One of the most fascinating aspects of home education as encountered on the Internet is the extent to which fanciful and misleading stories about it have a tendency to multiply like fruit flies. One need only make an untruthful claim such as, 'The Children, Schools and Families Bill would have made it a criminal offence not to register as a home educator' and although there is not a shred of truth in the statement it soon assumes a life of its own and will be endlessly quoted and repeated with various exaggerations. So we read on one site a few months ago that, 'under a new law, children will be removed from their parents and interrogated alone'! I'm sure we all have favourite examples of this sort of thing. A lot of this happens when home educators in Europe contact American groups and ask them to publicise some case or other. These lies and half truths then often find their way into respectable newspapers. I was thinking about this recently in connection with what I have been writing about Sweden. There are some pretty uncanny similarities between the Johansson case and that of the Williams family whom I mentioned the other day. Both are good instances of how the game of Chinese Whispers may be played on the Internet.
Readers are probably quite familiar now with the Johansson business. I have given up trying to get to the bottom of this affair, because as time goes on the stories change and become more elaborate. Those interested in the case also make things up as the mood takes them. It is apparent though that the basic thesis, that Swedish social workers snatched a child from his parents to prevent them from home educating him, is not the full story. Five years ago, a similarly heart-rending story was doing the rounds on American home education sites. This concerned a child in this country of the same age as Dominic Johansson. He was called Peter Williams and the story was that his parents were being persecuted by their local authority in Hampshire because they wished to teach their son at home. Here is one account from an American site;
I received an email from the mother of this chess prodigy asking for a little publicity regarding her fight with her LEA. It seems that being the best under-7 chess player in the country doesn’t count as receiving an education. The LEA is threatening to arrest the parents and to force the kid into a g-school.
I hope that Education Otherwise will set the edu-crats straight.
UPDATE: If you’re particularly inspired to contact the case officer directly, he can be reached at
Mr. XXXXXXX
Ass. Principal Education Welfare Officer
New Forest Local Education Office
Southampton
England
United Kingdom
Phone number is XXXXXXXXXXX
I especially like that “Ass.” part. The other potential contact person is
Mr. XXXXXXXXXXX
Hampshire County Council
Winchester
Hampshire
S023 8UG
England
United Kingdom
Phone number XXXXXXXXXXX
I have removed the personal details. This is spookily similar to the sort of appeal currently being made for the Johanssons. Even the details being given for officials to contact is the same tactic. Note also the untruthful statements included. 'The LEA is threatening to arrest the parents'. Of course this is not true. Nor is it true that the child was the best under 7 player in the country. Three months later, on another American site, this had become, 'An 8-year-old homeschooled British boy who reportedly is the best under-10 chess player in the UK ' How's that for progress? The source of these assertions was the father's claim that his son was the best player of his age in Britain; a claim unsupported by any exteranl evidence and then endlessly exaggerated by others.
Now of course with the perspective afforded by the passage of a few years, we see that this case was not really as advertised. The local authority, Hampshire, was not opposed to either home education or chess, but were in fact worried because the child's father appeared to be both completely mad and also wholly incapable of educating his son. Both fears have been shown to be fully justified over the years. Fortunately, Hampshire have kept on the case, with the result that the child now has private tutors for at least some of the time. I have a feeling that five years down the line, we might well have learned something pretty similar about the Johanssons.
At one time, circulating information about some perceived injustice was a slow and laborious business. Newspapers often used to check what they were told before publishing and gaining access to a world audience was very hard. All that has changed now and a story can be published to the world almost instantly, just as I am doing now! The problem is that many of these stories will be mad or untruthful. This is just as true of stories about home education as any other subject which one comes across while browsing the net.
Showing posts with label Dominic Johansson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dominic Johansson. Show all posts
Friday, 16 July 2010
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
The Johansson case - a correction
A few days ago I was wondering about the reasons for Dominic Johansson being taken into care. I picked up on this comment by somebody close to the family;
''Christer was once involved in an alternative on-line news mag that expressed politically incorrect ideas and as near as anyone can tell, this was the reason his home schooling plans were opposed.'
I speculated in a post that this on-line magazine might have had something to do with the physical punishment of children, but am now happy to make it clear that it was nothing of the sort. It is in fact called Vaken which means 'awake' or 'wake up' and I don't think one could really call it 'politically incorrect' at all. Raving mad and anti-Semitic, yes; but not politically incorrect! After all, they replace the word 'Jew' most of the time with 'Zionist', thus conforming to the most up-to-date and acceptable left wing version of anti-Semitism. It is full of the most outlandish conspiracy theories about the Jews taking over the world, the freemasons, 9/11, all the usual nonsense in fact. I am not over keen on anti-Semitism, but I really cannot see anything on this site to justify taking a man's child from him. Which still leaves the central mystery of this whole affair unchanged; why was Dominic Johansson taken by social workers?
It is intriguing to see the rather ambiguous statements by Jonas Himmelstrand, the president of the Swedish National Association for Home Education, (ROHUS). He said of this case;
'Homeschooling was not the only issue regarding taking Dominic Johansson in custody by the social services. But having read the court verdict with all the issues, there stills seems to be no reason for this severe action. The young boy has most likely been much more hurt by the custody action than the conditions in his family. One cannot avoid the thought that the prejudices and lack of knowledge about homeschooling, could have been the pivotal reason for the custody action.'
