Sunday 24 February 2013

Life in the home education bubble

We examined yesterday some very strange beliefs. If the ideas at which we looked  were freakish or rare in the UK home education scene, then it would hardly matter if one or two cranks believed that it was impossible to teach the Alphabet beyond the letter ’C’. After all, any group of people at whom one looks is bound to contain a few members who have weirder or less rational views than most of the group. This was not the case with the beliefs at which we looked yesterday. The basic idea, that it is impossible to teach children, is fairly widespread among British home educators. We need not delve for now into the reasons for this, but it is the case that many home educating parents in this country either believe in  or at least pay lip service to this idea.


A fixed and irrational belief that children cannot be taught is by no means the most alarming of the ideas which pass unchallenged by and large in the world of British home education. For the last month, I have been conducting an informal experiment. I mentioned on this blog a while ago, the case of the home educating parents who did not wish to have any dealings with their local authority. The local authority suspected that the children were not receiving a suitable education and wanted the mother and father  to provide evidence to satisfy them about this point. They would not cooperate with this request and because she thought that local authority officers might visit in person to discuss the matter, the mother instructed her son to fire his rifle at the feet of any visitors from the council.

The story of Iris Harrison is a famous one among home educators in this country. I have never once heard any criticism of her for telling a child to shoot   local authority officers. When I mentioned the case here, there was some quibbling about the type of rifle used and the likely injuries which would result, but nobody thought that she had been wrong to teach her child to do this. The idea of encouraging any  child to point and fire a loaded weapon of any kind at another person, whether this be an air rifle, live-fire .22 or anything else, is so incomprehensible to me, that I thought I would ask those with whom I come into contact what they thought of the matter. Who knows, perhaps I am overly cautious about such things!

For the last month, I have asked friends and family, professional contacts and so on, what they make of this business. I have stated the case plainly; that here are parents  who withdrew their children from school and refused to cooperate with the local authority, an authority anxious about the education being provided by the parents. I then told them of the mother instructing her  child to shoot at anybody from the council who came to visit. I can tell readers now, that every single person to whom I put this case, thought that the mother must have been an irresponsible lunatic to teach her child to behave in such a way.  Some asked whether this person was  typical of home educating parents and I was forced in all honesty to reveal that she is something of a heroine to many home educators, as well as being a founder member of Education Otherwise.

Perhaps readers would like to conduct similar research themselves among non-home educators? Why this is interesting is that the above anecdote is widely known and yet home educators have a completely different view of the case from ordinary people. Their view is so at odds with the normal reaction to such idiocy, that it really is quite disturbing.

What I am seeing here is a community, many of whose members apparently live in a bubble; isolated and cut off from the ordinary world, at least in an intellectual or moral  sense. Across the country, people are teaching their children the whole Alphabet by means of songs and so on. Here in the bubble though, are parents who think that it cannot be done; that children are incapable of memorising the Alphabet beyond the letter ’C’. In the world outside, the notion of a parent teaching her child that it is right to discharge a rifle at another person is regarded with horror. In the bubble though, it is fine and even amusing that parents should carry on in such a way. When home educating parents talk about prejudice against their way of life, they might like to think a little about the impression that all this gives to ordinary parents; those who teach things to their children and would not dream of encouraging their children to shoot anybody. Until the majority of home educating parents state clearly that they reject such lunacy, then the suspicion will surely be that silence means consent and that  they too subscribe to extreme views of this sort.  This will certainly result in not only local authority officers, but also all ordinary people, eying them a little askance.

19 comments:

  1. 'All ordinary people eying them a little askance?' Isn't that rather a sweeping statement, Simon?

    And I am not Iris Harrison, any more than the majority of PTA supporting parents are the sort who go in and thump teachers because they have reprimanded their precious little Jimmy.

    So would you say that all ordinary people would look a little askance at parents because they might at any moment go and thump a teacher?

    I have never found any hostility from anyone outside the LA towards home education. This may be because I always make it clear that for these children at this time it is the best option and that it is no reflection on anyone else.

    Every educational system there has ever been or is ever likely to be works for some children and fails others because children cannot be standardised. So surely we would all be better occupied sharing what has worked for us and picking up bright ideas? Or, at the very least, reading and thinking 'well, that's not how I want to do it...' because sometimes working out how you don't want to do things helps you find out how you do want to do them.

    So, please, more about your experiences with Simone. Sharing more about doing science would particularly interest me, because that's the question we so often get asked about HE.

    (And having demonstrated solutes, solvents, solutions, Brownian motion and the effect of temperature on solubility with the help of a cup of coffee in Subway the other day to answer that one, it's very close to my heart.)

