Thursday 21 July 2011

Changing paradigms

Much of science is based upon sets of ideas which are generally accepted and which provide good explanations for how the world works. These theories are not dogma; they change when overwhelming evidence emerges which renders them no long viable. We then move from one paradigm to another, say from a Newtonian view of the universe to one in accordance with Einstein’s ideas. Let us look at a couple of ideas which fit in perfectly with modern paradigms; one in the field of medicine and one in education.

In medicine, we believe that smoking cigarettes tends to shorten lives by bringing about lung cancer, heart disease and various other illnesses. The link is not obvious, because these disorders typically take decades to emerge and so we only found out for sure when a lot of people’s medical histories were checked. This does not mean that every smoker will die young, nor that no non-smoker will die of lung cancer. Somebody who lives to a ripe old age while being a heavy smoker does so in spite of, not because of the habit. In education, there is a definite link between high quality, structured and compulsory teaching from a young age and future academic achievement. There is a similar link between the early acquisition of literacy and later academic history. Again, the link is not at once apparent because these consequences also take years to appear. As with cigarettes and lung cancer; there are exceptions. Some people might end up going to university without having been taught methodically. These people are, like the old man who smokes eighty a day with no apparent ill effects, exceptions. They have achieved academic success not because of, but in spite of, the educational treatment which they have received or failed to receive.

Every so often, somebody comes along with ideas which challenge prevailing paradigms. When this happens, the onus if very much upon those with the new ideas to demonstrate that these ideas provide a better explanation for the world than those currently being used. Some people today claim that HIV is not caused by AIDS. Others believe that smoking does not cause lung cancer. There are also those who believe that structured teaching tends to prevent academic achievement rather than promote it. Beliefs such as these are not rational or scientific. I do not propose to reference this article, this is after all a personal blog rather than an academic journal, but the evidence is overwhelmingly against any of the above ideas. Because there is no proper evidence to support either the belief that smoking does not cause lung cancer or the notion that structured and compulsory teaching does not tend to produce good academic results, those championing such things fall back on anecdotal evidence and deny the very need for properly conducted research. We see this with crank cures for cancer, where belief and faith are more important than objective research into the efficacy of what is being claimed. We see it too in some strands of home education, where anecdotal evidence is all and the necessity for research is similarly denied.

What is wrong with anecdotal evidence? Well, I had an elderly relative with a very heavy tobacco habit who lived to old age with no apparent ill effects. I also know somebody whose daughter was a life-long non-smoker and yet died of lung cancer. These cases are freaks; they do not cause me to doubt that smoking is strongly associated with lung cancer. We similarly hear of cases where children have been denied regular and systematic teaching and have then gone on to university. These people too are freakish exceptions. They have succeeded despite, rather than because of, their childhoods. We have good reason to think that this is so. First, because of the fierce opposition among those who embrace such unorthodox educational methods to any sort of objective examination of what they are doing. We know it secondly because the same few cases are paraded over and over again to prove that this type of education works. It has all the appearance of a crank cure for cancer, where most of the patients die, but the few survivors are paraded endlessly to prove that the treatment is effective. This has more in common with the sale of snake oil in the old-time West than with any modern education theory!

When it is claimed that a prevailing paradigm is faulty, and this applies to celestial mechanics, medicine, education or anything else, the onus is upon those making the claim to provide the evidence which backs up their belief. There would be nothing wrong with my claiming that Einstein was quite wrong about relativity and if I came up with a theory which made predictions which could be tested and checked, then people might even listen to me. Simply asserting that something is so, will not do. Nor will producing a half dozen cases and suggesting that these are good reason to abandon all that we currently believe to be true about medicine or education. The ball is in the court of those who espouse a new paradigm of education and if they wish to be taken seriously, they should make their case. It is this which lies at the heart of demands for monitoring and inspection: that a group of people are operating in a way which runs counter to all that we think we know about education. Most teachers and other professionals in the field think that these methods will cause harm to the development of young children and that is why they wish to intervene.

36 comments:

  1. I'm not entirely clear what new educational theories you're referring to:

    that some people are proposing that there is *not* a definite link between high quality, structured and compulsory teaching from a young age and future academic achievement?

    or that there is *not* a similar link between the early acquisition of literacy and later academic history?

    Have I got that right?