Home schooling was 'not the only issue'. We have heard that the child had some tooth decay, but this was only discovered after he had been taken into care. He had not had the usual vaccinations, but while this is a little unusual it would not be grounds for taking somebody's child. The Vaken website is barking mad, but I can't see this being a reason. Notice that Himmelstrand says, ' prejudices and lack of knowledge about homeschooling, could have been the pivotal reason'. Once again, it is hinted that the home education was not the only or even the main reason. On the Friends of Dominic Johansson site, there is this curious statement;
'By December 2009, the Johansson family had been terrorized by the Social Board of Gotland for more than sixteen months; had their home swarmed and searched by armed Swedish police'
Now why on earth did the police raid the Johanssons' home? What were they looking for? This could hardly have been in connection with home education; there must have been something else going on. There are tantalising hints about this business scattered all over the place. One thing which I have noticed is that the people who are writing about the case a long way from Sweden always seem to think that it is only about home education. Those actually in Sweden, particularly those who have dealings with the family, are saying that home education was not the only reason for the actions of the social workers. Irritatingly though, they never tell us what those other reasons were.
Incidentally, people have contacted Google in an attempt to have this blog taken down. This is not the first time that this has been done; in fact it is the fifth. The first person to try this stunt was our own Mike Fortune-Wood of Home Education UK last year. This is usually done by telling a lot of lies and accusing me of all sorts of bizarre things.. Google are used to this now and they never take any action. Judging by what has been said, I gather that the latest effort was by somebody connected with the Johansson case.
''Christer was once involved in an alternative on-line news mag that expressed politically incorrect ideas and as near as anyone can tell, this was the reason his home schooling plans were opposed.'
I speculated in a post that this on-line magazine might have had something to do with the physical punishment of children, but am now happy to make it clear that it was nothing of the sort. It is in fact called Vaken which means 'awake' or 'wake up' and I don't think one could really call it 'politically incorrect' at all. Raving mad and anti-Semitic, yes; but not politically incorrect! After all, they replace the word 'Jew' most of the time with 'Zionist', thus conforming to the most up-to-date and acceptable left wing version of anti-Semitism. It is full of the most outlandish conspiracy theories about the Jews taking over the world, the freemasons, 9/11, all the usual nonsense in fact. I am not over keen on anti-Semitism, but I really cannot see anything on this site to justify taking a man's child from him. Which still leaves the central mystery of this whole affair unchanged; why was Dominic Johansson taken by social workers?
It is intriguing to see the rather ambiguous statements by Jonas Himmelstrand, the president of the Swedish National Association for Home Education, (ROHUS). He said of this case;
'Homeschooling was not the only issue regarding taking Dominic Johansson in custody by the social services. But having read the court verdict with all the issues, there stills seems to be no reason for this severe action. The young boy has most likely been much more hurt by the custody action than the conditions in his family. One cannot avoid the thought that the prejudices and lack of knowledge about homeschooling, could have been the pivotal reason for the custody action.'
Home schooling was 'not the only issue'. We have heard that the child had some tooth decay, but this was only discovered after he had been taken into care. He had not had the usual vaccinations, but while this is a little unusual it would not be grounds for taking somebody's child. The Vaken website is barking mad, but I can't see this being a reason. Notice that Himmelstrand says, ' prejudices and lack of knowledge about homeschooling, could have been the pivotal reason'. Once again, it is hinted that the home education was not the only or even the main reason. On the Friends of Dominic Johansson site, there is this curious statement;
'By December 2009, the Johansson family had been terrorized by the Social Board of Gotland for more than sixteen months; had their home swarmed and searched by armed Swedish police'
Now why on earth did the police raid the Johanssons' home? What were they looking for? This could hardly have been in connection with home education; there must have been something else going on. There are tantalising hints about this business scattered all over the place. One thing which I have noticed is that the people who are writing about the case a long way from Sweden always seem to think that it is only about home education. Those actually in Sweden, particularly those who have dealings with the family, are saying that home education was not the only reason for the actions of the social workers. Irritatingly though, they never tell us what those other reasons were.
Incidentally, people have contacted Google in an attempt to have this blog taken down. This is not the first time that this has been done; in fact it is the fifth. The first person to try this stunt was our own Mike Fortune-Wood of Home Education UK last year. This is usually done by telling a lot of lies and accusing me of all sorts of bizarre things.. Google are used to this now and they never take any action. Judging by what has been said, I gather that the latest effort was by somebody connected with the Johansson case.
Monday, 12 July 2010
A right to school
As I am sure we all know, the Swedish parliament recently approved a law which would ban home education in all but 'extraordinary' circumstances. It will be absolutely forbidden for purely philosophical or religious reasons. There are few home educators in Sweden, but an attempt if being made to fight for the supposed right of parents to home educate there. This is the Dominic Johansson case and an application has been made to the European Court of Human Rights. Those making this application know very well that it will fail, but they are carrying on in the hope of attracting attention to their own cause; the wider one of 'parental rights', not just in Sweden but across the world. The claims made will fail because the European Court is bound by precedent: that is to say they must follow decisions already made by the court in the past which clarified the law.
