Somebody commenting here suggested yesterday that I am prone to ‘bashing autonomous education’; a preposterous notion! To even things up a bit, we shall today look at the phenomenon of parents working away hard at their children’s school education and then forgetting that they have done so. As Old Mum correctly divined, the aim of this stratagem, both for schooling and home educating parents, is to make their children look more clever than is actually the case.
We looked yesterday at a couple of home educators who made great efforts in getting their children to read or take the necessary qualifications to get a place at college and then forgot what they had done. This kind of thing is by no means exclusive to home education; although there are certainly some stunning examples in that field. As a matter of fact, most of the parents I have known who have engaged in these games have had children at school. Before we look at how this works for those who are not home educating, I want to look at the motive for these deceptions. I say deceptions, but in many of the cases which I have known, the parents had actually managed to take themselves in as well; in fact they had come to believe their own myths! I rather suspect that the parents at whom we looked yesterday fall into this category and were not setting out deliberately to deceive others.
So what is the motive behind all this? It is pretty simple. Look at my own activities. When my daughter was two and a half and reading English fluently, I decided to teach her to read Chinese. This was very successful and she was making great progress until my wife put her foot down. Now as this stands, it is not much of a story. It simply shows the child’s father in a poor light as an insanely pushy parent. Let us imagine though that I made the same claim that the parent in yesterday’s post made to a newspaper about the kid reading English. Suppose that I told people that my daughter had learned Chinese herself; just picked it up, without any help from me at the age of two. You see the difference? This is much better; I have been transformed from a pushy parent into the father of a genius. A great improvement indeed! Telling people that we as parents have done little to encourage and help our children makes their achievements look much more impressive. They become very bright kids and we can portray ourselves as laid back parents without a pushy or ambitious bone in our bodies.
In the last few years, my wife and I have seen the children of friends get places at good universities after passing tough, academic A levels with As and A*s. Every one of their parents has claimed that the children didn’t study hard or revise, as well as making out that they themselves never bothered much about their children’s education; just leaving them to it. This is simply another version of the autonomous educating gag. What is astounding is that these people seem genuinely to have forgotten all that they did to get their kids to this point. The best local school is the Davenant Foundation. To get in, you need a ten year record of church attendance. Some of these parents spent a whole decade feigning belief in the Deity in order to get their kids to this school! How’s that for dedication, ten years pretending to be religious and all for the sake of your kid’s schooling? Once there, they paid for tutors to push the children academically, shouted and argued with the children to make sure that they took the right options at GCSE and A level and arranged a hundred different leisure activities and hobbies; to all of which they drove their children. In most cases, it would have been surprising had the kid not done well at A level.
Despite all this, the parents pretend to have done little or nothing to help their children’s studies. They tell everybody that their son or daughter never did any homework, didn’t pick up a book until a week before the exam and so on. This makes their children’s A level results look all the better, which is the aim of the gambit. Returning to home educators, we saw a marvellous example of this last year when a parent whose two children are famous for being autonomously educated claimed that her daughter had passed a science GCSE with flying colours, despite never having studied the subject and just flicking through the textbook a fortnight before the examination took place!
Speaking for myself, I have not the least objection to people claiming that their children gained GCSEs or A levels without any input from them, any more than I disapprove of parents making out that their children taught themselves to read. It is human nature to wish to present both your children and yourself in the best possible light. These tactics have the dual effect of both making you look like a relaxed and confident parent, while at the same time casting your kids in the role of infant prodigies. It’s a great game to play, as long as you don’t lose your sense of humour and start getting tetchy when others take your claims with a pinch of salt.
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"Returning to home educators, we saw a marvellous example of this last year when a parent whose two children are famous for being autonomously educated claimed that her daughter had passed a science GCSE with flying colours, despite never having studied the subject and just flicking through the textbook a fortnight before the examination took place!"
ReplyDeleteAnd can you confirm absolutely that this was not the case? Or do you spend so much time around pushy parents that you don't recognize a different way of being?
Autonomously educated children have a habit of picking up knowledge from a great many sources (and working very hard to do so - just not in a 'schooly' way) - the girl probably needed the textbook only to give her an idea of how to apply what she'd learned in an exam situation.
Finally, why DO you believe that people are keen to characterize their children as so bright that they don't have to do any work? Most of the parents I know are far more proud of the effort their children put in to pursue their interests than they are of their innate intelligence. After all, unlike qualities such as determination, 'giftedness' is down to chance more than parenting - if they genuinely sought self-promotion (itself possibly an aspect of your own skewed world-view) it'd be common sense to highlight the qualities that their parenting had influenced.