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  2. Correct. And yes, I am well aware that vague ideas like this have been around since Rousseau. I also know all about Summerhill. I am using the word 'new' relatively. Since the time of the Sumerians, there has been belief in the efficacy of structured and compulsory education and in the last fifty years or so the ideas of which I speak have been championed as a serious alternative.

    Simon.

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  3. Well, there's something of a difference between hard science and social science, isn't there? When it comes to theories of education (I don't mean squabbles about phonics but more fundamental stuff) then you have different theories that come from different political/ideological traditions. This doesn't negate what you say about paradigms but in social sciences you can have multiple paradigms, which does complicate the matter a bit, surely? As you know, some of the people who home educate in particular ways do so because they hold a particular religious, ethical or political viewpoint. That means that they will assess things like effectiveness in a particular way - using what matters most in their world view. This means that one simple measure cannot be applied in a very meaningful way.

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  4. That was a rather lengthy and wordy post to make your point although like Suzyg, I am not entirely sure what new educational theories you are referring to.

    As for the effects of *not* providing structured, early education I see no real way of knowing for sure.
    And if early, structured education is so vital, you then have to wonder how all these 4yr olds are sent off to school(maybe even after years of nursery education) and yet *still* so many of them come out of primary school unable to read, write and do math.

    I do agree with what you said about smoking though.

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  5. 'although like Suzyg, I am not entirely sure what new educational theories you are referring to'

    Summerhill was a new idea. For thousands of years people had assumed that compulsory, structured education was vital and then in the 1920s, somebody tried to put into practice a new kind of school. The child-centred teaching in the 1960s was a new idea as well. I am using new as being in contrast to the way that people saw things for three and a half thousand years; not new as in only happened last year! The prevailing paradigm is still in favour of compulsory, structured education, but some people feel that this is not the best way of doing things and that children should be free to learn what and when they learn.

    Simon.

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  6. Thank you for clarifying that point.

    The link between education and academic qualifications, like the link between smoking and lung cancer, is not a simple one. Even if people are using a shared, single paradigm, the relationship between the two can't be summed up in a simple equation as if it were a specific force acting on an object of specified mass.

    One can say that smoking tends to cause lung cancer, although there will be some people who smoke and don't get lung cancer and others who get lung cancer even if they don't smoke.

    Similarly, one can say that high quality, structured and compulsory teaching tends to result in academic qualifications. That does not mean that everyone who has high quality, structured and compulsory teaching ends up with academic qualifications nor that people who don't get high quality, structured and compulsory teaching don't end up with academic qualifications.

    In order to test a hypothesis like 'smoking causes lung-cancer' one needs to be very specific about the variables involved. 'Smoking' covers many substances, smoking 'tobacco' produces many different chemicals. Some of those chemicals cause lung cancer in some people; others have other effects on some people.

    It gets even more complicated when it comes to education. What do you mean, precisely, by 'high quality', 'structured', 'compulsory' and 'teaching'? Is 'education' equivalent to 'high quality, structured and compulsory teaching'? I think that's questionable. Does high quality, structured and compulsory teaching reliably result in academic qualifications? It seems not

    So the relationship between high quality, structured and compulsory teaching and academic qualifications will depend on the definition of the variables involved.

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  7. 'Does high quality, structured and compulsory teaching reliably result in academic qualifications? It seems not'

    Quite true, just as smoking cigarettes does not reliably result in lung cancer. However, the person hoping to avoid lung cancer would do well not to smoke cigarettes, just as the child hoping to end up with academic qualifications is more likely to achieve them if there is structured and high quality teacheing involved.

    Simon.

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  8. Thanks for explaining that Simon. Yes, the concept of self-directed learning certainly appears to be a relatively new concept. A lot of focus has always been put on structured, 'taught' lessons until recently. I wonder why things changed....

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  9. Historically I would say that informal learning has been around longer since it began with the first humans (and before that in other animals, of course). It's something that every human experiences, no matter what level of formal, compulsory education they receive. The quality of this informal education will vary depending on the environment of the person (including people and physical resources). It seems likely to me that an excellent informal environment where a child is free to choose from a vast array of resources (including teaching if desired) and who is given lots of help by resourceful adults is likely to do better than one in a mediocre school environment.

