Wednesday 2 January 2013

Community leaders

One of the things which has amused me over the years is the way in which  individuals manage to portray themselves as the leaders of some community or other. It happens with Caribbeans, Muslims, Jews and various other minorities. All too often, these people are chancers who are really speaking only for themselves and a small group of like-minded friends. The same thing has happened with home education and the result is that the pushiest and most vociferous end up representing the majority of parents; at least in the eyes of the government, local authorities and so on. Why else would so many local authorities advise newly home educating parents to contact Education Otherwise?


In fact, a very small group of people make most of the noise about home education in this country. Talking to most ordinary parents, those who do not belong to so-called ‘support groups’, you will find, for example,  that almost all of them regard monitoring by their local authority in much the way that I did myself; that is to say as a necessary nuisance. If you ask any of those whom we might call the ‘community leaders’ though, you will find a very different view being put forward. This is the case with a number of other aspects of home education; a tiny group manages to make their own odd agenda appear to be the consensus view.

Now although there is only a small core of very militant home educators or former home educators involved in this business, they are very well organised and work constantly to ensure that their extreme views are accepted as being the norm. I have explained before how this is done and I do not want to go into it again now. It is enough to say that perhaps fifty or a hundred people at most manage to create the illusion that they speak on behalf of the tens of thousands of home educating parents in Britain. This is a very small and self-selected group and what I have noticed is that almost all of those whom I have learned anything about, share certain characteristics. I do not think that they are typical of home educators in general. One of the things which I have observed is that almost without exception, the high profile home educators have certain difficulties. I shall go into this in detail either tomorrow or the next day, but for now I will say that nearly all the people one sees representing themselves as speaking on behalf of home educators either have, or claim to have, some kind of learning difficulty or mental illness. These range from dyslexia and attention deficit disorder to being bipolar and autistic. In many cases, these problems have been self-diagnosed, but that in itself is interesting.

I shall not be naming names, but talking in general terms. Mind, the way that some of these people boast of their problems through the medium of blogs and so on, there is no real need for secrecy! I want to explore the possibility that much of what is being done by the leaders, or apparent leaders, of home education in this country is actually counter productive and causes more trouble than it is worth for ordinary parents. I also want to look at the extent to which their activities might be influenced by, or even a direct consequence of, their own disorders.

6 comments:

  1. 'Talking to most ordinary parents, those who do not belong to so-called ‘support groups’, you will find, for example, that almost all of them regard monitoring by their local authority in much the way that I did myself; that is to say as a necessary nuisance. '

    You've talked to 'most ordinary parents', have you? How on earth did you find them, given that, as you believe, they don't belong to any support groups?

    Most home educators, in my experience, do indeed belong to some group or another, although possibly not active on any national group.

    Now, from my own local experience, a county-level group of which I am a member polled its members. Of those that replied, who had had visits from the LA, approximately half had positive experiences and saw contact as necessary, though some grudgingly so. The other half had had negative experiences and had decided not to agree to further contact.

    It wasn't a large group, but I suspect it was larger than the number of parents you have ever spoken to about HE, given what you have said here in the past about your limited involvement with other home educating families.

    It certainly IS true that many parents see contact with the LA as a 'necessary evil'. Those who are prepared to continue with such contact are those who have had positive experiences.

    Therefore, the way forward, it seems to me, is not to write blog posts which overstate the case. It's not necessary. It is rather to find ways to promote positive relationships between the LAs and home educators. Are your next few blog posts going to be assisting in that regard?

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  2. "All too often, these people are chancers who are really speaking only for themselves and a small group of like-minded friends. The same thing has happened with home education and the result is that the pushiest and most vociferous end up representing the majority of parents; at least in the eyes of the government, local authorities and so on."

    I think you'll find that pushy chancers frequently end up in positions of leadership in many spheres. Parliament comprises a bunch of the pushiest and least talented, but such people are everywhere. I don't see anything new or surprising in what you say.

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  3. 'I think you'll find that pushy chancers frequently end up in positions of leadership in many spheres. Parliament comprises a bunch of the pushiest and least talented, but such people are everywhere. I don't see anything new or surprising in what you say.'

    This is of course absolutely true. What is different about those types who have elected themselves to represent home educating parents is that almost all of them have mental illnesses or learning difficulties. It is this which sets British home education apart from many other minority pursuits; that it is led by people who have, or claim to have, malfunctioning brains.

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    1. In this and your later posts you say nothing to substantiate the significance of this; lets's see hard statistics, including tests against control samples for other leadership groups and derived significance levels, not wooly-minded assertions.

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  4. Isn't this is a bit like that statistic that most female obstetricians would choose to give birth by elective Caesarian, because they rarely see a straightforward natural birth, only the ones where things go wrong, so they overestimate the risks involved?

    I would agree with you that most home educators have little or no problem with their local authority, and I know several who actively enjoy the validation they get from their visits. But then these people would never need to contact their EO representative, so they only hear the horror stories.

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  5. 'I know several who actively enjoy the validation they get from their visits'

    Genuinely curious! What on earth does this mean? What validation are local authorities able to offer home educating parents? Do you mean references so that they can get to college and so on? If so, why would the parents enjoy this?

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