse?
There is currently no sensitive, specific, validated screening instrument for child abuse.
The Family Violence Intervention Guidelines: Child and Partner Abuse (Ministry of Health 2002) recommends that a comprehensive risk assessment of child abuse and neglect be completed for high-risk groups and/or if signs and symptoms suggest abuse."
Unless you are suggesting that home educators are a high risk group? In which case you may have a point, but you would need evidence for this belief.
ReplyDeleteFurther reading for anyone still interested!
ReplyDeletePreventive health care, 2000 update: prevention of child maltreatment
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/163/11/1451
"As discussed in the previous update,1 the main difficulty with approaches to screen for risk of child maltreatment continues to be the unacceptably high false-positive rate. Several authors have emphasized that prediction of individuals at risk for child maltreatment is not possible."
Periodic health examination, 1993 update: 1. Primary prevention of child maltreatment
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1490423/pdf/cmaj00303-0045.pdf
"The last item, which includes false-positive and false-negative rates, must be considered against the prevalence rate of child
abuse. Many different prevalence rates exist, in part because of the lack of agreement on the definition and method of measuring maltreatment.' Daniel and coworkers' emphasized that even with a high prevalence rate of 20%, screening of 1000 children with an instrument whose sensitivity is 80% and specificity 90% would result in a 33% rate of false-positive predictions among all positive test results. With a lower prevalence rate of abuse,-the number of false-positive results would be even higher. In addition, estimates of sensitivity and specificity and of accuracy of screening will always be suboptimal without an agreed-upon definition, or "gold standard," for child maltreatment (Dr. David L. Olds, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY: personal communication, 1992)."
It's even difficult for medical staff in emergency departments to correctly recognise abuse. Again high numbers of false-negatives and false-positives are a significant issue. The problem with false-negatives is that people who look at the family in future may be given a false sense of security (the doctor didn't think there was a problem with this family) and false-positives can potentially cause great harm.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20047596
Screening injured children for physical abuse or neglect in emergency departments: a systematic review.
"CONCLUSIONS: There was no evidence that any of the markers (infancy, type of injury, repeated attendance) were sufficiently accurate (i.e. LR >or= 10) to screen injured children in the ED to identify those requiring paediatric assessment for possible physical abuse or neglect. Clinicians should be aware that among injured children at ED a high proportion of abused children will present without these characteristics and a high proportion of non-abused children will present with them. Information about age, injury type and repeat attendances should be interpreted in this context."
'I also know families that are not members of online forums and don't blog or lobby but who do not want visits because they know they will be harmful to their family.'
ReplyDeleteI shall be posting a long piece tomorrow about precisely why local authorities do not attempt to make their monotoring a little more targetted. In the meantime, how are visits by a local authority officer harmful to families?
differences of opinion on what is 'normal' are likely to result in many false positives - the house is too tidy/untidy, the curtains were drawn and they had candles lit, the 8 year old is not reading (even though the 12 year old didn't read until the were 10 and are reading at an age appropriate level now) etc.
ReplyDeleteI think, if this is the case (did these incidents happen recently?) that we are very lucky where we live. The officers of the LAs are experienced- often having been long in the post- and largely sympathetic to autonomous education and the like. Hand on heart, I don't know of anyone who has had a real problem with the LA. Apart from one friend of mine, who thinks that her LA are a bit sloppy and should visit more frequently!
the only thing I find upsetting about visits is that I have to make the kids file all the things we've left in crates and trays over the last 12 months. That said, it's hardly Ofsted.
Decca
Decca says I don't know of anyone who has had a real problem with the LA.
ReplyDeleteWell you do known some one now who has a real problem with LA visits us! and we have never had a visit home education started June 23 2003 and no visits have been allowed!
"That said, it's hardly Ofsted."
ReplyDeleteNo, they only visit schools every 5 years.
"In the meantime, how are visits by a local authority officer harmful to families? "
ReplyDeleteYou're obviously not reading your own blog's comments. Several reasons for not wanting visits were mentioned after the Children Missing from Education article (past bad experiences with officials, multiple home visits from medical professionals already, etc). If parent's become stressed about a visit for any reason it is likely to adversely affect the family. If false-positive referrals are made to SS as a result of visits harm is also very likely as mentioned above.