    Now, it is possible that they would do even better if the parents could provide a highly structured compulsory teaching environment alongside the excellent informal, child-led education (as Simon has demonstrated with Simone). But not all families find this a suitable environment for the individuals within it. If this type of approach causes excessive conflict for whatever reason, it seems likely that it will cause more harm than good.

    There is also the research into intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to take into consideration. I know I learn in greater depth and far more thoroughly if I have freely chosen what to study. Possibly this affect is stronger in some individuals than others. Possibly some children resist extrinsic motivation to such an extent that very little learning happens in that type of environment. Maybe these are the children that fail at school but go on to do well afterwards (I know several personally and there are of course various famous examples).

    Research may help us decide which methods produce the best results for a large group of children on average. This is why mass research is so useful for the mass education system. But it is not always as helpful in informing the appropriate approach for an individual child, especially if they are at one end or the other of the bell curve. Summerhill for instance, takes a high proportion of children who have failed in other schools, and I would guess that these schools are often good private schools providing a good, compulsory, structured education. Maybe these children, and those whose families gravitate towards the autonomous approach (and by extension, those who gravitate towards the completely parent-led end of the spectrum) are those for whom the 'best' average approach would fail?

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  10. Simon said:

    "Summerhill was a new idea. For thousands of years people had assumed that compulsory, structured education was vital and then in the 1920s, somebody tried to put into practice a new kind of school. The child-centred teaching in the 1960s was a new idea as well. I am using new as being in contrast to the way that people saw things for three and a half thousand years; not new as in only happened last year! "

    I would question several of those assertions. For thousands of years, very few societies had a system of compulsory structured education, and even fewer had 'academic qualifications' so most people had to educate themselves or each other as best they could.

    What is most typical is an account of a mix of tuition from parents, relatives, friends, neighbours, tutors or experts depending on what one wanted a child to learn and what resources one had available.

    My son has just been reading a book about Fibonacci, for example, who took a revolutionised European mathematics from information he picked up whilst working for his father's import-export business. Fibonacci went to school, certainly, and I suspect his teacher provided what he considered to be structured, high quality teaching, but it's questionable how much good it did.

    Compulsory structured education as such is not new, but it's very new in its mass form and there's precious little reliable research showing what factors are most likely to result in academic qualifications for which children, and indeed, how useful academic qualifications are in producing people who understand how the world works and who know what they are doing.

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  11. Compulsory structured education surely is relatively new given that the tradition of education starts with Plato and Aristotle? I seem to remember it was Lord Shaftesbury who brought it in. C

    As for structure, again, I'm more than happy to be corrected, but until the NC was introduced, wasn't it up to schools to choose what they taught? I went to 14 schools (and wasn't expelled from any of them!) and can remember visiting a lot more as my parents chose the best option and there were always those which were more academic and those who focused more on the 'whole child' (conveniently unmeasurable!) Parents were able to opt for the school whose priorities best matched their own and their children's abilities. In my case, it was always the strictest and most academic. The more we standardise, the less we meet individual needs.

    The underlying problem seems to me to be that children are individuals. Even without factoring SEN into the equation Boys mature at different rates to girls. Children are also inconsiderately born at different points throughout the school year and this makes a massive difference in the early years. I'm sure I've seen research that shows that late September babies do better at school and in sport than July/August babies.

    Is it not therefore possible that a group of parents who are going against what is perceived as the norm could in fact have children who are outside the norm and learn in different ways? No system can be 100% effective, so maybe the 0.1% of children being home educated were unusual to begin with and are getting that education in accordance with their age, ability, aptitude and SEN that the law requires because their parents recognised whether intuitively or from bitter experience that the system wasn't going to work for them?

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  12. "Most teachers and other professionals in the field think that these methods will cause harm to the development of young children and that is why they wish to intervene."

    Do you have any evidence to support this assertion?

    Also, much research shows that parents have the greatest influence on a child's future attainment even when they attend school, so do we know how much difference the style of education actually makes over and above the influence of parents?

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  13. Anecdotal evidence can become stronger evidence (scientific evidence) once it is gathered and studied. There's nothing wrong with anecdotal evidence in itself. It's interesting and points to the need for further study. I suspect that many medical discoveries for eg started with anecdotal evidence.

    We seem to be in the mid point between lots of parents reporting their AE success stories and good, reliable research which confirms their claimes. It doesn't mean they are wrong about what they are reporting, though.