In Germany some years ago a case was fought all the way to the Federal Constitutional Court, which upheld Germany's ban on home education. In 2003 this case was taken to the European Court of Human Rights. The parent who brought the case argued that Germany's ban on home education contravened the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. This provides that a state shall respect parents' rights to ensure that their child's education will be in conformity with their own religious and philosophical beliefs. In September 2006, the court gave
its ruling.
The European Court gave as its opinion that the plaintiff in the case was not the parent but the children. The court went on to say that children were unable to foresee the consequences of their parents' decision to home educate, due to their young age. They further stated that schools were part of society and that the rights of parents did not extend so far as for them to be able to deprive children of their place in society (Brussels Journal 2006). It was clear that there was nothing to stop Britain or any other country in Europe from banning home education entirely.
The crucial point here is the final decision was that children not only have a right to an education, they also have a right to go to school. There seem to be pretty strong legal grounds for this argument. Daniel Monk, senior lecturer in law at Birkbeck, has written a number of papers about this. The thesis is that school is such an integral part of society that it would be wrong to deprive a child of the experience. This is completely separate from any right to an education; it is the same point ruled by the European Court. Since this is an experience of life common to everybody in countries like Britain, Germany and Sweden, it would be wrong to prevent a child from taking part in school. In later life, the child would find herself at a loss when all those around her had a common framework for their memories of childhood. It would be turning a person into some sort of oddity, something of which the child herself could not hope to be aware
until she reached adulthood.
I am sure that everybody reading this has been shaped by their childhood and that school formed a very strong part of that childhood. It could hardly be otherwise; everybody on this site spent every day at school for over a decade! If I lacked that common framework which we all share, a childhood moulded and defined by school, then I might well feel myself to be something on an outsider in later life. This is what people like Daniel Monk argue and the European Court of
Human Rights agree with him. School is a fundamental right for children.
One can quite see why this point of view drives home educators mad! It hints that their decision to keep their children at home is an essentially selfish one, disregarding the future psychological welfare of their children. This is not at all how home educating parents want to think of themselves. Nevertheless, there does seem to be something in this idea. For most of us the first place where we encounter unfairness and cruelty is school. It also provides our earliest experiences of the abuse of power, boredom and various other things which we shall come across again and again in our lives. Perhaps it can be seen as a training ground for handling these things in later life. Interesting that Ofsted expressed this view recently when they suggested that it was good for every school to have at least one useless teacher; it will give children a valuable lesson in incompetent people in authority. this will stand them in good stead in later life. John Holt mentions in Why Children fail that a mother spoke to him once and told him that he was wrong to make his lessons so interesting. Her argument was that in adult life children would be
bored much of the time and the sooner they get used to it the better.
I have already discussed the possible motives of those helping the Johanssons to take their case to the European Court. I am sure that the three representatives named on the application know about the court's decision in 2006 and that this will not be overturned. I can only assume that they are going to the court purely for propaganda purposes. Personally, I am not sure how wise this is, because an unfavourable decision will simply draw the attention of other European countries to the fact that they can ban home education tomorrow if the wish and nobody will be able to do anything about it. I am not sure if this is a good idea.
In Germany some years ago a case was fought all the way to the Federal Constitutional Court, which upheld Germany's ban on home education. In 2003 this case was taken to the European Court of Human Rights. The parent who brought the case argued that Germany's ban on home education contravened the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. This provides that a state shall respect parents' rights to ensure that their child's education will be in conformity with their own religious and philosophical beliefs. In September 2006, the court gave
its ruling.
The European Court gave as its opinion that the plaintiff in the case was not the parent but the children. The court went on to say that children were unable to foresee the consequences of their parents' decision to home educate, due to their young age. They further stated that schools were part of society and that the rights of parents did not extend so far as for them to be able to deprive children of their place in society (Brussels Journal 2006). It was clear that there was nothing to stop Britain or any other country in Europe from banning home education entirely.
The crucial point here is the final decision was that children not only have a right to an education, they also have a right to go to school. There seem to be pretty strong legal grounds for this argument. Daniel Monk, senior lecturer in law at Birkbeck, has written a number of papers about this. The thesis is that school is such an integral part of society that it would be wrong to deprive a child of the experience. This is completely separate from any right to an education; it is the same point ruled by the European Court. Since this is an experience of life common to everybody in countries like Britain, Germany and Sweden, it would be wrong to prevent a child from taking part in school. In later life, the child would find herself at a loss when all those around her had a common framework for their memories of childhood. It would be turning a person into some sort of oddity, something of which the child herself could not hope to be aware
until she reached adulthood.
I am sure that everybody reading this has been shaped by their childhood and that school formed a very strong part of that childhood. It could hardly be otherwise; everybody on this site spent every day at school for over a decade! If I lacked that common framework which we all share, a childhood moulded and defined by school, then I might well feel myself to be something on an outsider in later life. This is what people like Daniel Monk argue and the European Court of
Human Rights agree with him. School is a fundamental right for children.
