Thursday 24 January 2013

The origin of the British home education 'movement'; Part 1

We looked yesterday at home education in this country during the early 1970s. There was no home education ‘movement’ or ‘community’ at that time and relations between home educators and local authorities were generally amicable. This was to change dramatically over the next decade or two.


To understand the modern British home education movement, it is necessary to examine its roots, which lie in the Alternative Society of the late 60s and early 70s. Many young people and also a few older ones, felt that traditional society was finished and that the future would consist not of a monolithic, capitalist system, but rather of small communes and self-sufficient farms. The people living in such places would grow their own food, make their own furniture and clothes, treat illnesses without conventional doctors or medicine and, above all, avoid schools like the plague. Schools were seen as being quasi-fascist institutions which indoctrinated children into taking their places as cogs in capitalism’s machine. There were many attempts at this time to set up self-sufficient communities. The television sitcom The Good Life mocks this sort of mentality, which was pretty common in the early 1970s.

In 1972, a man called Stanley Windlass was running a Children’s Rights centre in North London. Children’s Rights were another big thing in those days. The idea was that children were being treated as second class citizens and should enjoy the same rights as adults. This movement too was opposed to schools. Windlass took a lease on a farm near Swindon and set it up as an alternative place, where he could grow organic vegetables and prepare for the collapse of conventional society; long predicted by Marxist ideology and now seemingly imminent. The closest parallel to the mindset of people who followed this pattern of thought is perhaps the present-day American survivalists.

Once he had his farm running, Windlass got in touch with a man called Dick Kitto and offered him a job at Lower Shaw Farm. Kitto had run a project at a school in the north of England, working with what we would today call disaffected pupils. The raising of the school leaving age to sixteen in 1972, had caused a bit of a crisis in some schools. Kitto worked with a group of fifteen and sixteen year-olds, providing an ‘alternative’ education which consisted of visits out and and about and practical work with their hands. Kitto was also a keen organic gardener and believer in complementary medicine. He is best know to day for his book; Planning the Organic Vegetable Garden. He also arranged for John Holt's books to be published in this country and drew attention to Gatto.

The two men shared the same views on education. Roughly, these were that school education was hopeless for practical survival. Instead of teaching children about quadratic equations and the date of the Battle of Waterloo, we should instead be showing them how to grow their own food, weave clothes and treat illnesses without needing doctors. They made contact with a half dozen or so parents who were similarly opposed to conventional education and refused to send their children to school. One of these was Iris Harrison. She shared the belief of Windlass and Kitto that children were better off digging the soil, mending furniture and learning about alternative medicine. None of these parents were at all like the average home educator at that time. All were radical unschoolers who, for various reasons, hated school. Iris Harrison’s husband, for example, had truanted a lot as a boy and felt that he had learned more while truanting than he had in the classroom. The overall feeling of this small group was less pro-home education than it was anti-school. It was from this beginning that Education Otherwise grew. From the very start, those involved were a tiny and unrepresentative minority of British home educators.

I think that we have covered enough for one day. I shall continue the story over the next week or so, tracing the development of the home education ‘movement’ in this country and examining whether it has been a force for good or ill. Before we finish, I think that I should address a few words to those who will dismiss all this as an historical curiosity, with no conceivable relevance for today’s home educators. I would like to point out that the ideology which was current in the 1970s is still going strong among many members of the home educating ‘community’. I shall restrict myself to two examples. Commenting on this blog a few days ago, somebody claimed that;



A person who can make their own clothes, grow, cook and preserve their own food, account for and manage money will have a skillset that is not only saleable but will ensure they can ever after provide for their needs without falling back on the public purse. To me, that is what defines a suitable education.



Here is somebody who still thinks that it is possible in this country to achieve self-sufficiency in food and clothing, just like The Good Life! It would be interesting to meet even the most successful farmer who is able to rely only upon the food which he grows to provide for his needs.

Here is another interesting case which shows that the home education movement in this country still tends towards this Utopian vision. A very well known home educator fled to Ireland last year, because social services were about to take action to protect her children. Readers might have seen the appeal for funds to help her, signed by many prominent figures in British home education. How had she fallen foul of social services? We do not know the full story, but she says it was because:



A few months ago I shamefully attended a meeting about how to obtain Organic Food, leaving my young children in the care of their 17yr old brother,



There is of course more to it than that, but it just had to involve ‘organic food’…

16 comments:

  1. "it just had to involve ‘organic food’…"

    Why?

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  2. '"it just had to involve ‘organic food’…"

    Why?'

    I have begun today to explore the roots of the modern, British home education movement, by showing that it had its origins in the counter-culture of forty years ago. The founders of this movement were heavily involved in such things as organic horticulture and alternative medicine. It was not by chance that Education Otherwise began on an organic farm! These are themes which are still running strongly through the more militant and vociferous factions of the present day scene. If you will have a little patience, I shall be expanding upon this idea in later posts.