    It was my personal experience with AE which put me off it. It wasn't working for us, so I re-balanced our home education and found a method which worked for us. I was sceptical about AE working for others, but have no reason to disbelieve them when they say it did.

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  14. Anonymous wrote....
    Compulsory structured education surely is relatively new given that the tradition of education starts with Plato and Aristotle? I seem to remember it was Lord Shaftesbury who brought it in. C

    As for structure, again, I'm more than happy to be corrected, but until the NC was introduced, wasn't it up to schools to choose what they taught?


    Ah! Thankyou anonymous, I did know that somewhere in the back of my brain. I guess that it was my mistaken belief that beofre school was introduced for all children (boys mostly) were educated in a structured fashion to do academic things like reading, writing and arithmetic plus things like latin and philosophy etc. I had even come to understand that back in the day of Plato etc young men were educated in this way and picked up the assumption that they were 'taught', hence my belief that the more relaxed child-led teaching was relatively new.
    Yes before plato and the like, people must have generally learnt father to son, mother to daughter learning practical skills through observing and doing, and history through word of mouth.
    I wonder how equipped that would make them in todays society though? Who knows...

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  15. "It was my personal experience with AE which put me off it. It wasn't working for us, so I re-balanced our home education and found a method which worked for us."

    Yes, I think this is the crux of the issue. Others will find the opposite, starting with a more structured approach that fails and this was the path we followed to autonomous education. I think at that time this was the more usual progression, I suspect it may be more common these days for people to start with AE and move towards parent-led structure but I may be wrong.

    Now all the research in the world could say that, on average, a structured, parent-led approach works best (or that AE works best). But if it doesn't work for your family, even after various adjustments, it doesn't work, full stop. Then you have to try something else that does work for your family/child.

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  16. "I wonder how equipped that would make them in todays society though? Who knows..."

    Not very, but now the skills children pick up from their parents include reading, writing, computers, etc. It's not as though learning through observation and experience is limited to housework, woodwork, house building, food collection, farming, etc, etc.

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  17. 'Yes before plato and the like, people must have generally learnt father to son, mother to daughter learning practical skills through observing and doing, and history through word of mouth.'

    An idealised view of the matter. This is from a clay tablet from Nippur, dated about 1700 BC. This is roughly one thousand, three hundred years before Plato was even born:

    'The man in charge of Sumerian said "Why din't you speak Sumerian?" He caned me. Another teacher said "Your handwriting is unsatisfactory". He caned me as well'

    It is true that only a minority of children were taught formally throughout history, but it is also true that this sort of structured teaching was thought to be necessary to become literate and learn about abstract matters. The idea that literacy could be acquired without teaching is a fairly new one, as is the whole child centred education thing. Even when fathers and mothers were teaching practical skills, we have no reason at all to suppose that this instruction was given in a relaxed and semi-autonomous fashion. Read what the Old Testament has to say about the instruction of children and you will see that there was an assumption that they would do as they were told and be beaten if they would not learn as they were being taught. Not all structured teaching has historically taken place in schools!

    Simon.

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  18. Simon said,
    "The idea that literacy could be acquired without teaching is a fairly new one, as is the whole child centred education thing."

    But I don't think this ever happens in the sense you mean. It's been discussed here before. Teaching can take many forms and much of what you did with Simone and call 'teaching' is seen as play and accepted as normal day-to-day life by others (pointing at the alphabet border around the room and singing an alphabet song together, reading together, playing word games, etc). So your home life with Simone may often have looked identical to that of someone who says they didn't teach their child to read. Much of the informal learning that Thomas describes sounds very much like the descriptions of your home life when Simone was young. And please don't confuse AE with refusal to teach again, they are not connected at all.

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  19. 'And please don't confuse AE with refusal to teach again, they are not connected at all.'

    I'm not confusing anything with anything. Both Thomas and Paul Goodman believe it possible that children might acquire literacy simply from being in a modern society with no formal instruction. It si not a refusal to teach, but a beief that it is unnecessary. You are not apparently familiar with books such as Compulsory Miseducation or you would know about this theme.

    Simon.

