Monday 25 July 2011

How normal are home educators?

About eleven years ago, a school of thought emerged in this family that my home educated daughter should start seeing more children of her own age. Of course there were those at Woodcraft Folk, ballet lessons, church and so on, but it was still felt that she needed to spend more time playing with other kids and less being experimented on by her father like an educational guinea pig. As a result, I joined Education Otherwise and the Home Education Advisory Service. I received lists of names, addresses and telephone numbers of other members of these organisations in the country and contacted about a dozen, attempting to broaden my child’s social circle.

Interestingly, this was at roughly the same time that Paula Rothermel was doing her research and since 95% of her subjects belonged to Education Otherwise, it is fair to assume that our random dozen were pretty similar to the types that she was working with at that time. Now I am sometimes reproached for suggesting that home educators tend to be a bit odd. The thesis advanced by my critics is that home education is simply an educational choice and says nothing at all about the parent making it. Some people send their kids to one maintained school and some to another. Some parents choose an independent school and others decide to educate their children at home. One cannot generalise about home educators any more than one can about those who send their children to school. I cannot agree with this hypothesis. For one thing, my common sense tells me that the vast majority of parents who have problems with their child’s school, sort out those problems or at the most move the child to another school. Similarly, those who wish for a better education for their four year-old either attend church to get him into a church school, move house to a better area, enage a tutor for a couple of evenings each week or persuade a relative to pay the fees at an independent school. Almost by definition, those who choose not to send their children to school at all are extremely atypical.

Now I have nothing against odd people. After all most people, even my close friends and family, regard me as being a bit mad myself and they may well be right. I doubt if anybody was at all surprised when I chose not to send my young daughter to school; it was exactly the sort of thing that I would do. Is this the case with the average home educator? I have known many in the past, some in connection with my work. It has been suggested here that those whom I have met are likely to be unusual and not at all typical of home educators. Let’s look at those whom I met after joining EO and HEAS. I can tell readers at once that all these parents were strange and not at all like the average parent of a school aged child whom one meets all the time socially. The first whom we visited may have been an extreme case, but she set the tone for the rest of our experiences with home educating parents living in West Essex and North London at that time. I never actually met the daughter. She was so shy that she would not come downstairs. She communicating by speaking to her parents from upstairs, where she always retreated whenever there were visitors. The first time we went to the house with my daughter, none of us actually met the child. My daughter did not want to go upstairs alone, because she thought the house was creepy. She was right! The mother was like a wraith and very nervous and peculiar. The family did not eat or drink anything warm. All food and drinks were cold. The child’s health was apparently very poor, possibly as a consequence of this. On later visits, my daughter did go upstairs, but was not very keen on going to the house.

Other parents were not as weird as this, but I certainly noticed some common trends. Some of the parents belonged to more than one of these categories. There were those with a touch of religious mania, some who were bitterly opposed to all authority, others who had had bad experiences themselves at school and also some who were very protective of their child and seemingly obsessed with her safety or welfare. I formed the impression that the decision to home educate had in many cases stemmed from their characters, rather than from the ostensible circumstances which had led to home education. What I mean by this is that the things they talked about would not have caused an ordinary parent to decide to take their kid out of school. Of course, this was precisely the same with me. On a rational level, my decision to home educate was prompted by purely educational considerations and has proved a great success. However, it was my own past experiences which primed me in that direction and the explanation about education was to some extent a rationalisation; an excuse , if you will.

How does this tie in with local authorities and their desire to visit families and investigate the situation in their homes? Quite a few of these parents were probably known to the schools as being weird individuals. In some cases, their behaviour and conversation would have set alarm bells ringing in any normal person as soon as one met them. Me, I am very broadminded and being pretty strange myself, am less apt to make judgements of this sort. Nevertheless, I can see where there would have been concerns about these children and their parents.

I am curious to know whether readers honestly maintain that the average home educator is not a little peculiar? Is it really the case that the only difference between home educating parents and the average parent of a child at school is that one sends their child to school and the other does not? Hands on hearts now, how many people here educated their children at home for the following reasons: religious convictions, desire to protect the child, opposition to authority or as a result of bad feelings experienced yourself as a child at school? And now, for how many of your was it a purely educational decision?

18 comments:

  1. "I am curious to know whether readers honestly maintain that the average home educator is not a little peculiar? "

    Depends on how you define 'peculiar'. Since home education is not the norm in this country, you would expect it to be an option for a disproportionately high number of people with views or lifestyles that weren't the norm either.

    But whether it's 'peculiar' to have religious convictions, a desire to protect the child, opposition to authority or bad feelings experienced oneself as a child at school is a moot point. I wouldn't describe any of these things as 'peculiar' - I'd say they were quite common in the population as a whole.

    Presumably, your last sentence - 'And now, for how many of your was it a purely educational decision? ' - means that you think that that's the only reason for HE that *isn't* peculiar?

    Not at all sure what this post is getting at.

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  2. Yes, home educators may well appear "peculiar" but that is mainly because we often get to know each other better than other groups of adults have the opportunity to.

    I spend a lot of time with home educators and even more (sadly) reading about their thoughts/plans/motivations online in email groups and in places like this. All of them, by choosing HE have made themselves different from 99% of the population and we all spend lots of time explaining what we do, why we do it, defending our choices and so on. I don't think, for example, that chess paying families spend so much time communicating, or will have such an interest in defending their rights to play chess. There may well be a competitive edge to chess, but amongst home educators there seems a real desire to support and encourage others children. All this time together means that I know far more about the thoughts and and family lives of hoe educators than I did when I was involved with other activities (for example, when I was a breastfeeding counsellor for the NCT). So perhaps all people who are different from ourselves are "odd"...by mixing with home educators either in real life or online, it becomes more obvious that it would if you only met families at the school gate for a few minutes a day?