'Autonomously educated children have a habit of picking up knowledge from a great many sources'
ReplyDeleteBrilliant piece of misleading propaganda! The hint is that autonomously educated children are more likely to do this than other kids, which is an absurd contention. The correct statement would be: 'children have a habit of picking up knowledge from a great many sources'.
'and just flicking through the textbook a fortnight before the examination took place!"
And can you confirm absolutely that this was not the case? '
Of course I can't. However, anybody who knows how precisely defined are the ways that GCSE questions must answered today to get full marks would find it extremely unlikely.
' it'd be common sense to highlight the qualities that their parenting had influenced.'
Which is of course exactly what is being done here. The meta-message is, 'My ways of parenting are so wise and good that I do not need to do much or supervise my clever child; she does all the work herself. This is due to my wonderful skills as a mother, so different from all those dredful pushy parents!'
Yes, all children do have a habit of picking up knowledge from many sources. Until they're told to be reliant on the "expert" at the front of the class. Anyone who has ever taught music to adults is all too familiar with the hang-ups which have been encouraged in children who, up to the age of about 8 or 9, naturally involved themselves in music until some helpful teacher told them that they were 'tone deaf', 'out of time' or similar. They put their understanding in the hands of an external expert and were told they fell short, so they stopped trying. It's so common as to be scandalous.
ReplyDeleteOn your second point, I have a very good working knowledge of the ways that GCSE questions must be answered today. If your core subject knowledge is excellent then it would probably take only a couple of weeks (with, if you're really keen, a past paper or two) to gain an understanding of how to 'play' that core knowledge towards the requirements of the examiner.
As regards your point about who chooses to emphasize particular aspects of their parenting, I'm sure that this is very much in the eye of the beholder. You see parents who smugly parade their children's intelligence because that is what you seek.
' You see parents who smugly parade their children's intelligence because that is what you seek.'
ReplyDeleteI don't think that one needs to seek out this sort of thing! The autonomously educating mother whose child supposedly took a GCSE with no previous work was featured in a national magazine and helpfully posted a copy on various home education lists. Most of our friends with teenage children pretended that they had done little to help their children's education as well. I don't think that it is particularly uncommon, one stumbles across this sort of thing everywhere. Smug satisfaction with a child's intelligence or the educational methods used to bring out that intelligence are also all over the place. You even unwittingly displayed precisely this behaviour yourself, when you claimed that, 'Autonomously educated children have a habit of picking up knowledge from a great many sources'. The subtext here is plain; children taught in the way that you raised your own child will learn far better and more extensively than those miserable wretches brought up by foolish parents who do not follow the principles of autonomous education. We all do this; most parents boast in this way, it is nothing out of the ordinary.
'Yes, all children do have a habit of picking up knowledge from many sources. Until they're told to be reliant on the "expert" at the front of the class'
Of course this may be your experience. Most of the schooled children whom I know are also voracious for knowledge. It may not necessarily be 'academic' knowledge; it might perhaps be the scores in football matches this season or the position of records in the hit parade. I have not noticed that being exposed to school has ever blunted this desire for knowledge and finding things out.
' If your core subject knowledge is excellent then it would probably take only a couple of weeks (with, if you're really keen, a past paper or two) to gain an understanding of how to 'play' that core knowledge towards the requirements of the examiner.'
Very dubious. This was a separate science paper for biology. It would honestly take more than a fortnight to get the hang of what was required by the examiners, to say nothing of the specialised information needed on things like mitosis. You have to ask yourself, without recourse to conspiracy theories, whi schools wouldnot simply get their pupils to read through the textbooks a couple of weeks before the examination if the process was that simple.
In all honesty, I'm surprised you didn't send your own child to school. You seem so very taken with it.
ReplyDelete' I'm surprised you didn't send your own child to school'
ReplyDeleteWell, the answer to that is very simple. I wanted to educate her myself, rather than rely upon strangers to undertake the task. This is called home education, but would not suit everybody and for those who do not feel able or willing to make such a long-term commitment, there are schools. I am not evangelical about home education; some people it suits and the majority, it does not.
"some people it suits and the majority, it does not."
ReplyDeleteWell, well, well - on that, at least, we agree. If only we could come to the same understanding with regard to autonomous education.
My daughter took IGCSE biology this summer and I helped her with revision. She has picked up loads about the world during her childhood but not things like the detailed functioning of the kidney or specifics of the nitrogen cycle. Maybe there are children who would have that picked up those things but mine haven't - in spite of lots of reading and watching science programmes on tv and so on.