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  20. "An idealised view of the matter. This is from a clay tablet from Nippur, dated about 1700 BC. This is roughly one thousand, three hundred years before Plato was even born"

    There may have been short episodes during which a large proportion of a particular population were taught to read and write, however, it was far more common just for a limited number of people to train as scribes along with the children of the very rich. The rest of the population made do with learning everything from their parents. Literacy probably wasn't that useful before printing was invented! A small minority of jobs would have involved reading and writing. Literacy rates would often have been less than 1%.

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  21. Simon said:

    "Read what the Old Testament has to say about the instruction of children and you will see that there was an assumption that they would do as they were told and be beaten if they would not learn as they were being taught. "

    The Old Testament was written in the context of a patriarchal, tribal, largely agrarian economy. There are a great many exhortations about being obedient to one's parents, diligent, working hard and accruing wealth. Because anyone who didn't pull their weight in the family business would be a liability in an economy where famine was an ever-present threat.

    Although reading and writing were valued, they weren't essential skills for most people for the purposes of day-to-day life and I can't recall any evidence that there was a system of high quality structured compulsory teaching in place, nor the equivalent of 'academic qualifications'.

    I'm sure you will correct me if I'm wrong.

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  22. That last post was from me.

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  23. Re Plato and Aristotle.
    Plato said "Educators should devise the simplest and most effective methods of turning souls around. It shouldn't be the art of implanting sight in the organ, but should proceed on the understanding that the organ already has the capacity, but is improperly aligned and isn't facing the right way"

    As with most philosophers, you could make that mean just about anything you wanted to. I'd like to think it meant that everyone has the capacity to learn and it's up to the educator (note, he doesn't say teacher) to bring that out in the simplest and most effective way. Which would, of course, vary from person to person.

    In Plato's time education was largely on a one to one or very small group basis. Schools, as we understand them, began in England in the sixth century and the first Universities were founded in the 12th century. Even then they were for the privileged few and many of the most privileged preferred to employ tutors.

    Anyone who is interested (and anyone else who may be suffering from insomnia) might like this link. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/education-philosophy/

    And apologies to everyone I'm boring, but I did a lot on this for my OU degree.

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  24. Simon said,
    "Both Thomas and Paul Goodman believe it possible that children might acquire literacy simply from being in a modern society with no formal instruction. It si not a refusal to teach, but a beief that it is unnecessary."

    But in Compulsory Miseducation, Goodman talks of education being a natural community function that occurs inevitably and that the older members teach and train the young (in a community that is functioning well). He does quote a neurologist:

    "A great neurologist tells me that the puzzle is not how to teach reading, but why some children fail to learn to read. Given the amount of exposure that any urban child gets, any normal animal should spontaneously catch on to the code. What prevents it is almost demonstrable that, for many children, it is precisely going to school that prevents -- because of the school’s alien style, banning of spontaneous interest, extrinsic rewards and punishments. (In many underprivileged schools, the IQ steadily falls the longer they go to school). Many of the backward readers might have had a better chance on the streets "

    But he says later [about making school optional];

    But what would become of these children? For very many, both poor and middle class, their homes are worse than the schools, and the city streets are worse in another way. Our urban and suburban environments are precisely not cities or communities where adults naturally attend to the young and educate to a viable life.

    So clearly he doesn't think that they will learn just by spending time in a literate society because society does not function correctly for many. His early comment suggests that older people should teach children in a well functioning society; his later comment suggest he doesn't believe this would work for many in today's society.

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  25. Compulsory Miseducation
    http://www.scribd.com/doc/7120003/Compulsory-Miseducation

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  26. Anonymous wrote... It's not as though learning through observation and experience is limited to housework, woodwork, house building, food collection, farming, etc, etc.

    Very true. There is a lot more to learn these days and its not limited to just our own communities now.

    Simon wrote ... It is true that only a minority of children were taught formally throughout history, but it is also true that this sort of structured teaching was thought to be necessary to become literate and learn about abstract matters.
    And I suppose this is why I assumed that teaching was formal and structured. I do think though that there was less focus on such skills in those days though.


    Another Anonymous wrote... And apologies to everyone I'm boring, but I did a lot on this for my OU degree.

    Actually I find it really interesting, this whole discussion has taught me some interesting things, and its always good to correct wrong assumptions. The role of Plato etc seems to be one of 'inspirer' and 'facilitator' I do feel though that learning provided by these kinds of people appeared to be presented in a 'me talk-you listen and learn' type way.