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  3. 'Presumably, your last sentence - 'And now, for how many of your was it a purely educational decision? ' - means that you think that that's the only reason for HE that *isn't* peculiar?

    Not at all sure what this post is getting at.'

    It's very simple. One way of viewing home edcuation is that it is simply another method of education. People undertake it because they feel that this type of education would be better for their child.

    Another way of looking at the thing is that people take their children out of school, or don't send them in the first place, because of stuff in their own characters which has little to do with education. They might be very protective. Perhaps this was child in later life and very precious and worried about. They might have an almost pathological mistrust of authority, perhaps they bullied and miserable themselves at school and are frightened that their own children will have similar experiences.

    In such cases, education is not at the heart of the decision to home educate. The circumstances which seem to have led to the home education are often relatively tirvial and in many cases would not cause other parents to worry unduly. I am suggesting that frequently those who choose to home educate do so not because this will provide a better education, nor because there are very serious problems with the school, but rather because the parents themelves have deep-seated problems, perhaps around school, authority and so on.

    Simon.

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  4. 'it becomes more obvious that it would if you only met families at the school gate for a few minutes a day?'

    Interesting point, Julie. Our relations with parents at school are often superficial and perhaps if we knew more about them, they would seem no stranger than home educating parents?

    Simon.

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  5. 'Similarly, those who wish for a better education for their four year-old either attend church to get him into a church school, move house to a better area, enage a tutor for a couple of evenings each week or persuade a relative to pay the fees at an independent school. Almost by definition, those who choose not to send their children to school at all are extremely atypical.'

    You mean they aren't rich? None of those options were open to us. And the church school wasn't interested in us as they had a huge waiting list already.

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  6. Nope. All my kids' HE peers came form utterly boring, normal families. In fact, for most of thejm HE was the single most interesting thing about them. And the overwhelming majority HE'd from the start, not usually as a response to a 'problem with the school'.

    What started them thinking about HE in the first place? Well, many of us had been teachers, so we were in a very good position to know how aweful schools were and wanted something better for our own kids.

    Also, almost all of us had had the experience of living in another country, so we knew that things didn't have to be done in a single, particular way. This gave us a little more confidence, probably.

    Now, have we met a few odd people along our 15 year journey? Yes. But honestly, hand on heart, no more than in the general population.

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  7. >>>What started them thinking about HE in the first place? Well, many of us had been teachers, so we were in a very good position to know how aweful schools were and wanted something better for our own kids.<<<

    Aweful? Oh dear. Teachers who can't spell, in my case.

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  8. I never planned to HE, but did it for educational reasons and am very glad I did because I much prefer our new lifestyle.

    And trust me, Simon, if you'd spent some time at the school gates at my children's old school you'd think home educators were a lot more normal!

    The back-biting, queen beeing, spreading of mailcious gossip and 'my child is better than your child'ism's' far exceed anything I've seen in HE, and the less said about the parents race at sports day the better. (The police were called...) The PTA split into 2 rival groups twice during the five years my daughter was flexi-schooled there, and there were 2 coups for the parent-governor posts that I knew of and one suspicious resignation.

    As for lifestyles, yes, there were a fair range of strange people there. There always are in life. It's what makes it interesting and I'm sure I seemed just as strange to them as they did to me.

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  9. Not so much second hand, misunderstood Marxist politics at the school gate though.
    However, the 'Queen beeing' 'malicious gossip' and 'my child is better than your child isms' are most certainly part of HE.

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  10. And as for the 'back-biting', well HE has more than it's fair share of both individuals and groups that can only be described as cannibalistic.

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  11. "And as for the 'back-biting', well HE has more than it's fair share of both individuals and groups that can only be described as cannibalistic."

    I'd say it has about the same amount as anywhere else in my experience, so obviously you mix with nicer people than me!

    Different groups have different ethoses (I think... can't work out plural and it's too hot to try.) If you're not of the group then you tend to be a target for them. This happens in the animal kingdom every bit as much as with the human race and the only trick I've found to deal with it is to find the right group for you and cultivate an air of detachment while watching your back against the others.

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  12. A lot of what you describe is nothing more than elitism.

    Why do you feel the need to belong to a 'group' to define your existence?

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  13. "Why do you feel the need to belong to a 'group' to define your existence?"

    I don't. I simply like being with people sometimes. I am just as content on my own, but when I do mix with people I prefer to be around ones who don't annoy me too much.

    And while Simon's annoying sometimes (and, I suspect enjoys it(, he's also thought provoking and attracts an interesting crowd of people.

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  14. In my experience HE attracts some very strange people with some very odd personal agendas.

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  15. 'In my experience HE attracts some very strange people with some very odd personal agendas.'

    I could say, 'In my experience, people who send their unhappy kids to school so they can earn more money and buy more status symbols are very strange people with some very odd personal agendas.'

    But I won't, because most people who send their unhappy kids to school don't realise they have a choice.

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  16. Having just come home from HESFES, it struck me how 'normal' all the children were in most ways, from the small ones right up to the teenagers. A wide variety of clothing, plenty of hair colours in evidence, accents from widespread parts of the UK and some from overseas (adults as well as children). I don't recall seeing any suits and ties though.

    The one thing that was missing was that little bit of nervousness sometimes experienced when passing a large group of teenagers in the street. These were all intent on having fun and the atmosphere was much friendlier. Once I'd established that he could find his way back to our tent, I was happy to let my son go off and play with his friends, some he knew from home, others he'd made since arriving.

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  17. Your nervousness or theirs?

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