ReplyDeleteIf someone managed to get a good grade with a very limited period of study then my guess would be that they had excellent speed-reading and study skills, a good memory and a lot of time with past papers and mark schemes. I'm sure it could be done but it wouldn't be easy for most teenagers.
'She has picked up loads about the world during her childhood but not things like the detailed functioning of the kidney or specifics of the nitrogen cycle'
ReplyDeleteAh Allie, this brings back happy memories! I vividly recollect learning about the nitrogen cycle with my daughter for that very purpose. I can still remember some of it, like the role of lightning. Similarly, the structure of the kidneys. These are, as you say, not something that you would be likely to pick up as general knowledge. We spent days in various museums when she was little and she read widely, but never learned the names of the various structures in the kidney before needing them for the examination. Why would she? I would be curious to meet the teenager who could just pick up a textbook a fortnight before the exam and get through it with a good mark! Good luck, by the way, to your daughter when the results come out.
"You even unwittingly displayed precisely this behaviour yourself, when you claimed that, 'Autonomously educated children have a habit of picking up knowledge from a great many sources'. The subtext here is plain; children taught in the way that you raised your own child will learn far better and more extensively than those miserable wretches brought up by foolish parents who do not follow the principles of autonomous education."
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, I would hope that all HE parents feel this way about the method they finally settled on for their children. Otherwise it would suggest that they purposely chose the second best option! Although autonomous education was ultimately the best method for us, I agree that AE will not suit all families.
Well, maybe not quite to the extent you describe, but you know what I mean.
DeleteWhat puzzles me is why, when it's accepted that school works for some children and hot-housing works for others, do you deny that autonomous education can work too? It flies in the face of the evidence of anyone who's ever picked up a skill via bloody mindedness, YouTube and a bit of library research.
ReplyDeleteOkay, so you believe there's some sleight of hand at work among modern parents (and I still contest your assertions regarding GCSE preparation requiring a great deal of time, though this may be to do with us using different exam boards and possibly international rather than UK GCSEs). But history is simply littered with autodidacts such as John Clare, Django Reinhardt and Benjamin Franklin - perhaps they had deluded pushy parents too?
Both my kids have a range of skills and knowledge that they have acquired for themselves. I can't crochet or make an effective catapult but my children have these skills. But what I have come to realise is that just because I haven't taught my children something it doesn't mean they haven't been taught - maybe just not formally by me or by someone in a class or structured setting. These days, teaching can be hard to define. My son spends a lot of time watching online videos of American blokes who demonstrate catapult construction and use. That's teaching. He also learns through trial and error and so on, of course.
ReplyDeleteI think that the real problem with theories of autonomous education (and I have used that label to apply to my own family) is that they do not take sufficient account of the social nature of humans. I think that even the most independent learners amongst us have always sought others who share our interests and our motivation to learn is influenced by those relationships. Intrinsic motivation is great but we're complicated animals and what we want is always influenced by what we think others want.
'school works for some children and hot-housing works for others, do you deny that autonomous education can work too?'
ReplyDeleteWhich is a way of saying that I believe that teaching children can provide an effective education and you wonder why I doubt that failing to teach them might also achieve this end?
'What puzzles me is why, when it's accepted that school works for some children and hot-housing works for others, do you deny that autonomous education can work too?'
I do not and never have denied this. All children learn in this way throughout their childhood. The question is, will most children learn enough in this way to open up the possibility of entering higher education and so on if they wish? This is less definite. I gave the example above of the boy who memorises the scores of football matches for his own interest. Others might become fascinated with dinosaurs. This is well and good, in addition to a standard education, but is not likely to be adequate as a substitute. Obviously, not all children will want to go on to college or university, but I think it a good idea that this option should at least be available to all. For this to happen, they would be best advised to have studied systematically the same sorts of things, to a roughly similar level as other children of their age. In practice, this means taking at least a few GCSEs.
' But history is simply littered with autodidacts such as John Clare, Django Reinhardt and Benjamin Franklin - perhaps they had deluded pushy parents too?'
Impossible at this late stage to know; but in any case irrelevant. That somebody managed to educate himself without external help in adverse conditions is not sufficiently good reason for duplicating those conditions in the hope that our own children might then go on to become notable polymaths. That this does happen from time to time is indisputable; that this makes such triumphs a good pattern for childhood education is less certain. If I hear of a child whose parents were so poor that they could not afford to send him to school and so he learned to read by staring at shop signs, then I might find this an inspiring story of the human intellect winning out against the odds. It does not make me then think, 'Hang on a minute, maybe I'll try not teaching little Jimmy and then he to can be forced to learn to read in the same way.' Such an attitiude of mind on the part of a parent would be at best deluded and at worse cruel and neglectful.
