Sunday 3 November 2013

On not conflating education and welfare



It is almost a battle cry of British home education and has been since the Badman Report in 2009; you must not conflate education with welfare! The problem is of course that when you are talking about home education it is almost impossible not to do so. The reason is simple.  My decision to educate my daughter at home was made on purely educational grounds. I thought that one-to-one tuition in a relaxed setting would yield better educational results than having her in a classroom with thirty other children. This is very rarely the case with home educating parents in this country though. Time after time, research shows that education is not a major factor in the decision to home educate. Lifestyle, family closeness, bullying, religion and things like school phobia are common reasons for choosing this option; education by itself is not. Indeed, in many cases, education has no bearing at all on the parents’ decision to educate their child at home.

An example of home education being undertaken for motives wholly unconnected with education cropped up on one of the big internet support groups recently.  I found this quite infuriating and I shall explain why.  A mother said that she had recently deregistered her nine year-old son from school, because he was screaming, crying, being sick and threatening to kill himself; so anxious was he not to be separated from her. She wondered if she had made the right decision. Needless to say, other members of the group hastened to assure her that she had, even telling her that her son would be fine when he was older and that she didn’t need to worry. School was the only problem and once that was taken out of the equation, everything would be fine.  

Now very few nine year-olds threaten to commit suicide; it is one of the greatest warning signs that something is terribly wrong, that you can imagine. What is happening in that child’s life that he should feel that way? Is he afraid of school, or just fearful of being separated from his mother? Why has the matter only now reached crisis point, after he has been at school for four or five years? Has there been some trauma in his life unconnected with school, such as a relative dying? Has the mother got a new partner? Have they moved house? Is there a possibility that the child is being abused?  Does the mother actually want to educate her own child? Is she capable of doing so? These are the kind of questions one would wish to know the answer to before telling the mother that the only thing wrong is school and that once he is removed from there, everything will be fine. At any rate, this case illustrates perfectly what I was saying about home education very often not being about education at all. Here is a mother making the decision to home educate for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with education. This is why the  advice not to conflate education with welfare is a bit of a red herring. In almost every example of home education in this country that I have ever come across, education is only one of the factors which precipitate the decision to home educate. Often, as in the case above, education is completely irrelevant and welfare concerns are the only motive.

6 comments:

  1. I would say home education had everything to do with a child's welfare in a lot of cases, because the decision to home educate was precipitated by their welfare not being prioritised by the educational environment they were in.

    Once they are at home, however, welfare is one issue and education another one entirely, and because you did not come to home education as a first choice doesn't mean you aren't going to give it everything you've got. If anything, you may find yourself overdoing it, especially at first.

    What I think you are mistkaing is the 'recovery' phase of HE, where you are incredibly (and don't forget, often justifiably) angry at the system you thought was there to protect and educate your child and didn't and at yourself for leaving them there as long as you did when you could see the damage being done. When that's added to by, shall we say, creative interpretation of the laws regarding HE you have a situation where you are saying 'Well, if they'd shown a tenth of this concern when they'd been AT school then it might have worked.'

    It's a pretty toxic mix of emotions, and I took a year or so to work through it. During that time I was absolutely furious about anyone daring to talk about my children's welfare when they'd shown so little regard for it when there was a problem.

    I think that could be reduced by not having to deal with the same officers who ignored problems in schools, and an attitude change on the part of LA's, but sadly, by the time you withdraw a child from school after trying everything to sort a situation out, you have been labelled as the sharp elbowed parent from hell, and it takes a few years before you can smile and think "Yes, I'm your worst nightmare and YOU created me."

    On which cheerful note, the sun is shining, there are hungry ducks and geese and swans in the park and we're off to feed them before we do 'lessons.' Home ed is great, isn't it?

    Atb
    Anne

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    1. Anne says"
      I think that could be reduced by not having to deal with the same officers who ignored problems in schools, and an attitude change on the part of LA's, but sadly, by the time you withdraw a child from school after trying everything to sort a situation out, you have been labelled as the sharp elbowed parent from hell, and it takes a few years before you can smile and think "Yes, I'm your worst nightmare and YOU created me."

      Your so right by that statement yet old Webb wants you to allow the very same lA officers into your home to judge you.Your right thair created the nightmare and now don't like it!

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  2. I was always confused by home educators that stated so categorically that welfare and education shouldn't be conflated. Aside from the fact that life is rarely that black and white, there is the NICE guidelines that state that not providing an education is neglect.

    I hadn't really thought about it from Simon's point of view though, that on the one hand HEers get all wound up by having welfare and education in the same sentence, and yet at the same time can be home educating because of welfare issues.

    Thanks for making me go 'Hmmmm....." and thinking a little more deeply about it all.

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  3. I doubt the nine year old was learning much at school is he felt so badly about being there, so of course taking him out had something to do with education. The parents would have been breaking the law if they had continued forcing him into that situation because he would not have been receiving an education.

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    1. 'I doubt the nine year old was learning much at school is he felt so badly about being there, so of course taking him out had something to do with education'

      The point I was making was that without knowing a good deal more about this situation, it is impossible to know why the child was becoming so distressed. It might simply have been his separation form his mother, rather than attending school as such. The mother did not take him out of school because she was concerned about whether he was receiving a suitable education, but because she was worried about his emotional state. That being so, the move was made for welfare and not educational reasons.

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    2. "The mother did not take him out of school because she was concerned about whether he was receiving a suitable education, but because she was worried about his emotional state."

      Without knowing a good deal more about the situation, it is impossible to know this for sure. Yes, that may have been the stated reason, it may even be the main reason but surely it's reasonable to expect people to make decisions based on a myriad of thoughts on the issue, including a lack of learning in this instance. And even if the parent gave no thought to it, the fact still remains that a child in the state described would learn little in such an environment.

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