    Anne

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am a home educator who taught her children the alphabet and not how to shoot LA officials. Does every single home educator have to come out and say this, before you will stop mud-slinging an entire sector of the population based on one story about one family?

    We would not shoot LA officials, but we would wonder why they thought it was their business to invite themselves into our homes to inspect the lives of our children. Does this strange habit of some LA personnel not worry you at all? Most people would look askance at it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Does every single home educator have to come out and say this, before you will stop mud-slinging an entire sector of the population based on one story about one family?"

      Exactly. It seemed so obviously wrong, that it didn't need stating.

      Delete
  3. 'before you will stop mud-slinging an entire sector of the population based on one story about one family? '

    If this were about one insignificant family, I agree it would be foolish. However, there is a bit more to it than this. The case of Harrison and Harrison v Stevenson 1981 is always being quoted by home educators as a key piece of precedent which established the rights of home educating parents in this country. At the heart of the case lay somebody who thought that a suitable education consisted in part of teaching her child to shoot people. She went on to become a founder of Education Otherwise. I would like to hear a few home educators admit that this case was a mistake and that the local authority clearly did have cause to question the nature of the education being provided for the children. I often see it being held up as a triumph, but nobody ever seems to tell the truth about it.

    It is hardly 'mudslinging' to discuss openly this sort of thing. Nor is it mudslinging to explain that many home educators refuse, as a matter of principle, to teach their children.

    I do not ask anybody to take my word for the reaction of ordinary people to this sort of thing. I rather invite them to do as I did and ask their non-home educating friends what they make of it all.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think it's safe to say from Joy Baker's story (pre-Harrison by quite a few years) that parents have always had those rights and EO is by now a largely discredited organisation so I don't know why you've got such a bee in your bonnet about its founders.

    As for teaching, I've been home educating for three decades and seen hundreds of different methods of doing it. Not one has precluded actually teaching a child. The main difference is, rather, that some parents proactively choose what to teach and when and how to teach it, whilst others wish to take a more cautious, reactive and interactive approach.

    ReplyDelete
  5. 'I don't know why you've got such a bee in your bonnet about its founders. '

    I'm not at all sure that this is so. The case of Harrison and Harrison v Stevenson 1981 is widely quoted and regarded as being a key piece of legal precedent. Similarly, whether you like them or not, Education Otherwise is still an influential voice in British home education. I see no reason at all not to look objectively at either the court case or the founding of this country's biggest home education support group.


    ReplyDelete
  6. So are you trying to say that because the Harrisons were potentially aggressive to local authority workers coming to their house, the legal precedent is invalid? Is this some sort of obscure point about autonomous learning?

    You seem to be attempting to draw a bizarre connection between one example of one family's lifestyle choices and a whole educational theory, as if the one somehow discounts the other!

    Your approach is seeming more than a little muddled, if you don't mind me saying so.

    ReplyDelete
  7. 'So are you trying to say that because the Harrisons were potentially aggressive to local authority workers coming to their house, the legal precedent is invalid?'

    'Your approach is seeming more than a little muddled, if you don't mind me saying so.'

    There is a little muddle here, but I am far from convinced that it is of my making. Let me set the case out clearly. Local authorities sometimes pester home educating families on the grounds that they are not providing a suitable education for their children. It is practically an article of faith among home educators that this is seldom the case and that such a judgement says more about the blinkered attitude of those steeped in conventional education than it does anything else.

    In the case of the Harrisons, we see such things as a child who, despite years of home education, has only just, at the age of twelve, learnt to recognise the word 'cat'. At fifteen, this same child does not know the alphabet. He is driving younger children around at this age in a car without brakes. He and his nine year old brother are fooling around, unsupervised, with air rifles.

    In short, there is every reason to suppose that thse children are not only not receiving an education, but that the younger ones might actually be at risk of harm. I am saying that this may well also be the case with other families whom local authorities are currently pursuing for information. The fact that the case which I have cited above is universally applauded as a great example of home education, makes this likely. If many British home educators regard this lifestyle as providing a suitable education, it might well raise questions about their own provision and what they themselves see as being a suitable education.

    ReplyDelete
  8. "The fact that the case which I have cited above is universally applauded as a great example of home education"

    Where is it universally applauded as a great example of home education? I have seen some discussion around the legal details of the court hearing itself, but nothing to support your claim above.

    "If many British home educators regard this lifestyle as providing a suitable education"

    I think most people, like the law itself, regard the parents as being the education providers, not their lifestyle. I do not know whether Iris Harrison provided what I would consider to be a suitable education for her children and luckily this is not my judgement to make.

