Wednesday, 9 January 2013
Why the thought processes of well known home educators and former home educators matter to all who educate their children at home.
I never cease to be amazed at the slippery way that the more vociferous members of what some describe as the ‘home educating community’ operate! I have talked in the last week or so about the fact that many of these characters have or claim to have neurological deficits or one sort or another. There seem to be two chief objections to my making this claim. Some say that it is untrue and others assert that even if it were true, then it is irrelevant and an attempt to smear individuals. Today, I wish to address the second of these objections; that it does not matter if prominent home educators are adherents of the New World Order conspiracy theory or are bipolar or whatever else I have been discussing here. Why would I even raise this as a topic to be debated?
The first thing to realise is that campaigns to change the regulations governing home education in this country or to ensure that it remains the same are undertaken by a fairly small number of activists. This is of course not restricted to home education; the same thing is true of most campaigns to change or not change the law. I am not sure if readers realise though, just how few are involved in the case of home education. The current guidance on the law relating to home education was issued in 2007 and affects everybody who is home educating and also those who come into contact with them professionally, such as local authorities and so on. A couple of years ago, an attempt was made to change these guidelines completely and replace them with a new set. This project was undertaken by a mere eight home educators, together with one MP, who happened to be Chair of a select committee. This means that eight people might have been able to push through regulations which would have affected every single home educating parent in this country.
Looking a little further back, those organising the opposition to the Graham Badman proposals numbered perhaps two or three hundred out of the fifteen to thirty thousand home educating parents in England and Wales. They were led by a hard core of no more than forty or fifty. Yet these people managed to prevent a law being passed. It does not matter whether we see this was a good or bad thing; the fact is that it happened. This too affected every home educating parent in the country.
When a small number of people undertake activities of this sort which affect tens of thousands of other people, I think it quite reasonable to look into their motives and ask whether all is as it appears on the surface. Frankly, I am taken aback to discover that most of those commenting here do not agree with this idea. It was seen as perfectly acceptable to make personal enquiries about the background, life, family and motives of Graham Badman in an effort to stop his proposals being adopted. He was accused of stupidity, laziness, cruelty, incompetence, greed and corruption, to mention but a few of the things said about him on lists and in the comments on online articles. The rule seems to be that if somebody is perceived as being opposed to home education, then it is fine to delve into their background and ask the most searching questions, attributing base motives to them. If questions are asked of those who campaign to leave the law on home education unchanged however, such questions are regarded as unsporting!
This then is why I feel that it important to know why people are fighting either to change the law or leave it unchanged. In either case, there will be an effect upon tens of thousands of children. I have a pretty good grasp of the motives of those who seek closer control over the practice of home education, but the reasons advanced by those who oppose change do not always stack up and so I wish to look at their beliefs and see if anything else in their lives might be behind their attitudes towards schools, social workers or society in general, to explain why they feel as they do.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A point of order - there were over five thousand responses to the consultation on the CSF Bill, which is a couple of orders of magnitude greater than the typical response rate to a DCSF consultation[*]. Over 90% of those expressed opposition to the proposals, which in statistical terms translates to a very unpopular bit of law.
ReplyDeleteMost MPs heard from their constituents, so that's several hundred spread across the country, and I have no doubt that many MPs, mine included, heard from at least half a dozen constituents and had meetings with them.
It might have been two or three hundred at the core, but they had on board over ten times that number. It's worth noting that when dealing with complaints, most organisations assume that for every one they get, there were probably some number of other people who were upset but didn't complain. With an official home education population of about 20,000, having 5,000 prepared to take the steps to respond in the negative is a huge response.
Look at some of the consultations affecting schoolchildren - several million affected, responses in double figures.
[*] I looked it up once, they had one other contentious issue attracting lots of input but most of the rest struggled to get anywhere near a hundred responses.
'there were over five thousand responses to the consultation on the CSF Bill, which is a couple of orders of magnitude greater than the typical response rate to a DCSF consultation[*]. Over 90% of those expressed opposition to the proposals, which in statistical terms translates to a very unpopular bit of law.'
ReplyDeleteIt translates into a small, but very well organised, bunch of militant activists making a lot of noise. You might find it interesting to look at the responses to the proposed law and try to work out how many of the responses were from home educating parents in this country who were opposed to the bill. Some people, Tania Berlow for example, sent three responses. Many of the responses, I hesitate to say most, because I have not conducted a proper statistical analysis, were from people who had nothing to do with home education. Some, Kelly Green for example, did not even live in this country. I wonder if anybody would care to guess, or indeed actually knows, how many home educating British parents sent in responses which were opposed to the measures contained in the bill? This would be an interesting figure to work with.
Dave was talking about consultation responses, not submissions to the select committee. I think you're confused, Simon.
ReplyDelete'I think you're confused, Simon'
ReplyDeleteAll too true on this occasion, I fear! An inevitable consequence, perhaps, of trying to write two books simultaneously, while replying with half an eye to comments here. Normal, and wholly error free, service will be resumed as soon as possible.
Why do I keep an eye on guidelines/ home ed and government generally and stick my oar in whenever it seems necessary? Because education of any sort is too important to leave to 'professionals' who seem to forget that children come in a lot of different varieties.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I loved school, did well there and come from a family of teachers and university lecturers who are as frustrated by the idiocies being imposed on them as I am. I home educate because my children don't fit the system and I want it as flexible as possible because with children like mine, it has to work round them rather than getting them to change to suit some civil servant or local authority clerk's idea of 'suitable' or, worse still 'normal'
Atb and hope your books are going as well as possible and the Jimmy Savile stuff was salvageable
Anne B
' hope your books are going as well as possible and the Jimmy Savile stuff was salvageable'
ReplyDeleteThank you Anne. Yes, the title has been changed in order to avoid mentioning Jim fixing it!
"I have a pretty good grasp of the motives of those who seek closer control over the practice of home education"
ReplyDeletePerhaps you'd like to explain these to us, then.
"I have a pretty good grasp of the motives of those who seek closer control over the practice of home education"
ReplyDeletePerhaps you'd like to explain these to us, then.'
Of course. Many professionals in the field of education feel that providing a full-time education for children is a difficult and time consuming job and that many parents who undertake to do it are either unable or unwilling to carry out the task effectively. There is also an anxiety that some children who are not being seen regularly by health and education professionals, might have difficulties and problems which are consequently overlooked. These could range from hearing loss and developmental delays all the way through to rare outcomes involving rape and murder.
How do you reconcile this with with the views of professional educators who believe that school education is failing children?
DeleteWhen you speak of "professionals in the field education', what fraction of these are highly experienced educators, i.e., people who have taught for several decades, as opposed to moving into administrative roles? For example, one would not count Graham Badman as a highly experienced educator, but possibly an educationalist.
What evidence do you have to indicated that HE children come to more harm than there counterparts in schools or in LA care, where many deaths and rapes are known to have taken place?
'How do you reconcile this with with the views of professional educators who believe that school education is failing children?
ReplyDeleteWhen you speak of "professionals in the field education', what fraction of these are highly experienced educators, i.e., people who have taught for several decades, as opposed to moving into administrative roles? For example, one would not count Graham Badman as a highly experienced educator, but possibly an educationalist.
What evidence do you have to indicated that HE children come to more harm than there counterparts in schools or in LA care, where many deaths and rapes are known to have taken place? '
I did not say that I agree with any of this. Somebody asked if me to explain the motives of those who seek closer control over home edcuation. I did so.
I'm curious to know where you obtained this information about motives.
DeleteHe spoke to someone on the telephone once. Apparently.
Delete