A few days ago, I expressed my irritation at the fact that some health workers evidently believe home education to be a risk factor for abuse. I want to think about this idea a little.
If you wished to inflict certain kinds of abuse on a child, it would certainly be easier to do if you kept the kid away from school. We know that a small number of parents with children at school are cruel to their children and abuse them sexually and it would be strange if a few home educating parents did not do likewise. Preventing the child from speaking freely to others would be a good first step in concealing the mistreatment. That this has happened in the past is not in question; look at Eunice Spry. Could we prevent cases like Spry by limiting or even banning home education? It is unlikely. Such people are very cunning and Eunice Spry managed to deceive various social workers and other staff from the local authority. For every case like this of wicked home educating parents, we can find many more where the children were at school and the abuse was still concealed.
My own feeling is that there are risks to home educated children, but that these are not risks of serious injury or death. Rather, there is a danger that children raised by home educators might grow up a bit weird. This in itself is not of course a disaster. Many weird people lead perfectly normal lives, nor were most weird people educated at home. Most of them went to school. I would guess though that the chance of a child growing into a strange adult are probably higher for the home educated than for those sent to school.
One thing that is noticeable about home educators is that not sending their children to school is seldom the only out of the ordinary thing about their lives. It is not the case that the typical home educating parent is a perfectly normal and average person who just happens to decide to educate her own child. Almost invariably, there is a constellation of unusual beliefs, remarkable previous experiences and strange attitudes, particularly to authority. In a sense, it could hardly be otherwise. The pressure to conform with the mores of twenty first century, British society and pack your kid off to school is immense. Most parents cave in to it, even if they have doubts about the wisdom or efficacy of compulsory schooling. Those who resist the system must, by definition, be odd.
There may not be such a thing as a typical home educator, but themes emerge if you listen to enough parents. There is often hostility towards or at the very least, mistrust of authority. These parents frequently had bad experiences at school themselves. This mistrust of authority extends from teachers to the medical profession; many home educating parents are fans of alternative medicine. There is often a tendency to believe in conspiracies. These can range from vaccines to the Royal family, from the motives of local authorities to the war in Iraq. This seems to be the case even among those who have no dealings with other home educators and do not hang out with the loonies on the HE-UK list. Home education just seems to be associated with strange parents.
I suppose that even if it we could be sure that home educated children had an increased risk of growing up to be strange adults, we might not be justified in taking action about it. For one thing of course, if they have strange parents, then making the kids go to school will still leave them in the company of these people for a large chunk of time. I want to explore this topic at greater length over the next few days, as I feel that it is not a field that many people seem to have looked at before.
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You really should had spent more time with home educating families rather than just believing everything you read on the internet. If we believed what we read on the internet I would say that the majority of the people in the UK fit your description!
ReplyDeleteI spend time with groups of HE families and groups of school using families, and apart from a tendency for HE children to have longer hair (both male and female children), I haven't really noticed a marked difference in the strangeness percentage rates! Certainly the main HE group we belong to is very boring in that respect. Most have home visits a few have arranged alternatives, but without hostility. The best play areas, sources of educational resources and activities and what various children are up to are usually the main topics of conversation. Can't remember a conspiracy theory ever rearing its head at any of our meet ups.
One of my best friends uses homoeopathy, something we've never agreed on (though I do agree that the placebo effect is often of genuine benefit). My friend is a school using Quaker, I'm an agnostic home educator. Who is stranger in your view?
the weird people are LEA officers who tell lies about children/parents.
ReplyDeletewhy did you and your daughter suck up to Graham Badman?
Exactly what lies do the LEA "tell about children/parents" What evidence have you, aside from anecdotal? Your comments and views from what I can summise are borderline paranoid. Maybe you should consider professional help!
DeleteFrom what I have read, all your serving to do with your rants is justifying the necessity for LEA monitoring!
Tell us all about the lies.
Delete'There may not be such a thing as a typical home educator, but themes emerge if you listen to enough parents. There is often hostility towards or at the very least, mistrust of authority. These parents frequently had bad experiences at school themselves. This mistrust of authority extends from teachers to the medical profession; many home educating parents are fans of alternative medicine. There is often a tendency to believe in conspiracies.'
ReplyDeleteThis is very silly and not at all the real picture. The groups I've been involved with certainly do not fit this picture. I'm not sure how you have arrived at it. Possibly you have only met a very small sample of home educating families in real life?
What do you mean by 'listen to enough families'? Read forums or lists with a particular slant?
In any case, mild weirdness would be nothing to worry about. Complete uniformity would be much more worrying.
Old Mum
well one lie was that education samples which was received by Hampshire LA was then lost and there then said we did not receive it but we had sent it by recorded delivery! he then changed his story to that he had received it but then said certain samples where not in there! but he did not know we had shown our county councillor the samples we where sending in! anther lie LEA office told was that peter had not done that work but again he did not know our councilor had seen Peter do that work. those are just some of the lies there are more seroius ones to!
ReplyDelete'More serious ones to!'
DeleteYou've been given the runaround tactic..
Evident that you were being monitored and on the at risk list, can't really blame anyone for that.
Had Peter ever arrived in casualty with suspicious injuries, you and your wife were going to spend time in the nick and Peter put into care.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteAre the conspiracies talked of in this post related to the ones you talked about in your blog posts dated 17th May 2011 and 29th June 2011? In those posts you stated:
"I don't believe that the majority of British home educators are mad enough to believe in stuff like this."
and
"Now of course not all home educators think this way. In fact I am guessing that they are a tiny minority."