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  27. Well, C, Socrates was an educator too... and he was tried and executed for 'corrupting the young' after he annoyed the wrong people.

    Oddly, Plato was one of his students, yet Socrates believed strongly in making others do their own thinking. According to Plato, Socrates used to specialise in arguing different sides of an issue to make his followers think about what they believed and often used a variety of teaching methods. He also left behind no written records and kept right on arguing and teaching on the way to his trial when he could simply have left Athens and lived in exile until the fuss died down.

    It strikes me he'd have had a lot in common with some modern home educators...

    Again, if you want more, my notes quote this http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/socrates/

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  28. Simon said,
    "Both Thomas and Paul Goodman believe it possible that children might acquire literacy simply from being in a modern society with no formal instruction. It si not a refusal to teach, but a beief that it is unnecessary."

    I don't think Thomas does believe this. It's something he is attempting to find out. As part of the conclusion to his online article on the subject he has many questions:

    "Are some children better suited to informal learning than others? Does it really just “happen” or do parents constantly have to take advantage of potential learning situations? In fact, might there not be more direct “teaching” than in school, however subtly it is imparted? How far does self-directed learning play a part, especially as children grow older and become literate and more independent? With regard to children in school, how far does informal learning out of school, at home and in the wider community, contribute to progress in school? At a deeper level, how do apparently unrelated bits and pieces of informal learning build into an education at least on a par with what is achieved in school?"

    Does this sound like someone with definite beliefs about the accumulation of knowledge?

    It's clear from the description of a child learning maths that some kind of teaching happens, just in an informal way.

    http://www.infed.org/biblio/home-education.htm

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  29. Ah, you're talking about chemotherapy aren't you? That oft paraded *crank cure* that kills most of those who avail themselves of it. Funny really how it's the treatment given out by the *conventional* and thus becomes viewed as the only sensible way to do things, when in reality the figures show quite clearly that it is about the worst thing you can do. Nice parallel with conventional education...

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  30. I guess you are talking about "autonomous education" again. There is a great deal of evidence that autonomy, self determination whatever you want to call it is beneficial for learning. It's irritating that this evidence is ignored by many teaching professionals and parents.

    http://www.psych.rochester.edu/SDT/

    There are stacks of studies on the topic referred to here.

    http://www.alfiekohn.org/index.php

    Alfie Kohn's ideas and suggestions are backed up by evidence and research.

    "Most teachers and other professionals in the field think that these methods will cause harm to the development of young children and that is why they wish to intervene."

    Most teachers and other professionals in the field are not particularly particularly knowledgeable educational philosophy or research. They are trained to implement the current fashion for learning imposed but the DFE, OFSTED and the many consultancies that spring up to perpetuate and exacerbate these ideas such as "Assessment for Learning". Assessment for learning is a particularly harmful concept whereby pupils are taught to assess themselves constantly, assess each other and help the teacher to almost constantly assess or have access to their assessment of their "work" their thinking and their learning. As a consequence there is plenty of evidence for managers to see the learning on bits of paper so they can in turn show their managers and OFSTED when they come. More time is spent proving learning than actually learning.

    The research I'm doing is a couple of single case studies, I do not intend to publish them. I suppose they might publish themselves one day. The research I do is as much about our provision as about the educational outcomes, we evaluate our input and provision by looking at their happiness and engagement in learning. If these things do not appear sufficient we improve the provision, we offer more choices or deeper learning opportunities. Our choice of educational provision is informed from reading the ideas of people like Kohn, Deci and Ryan, and others but it's implemented and adapted in response to what we see working for our children.

    I don't see any need to prove that to "teachers and other professionals" who simply don't know how to support and enable self directed learning any more than I see the need to prove that the children are breathing. The are, as it happens, known to "teachers and other professionals" and the ones who know them can see that they are learning and growing.

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  31. Why are you doing your research?

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  32. I think it's called taking an interest in your children. Most parents carry out they type of research to a greater or lesser extent.

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  33. Spot on anon at 03.42, it's about noticing and responding to my children. It's fantastically enjoyable, interesting and a real learning experience.

    anon at 9.54

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  34. So why do you believe that your 'research' will be published?
    You appear very knowledgable but so are many teachers and child psych experts, they conduct rigorous studies and intense research that goes way beyond single localised cases.

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  35. Of course, should your research ever be published it will be open to scrutiny and criticism.

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