I have over the last few days pointed out one or two difficulties which are likely to arise with the new guidelines which have been produced by Alison Sauer. Still, perhaps they won’t be adopted in the end? Even so, a considerable amount of damage has already been done. Influential MPs such as Graham Stuart, Chair of the CSF select committee, and Lord Lucas have learned a lot about home education from their dealings with Alison Sauer. They evidently believe that she has given them an objective view of home education in Britain and they have now passed her views on to Nick Gibb, the Schools Minister. The thing is, they have been given a weird and distorted view of home education and unless somebody sets them straight, the home educating community in this country could be heading for trouble.
I want to look today at how Alison Sauer thinks that home education works in this country. She explains that it is a spectrum with autonomous or child-led education at one end. This is fair enough, although there might be a problem with her understanding of this concept. Still, it is true that some home educators call themselves ’autonomous’ or 'child-led’; it is a genuine trend in British home education. At the other end of the spectrum is, according to these guidelines, ’school-at-home’. Now I have never in my life heard anybody say that they are a ’school-at-home’ educator. That's because this is a pejorative expression coined not by those who follow a structured education, but by unstructured educators who wish to be derogatory about structured home education. Many structured home educating parents are really irritated by being described as doing ’school-at-home’. To use this phrase to describe home educators who actually teach is a little offensive. Has anybody ever heard of a home educator who says, ’We do school at home’?
According to Alison, such parents use a curriculum to cater for the whole of their children’s education. Has anybody ever met such a parent? Even more bizarrely, she claims that such families:
‘maintain a clear distinction between education and leisure, and often keep the school rhythm of terms and holidays’
This is such nonsense that it made me laugh out loud! Has anybody here ever heard a structured home educating parent say, ’No more education for Jimmy for the next few weeks; the local schools broke up for Easter yesterday’?
I can imagine that at this point some autonomous educators are chortling with glee at the idea of structured education being misrepresented in this way. Perhaps before they fall off their chairs laughing, they should read Alison’s description of autonomous education, where they will learn that ’learning takes place without teaching’
The strange ideas contained in this document may well have been accepted by people like Graham Stuart and very possibly Nick Gibb as being the standard model of home education in this country. It is not; it is one person’s idea on the subject. When that person believes that, ‘A Local Authority is responsible for any child of compulsory school age that has been brought to their attention as having, or probably having, special educational needs’, you are in serious trouble. Even if these guidelines end up in the bin, the damage has been done and some in parliament have now a strange and distorted view of what home education in this country is actually about.
Assuming, of course, that 'some in parliament' didn't already have a 'strange and distorted view of what home education in this country is actually about'. I trust you intend to put them right, Simon.
ReplyDelete{sigh} 'School-at-home'.
ReplyDeleteI've only ever know one family who claimed to do this. They were a US military family here for a fixed term and they needed to stick to the US school curriculum because the kids were going to slot back into it when they went home.
However, they certainly weren't so silly as to stop learning at 3.00pm or at the end of term. Also, when they met with other home educators for swimming and gymnastics, I don't think there was ever a clear distinction made between 'education and leisure'. It was all part of the fun of home educating.
Has this Alison Sauer ever been a home educator herself? Has she ever met any actual home educators?
I truly resent those calling themselves autonomous home educators attempting to define and label those who are not. It happened a few months ago on the BRAG list. At one point, we were going to be labelled 'Dependent HE'ers'. For the love of Mike...
ReplyDeleteAND....
ReplyDeleteA continuum is a useful theoretical concept, child led at one end, parent led at the other, BUT it doesn't take into account that life isn't always as neat as that.
I, labelled 'structured' by my AE friends, gave my kids loads of freedom about what, how and when to study, as part of their movement towards independence. My AE friends sometimes took back the reins and enforced certain activities/learning when they realised their kids were manking poor choices.
None of us fit into these neat boxes all the time or for every child.
Being forced, by other home educators into their prepared boxes is unhelpful, inappropriate and very irritating.
'I trust you intend to put them right, Simon.'
ReplyDeleteAs I am sure you know, I wrote a book about home education in the UK (Elective Home Education in the UK, Trentham Books 2010) Before I began writing it, I announced on here that I was going to do so and asked for anybody who wished to have their views included to get in touch. I wanted autnomous educators to be able to describe in their own words what they were doing and for local authority officers to express their own concerns. I did not, as Alison Sauer did, extract promises of confidentiality from anybody taking part and make them swear not to tell anybody what was being written!
Simon.
'I truly resent those calling themselves autonomous home educators attempting to define and label those who are not. '
ReplyDelete'{sigh} 'School-at-home'.'