'Intrinsic motivation is great but we're complicated animals and what we want is always influenced by what we think others want.'
ReplyDeleteI think this is possibly true. My own daughter took up, of all unlikely hobbies, fencing and church bell ringing. She worked very hard to acquire both skills, mainly because people she liked and admired were involved and they praised her efforts. This learning was entirely self-motivated and yet was also driven by her desire for the approval of others. This very commonly happens in families, when children seek to please their parents.
Hi Allie and Simon,
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised you appear to equate autonomous education with no teaching (though it sounds as though you no longer do, Allie?). We autonomously educated and, for us, it has involved lots of teaching. My daughter, for instance, is currently teaching herself to crochet from a book and has in the past requested and worked through both a creative writing course and an English language correspondence course in order to improve her punctuation and grammar. She has also taken various adult education art courses at the local college (pottery, drawing, and painting, I think).
My son is very interested in animals. As part of that I've read biology books to him (before he learnt to read) and he later volunteered at a local animal rescue centre. There he assisted with autopsies to discover causes of death and through this not only learnt about the parts of a kidney, but saw and handled them. So he was taught by a combination of us reading books with him, looking through books himself, and more practically by his colleague at the rescue centre. I don't suppose he remembers the names of the parts now but I suspect it wouldn't take much study to bring it back. Though I think it would take more than a couple of weeks with a text book to gain a biology GCSE!
One child learnt to read without a structured approach - we didn't sit down with her to 'teach reading'. She learnt through being read to, having words pointed out to her on street signs, watching Sesame Street, drawing her name in the sand pit sand, etc - what I would call informal learning. Another child asked to be taught so we sat down at the same time each day and worked through a phonics course. Would one of these count as autonomous and the other not in your view? To us they are both autonomous because the child requested it. If a child requests teaching and the parent refuses, how can their education be self controlled, which is what autonomous means?
We have also helped our children learn to swim, drive a car, ride their bikes both without stabilisers and safely on the road, use the internet, use maths, discover information on various subjects, etc through a combination of informal learning (making materials available, modelling behaviours and use of materials, using the skills for practical activities, etc) and direct teaching as necessary.
"'Hang on a minute, maybe I'll try not teaching little Jimmy and then he to can be forced to learn to read in the same way.' Such an attitiude of mind on the part of a parent would be at best deluded and at worse cruel and neglectful."
ReplyDeleteI agree. The use of the word, 'forced', also shows that it wouldn't be autonomous education!
'The use of the word, 'forced', also shows that it wouldn't be autonomous education!'
ReplyDeleteIt makes no odds if you substitute another word; 'Hang on a minute, maybe I'll try not teaching little Jimmy and then he to can be allowed to learn to read in the same way'. It is still a hazardous and uncertain enterprise.
"It is still a hazardous and uncertain enterprise."
ReplyDeleteDo you really think a child would choose not to learn to read, when reading is so necessary in a social context and surrounds them every day from birth? In my experience, if they don't learn informally, they ask to be taught. Maybe an injured or disabled child might not learn to read autonomously, but I find it difficult to imagine a 'normal' child reaching adulthood without wanting to learn to read at some point. Maybe if my children had been like this theoretical child of yours we would have decided that AE doesn't work and changed our approach, but it never became an issue for us. Even the child that chose to learn late displayed signs that they would be able to learn when they were ready through their pre-reading skills and what they were able to learn in other areas, so we were as sure as we could be that they would learn in their own time.
"'Hang on a minute, maybe I'll try not teaching little Jimmy and then he to can be allowed to learn to read in the same way'."
ReplyDeleteAlso, on thinking about it, I don't think this would be AE either. The parent is deciding not to offer to teach - they are removing a resource that they know about and that is likely to be of interest to at least some children. A parent would know that reading is so widespread and intrinsic to day-to-day modern life that a child is very likely to want to learn to read at some point, so it's something they would at least mention to their child to enable the child to take up the option if and when they wish.
Giving a child information about the world and the options within it is part of AE. We provide lots of books and resources and also take them to shops, museums, activities etc, so they are able to discover interests that we may not have thought about ourselves; but this doesn't prevent us making suggestions if we think they will find something interesting and useful. We don't just leave our children to grow up in a vacuum, it's very 'hand's on'. We just try to avoid pushing them in any particular direction against their will.
Sorry, I left that on anonymous but it was me.