Well spotted. Simon has a history of adjusting his beliefs or even his occupation in an effort to support his current theory.
Deleteanther lie told by Hampshire LA is that no other home educators had made a complaint about the service when we joined local group i find out that other home educators had complained to that very same officer in witing! yet accordingto him no one had a clear cut lie!
ReplyDelete'Are the conspiracies talked of in this post related to the ones you talked about in your blog posts dated 17th May 2011 and 29th June 2011? In those posts you stated:
ReplyDelete"I don't believe that the majority of British home educators are mad enough to believe in stuff like this."
and
"Now of course not all home educators think this way. In fact I am guessing that they are a tiny minority."'
Not really. These are extreme, mad conspiracy theories. Milder ones, along the lines that local authorities have
a vested interest in stamping out home education or that home visits are really a cunning ploy designed to find evidence of abuse or neglect are far more prevalent. It was this sort of thing to which I alluded in the above post.
Simon.
"Milder ones, along the lines that local authorities have a vested interest in stamping out home education or that home visits are really a cunning ploy designed to find evidence of abuse or neglect are far more prevalent. It was this sort of thing to which I alluded in the above post."
DeleteOhhh. You mean much as you would find in any random group of people? You should get out more, Simon!
I despair!
ReplyDeleteSome of what you say Simon makes sense, and I can follow the logic behind your argument. At other times I feel I miss the point you're trying to make!
Although having said that, within this microcosm that is your blog, I have to say that on the whole you are the voice of reason. I have followed your blogs for several weeks now ( having stumbled upon it by chance). And what I have observed is that, what may be considered initially as a reasonable and rational stand point posited by you, slowly transcends as the thread develops into what I can only categorise as:
Speculation
Conjecture
Hearsay
Anecdotal
Semantics.
I can only assume that those in authority must sit there, mock and laugh at some of the, what I can only describe as insane views expressed on your blogs.
Just for the record, I support in the main most of what you say!
Slowly transcends? You give an excellent description of Simon's blog articles, never mind the comments ;-)
DeleteI don't think Simon has undertaken formal research on any of the issues discussed (and as far as I know, nobody else has either for most of them), so you certainly give an accurate description. There is no reason to believe that he has privileged information that raises his articles above your description.
He, and others, state their opinion based on speculation, conjecture, hearsay and anecdotal evidence, and Simon clearly loves semantics (which is to be expected from a journalist/writer, to be fair). Pretty normal behaviour and something most people do. People will have different anecdotal evidence and experiences, so will obviously reach different conclusions.
Clearly he is entitled to give his opinion, as are others, but I'm not sure that his reasoning skills are all that sound since they are often based on partial information and misinformation. His misunderstandings about the tax system provide an excellent example, for instance.
Actually, wouldn't 'slowly descends', have been more appropriate than 'slowly transcends', in this instance? Though, as I say, I don't think the incline is very steep...
DeleteNo! I think slowly transcends, in this instance is exactly what I wanted to convey. Thank you. :-)
DeleteNow you have drawn me into arguing semantics, oh the irony lol :-)
DeleteOh, I think I see. But I was a bit thrown by your agreement with arguments based on such shaky foundations. But each to their own, I suppose :-)
DeleteI'm just glad that I've mixed with a higher class of home educator (from the point of view of education provision, not social class) than Simon (and possibly you if you agree with his conclusions). He must have spent his time with an especially poor group of home educators. Maybe his daughter's HE friends are all NEETs? I'm just thankful for the sake of our children that the descriptions of home educators I read on this blog are so foreign to the people we have met and spent time with.
We've mixed with a range of home educators from largely parent directed to autonomous, from those home educating from the start just because they want to, to those home educating because of bullying, religious and non-religious, etc., and I honestly cannot remember anyone discussing conspiracy theories. There were concerns about the Government plans after the Badman review, and there are discussions about how best to satisfy the LA when they made their informal enquiries (most settle for the LAs preferred home visits, a few prefer written reports), but nothing along the lines described by Simon. And I've had just as many school using friends who read horoscopes or use homoeopathy as home educators.
Of course, I've read the wilder theories on the internet, but there are lots of those out there about every subject under the sun. They are hardly representative in my experience.
the war in irag was based on a lie? so called weapons of mass killing neclear which where never found?
ReplyDeletethat is bull crap Peter never had to go to casualty department has your child what happend? was it serious?
ReplyDeleteits not run around it was lies by lEA officers have you brought your children up to tell lies?
i tell you anther lie that was told which made the head teacher of the school very angry and he put in a complanit to Hampshire LEA something a head would very rarly do Hampshire lEA said he agreed to a school attendance order in writing which he had not and wrote to me to say he had not and that he was complaining to Hampshire about this matter!
It looks like you tell lies.
Deletenope got it in writing from the head teacher of the school that he and the governors of the school never agreed to a SAO for Peter the head of the governors allso wrote to me to confrim that there NEVER agreeded to SAO.
ReplyDeleteIt is HCC lEA who tell lies come round i show the letter from the head and governors!
So someone issued a SAO, you've proved that you're functionally illiterate, you've proved that you're obsessive and vexatious.
DeleteIt's a shame that your LA were so spineless and ineffective in enforcing that SAO.
"It's a shame that your LA were so spineless and ineffective in enforcing that SAO."
DeleteNone of the reasons you give are grounds for an SAO, so the LA would have lost in court. It's entirely possible for a totally illiterate person to provide their child with a suitable education. Being obsessive and vexatious doesn't prevent it either.