"One of the objections raised to this by some parents is that if they are educating their children autonomously, then visits might disrupt and even destroy the informal nature of this type of education."
Not quite. It could be destructive of AE, not its informal nature, especially as AE may not even be informal. Try this article, 'What's Wrong With Home Visits?' ( http://www.fitz-claridge.com/Articles/Evidence.html). I've quoted a few paragraphs below:
Having a home visit (or any kind of face-to-face meeting) with a person standing in judgement over your whole life-style can be destructive of autonomous education, for it would be a very unusual child who did not experience a narrowing of choices, and very unusual parents who could entirely protect their child from anxiety – and therefore from a loss of spontaneous motivation – at the very prospect of such a judgement.
Also, LEA officials are likely to have a less than perfect understanding of what we are trying to do and why, and they may be simply unable to open their minds to ideas about education that strike at the very heart of everything they have been working for. As home educators, we are, in the logic of the thing, implicitly criticising their life's work. It takes a very special LEA official not to find home educators disturbing.
When you opt to have the LEA gather its own evidence, you give them control over the resulting evidence. Every human being is biased, and as I have tried to show above, there is good reason to think that it would be a tall order to expect a human LEA official not to interpret what they see as evidence that the education you are providing is insufficient. Later, that same official, with all his or her human bias and psychological need to find that you don't measure up to professional teachers, could in principle stand up in court and state this as their conclusion. And in that situation they are the Experts and you are just the parents. Their interpretation will count as evidence against you. You would of course have an opportunity to rebut this “evidence”, but having to disprove an expert's evidence is not the ideal position to be in, in a courtroom.
'If parent's become stressed about a visit for any reason it is likely to adversely affect the family. If false-positive referrals are made to SS as a result of visits harm is also very likely as mentioned above.'
ReplyDeleteI cannot imagine why a parent should become stressed about a visit from a local authority officer, but even if she did, this is more a temporary annoyance than 'harm'. As for referrals being made to social services after a visit to monitor the education of a home educated child, I have never heard of such a thing happening. Could you give us a few details about cases known to you of this sort of thing? I would guess that if it does happen, this muct be very rare.
Discussions here recently (in comments) have been based on visits carried out with the intention to screen for abuse. If LA officials are given this instruction (and this was a justification for the Badman review), do you think they will be any less likely to make false-positive and false-negative errors than medical professionals?
ReplyDeleteIf the visits are purely to check on provision of education, you have still to convince me that visits are necessary or that LA officials should be given greater powers (to define the form of evidence provided by the parent) than magistrates currently have when a SAO is issued. Why ask why people don't want visits, ask why are they necessary.
'very unusual parents who could entirely protect their child from anxiety '
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be saying here that parents make their kids anxious about visits by the local authority and I think that this is true. The remedy is for parents to stop winding their kids up and making them nervous though, not to forbid the house to local authority officers!
'As home educators, we are, in the logic of the thing, implicitly criticising their life's work. It takes a very special LEA official not to find home educators disturbing.'
I have never met or spoken to any local authority officers who finds home educators disturbing. Some are disturbed by the attitudes and behaviour of certain individual home educators, but that is quite a different thing.
'there is good reason to think that it would be a tall order to expect a human LEA official not to interpret what they see as evidence that the education you are providing is insufficient.'
I cannot see this at all. Local authority officers certainly think that some home educating parents are not providing a sufficient education, but not all parents. The figures given during the select committee were to the effect that local authorities had concerns in a minority of cases. Why do you think that these people think that all home education is insufficient?
"I cannot imagine why a parent should become stressed about a visit from a local authority officer, but even if she did, this is more a temporary annoyance than 'harm'."
ReplyDeleteYour inability to imagine something does not mean that it does not happen and that it is much more than a temporary annoyance for some. A lot depends on how much stress the family is under for other reasons too. The stress cannot always be 'cured' by shouting in their ear, 'WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU IDIOT??!!'
"'very unusual parents who could entirely protect their child from anxiety '
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be saying here that parents make their kids anxious about visits by the local authority and I think that this is true. The remedy is for parents to stop winding their kids up and making them nervous though, not to forbid the house to local authority officers!"