One can quite see why this point of view drives home educators mad! It hints that their decision to keep their children at home is an essentially selfish one, disregarding the future psychological welfare of their children. This is not at all how home educating parents want to think of themselves. Nevertheless, there does seem to be something in this idea. For most of us the first place where we encounter unfairness and cruelty is school. It also provides our earliest experiences of the abuse of power, boredom and various other things which we shall come across again and again in our lives. Perhaps it can be seen as a training ground for handling these things in later life. Interesting that Ofsted expressed this view recently when they suggested that it was good for every school to have at least one useless teacher; it will give children a valuable lesson in incompetent people in authority. this will stand them in good stead in later life. John Holt mentions in Why Children fail that a mother spoke to him once and told him that he was wrong to make his lessons so interesting. Her argument was that in adult life children would be
bored much of the time and the sooner they get used to it the better.
I have already discussed the possible motives of those helping the Johanssons to take their case to the European Court. I am sure that the three representatives named on the application know about the court's decision in 2006 and that this will not be overturned. I can only assume that they are going to the court purely for propaganda purposes. Personally, I am not sure how wise this is, because an unfavourable decision will simply draw the attention of other European countries to the fact that they can ban home education tomorrow if the wish and nobody will be able to do anything about it. I am not sure if this is a good idea.
Friday, 9 July 2010
A final word about the Johansson case
I think that I should say a few final words about this business, because I have now been in touch with the Friends of Domenic Johansson group. I asked what the inaccuracies were in what I had previously written and it seems to amount to this. I wrote in the first piece which I posted:
'They were harassed by the authorities and tried to leave the country so that they could home educate their son in peace somewhere else.'
Apparently this is not true and the Johanssons did not intend to home educate their son at all. In fact, all along they wanted him to attend school; they just wanted him to start at eight rather than seven. This is very puzzling, because of course those connected with the family thought that they were hoping to home educate the boy in India. Mats Tunehaga, for example, is President of the Swedish Evangelical Alliance. He knows the Johanssons and says,
'Annie is from a Christian family in India, and they had planned for some time to move there to live, work and to homeschool Dominic.'
This is quoted on the HSLDA site. On the Dominic Johansson Blog, there is this,
'Swedish officials removed this boy from an international flight solely to prevent his parents from moving to another nation and from educating him in a manner that is lawful in India, in Sweden, and in a majority of nations.'
And yet now I am told that this is all untrue. I know that most people who have signed petitions and contacted the Swedish authorities to protest about this were under the impression that the Johanssons were home educators and I am sure that many will be surprised to discover that their intention has always been to send their son to school. This after all was an integral aprt of the whole story, that the Johanssons were leaving Sweden so that they could follow the educational methods of their choice. It makes it very puzzling too that the founder of the HSLDA, Michael Farris, is named as the Johanssons' representative on the documents for the European Court of Human Rights. Why is he involved if the Johanssons are not home educators?
Another possibility is that the Friends of Dominic Johansson are mistaken about this. In the same message they told me that home education is illegal in India, which is absolutely untrue. I would be curious to hear other people's views about this. Was I the only one who believed that the Johanssons are home educators who were leaving Sweden so that they could home educate their child in India? If this is untrue, why is it on so many sites connected with the case? Why have so many people signed petitions based upon this belief? Very odd. It is clear to me that the more questions I ask about this case, the stranger it becomes!
It is unlikely that we will ever know fully the facts of this case. What has become very obvious though is that it is being used as a stalking horse by certain American groups who have an agenda of their own, concerned with matters such as America's possible ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. From the moment I began looking into this case, it was pretty plain that there was a strong American connection. Two of the people named as the Johanssons' representatives on the application to the European Court of Human Rights are Michael Farris and Roger Kiska. Michael Farris is an American Baptist Minister who founded the Home School Legal Defense Association. Roger Kiska works for the right wing American Christian organisation, the Alliance Defense Fund. Even the Friends of Dominic Johansson group is in the USA.
Now of course if left wing, Humanist home educators in this country wish to climb into bed metaphorically with right wing American Christians, that is really none of my business. For that reason, I shall not be making any more posts about this. I originally did so because various people in Sweden had been named and their motives criticised and condemned. School teachers, government officials, social workers and so on have all been written about and denounced by people who evidently take everything they read at face value. If a home educator says something; it must be true. If a teacher or social worker says something; that must be a lie. I just wanted to put the case that there may be a little more to all this than meets the eye. Since making my initial post on the subject, this has been strongly confirmed. Those who wish to delve deeper into the matter could do worse than follow some of the leads which I have mentioned here. I have an idea, for instance, that many home educating parents in this country would be horrified to read about some of the activities of people like the Alliance Defense Fund. Anyway, I have published a correction to what I first wrote, even though the correction itself raises more questions than it answers! I shall be watching with interest how this affair develops over the coming months.
'They were harassed by the authorities and tried to leave the country so that they could home educate their son in peace somewhere else.'
Apparently this is not true and the Johanssons did not intend to home educate their son at all. In fact, all along they wanted him to attend school; they just wanted him to start at eight rather than seven. This is very puzzling, because of course those connected with the family thought that they were hoping to home educate the boy in India. Mats Tunehaga, for example, is President of the Swedish Evangelical Alliance. He knows the Johanssons and says,
'Annie is from a Christian family in India, and they had planned for some time to move there to live, work and to homeschool Dominic.'
This is quoted on the HSLDA site. On the Dominic Johansson Blog, there is this,
'Swedish officials removed this boy from an international flight solely to prevent his parents from moving to another nation and from educating him in a manner that is lawful in India, in Sweden, and in a majority of nations.'
