One of the things which one cannot help but notice, both when talking to individual home educators and also while looking at Internet lists and forums, is that many home educating parents are more concerned with how awful schools are, rather than with how great home education is. Often, they will regale one with horror stories of their child's experience at school and also the terrible things that have happened at other schools and nurseries. It is quite possible to talk to a home educator about education for half an hour without the subject of home education per se being mentioned at all. It's all about school. This is what advertisers call 'knocking copy', when rather than extolling the virtues of your own product, you focus instead on the shortcoming of what your competitor has to offer.
There is no doubt that many home educators in this country have not chosen home education as a positive decision, but feel that they have been driven into it by circumstances at their kid's nursery or school. This is, I suppose, bound to give one a jaded view of mainstream education. I think that there is a little more to it though than this. The more one learns about the backgrounds of many home educating parents, the more one discovers that many of them had an unhappy time at school. Joy Baker, for example, one of the early pioneers of elective home education who struggled with Norfolk council during the 1950s, had a bad time at school herself and this was certainly a key factor in her decision not to send her children to school. The same is definitely true of quite a few of the more vociferous types whom one sees on the Internet. I am not going to name any names here, but this also applies to well known researchers in the field of home education, which is why I take their work with a pinch of salt. Many of those who set out apparently to investigate home education are doing so from the perspective of people who hate schools and are seeking to validate their own prejudices.
You can observe this underlying theme when some scandal erupts about schools or education. There is glee among home educating parents and they say, in effect, 'There you go, that's why I wouldn't send my own precious child to such places'. This happens with anything from poor academic results to the discovery of a paedophile gang connected with a nursery.
I did not have a brilliant time at school myself, but I have always thought that this was more to do with flaws in my own character, rather than anything wrong with the educational system as such! Readers may not be over-surprised to hear that I was just as much an irritating know-it-all as a child and adolescent as is the case today. This might have influenced my own decision not to send my child to school, but I have an idea that it was more the obvious educational advantages of unlimited one to one tuition in a relaxed domestic setting which recommended the scheme to me.
This idea, that many home educating parents are very anti-school and had a bad time were unhappy themselves at school, could shed light on home education in this country. It is particularly noticeable that often the reasons given by parents in Britain for home educating have more to do with things other than education; family life, relaxed and stress-free life for their children and so on.
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But surely there would be a dis-satisfaction with the school system or we wouldnt need to home educate.
ReplyDeleteIf schools could cater to individuals, were flexible with the content and way they taught, could stop bullying, could help children with additional needs and were more flexible with setting, school times, dates and start ages, then my children wouldn't be at home.
Parents who home educate feel they can do as good as or better job that schools, and of course this opinion has come from somewhere; from what they see or hear or what they experience. Even you said you home educated because you thought you could do a better job - clearly you didn't think the school could do as well as you, so you are agruing against youself.
Education is completely interwtined with family life - school interferes with living because for set periods of time each day, and each term your child has to be in the same place. Home education allows movement, freedom and ability to flow with seasons, needs and family.
If home education shouldnt be about family life or dissatisfaction with school, what IS a good reason to home educate in your opinion?
Great comment, C. The very act of home educating is a criticism of school and this is true for any reason we have for initially choosing to HE. And of course those reasons evolve and change priority as we experience HE and as a result, our criticisms of school change too.
ReplyDelete'The very act of home educating is a criticism of school and this is true for any reason we have for initially choosing to HE. '
ReplyDeleteCompletely incomprehensible to me. If I choose to buy an Audi, this is not at all a criticism of the man who buys a Porsche. There are a number of different ways of educating a child. One might employ a governess or tutor, send the child to a maintained school, enrol him at an independent school, teach him yourself; there are any number of choices. Choosing one of those options over another is not an implicit criticism of all the other choices. I don't think there is anything wrong with schools; I just chose not to send my child to one. People who send their kids to school are not criticising home education. This is precisely the attitude which I was writing about above.
"Completely incomprehensible to me. If I choose to buy an Audi, this is not at all a criticism of the man who buys a Porsche."
ReplyDeleteWho said anything about criticising the man? I would be criticising the Porsche if I could afford one but bought an Audi instead. I would be making a statement about their relative values to me. Other people can make different choices but it doesn't change the fact that I have criticised the Porsche by choosing the Audi and they are criticising the Audi by choosing the Porsche.
"Choosing one of those options over another is not an implicit criticism of all the other choices."
I think it is if they are all equally affordable and available. We are making a statement that *for us*, HE is better than school. Other people are making the opposite statement if they are free to choose HE but instead choose school (freely - they know HE exists and nothing is stopping them from choosing it). I have no problem with people criticising HE in this way. It isn't wrong to think that your choice is better than the alternative, in fact, it would be strange if we didn't. We wouldn't be doing our best for our children if we did not make decisions on this basis and most people do try to do their best for their children.
