Thursday 3 January 2013

Prominent British home educators

I suggested yesterday that the great majority of those prominent in the world of British home education have either learning difficulties or mental illnesses. Two questions spring immediately to mind. First, is this true? Secondly, if it is true; does it matter? I want this morning to talk about the first of these questions.


I have been involved in home education in one way or another for decades. One of the things which I have noticed in recent years is that those whose names crop up over and over again often hold very strange views and tend to be very aggressive in defending these against anybody who shows any doubt that they are right. Of course, many people hold unconventional views and opinions, but those of the more well known home educators seem a little more off the wall than most and they will go to the most extraordinary lengths to attack those who believe differently from them. It is this which sets home education apart from most other fringe interests; its leaders behave as though they are protecting the interests of a cult or religion, rather than simply debating an unusual mode of education.

Obviously, when I have been the subject of attacks and smear campaigns by such people, my curiosity has been aroused and I try to find out what can possibly motivate such hatred and venom. It is not every day that I am the victim of a conspiracy to have me arrested because I am a believer in orthodox educational theories! Obviously I want to know what is going on. This has led me to examine the backgrounds of some of these people in a little detail.

Here are a few random examples of the sort of people I am talking about. All these people will be familiar to anybody who belongs to the HE-UK or EO lists. No fewer than three mother-daughter combinations, where the mother suffers from an unknown neurological disorder which defies medical science to diagnose. Alarmingly, their daughters too begin to display similar symptoms at puberty; necessitating crank diets and quacks remedies which both mother and daughter undertake together. Many cases of self-diagnosed autistic spectrum disorder in parents who often claim that their own children are autistic too. In many cases, there has been no actual diagnosis of either parent or child. A similar picture for dyslexia and also ADHD. A well known mother, now sixty, who went to great lengths a couple of years ago to have herself medically diagnosed, at the age of fifty eight, with attention deficit disorder. Having found an obliging psychologist, she then declared that all her children must have suffered from the same syndrome.

Often, when I watch what is going on the British home education scene, I mentally tick off the disorders of those involved. There is a certain amount of head-butting currently taking place between the (dyslectic) founder of a major home education list and a (bipolar) former leader of Education Otherwise. I see this all the time; situations where every single person involved either has or claims to have a mental illness or learning difficulty.

Another feature of those home educators who draw frequent attention to themselves is very weird beliefs about other things, such as conspiracy theories. There is a good deal of overlap between this and those who also have mental illnesses and learning difficulties. The dyslectic founder of the home education list mentioned above subscribes to some really odd conspiracy theories. One of those regarded as a founding father of home education in this country is not only bipolar, but is also a fanatical believer in the idea of the New World Order.

I could go on further, giving more and more examples, but I think that readers are getting the idea. The majority of those in the public eye because of home education have either learning difficulties or mental illnesses. In many cases, these disorders are self-diagnosed; often, it is claimed that their children have the same thing. This frequently goes hand in hand with beliefs that most people would dismiss as being a bit loopy. There is a lot of overlap between the groups, so that a good number of these people have learning difficulties combined with an unconventional belief system.

In the next few days I shall be looking at whether any of this matters. In other words, should we care if those leading home educators in this country and setting the agenda for other parents have a high prevalence of problems of this sort?

14 comments:

  1. 'I could go on further, giving more and more examples, but I think that readers are getting the idea.'

    Not really. Most readers are able to recognise a private vendetta when they see one.

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  2. 'Most readers are able to recognise a private vendetta when they see one.'

    By which I take it that you do not believe it to be the case that the great majority of high profile home educators in this country have, or claim to have, learning difficulties or mental illnesses?

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    1. Impossible to agree or disagree.

      1. I don't know who you mean by 'high profile', apart from yourself.
      2. What is meant by 'great majority'? What exactly are the statistics and how can I verify them?
      3. Your definition of 'learning difficulties' and 'mental illnesses' may be very different to my own. Perhaps you consider autism a mental illness for eg? I know it to be a developmental condition etc.

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  3. As such a high-profile home educator yourself, Simon, into which of the two categories do you place yourself?

    As someone who doesn't have learning difficulties, does this mean I have to develop a mental illness before I can join the elite?

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  4. 'As someone who doesn't have learning difficulties, does this mean I have to develop a mental illness before I can join the elite?'

    Which puts me strongly in mind of those people who, on hearing that smoking shortens the life of almost all those who indulge in it, pipe up and say, "That can't be right! My Uncle Joe smoked fifty a day and he lived to be a hundred and five."

    Perhaps it would help to re-read what I have written, making particular note of the various qualifiers such as 'most', nearly all', 'the great majority' and so on.

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  5. '1. I don't know who you mean by 'high profile', apart from yourself.
    2. What is meant by 'great majority'? What exactly are the statistics and how can I verify them?
    3. Your definition of 'learning difficulties' and 'mental illnesses' may be very different to my own. Perhaps you consider autism a mental illness for eg? I know it to be a developmental condition etc.'

    1. I mean people who are quoted in newspapers as being home educators. One mother in the north of England has appeared in a women's magazine, local papers, been on the radio and so on. Her son is often mentioned in connection with the achievements of autonomously educated children. A few names of this sort turn up again and again.

    2. Without running through the people whose names always crop up and giving details, this is impossible.

    3. You seem to doubt that autism is either a mental illness or a learning difficulty; is that right?



    ReplyDelete
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    1. As the other anon said (and I've requested on other threads): show your statistics; I also request comparison with control samples from similar leadership groups and statistical significance levels.

      Until then, there's nothing to see here.

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    2. Autism is a complex neuro-developmental disorder. It's not a mental illness, like Bi-Polar Disorder or Depression, although it's possible to have autism plus a mental health issue, obviously. People with autism do indeed have some specific learning difficulties (social imagination being one of the classic triad of impairments, for eg) however, autism itself is not a 'learning difficulty'.

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  6. I concede that Simon would appear to have somewhat of a personal vendetta, but having seen how certain prominent HE advocates behave, must admit he does have a point!

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    1. But the important point isn't really about whether or not such people are slightly nutty, it's whether they are intrinsically significantly different in this respect from "leaders" in any other sphere.

      OK, the average politician or captain of industry doesn't usually claim to be bonkers/unhinged/psychopathic/mentally defective, but perhaps they're simply more polished and less honest.

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    2. Have to admit you may have a point, having read of a study recently that many "captains of industry" exhibit psychopathic tendencies. Will have to research this a little further!

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    3. 'I concede that Simon would appear to have somewhat of a personal vendetta, but having seen how certain prominent HE advocates behave, must admit he does have a point!'

      Perhaps, but I suspect that most people are somewhere on the spectrum of normal to nutty, including me, you and the author of this blog. Some of us are slightly nearer the nuttier end of the spectrum, but I do think you'd find that kind of distribution anywhere.

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  7. Some MPs are even admitting it. This summer, a number of them stood up in parliament and talked about it. One described himself as a 'practising fruitcake'.

    None of us is perfectly normal. Many people are a little bit obsessive. For evidence of that, look no further than this blog. It doesn't mean that Simon or anyone else he's named here in the past, is not entitled to home educate and can't do a great job of it.

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    1. Precisely. I'd venture to suggest that those who recognise and understand their own issues (which may be part of the spectrum of normality anyway) might be in a better position to appreciate the "learning difficulties" faced by others.

      In addition, there's too much stigma associated with phrases like "learning difficulties"; many problems arise because the "one size fits all" approach doesn't actually fit any but a small fraction of the population.

      Our systems of education and social "care" frequently mishandle these, and may ultimately turn them into much bigger issues.


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