    "it might well raise questions about their own provision and what they themselves see as being a suitable education."

    Why? This is such a weak point as to be preposterous. Home educating parents are usually far too busy responding to their children's needs, to wonder what other home educators were doing in the 70s and 80s, and let it influence their personal decisions.

    Parents usually act from a place of love for their children, which means observing the children's needs and meeting them. Most have never heard of Iris Harrison.







    ReplyDelete
  9. Directed learning is not, in my opinion compliance with section seven of the education act which states education must be efficient and in accordance with age, aptitude and ability. Teaching children a curriculum that fits the teacher or the curriculum designers cannot possibly comply with this requirement. The only education that is efficient and suitable to aptitude is one selected by the learner.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The legal precedent that an autonomous education can legally be regarded as a suitable education was the important issue in this case. I doubt many home educators know much more than this about the case, and doubt they need to know more. Unless the case is re-opened, of course.

    ReplyDelete
  11. "What I am seeing here is a community, many of whose members apparently live in a bubble; isolated and cut off from the ordinary world, at least in an intellectual or moral sense."

    And you extrapolate this from one or two comments made on your blog? Because I've spent time with four different HE groups in various parts of the country and larger numbers of home educators at various HE camps over about 19 years and I don't recognise your descriptions of home educators at all, autonomous or otherwise.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "And you extrapolate this from one or two comments made on your blog"

      "Extrapolate" is a generous way of putting it. "Make it up" is more accurate. Take some comments, wrench them out of context, twist their meaning, jam them together and fait accompli. The problem is, Simon has no idea he's even doing this. He honestly imagines that picture he presents is fair and justified. With almost no social empathy to help him, he finds it impossible to understand how others see a different picture entirely. He has an almost invincible confirmation bias. As one commentator observed a few weeks back, he already knows the picture he wants to paint and everything said here will be used as paint no matter what. It's rather reminiscent of the Badman days - people spoke to Badman in good faith and were astonished at the picture that was painted from those interactions. It's a form of control. Politicians and lawyers are extremely proficient in it and so is Simon Webb

      Delete
  12. 'With almost no social empathy to help him'

    Readers might recall what I said a few days ago, about those who disagree with me, trying to portray my views as being the result of a psychiatric disorder; I was diagnosed then as having 'individuation issues', a peculiarly Jungian problem!

    In this case, the hint is that I am on the autistic spectrum. What other possible explanation could there be for his disagreeing with what we are saying? Some readers with children on the spectrum might find it offensive when people play at long distance diagnosing of autism in this way.

    Incidentally, I can think of at least one other reason why I might find myself in disagreement with some of those who comment on here; an explanation which does not call for any knowledge of either individuation or social empathy. This would be that some of those whose views I criticise are talking a lot of nonsense. But there, one can scarcely expect such a simple and obvious solution to appeal to these characters!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haven't you done the same? Yes, you appear to have diagnosed disordered thinking in others over the internet. Pot calling the kettle black, I think.

      Delete
    2. You have also diagnosed what you perceive as anger as evidence of pathological behaviour. You appear to make a habit of diagnosing mental health conditions in those you disagree with, Simon.

      Delete
    3. Folie à deux is another long distance diagnosis suggested by Simon.

      Delete
  13. I am not diagnosing you, merely stating what you demonstrate on here day after day. You do not engage in rational discourse nor do you seek to. Readers and commentators need to be aware of this before engaging - anything they say will be used in evidence against them regardless of how accurately or inaccurately it must be re-packaged in order to do so. And you truly have no insight into your behaviour.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Simon, it looks as though the loophole you used to flexi-school your step-daughter has been closed:

    "Can a school agree to a so-called flexi-schooling arrangement; where the pupil is partly educated at school and partly educated at home?
    No. Parents have a legal duty to ensure that their children of compulsory school age receiving full-time education suitable to their age, ability and aptitude. Parents can fulfil this duty by either registering their children at a school or by education otherwise than at a school (which includes home education). The law does not provide for a combination of both.

    Where parents decide to educate their child at a school, parents have a legal duty to ensure their child attends regularly. If they fail to do this they may be committing an offence. Schools are funded to provide full-time education for all pupils (age 5-16) on their register and therefore are accountable for the standard of education their pupils receive. A flexi-schooling arrangement means some schools would receive a full unit of funding for certain pupils for whom they do not provide fulltime education, and in some cases, may provide very little.
    "

    http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/a/advice%20on%20school%20attendance%20-%20final%20cleared.pdf

    ReplyDelete