Delete'injured or disabled child might not learn to read autonomously, but I find it difficult to imagine a 'normal' child reaching adulthood without wanting to learn to read at some point. '
ReplyDeleteI suppose the answer to that is to look at the literacy rates in countries with compulsory edcuation and more or less universal schooling and then compare them with other places. Certainly, it is the case that many children not sent to school remain illiterate. My uncle and aunt were both completely illiterate; they signed their names with crosses. My uncle was a Gypsy and his family did not send the kids to school. I think that if universal schooling were to be abolished in this country, then the literacy rate was fall dramatically. This would not be so much the case in middle class homes full of books of course, but in many places, no children would bother learning to read.
I'm aware that many people feel that the Forster Act was a cunning move to regiment the working classes, but its real aim was to ensure that all children became literate and able to perform simple arithmetical operations. That the average crossing sweeper at that time was unlikely to be able to read is a matter of historical record.
I have never thought that autonomous ed meant no teaching - I was making the point that being an autodidact and apparently motivated by an intrinsic desire to learn can disguise complicated reasons for learning that are very much bound up with our social nature as humans. As Simon pointed out (and as I have noticed countless times with my own and other people's children) children do seek to please those they like or feel the need to impress. I think this is one of the reasons why it's important that children meet and interact with a wide range of people.
ReplyDeleteIt's also important that we don't (parents, I mean) give the impression that we have found the one truth about how to be happy and imply that other lifestyles are not as 'correct' in some way. I think this can be a danger as much for those who feel that they live outside 'the system' as it can be for those training their little children to be the bankers of tomorrow.
Very true, agree 100%. Though the desire to please only goes so far in my experience ;-)
Delete"I suppose the answer to that is to look at the literacy rates in countries with compulsory edcuation and more or less universal schooling and then compare them with other places."
ReplyDeleteIf the 'other place' has compulsory education, adults who model reading behaviour and children who have easy access to lots of reading materials, resources and activities including a variety of 'learning to read' methods that will be taught as and when desired, available at all times. We are talking about England, today, a society with nearly 100% literacy that is modelled to children all the time on TV and in real life. A child growing up in a caravan with non-reading adults, no access to books and parents who ignore the compulsory education law is an unfair comparison.
AE is an education theory/method, so it involves providing educational resources on the assumption that children love to learn and want to be educated. If this had turned out to be untrue, I wouldn't have continued with AE. I expect children to have natural self preservation instincts and that this will include wishing to attain such diverse skills as learning to swim and read and this has turned out to be accurate.
'We are talking about England, today, a society with nearly 100% literacy that is modelled to children all the time on TV and in real life'
ReplyDeleteWhy yes, this is quite true. Almost 100% of people are literate and almost 100% of them spent at least ten or eleven years at school. There is a direct correlation between these two statistics. In countries where school attendance is very low, the literacy rate tends to be correspondingly low. That a child can beome literate without attending school is undeniably true. That without school, many children would remain illiterate is also true. Those two figures, the literacy rate and school attendance, are inextricably linked. This is and was the case in this country and may be seen today in less economically developed countries.
' Those two figures, the literacy rate and school attendance, are inextricably linked. This is and was the case in this country and may be seen today in less economically developed countries'
ReplyDeleteA good example is Bangladesh. In that country, just under 50% of children complete five years of schooling. The literacy rate is 47.9%; an almost perfect correlation.
"A good example is Bangladesh. In that country, just under 50% of children complete five years of schooling. The literacy rate is 47.9%; an almost perfect correlation."
DeleteBut this is only useful from the point of view of a comparison to AE in England today if the children are illiterate after growing up in a literate society and a literate household, surrounded by people modelling reading and plentiful resources in a country in which society clearly values education and learning. Children have a natural desire to fit in and gain the survival skills they will need as an adult. AE is based partly on this assumption. In England, today, reading is one of those survival skills and this will be clear to any child growing up in the situation I've described. Of course a child is highly unlikely to learn to read without resources and a clear reason to learn. This is not a description of AE though.
I genuinely 100% did not help my daughter with her IGCSE English which she did in 8 weeks. She got a good enough pass, but perhaps would have done better if I had helped, but she did the Catherine Mooney course so fast, I didn't get a look in.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely helped, pushed and shoved her, (metaphorically) with her Music GCSE which was a completely different kettle of fish altogether. There was so much to remember that I did loads of revision work with her, bought gazillions of past papers and aural training books, that to be honest, the last 4 weeks of the course felt more like a team effort. (Although I didn't get involved while she was studying the course, but it was a paid for taught course, which yes, I drove her too and of course, paid for!)