No, this was from the article. But the writer suggests that it would be a very unusual parent who is able to distance themselves emotionally from their children to the extent that their child did not pick up on the stress or anxiety the parent is feeling. The writer would absolutely agree that parents should not purposely wind their kids up and make them nervous. Not sure why you are reading it like that.
"Why do you think that these people think that all home education is insufficient?"
That's not what the writer suggests. Please try reading the article bearing in mind that the writer is an autonomous educator.
"The figures given during the select committee were to the effect that local authorities had concerns in a minority of cases."
Some LAs consider autonomous education to be unsuitable according to FOI requests, https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ao_d0FTV62i4dHR3aDZLV1YzZXhYWE5PbHNJd0hJT0E&hl=en#gid=2
'"Why do you think that these people think that all home education is insufficient?"
ReplyDeleteThat's not what the writer suggests. Please try reading the article bearing in mind that the writer is an autonomous educator'
'Every human being is biased, and as I have tried to show above, there is good reason to think that it would be a tall order to expect a human LEA official not to interpret what they see as evidence that the education you are providing is insufficient. Later, that same official, with all his or her human bias and psychological need to find that you don't measure up to professional teachers, could in principle stand up in court and state this as their conclusion.'
Well, I have read it through again and it still seems to me that the writer is assuming that local authority officers are likely as a matter of course to decide that home educators are providing an insufficient education.
'But the writer suggests that it would be a very unusual parent who is able to distance themselves emotionally from their children to the extent that their child did not pick up on the stress or anxiety the parent is feeling.'
ReplyDeleteI am far from convinced that it would be an unusual parent who shielded her child from stress or anxiety. It is what we should be doing; children do not need to be stressed out by adult fears. It seems to me that what is being described here is the sort of thing which one reads all the time on HE lists, where parents have told their children that the local authority might make them go back to school and the kid not unnaturally gets upset. The answer is to reassure the child and cope with the situation by discussing it with other adults. During the Badman enquiry many parents were posting about how upset their children were getting about what might happen as a result Badman's work. The children did not read of this themselves; their parents were telling them and causing the upset themselves. This is a bad thing for children.
"Well, I have read it through again and it still seems to me that the writer is assuming that local authority officers are likely as a matter of course to decide that home educators are providing an insufficient education."
ReplyDeleteIf you read the whole article, not just the quoted bits, it should be clear that the writer is particularly interested in autonomous education. If a family employs a parent-led structured approach, even if they allow their children free choice some of the time (probably the most common approach within HE), they are likely to be providing an education that the LA official will recognise as 'school like' and they will be less likely to have a problem with it. Autonomous education often does not look like school so autonomous educators are more likely to have problems with some LA officials (as the FOI results demonstrate). As autonomous educators are a small proportion of home educators it's unlikely that all LA officers will decide as a matter of course that home educators are providing an insufficient education.
"I am far from convinced that it would be an unusual parent who shielded her child from stress or anxiety. It is what we should be doing; children do not need to be stressed out by adult fears. It seems to me that what is being described here is the sort of thing which one reads all the time on HE lists, where parents have told their children that the local authority might make them go back to school and the kid not unnaturally gets upset."
No. We are talking about children who are sensitive enough to pick up on the stress and anxiety felt by their parents. Do you honestly think that many parents can go through stress and anxiety without their children picking up on it to some degree? I know I recognised it in my parents even though they didn't share the reasons for it at the time and definitely attempted to shield me from it.
"The children did not read of this themselves; their parents were telling them and causing the upset themselves. This is a bad thing for children."
It depends. Sometimes it's worse not knowing what is upsetting your parents. A child's imagination can be worse than reality. The child might be quite pleased to hear that their parents are worried about the LA if the child has had visions of cancer or marriage breakup. My children weren't worried about Badman, though they were angry! They found out by talking to their HE friends over the internet.
"I cannot imagine", you have pointed out your own major problem. So no matter how many times it is explained too you, you cannot imagine it so decide it is silly and insignificant.
ReplyDeleteI see AnonySue has got there before me with the same point and a very good explanation, try to understand and not pontificate, people are not stupid and thoughtless and just needing putting right by you as you seem to assume.
ReplyDelete