I confess that I was a bit annoyed myself to find the school-at-home label being used for structured home educators. One can only hope that the MPs and local authorities who read this will realise that it is a lot of nonsense.
Simon.
Alison Sauer...she was or still is working for Education Otherwise?
ReplyDeleteWhy is it when a monumental sized bollock is dropped, someone from EO is involved with adjusting the codpiece?
ReplyDeleteJust to set the record straight, Alison Sauer does not work for EO. The guidelines being discussed have nothing to do with EO.
ReplyDeleteWhile I have never heard anyone self-describe as "School at home," I do know of US/Canadian families who keep strictly to term schedules, in part to allow their children to do organised vacation activities without leaving off in the middle of a textbook, for example. (One of the US secular homeschooling sites recently even did a poll on what people were doing with their 'summer break!')
ReplyDeleteThere are also many, many users of "boxed curriculum" of various types in the US, though most types allow for some flexibility in choices of materials and parents do tend to chop and change.
Going whole-hog and getting _all_ materials and a curriculum outline from one place seems to be a popuar option among Christian HE families in the US, who want a consistent "worldview", with no mentions of subjects they prefer to avoid, and also want materials to emphasise learning out information rather than independent discovery.
(Here's an example of that view: http://www.grovepublishing.com/science/truth-in-science.htm )
There are also several popular secular boxed curriculums, though many families that use them supplement and change then around.
http://www.hsfreethinkers.com/curricula/general
Shena said
ReplyDelete"just to set the record straight, Alison Sauer does not work for EO. The guidelines being discussed have nothing to do with EO."
But Alison Sauer did once hold a position within the EO organisation, until recently wasn't it?
And it's widely known that some members and local contacts of EO are still involved in developing guidelines and training their LA's.
Get over yourself with your semantics because that is all this is about, the words we choose. There are people who do a time table at home (British families) from 9-3 and take the same schedule as the schools do. That is akin to "school at home". Say what you will but that is what it is, call a spade a spade. I had a discussion over the use of the terms home schooling and home education there is no difference. You are just being picky and looking to find fault. What you are doing is called "nit picking". It is the same as picking on Americans for spelling centre the other way, center, or leaving out the "u" in colour and favour etc. And for the record if you look at the top of the page where the document has the forms of education, you will clearly see that it that section was written by another contributor, so people did collaborate on this draft. It is a draft, not something that has been passed. It is my understanding that it will be posted in a public place and then people can turn their comments to GS on wording, sections and whether or not it should even be used. Don't forget that GS was himself looking at a handful of random LA sites and he stated that in his speech about the 20 days. He admitted he made a mistake, he listened to the people and had things changed. If you don't like what this document says, tell him, make your voice heard to him. Talking about it here and in Fakebook and any other forum where GS can't see it is not helpful. He has a direct email, I suggest that you contact him directly, or better yet, write your own version of how it should look!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDelete"But Alison Sauer did once hold a position within the EO organisation, until recently wasn't it?"
No, she did not. I have phoned her this afternoon to ask. I am assured that she has never been an LC, a trustee or a volunteer in any capacity.
"And it's widely known that some members and local contacts of EO are still involved in developing guidelines and training their LA's."
This is very vague. Many EHEers up and down the country are involved in developing guidelines with ther LA. I have done that myself. Some of those people may also be members of (and local contacts for) EO. That does not mean that they are meeting their LA under the auspices of EO. Nor does it mean that EO is involved in all guidelines that are produced by anyone.
Have I covered all bases? If anyone would like me to answer further questions and does not want to post them here, please email me at SDeuchars@EducationOtherwise.org.
"A continuum is a useful theoretical concept, child led at one end, parent led at the other, BUT it doesn't take into account that life isn't always as neat as that."
ReplyDeleteBut that's exactly what it does do. A continuum suggests a long line of families, all home educating in a slightly different way to the family next to them. One possible question is, 'who is leading the education and making decisions, the child or the parent?' We are likely to see a continuum from completely parent-led, 75% parent-25% child-led, 50% parent-50% child-led, 25% parent-75% child-led through to 100% child-led with every combination in between. Another continuum might look at informal v. structured learning and there are probably others. A parent-led family might appear at either end of the informal/structured continuum and likewise with child-led families.
I suspect we would see a bell curve on a graph, with a tiny number completely parent-led or child-led (and completely informal or structured), with the majority in the middle using a mixed approach. This was certainly the result of Mike FWs study and also my experience of HE families at groups.
However, it doesn't take into account families where one child is doing their own thing and another is being carefully led through a curriculum.