And yet now I am told that this is all untrue. I know that most people who have signed petitions and contacted the Swedish authorities to protest about this were under the impression that the Johanssons were home educators and I am sure that many will be surprised to discover that their intention has always been to send their son to school. This after all was an integral aprt of the whole story, that the Johanssons were leaving Sweden so that they could follow the educational methods of their choice. It makes it very puzzling too that the founder of the HSLDA, Michael Farris, is named as the Johanssons' representative on the documents for the European Court of Human Rights. Why is he involved if the Johanssons are not home educators?
Another possibility is that the Friends of Dominic Johansson are mistaken about this. In the same message they told me that home education is illegal in India, which is absolutely untrue. I would be curious to hear other people's views about this. Was I the only one who believed that the Johanssons are home educators who were leaving Sweden so that they could home educate their child in India? If this is untrue, why is it on so many sites connected with the case? Why have so many people signed petitions based upon this belief? Very odd. It is clear to me that the more questions I ask about this case, the stranger it becomes!
It is unlikely that we will ever know fully the facts of this case. What has become very obvious though is that it is being used as a stalking horse by certain American groups who have an agenda of their own, concerned with matters such as America's possible ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. From the moment I began looking into this case, it was pretty plain that there was a strong American connection. Two of the people named as the Johanssons' representatives on the application to the European Court of Human Rights are Michael Farris and Roger Kiska. Michael Farris is an American Baptist Minister who founded the Home School Legal Defense Association. Roger Kiska works for the right wing American Christian organisation, the Alliance Defense Fund. Even the Friends of Dominic Johansson group is in the USA.
Now of course if left wing, Humanist home educators in this country wish to climb into bed metaphorically with right wing American Christians, that is really none of my business. For that reason, I shall not be making any more posts about this. I originally did so because various people in Sweden had been named and their motives criticised and condemned. School teachers, government officials, social workers and so on have all been written about and denounced by people who evidently take everything they read at face value. If a home educator says something; it must be true. If a teacher or social worker says something; that must be a lie. I just wanted to put the case that there may be a little more to all this than meets the eye. Since making my initial post on the subject, this has been strongly confirmed. Those who wish to delve deeper into the matter could do worse than follow some of the leads which I have mentioned here. I have an idea, for instance, that many home educating parents in this country would be horrified to read about some of the activities of people like the Alliance Defense Fund. Anyway, I have published a correction to what I first wrote, even though the correction itself raises more questions than it answers! I shall be watching with interest how this affair develops over the coming months.
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Parents' rights, children's rights
I have remarked before on some of the ways that typical home educators in America differ from many of those in this country. I want to look today at this in the light of a fundamental difference in viewpoint, a difference which I find a little disturbing. This is the emphasis place in the USA on the rights of parents, as though these rights were somehow different from and in some ways opposed to the rights of children. I have been thinking about this because of the names on the application to the European Court of Human Rights which is being made in connection with Dominic Johansson. The representatives named are Ruby Harrold-Claesson, Roger Kiska and Michael Farris. All three of these people are strong advocates of parental rights.
Perhaps the main strand in American home education is that of Christians who choose not to send their children to school. They tend to achieve excellent academic results because the main motivation for educating their own children is in fact education. There is another reason that they choose this lifestyle and that is that they often feel that schools are attacking the family and taking away or diminishing the rights of parents. The perception here is that the family should be the basic unit of society and that the state should not be involved except as a last resort. The Bible of course sets out the family as the ideal way for people to live and this means one man and one woman raising their children together. They are answerable to God, but nobody else. I tend to agree with this view in many ways: certainly one of the motivations for educating my own child was religious.
In Europe, the trend is for the emphasis to be on the rights of the child. This means that from the modern European perspective, if a parent wishes to spank a child or take her to church, for example, these things must only happen with the consent of the child. many feel that this is harming the structure of the family, that it means that the state is intruding into the family and getting between the parent and child. This is a big issue for American home educators at the moment, because they are worried about the implications of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child. This would, if ratified in the USA, outlaw corporal punishment and allow children to refuse to follow their parents' religion. It is also bound up with the idea of sex education and gun ownership in the USA, both very hot topics.
I was surprised to see that people who are very active in this campaign against implementing the UNCRC on the papers for the European Court of Human Rights. Obviously, one connection is that both they and the Johanssons are Christians. This would give a powerful motive for helping a Christian family who are fighting state interference in their family life. I wonder though if this case is also being used by the American groups as a way of fighting against the idea of the erosion of Parents' rights as they see them? Again, there would be nothing wrong with this as such, but it is something which I would like to know a little more about.
The problem which I have with the American perspective on all this is the same that many have in Europe. Children have rights. They have a right not to be beaten or starved, they have a right not to be sexually abused, they have a right to their own religious beliefs. This is the legal situation in Europe, not some abstract principle. If I were to compel my child to follow my own religion or wished to hit her, then I would be on dubious ground from several points of view. Not the least of these is that I do not believe for a moment that the Bible enjoins me to ride roughshod over my child's rights. In other words, the idea that my daughter's rights could ever have been opposed to mine is absurd, both from a legal and religious point of view. Proverbs 22:6 says, 'raise up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it'. I took this instruction quite literally and felt it my duty to teach my own child. My duty, by the way, not my right. I also believed that as Proverbs 1:7 says, 'the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom'. For that reason, I felt that I had a duty to teach my child about God and to help her to become familiar with the Bible. Again, this was a duty. I did not have a right to impose my own belief upon her or force her to attend church.