I would add though, that I hope that these complaints about schools are usually confined to fellow home educators and not shared with people who choose schools. People who are in the same boat relish the support and understanding that others who have 'been there, done that', can bring to this type of discussion. This is a common feature of support groups of every kind. I've seen very similar types of discussions on medical groups about their medical treatments and experiences, but I doubt they have that type of discussion to the same extent with people outside the support group.
ReplyDeleteThere may be occasions when it might be appropriate to bring these arguments into discussions with school users, maybe if they are attacking our choices and pushing schools as the 'best place for children', for instance, but most of the time I think it would be counter productive and I don't think it generally happens.
Simon says 'One of the things which one cannot help but notice, both when talking to individual home educators and also while looking at Internet lists and forums, is that many home educating parents are more concerned with how awful schools are, rather than with how great home education is.'
ReplyDeleteWOW! In all my years of home education and all the many home educators I've known and all the groups we've belonged to, I have never witnessed such conversations. Your experience of home educators must be a very unusual one. (I can't speak for the internet lists, but the ones I've been on do not do what you seem to have witnessed.)
How very odd.
'The very act of home educating is a criticism of school and this is true for any reason we have for initially choosing to HE.'
ReplyDeleteOf course it is usually percieved that way by people who choose school. Just as my decision to breast-feed my babies was taken as an implicit criticism of my sister's decision to use artificial methods of feeding her baby. She was furious with me.
Once you start home education, you inevitably begin to appreciate all the many advantages that it brings.
Simon says, 'This idea, that many home educating parents are very anti-school and had a bad time were unhappy themselves at school, could shed light on home education in this country.'
ReplyDeleteIn my experience, this is not the case. HE parents had good or ok experiences at school. Their decisions to HE were to do with the situation current at the time of their own child being at school or of school age.
I believe that you are barking up the wrong tree with that one. Or you might be deliberately trying to associate HE with some kind of psychological problem. I'm not sure why you would want to do that, however.
'Or you might be deliberately trying to associate HE with some kind of psychological problem.'
ReplyDeleteWhy would disliking school be symptomatic of a psychological problem? People who enjoyed camping holidays as children might well take their own children on such trips. Those who disliked visiting museums as children might not be keen on taking their children to such places when they are adults. I don't see this as a psychological problem; merely human nature.
' I don't see this as a psychological problem; merely human nature.'
ReplyDeleteOh, well, that is good. However, it's not a picture I see among my HE friends.
Simon says 'One of the things which one cannot help but notice, both when talking to individual home educators and also while looking at Internet lists and forums, is that many home educating parents are more concerned with how awful schools are, rather than with how great home education is.'
ReplyDeleteAnon says: 'WOW! In all my years of home education and all the many home educators I've known and all the groups we've belonged to, I have never witnessed such conversations'
You are lucky, Anon. I have been home educating for a relatively short time but find a great deal of HE 'chat' is taken up by the utter godforsaken awfulness of schools. I have seen another HE parent make a favourable- and pretty innocuous- comment about a particular aspect of school education and get shouted down for his trouble. And then, of course, there's the general terror of those dreadful School Children (shudder), who seem to possess some sort of mystical ability to contaminate HE kids, simply by being on the premises at the same time!
This does seem to be part of the Home Ed Orthodoxy- at least in our neck of the woods.
Decca
'there's the general terror of those dreadful School Children (shudder), who seem to possess some sort of mystical ability to contaminate HE kids, simply by being on the premises at the same time!'
ReplyDeleteI too have observed this. It reminds me a little of the exclusiveness of certain religious sects liek the Jehovah's Witnesses. The feeling is that home educators must keep themselves separate from the world of schooling.
Decca, you need to find another group with less damaged people in it! Or maybe try to help heal them if you have the time and energy? I've witnessed people talking about their negative experiences with schools, but the same people could also see that not everyone has negative experiences at schools. Maybe you have been unlucky in meeting with people who have been so damaged by the experience that that can see little else? My children, and their HE friends, have always seem to have had a mix of school and HE friends and some of the HE children have gone in and out of school at various points.
ReplyDelete"It is quite possible to talk to a home educator about education for half an hour without the subject of home education per se being mentioned at all. It's all about school."
ReplyDeleteI think a reason for that, in my experience, might be that home educators are so used to being mindlessly criticised by schoolists that perhaps it goes with the territory to be preoccupied with thoughts of, "Have these people ever taken a close look at what THEY think is so superior?"
Some of the comments I've read on blog posts about "unschooling" in America, for example, have been so inane they should be in a joke book. Knee jerk comments from people who have clearly never given anything a second thought in their lives.
Every home educator should carry protection in those circumstances I think. It can be hard to concentrate on getting on with your preferred lifestyle if you fear that you're surrounded by people who have cause to prevent you from doing so and maybe the more stupid you make them look the better you feel.
Just a thought.