ReplyDeleteOr families who pursued one approach for the first few years and another for the last few years of HE'ing.
People are more complicated in reality than theorists like to believe.
'There are also many, many users of "boxed curriculum" of various types in the US, though most types allow for some flexibility in choices of materials and parents do tend to chop and change.'
ReplyDeleteThese guidelines aren't being produced for America. The home education picture is very different here.
' You are just being picky and looking to find fault. What you are doing is called "nit picking". It is the same as picking on Americans for spelling centre the other way, center, or leaving out the "u" in colour and favour etc.'
ReplyDeleteHuh?
Are you saying it's nit-picking to remind people that non-AE'ing families are not doing 'school-at-home'?
You are very wrong. This is an important issue and crucial to understanding the diversity within the HE community in the UK.
Obviously they were talking about a spectrum of home educators. Just to demonstrate how school at home a family can get, let me tell you about a local family we met. The kids wore uniform clothes (red and white stripy dresses for the girls, an black trousers, white shirt an tie for the boy). The children were required to get changed when they had finished their work! Apparently, this was so that the kids would be able to distinguish between work and play. The mother told me that her sister does exactly the same. I was told, that among their friends this is common practice.They followed a pre-set curriculum.
ReplyDeleteThere you are Simon. I think you ought to get out more often Simon.
Ubuntu
'The mother told me that her sister does exactly the same. I was told, that among their friends this is common practice.They followed a pre-set curriculum.'
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be saying, if I understand you correctly, that you know two related families who are both home edcuating and that in addition to this they also have friends that are teaching their children at home? You seem further to be sying that this whole community of home edcuators follow a practice of adopting a special uniform for home edcuation. Have I got this right so far? And presumably, this is in Britian? Could you tell us a little more about this community? Is it in a city or a rural area? How did the two families choose the uniform? Also, do their friends use the same uniform? In short, this in interesting, but we need to know a good deal more about it. This is the first time that I have heard of two sisters who both educate their own children, for one thing. are they part of a religious group? I ask, because I have already an idea of who this might be and if so, they are not in fact home edcuators at all, but have set up their own school which they are currently trying to register. More information needed, particularly about the area.
Simon.
"These guidelines aren't being produced for America. The home education picture is very different here."
ReplyDeleteYes, I know - my point (very poorly made, I admit) was that the writer of the guidelines seems to be basing them in part on the situation elsewhere - particularly the US and Canada - where boxed curriculum is more common, as is sticking to a term schedule. (the tradition of summer camp plays a huge role in the US, and none here,, for eample)
That said, there are users of boxed curriculum in the UK, mostly Christian families using one of the 'big three', and at least one of the secular boxed-curriculum producers on the list I linked above is UK-based and taylored to the UK national curriculum - clearly their market is coming from _someplace_!
Apologies for spelling errors above!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said:
ReplyDelete"Are you saying it's nit-picking to remind people that non-AE'ing families are not doing 'school-at-home'?
You are very wrong. This is an important issue and crucial to understanding the diversity within the HE community in the UK."
No, what I am saying is that the document states that there is a spectrum, on one end you have Autonomous Education and on the other end you have school at home. There are different approaches that are somewhere in the middle.
I do not deny that the HE community in the UK is a very diverse community, the biggest problem is how easy it is to have the splinters and shrapnel fly all around. What I am sick of in the HE community in the UK is that there is this idea that "everyone is entitled to their own opinion, as long as it's the same as mine." I do tire of the thought policing that goes on in the HE community. If I don't agree with you, I am told very disrespectfully how wrong I am, and I am attacked. My children are excluded from participating in local HE events and activities because people don't like that I don't succumb to their 'majority rules' mentality.
If I want to call structured education school at home, let me, if I want to call autonomous education unschooling, let me, just don't criticize my choice of terms. Not all people who use a structured approach consider themselves doing school at home, some people follow a structured approach and call themselves autonomous educators. Does that make them wrong? They follow a curriculum or a syllabus and say they are autonomously educating. I will use a quote from Bill Clinton, 'That depends on your definition of.....' (Taken from a completely different set of circumstances but the words apply all the same - if your definition of autonomous education is that you are doing what the child wants to do and is interested in and they want a curriculum approach, then you are autonomously educating your child.)
'If I want to call structured education school at home, let me, if I want to call autonomous education unschooling, let me, just don't criticize my choice of terms.'
ReplyDeleteYou can say whatever you want. Just don't describe people inaccurately in legal documents.
"if your definition of autonomous education is that you are doing what the child wants to do and is interested in and they want a curriculum approach, then you are autonomously educating your child."
