The 'school model' and home education.

Somebody commented here yesterday, saying:

'The school model is adult-led education. Your approach was parent-led education. How was your approach so different from the school model?'

Frankly, I cannot decide whether or not this was a serious question or simply something said with the intention of trying to irritate me. The logic is in any case atrocious. By the same reasoning, we could ask, 'What is the difference between Dotheboys Hall, Wackford Squeers' school in Nicholas Nickleby, and a Steiner school?' After all, they are both examples of adult led education. Just look at what the Steiner Waldorf fellowship in this country suggests for secondary education:

In Maths, they study Number Patterns, including Permutations and Combinations, Conic Sections and Trigonometry.
Science Main Lessons include:-
Biology – human physiology and anatomy, human physiology and embryology and botany and cell biology;
Chemistry – organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, chemistry of the elements;
Physics – transport, power, Newtonian mechanics

To illustrate properly the difference between my own methods and those of a school, I shall have to give an anecdote. I hope that this blog is not degenerating into something like a John Holt book with all these personal anecdotes!

When my daughter was nine, we looked at Pythagoras' Theorum; the square on the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares on the other two sides. All this means of course is that if you draw a right angled triangle and then construct squares on all three sides, then the area of the square on the longest side opposite the right angle, which is called the hypotenuse, is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares on the other two sides. The classic way of demonstrating this is to draw a triangle with sides of three, four and five units and then construct squares on the sides which are then divided into grids. The large one will contain twenty five squares, the others will have sixteen and nine squares. Sixteen and nine add up to twenty five. Ecco; you have demonstrated Pythagoras.

My daughter had two questions about this. Why is this the case and why squares? Why not triangles or semi-circles? I mean really, what a ridiculous question! Of course it's squares. Remember the theorum; 'the sum of the squares'. Why waste time on such an idiotic question? Except of course that this was such an intriguing idea that we did waste time on it. In fact we spent the rest of the day looking into this question. I dare say that mathematicians among my readers will laugh at this; it will be pretty obvious to them. It wasn't to me or my daughter and we started constructing equilateral triangles upon the sides of a right angled triangle and found that the rule held good. Then we did semi circles and regular hexagons. The same thing. This was all fascinating and the syllabus was abandoned as we delved deeper and deeper into the matter. This shows one difference between parent led education and adult led education in a school. For us, the syllabus was a servant. It served as a guide for what we would look at; not some monster that we obeyed slavishly.

The difference between our use of the syllabus and how it was regarded in schools was brought home to me when I tried to discuss what had happened with a friend of ours who is actually a maths teacher in a secondary school. I asked her if she knew about this, which she didn't. Nor was she the least bit interested. Why should she be; she wasn't going to teach it to the kids, it wasn't in the syllabus; what would be the point? I asked her a few questions and she became annoyed. The gist of her argument was as follows. There wasn't time for 'messing about like that', as she put it. It was enough that the kids could memorise Pythagoras' Theorum. That was all they needed to know, not the whys or hows of the thing. Her job was to teach them certain things and it was hard enough to teach them about the squares on the hypotenuse, never mind muddling them up by telling them about semi-circles and hexagons. Why would she even do such a thing?

This in short is the difference between a syllabus as used by the home educator and as used in a school. For one, it is a useful tool which can generate ideas for learning about and investigating the world. It is a springboard for education. As used in schools, it is quite the opposite; a straitjacket which stifles investigation and inhibits learning. If there are readers who really cannot see the difference between one type of adult led learning and another, then I am sorry. To me, it is self-evident.