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  3. Yawn. Now what would be really interesting is if you compared what you claim is the ethos underlying home ed - that of self reliance, independance, production rather than consumption - to the ethos underlying our state education system - the Prussian Model. Both you and your readers might really learn soemthing.

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  4. 'Now what would be really interesting is if you compared what you claim is the ethos underlying home ed - that of self reliance, independance, production rather than consumption'


    I am claiming nothing of the sort. I am describing a minority faction within home education which I do not at all believe to be typical of the great majority of home educators in this country; either now or forty years ago.

    'the Prussian Model'

    I have gone into this in exhaustive detail before, with reference to the Taunton Report of 1868 and Forster's Act. I have already been accused recently of talking irrelevantly about the past when I have mentioned 1974. What on earth would readers say if I now started going on about events in 1868?

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    1. Was Education Otherwise formed in 1868? Gosh, it's easy to get confused around here. So much mash-up.

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  5. "I am describing a minority faction within home education which I do not at all believe to be typical of the great majority of home educators in this country"

    So you have discovered that a minority of home educators espouse a certain philosophy and even *shock horror* that the founders of EO allegedly held a certain philosophy. A) It's hardly a scoop and B) So what?

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  6. 'the Prussian Model'

    I have already covered the educational system in Prussia quite extensively on this blog, for example in the post below:

    http://homeeducationheretic.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/hitler-banned-home-eduction.html

    I am quite happy to discuss it again, but may I ask readers first to familiarise themselves with the Newcastle Report into the State of Popular Education in Britain, London 1861. There is no point going over old ground again.

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    1. 'There is no point going over old ground again.'

      That's hysterical, given how many old blog posts you regularly recyle here.

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  7. 'So you have discovered that a minority of home educators espouse a certain philosophy and even *shock horror* that the founders of EO allegedly held a certain philosophy. A) It's hardly a scoop and B) So what?'

    I am surprised that you are so uninterested in the history of British home education. If this is the case, why on earth are you continuing to read about it? There are any number of blogs on the internet that you would probably enjoy more than this one.

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  8. "It was not by chance that Education Otherwise began on an organic farm!" Of course it wasn't chance. Honestly you sound like you think you've uncovered a secret plot. Some people who espouse a philosophy of self reliance will naturally wish to make private arrangements for health, and education as well as food and energy. It's obvious if you think about it. A self reliant person would not wish to rely on bought in herbicides and pesticides, that contradicts the self reliant philosophy. A self reliant person would probably try to take care of their health and use alternatives to state healthcare when possible. A self reliant person might choose to make alternative arrangements to state education for their children. I'm not really sure what the big deal is.

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  9. Do you imagine that all self-sufficient ideolgies are left wing/marxist/anti capitalist then? Chortle. Ignorance on show Simon.

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  10. 'Do you imagine that all self-sufficient ideolgies are left wing/marxist/anti capitalist then?'

    Hardly. I mentioned the American survivalists in this post and I scarcely think that they could in general be described as left wing or Marxist! I am talking here of a particular time and place. If you are suggesting that Stan Windlass and Dick Kitto were not left wingers, then you do not perhaps know much about that era.

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  11. Please supprt your assertion that these two were left wingers. And that means show references not just restate yourself

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  12. Simon wrote,
    "The two men shared the same views on education. Roughly, these were that school education was hopeless for practical survival. Instead of teaching children about quadratic equations and the date of the Battle of Waterloo, we should instead be showing them how to grow their own food, weave clothes and treat illnesses without needing doctors."

    Katto's quote on Wikipedia* suggests he was more open minded than Simon paints him:

    "As far as I'm concerned, E.O. does not have a particular kind of education to which it is committed. It is committed to the right of families to do what they want to do. It is a humans (sic) rights organisation. I don't feel we must do this, or we must do that. It is up to the members. To me it is not a specific thing where children have to run wild in the country, or have to pay visits to Winchester Cathedral, or anything else. There is this huge variation. Some people join EO in order to give their children a good classical education which they cannot get at school. I have a fundamental belief in the freedom of choice. We must all be allowed to make our own mistakes. We don't want to be dictated to by a curriculum from central government."


    * Not sure why Wikipedia is looked down on so much here. Various studies have found that it compares well to other encyclopaedias. The 2012 pilot study by Epic, an e-learning consultancy, in partnership with Oxford University that compared 22 articles also agrees. It will be interesting to see the full study.

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  13. "I would like to point out that the ideology which was current in the 1970s is still going strong among many members of the home educating ‘community’"

    You cannot support your asserion that the person whose comment you quote is a home educator. I thought you couldn't abide sloppy thinking?

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  14. "I would like to point out that the ideology which was current in the 1970s is still going strong among many members of the home educating ‘community’"

    Which ideology would that be then? Marxism?

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