It is this distinction between duties and rights that seems to be so very hard for many people to grasp. In the USA home educators are pretty sure of the matter: parents have rights and these take precedence over the supposed rights of the state when it comes to their children. Have a look at a group founded by Michael Farris called parentalrights.org and you will find that even the right of parents to allow their children access to firearms if being firmly defended!
I never supposed for a moment when my daughter was small that I had any rights at all over her. She is a human being; nobody owns another person. I had instead duties which I was required to fulfil. Some of those duties were laid upon me by the state, but other and greater duties had been given to me by the Lord. Among these duties were to teach her right from wrong and try to help her become wise. It was a pretty raw deal really, because all I had was a big bunch of duties and no rights. When she was little, my daughter had many rights but no duties. Things change though as a child grows and she also gradually acquired duties. The idea that parents' 'rights' should have any role at all in the debate on home education is a very strange one and I hope that the Johansson case is not the start of some sort of campaign of this sort. It is because of the implications of this case and due to the fact that people like the Alliance Defense Fund and the HSLDA are becoming involved in the affair that I felt that I had a right to express an opinion about this . I feel pretty strongly about this distinction between rights and duties and if there is going to be any debate about the rival merits of parents' rights and children's rights then I would like to see it take place openly.
Perhaps the main strand in American home education is that of Christians who choose not to send their children to school. They tend to achieve excellent academic results because the main motivation for educating their own children is in fact education. There is another reason that they choose this lifestyle and that is that they often feel that schools are attacking the family and taking away or diminishing the rights of parents. The perception here is that the family should be the basic unit of society and that the state should not be involved except as a last resort. The Bible of course sets out the family as the ideal way for people to live and this means one man and one woman raising their children together. They are answerable to God, but nobody else. I tend to agree with this view in many ways: certainly one of the motivations for educating my own child was religious.
In Europe, the trend is for the emphasis to be on the rights of the child. This means that from the modern European perspective, if a parent wishes to spank a child or take her to church, for example, these things must only happen with the consent of the child. many feel that this is harming the structure of the family, that it means that the state is intruding into the family and getting between the parent and child. This is a big issue for American home educators at the moment, because they are worried about the implications of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child. This would, if ratified in the USA, outlaw corporal punishment and allow children to refuse to follow their parents' religion. It is also bound up with the idea of sex education and gun ownership in the USA, both very hot topics.
I was surprised to see that people who are very active in this campaign against implementing the UNCRC on the papers for the European Court of Human Rights. Obviously, one connection is that both they and the Johanssons are Christians. This would give a powerful motive for helping a Christian family who are fighting state interference in their family life. I wonder though if this case is also being used by the American groups as a way of fighting against the idea of the erosion of Parents' rights as they see them? Again, there would be nothing wrong with this as such, but it is something which I would like to know a little more about.
The problem which I have with the American perspective on all this is the same that many have in Europe. Children have rights. They have a right not to be beaten or starved, they have a right not to be sexually abused, they have a right to their own religious beliefs. This is the legal situation in Europe, not some abstract principle. If I were to compel my child to follow my own religion or wished to hit her, then I would be on dubious ground from several points of view. Not the least of these is that I do not believe for a moment that the Bible enjoins me to ride roughshod over my child's rights. In other words, the idea that my daughter's rights could ever have been opposed to mine is absurd, both from a legal and religious point of view. Proverbs 22:6 says, 'raise up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it'. I took this instruction quite literally and felt it my duty to teach my own child. My duty, by the way, not my right. I also believed that as Proverbs 1:7 says, 'the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom'. For that reason, I felt that I had a duty to teach my child about God and to help her to become familiar with the Bible. Again, this was a duty. I did not have a right to impose my own belief upon her or force her to attend church.
It is this distinction between duties and rights that seems to be so very hard for many people to grasp. In the USA home educators are pretty sure of the matter: parents have rights and these take precedence over the supposed rights of the state when it comes to their children. Have a look at a group founded by Michael Farris called parentalrights.org and you will find that even the right of parents to allow their children access to firearms if being firmly defended!
I never supposed for a moment when my daughter was small that I had any rights at all over her. She is a human being; nobody owns another person. I had instead duties which I was required to fulfil. Some of those duties were laid upon me by the state, but other and greater duties had been given to me by the Lord. Among these duties were to teach her right from wrong and try to help her become wise. It was a pretty raw deal really, because all I had was a big bunch of duties and no rights. When she was little, my daughter had many rights but no duties. Things change though as a child grows and she also gradually acquired duties. The idea that parents' 'rights' should have any role at all in the debate on home education is a very strange one and I hope that the Johansson case is not the start of some sort of campaign of this sort. It is because of the implications of this case and due to the fact that people like the Alliance Defense Fund and the HSLDA are becoming involved in the affair that I felt that I had a right to express an opinion about this . I feel pretty strongly about this distinction between rights and duties and if there is going to be any debate about the rival merits of parents' rights and children's rights then I would like to see it take place openly.