ReplyDeleteIs there any other definition of autonomous education? Autonomous means 'self-directed', so I'm not sure what other definition would be appropriate. There are no limits placed on the style of learning used by the child. Once you start to do that you start moving away from autonomous education, don't you?
"If I want to call structured education school at home, let me, if I want to call autonomous education unschooling, let me, just don't criticize my choice of terms."
I think it's fine to describe your own HE any way you want (though if someone tells their child what to learn and calls it AE they might look a bit of an idiot or a hypocrite), but it might be a problem if you start telling other people what style they are following. It's very difficult to tell just by looking at a family from the outside without spending an awful lot of time with them on a daily basis.
"What I am sick of in the HE community in the UK is that there is this idea that "everyone is entitled to their own opinion, as long as it's the same as mine." I do tire of the thought policing that goes on in the HE community."
Maybe you're reading things with a different tone of voice to me because I don't see this. I see discussions where people might recommend their approach over others, but that's pretty typical human behaviour in any area of interest. Of course we think our own way is best or we wouldn't be doing it that way, would we? As a listener, we just need to bear that in mind and try not to hear it as a criticism of our approach. After all, if they are criticising our approach just by holding, talking about and recommending different approaches, we are doing the same back even if we don't say it out loud, just by holding alternative views.
If you are being bullied at a group, then I don't think that's a 'HE thing'. It's one of many possible human dynamics of any group (not limited to HE) and you need to find a group with a better attitude or similar approach or attempt to change your current group if you think others feel the same way.
I've been a member of several very open and mixed groups and a couple that were more structured and organised than I liked. They wanted people to force their children to take part in the planned activities. That's fine if it's what you want and I can see their point to an extent when they've gone to the effort to organise it. But it didn't suit us so we stopped going to those groups. I didn't see them as attempting to bully or change us. I saw it as a group offering a style of HE that we were free to accept or not. I've also been a member of a mixed group that managed to cope with both approaches quite happily by booking a hall with more than one room and a field.
"If you are being bullied at a group, then I don't think that's a 'HE thing'. It's one of many possible human dynamics of any group (not limited to HE) and you need to find a group with a better attitude or similar approach or attempt to change your current group if you think others feel the same way."
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that you should make the comment about human dynamics. There is a blog that I stumbled on about group dynamics and bullying etc.
http://boudiccasrambles.blogspot.com/
"You can say whatever you want. Just don't describe people inaccurately in legal documents."
ReplyDeleteI don't don't write legal documents so therefore I can say what I like where I like.
>>>"You can say whatever you want. Just don't describe people inaccurately in legal documents."
ReplyDeleteI don't don't write legal documents so therefore I can say what I like where I like.<<<
That was the point of the blog post (and most of the following comments), that this is exactly what someone is doing.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDelete"And for the record if you look at the top of the page where the document has the forms of education, you will clearly see that it that section was written by another contributor, so people did collaborate on this draft."
Actually, plagiarising someone else's article is not collaboration. How do I know it is plagiarised? Because when I was proof reading/editing (call it what you may) I pointed out that you could not take an excerpt from another authors article and not credit it. I raised this particular issue on two separate occasions, and when the comment to refer to the book list was included, I once again flagged it up saying that that was not sufficient and should be properly referenced where the excerpt is used in the document. There are standards to be met when 'using' someone else's work e.g. The British Standard (numeric)system or the Harvard System, otherwise it is stealing.
Even if you are referring to an article that you yourself wrote, it should be referenced correctly. Perhaps in this case the author was in fact referring to their own previous work, and so did not want to cite the source. I am happy for someone to enlighten me as to the source of the excerpt. Or perhaps they simply do not have the skill required to write a document of that sort. Now that is actually something I can vouch for.
""You can say whatever you want. Just don't describe people inaccurately in legal documents."
ReplyDeleteFor the record, the EHE guidelines are not legal documents, they just describe the law. Also, the current Government Guidelines already uses the phrase, school-at-home. Maybe the current guidelines were the source of that part of the draft guideline? Maybe people who dislike the term should have a word with the Government if they dislike being labelled as 'school-at-home'.
Thought to read the messages here, the label doesn't actually apply to very few people in this country so why are you offended? People seem to be offended by a label that describes a particular style of HE that they claim they do not themselves follow - so why are you offended on someone else's behalf - people you claim never to have met and who you doubt even exist?
"the label doesn't actually apply to very few people in this country so why are you offended?"
ReplyDeleteshould read:
the label doesn't actually apply to very many people in this country so why are you offended?