Saturday 27 April 2013
What is wrong with people??? Part 2
Another irritated complaint about the sort of things people say on home education lists. This one relates to the Education Otherwise support group. Somebody posted there yesterday, full of pleasure and enthusiasm for the speed with which her twelve year-old daughter was zooming through academic work in preparation for IGCSEs. In fact things were going so well, that the mother was thinking of letting the kid sit the examinations early. Cue comments along the lines of, “Why are you doing this? Why not let your child decide for herself what she studies?” The suggestion was made that “many” mysterious "agencies" had found that it was “damaging” for children younger than sixteen to take IGCSEs. These “agencies” were not named and so it is hard to know what was meant by this. Even Fiona Nicholson, who really ought to know better, advised caution and talked of the possibility of being oppressed by examinations.
This is all so absolutely bizarre, that one hardly knows what to make of it! A child is rushing through work at a rapid rate, as many do when they are being taught one-to-one, and there is no indication that there is any pressure or stress involved. Actually, children out of school often enjoy learning things and take pleasure in working quickly through academic material. It is in school that this kind of thing is an onerous chore; you seldom find it with home educated kids. The mother was, in effect, being advised on a home education list run by a major organisation in this field, to slow her child down and discourage her from learning so fast!
I must point out that a number of people, including a woman who comments regularly on this blog, then popped up and said that their children too enjoyed studying and made very rapid progress. But how extraordinary that the first response to news of a home educated child studying and making good progress should have been that there was some sort of problem that needed to be dealt with and that all could not be well in that family for the mother to be considering IGCSEs a little earlier than they are taken in schools!
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'This is all so absolutely bizarre, that one hardly knows what to make of it!'
ReplyDeleteWell, obviously, it makes lots of home educators look bad. When they effectively decide for their children not to 'go down the GCSE route' they get angry when anyone else's kids do well academically.
Yes, I saw that too; and commented.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a sad indictment of today's culture that so many people find it hard to believe that some children genuinely do love learning and rather like sitting exams. Mine's old school used to be convinced I had to be hothousing, so it isn't just a 'HE' thing.
(And learning here can get quite obsessive, but that's no different from another child being obsessed by a pop star or a football team. On the whole, I prefer owls and geology, but that's just me.)
Atb
Anne
Oh you should see the rubbish being spouted on the new facebook 'support' group. Apparently, no one needs any IGCSEs at all.
ReplyDelete'Yes, I saw that too; and commented.'
ReplyDeleteYes Anne, you were the 'regular reader' to whom I referred. i did not want to embarrass you by outing you as a structured educator!
'I think it's a sad indictment of today's culture that so many people find it hard to believe that some children genuinely do love learning and rather like sitting exams.'
Yes, I agree. My daughter used to love reading books about history and even when she was doing the IGCSE, which was limited to three aspects of the 19th and 20th Centuries, she was still reading about every other period of the past; just for the sake of it. Something which is, I fancy, quite rare with schoolchildren.
Don't worry, Simon, I think I'm well and truly out by now, and it's not quite in the same league as being an axe murderer.
ReplyDeleteIt works for us. I have friends for whom autonomy works every bit as well, and plenty more who are somewhere in the middle.
Mine collect knowledge like magpies collect shiny things. Then they link it all together and make new patterns and that leaves them with gaps they need to fill in. I'm just glad no one asks me to explain how we get from one topic to the next, because I'd find it very hard to explain.
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Anne
I've read so many similar things recently and it infuriates me. It seems that whenever anybody writes about what their child has achieved, be it reading, writing, or indeed anything, they are first asked how old the child is and are then berated for daring to approach things in anything other than an autonomous nature. I don't understand why?
ReplyDeleteIt's because AE has become a sort of religion and in the HE community you are berated or shunned if you don't accept all the commandments of this religion.
ReplyDelete