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
Why is Dominic Johansson still in foster care?
I think that I might now be getting some idea of what this whole case is actually about. Those following it will perhaps have seen that the lawyer engaged by the Johanssons has been banned from acting for Dominic. Scandal! She is a 'top human rights lawyer' according to some sites. In fact she is nothing of the sort. She isn't even a lawyer. Her name is Ruby Harrold-Claesson and her main interest in life seems to be spanking. She is so enthusiastic about this that four years ago she flew to the other side of the planet to try and persuade the New Zealand government that it was a bad idea to prohibit smacking. The organisation which flew her to New Zealand is called Family Integrity and they are also heavily into spanking. I say spanking; ritual child abuse would be a better way to describe it. They advocate 'driving out foolishness' from children by fifteen minute 'discipline' sessions. Yes, that's right, beatings which last for a quarter of an hour! I have to say, I would not allow such a person into my home, never mind engage her as my child's lawyer. You can read a bit about her here;
http://blog.greens.org.nz/2007/04/02/who-is-ruby-part-ii/
She has done some work with families in Sweden who have had their children taken into care. All these families had one thing in common; they believed in hitting their children as a form of discipline and this is why they lost their children. It is this strange woman whom Christer Johansson is determined to have to represent his son. The Swedish courts don't want her to do so, partly because she is very evangelical about spanking and also because she is not a member of the Swedish bar. (Try googling her name together with smacking or spanking. She has written a lot of really interesting stuff about how good it is to hit children.)
How is this relevant to the matter of Dominic Johansson? You have to bear in mind that a great deal of the fuss about this case is coming from the United States. Specifically, a lot of it is from right wing Christian homeschooling groups. Many of these are fervent believers in spanking and regard any attempt to ban the practice as an infringement of their rights. In fact a lot of these characters believe that the Bible instructs them to hit their children. I can only say that my view of scripture is a little different! The Johanssons are of course very devout Christians themselves and a lot of sites are soliciting prayers for them. Many of these same sites also carry pro-spanking messages. It is curious that a peculiar woman like Ruby Harrold-Claesson, a woman who blames all modern society's ills upon the lack of spanking in so many countries, should have been the lawyer of choice for the Johanssons. Do they themselves believe in hitting children? I don't know, but if so, this would certainly put them in the sights of Swedish courts and social workers.
There is a clue to this business that somebody might want to follow up. The opposition to Christer and Annie Johansson's home education of their son was not completely random. On a blog about home schooling in Sweden, I read this:
'Christer was once involved in an alternative on-line news mag that expressed politically incorrect ideas and as near as anyone can tell, this was the reason his home schooling plans were opposed.'
This suggests that there is more to the opposition to his plans than meets the eye. The authorities also received anonymous letters about him and his family. I wonder what the 'politically incorrect ideas' might have been? Might it have been something to do with physical punishment of children, which would have been deadly for any hope of being allowed to home educate in Sweden? Does anybody have any idea what this was all about?
On an unrelated note, something else which I find odd is that it is hard to figure out just what the Johanssons were actually doing and planning to do in India. When they were heading back there Christer Johansson said on one occasion that they were going to minister to the poor in an orphanage, but on another that they wanted to, 'commence construction of an ecological village where we could live and be self-sufficient' I suppose that this ecological village might have included an orphanage. When they were there in 2000 and 2001, the situation is no clearer. He said:
'My wife Annie is an Indian citizen, and I was inspired by The challenges I saw in her home country to find a way to share my ideas Practically and talents to help the poor in Suffering Ways to Give Them independence as opposed to Seeking handouts'
On the photograph of the large, extended family though it says that he and his wife were running a travel agency and lost everything in the earthquake of 2001. This is given as their reason for returning home. The clear implication is that the earthquake destroyed his travel agency and left him destitute. In an email to a Pastor in America though, he says that he travelled to the earthquake area to try and help people. This suggests that he was not living in the area affected by the earthquake. Elsewhere, he writes that he and his wife were in a taxi heading to the airport when they were robbed of all their money and possessions. Some of these stories simply don't match up and I cannot help wondering why the fellow has given so many and varied accounts of himself. Can anybody help out here with a definitive narrative?
I don't believe for a moment that the authorities in Sweden have taken this child into care as an act of spite because they wish to persecute a home educating family. It would in any case be counter productive. It has brought Sweden a lot of bad publicity and obviously they would have done better simply to allow the family to leave. I think that this has been done for the welfare of the child and that many home educators are blindly supporting a cause about which they know nothing. Now that the Friends of Dominic Johansson are reading this, I expect that they will be able to clear up all these points for us.
http://blog.greens.org.nz/2007/04/02/who-is-ruby-part-ii/
She has done some work with families in Sweden who have had their children taken into care. All these families had one thing in common; they believed in hitting their children as a form of discipline and this is why they lost their children. It is this strange woman whom Christer Johansson is determined to have to represent his son. The Swedish courts don't want her to do so, partly because she is very evangelical about spanking and also because she is not a member of the Swedish bar. (Try googling her name together with smacking or spanking. She has written a lot of really interesting stuff about how good it is to hit children.)
How is this relevant to the matter of Dominic Johansson? You have to bear in mind that a great deal of the fuss about this case is coming from the United States. Specifically, a lot of it is from right wing Christian homeschooling groups. Many of these are fervent believers in spanking and regard any attempt to ban the practice as an infringement of their rights. In fact a lot of these characters believe that the Bible instructs them to hit their children. I can only say that my view of scripture is a little different! The Johanssons are of course very devout Christians themselves and a lot of sites are soliciting prayers for them. Many of these same sites also carry pro-spanking messages. It is curious that a peculiar woman like Ruby Harrold-Claesson, a woman who blames all modern society's ills upon the lack of spanking in so many countries, should have been the lawyer of choice for the Johanssons. Do they themselves believe in hitting children? I don't know, but if so, this would certainly put them in the sights of Swedish courts and social workers.
There is a clue to this business that somebody might want to follow up. The opposition to Christer and Annie Johansson's home education of their son was not completely random. On a blog about home schooling in Sweden, I read this:
'Christer was once involved in an alternative on-line news mag that expressed politically incorrect ideas and as near as anyone can tell, this was the reason his home schooling plans were opposed.'
This suggests that there is more to the opposition to his plans than meets the eye. The authorities also received anonymous letters about him and his family. I wonder what the 'politically incorrect ideas' might have been? Might it have been something to do with physical punishment of children, which would have been deadly for any hope of being allowed to home educate in Sweden? Does anybody have any idea what this was all about?
On an unrelated note, something else which I find odd is that it is hard to figure out just what the Johanssons were actually doing and planning to do in India. When they were heading back there Christer Johansson said on one occasion that they were going to minister to the poor in an orphanage, but on another that they wanted to, 'commence construction of an ecological village where we could live and be self-sufficient' I suppose that this ecological village might have included an orphanage. When they were there in 2000 and 2001, the situation is no clearer. He said:
'My wife Annie is an Indian citizen, and I was inspired by The challenges I saw in her home country to find a way to share my ideas Practically and talents to help the poor in Suffering Ways to Give Them independence as opposed to Seeking handouts'
On the photograph of the large, extended family though it says that he and his wife were running a travel agency and lost everything in the earthquake of 2001. This is given as their reason for returning home. The clear implication is that the earthquake destroyed his travel agency and left him destitute. In an email to a Pastor in America though, he says that he travelled to the earthquake area to try and help people. This suggests that he was not living in the area affected by the earthquake. Elsewhere, he writes that he and his wife were in a taxi heading to the airport when they were robbed of all their money and possessions. Some of these stories simply don't match up and I cannot help wondering why the fellow has given so many and varied accounts of himself. Can anybody help out here with a definitive narrative?
I don't believe for a moment that the authorities in Sweden have taken this child into care as an act of spite because they wish to persecute a home educating family. It would in any case be counter productive. It has brought Sweden a lot of bad publicity and obviously they would have done better simply to allow the family to leave. I think that this has been done for the welfare of the child and that many home educators are blindly supporting a cause about which they know nothing. Now that the Friends of Dominic Johansson are reading this, I expect that they will be able to clear up all these points for us.
Monday, 5 July 2010
Dominic Johansson
I have been following this case closely since last year and I must say that there seems to be more to it than meets the eye. The story as it is being reported in home educating circles is that Christer and Annie Johansson, who live in Sweden, wished to home educate their seven year old son. They were harassed by the authorities and tried to leave the country so that they could home educate their son in peace somewhere else. As the plane taking them from Sweden was on the runway, it was halted and the police took the boy away and social workers then placed him in foster care, where he still remains a year later. And all because his loving parents wanted to home educate him!
Now one of the things which aroused my suspicions was the slick way that this story is being presented by some home educators. We read that 'armed police stormed the plane'. This conjures up images of a SWAT team armed with sub-machine guns bursting in through the windows and grabbing the child. In fact all uniformed police officers are armed in Sweden. They did not 'storm' the plane, simply boarded it with social workers and asked the Johanssons to come back to the terminal. There are a lot of little embellishments to the story of this sort. Another curious thing is that in Western Europe, the fact that the Johanssons are devout Christians and that this was the motivation both for their home educating and also for leaving Sweden, is played down. Sometimes it is not mentioned at all. In the USA though, this is the main line that is being taken on the case. So what is the background?
Christer Johansson is a Swedish man who lived for a while in India. While there, he met and married a woman called Annie who belonged to a very religious Christian family. She became pregnant and the couple went to live in Sweden, where their son Dominic was born on September 9th 2001. Both parents suffer from severe depression. When the boy was two, Christer was very depressed. So depressed in fact that he became addicted to anti-depressants and was recommended for electro-convulsive therapy, which he declined. His wife has also had mental health problems for which she has been hospitalised. Neither parent wished their son to see health workers, possibly for religious reasons, although this is not certain. Both parents also apparently suffer from heart problems;
" Annie has been in bed with a heart condition that was exacerbated by the abduction of their son. (Tonight Christer emailed me that he had fallen into a state of semiconsciousness with an irregular heart rhythm.)"
It is agreed by all sides that the Johanssons did not follow the correct legal procedure for those wishing to home educate in Sweden, which involves submitting a home school plan. Instead, they reached an informal arrangement with the principle of the local school when their son turned seven in the autumn of 2008. At this age, Swedish children start school.
Now things get a little strange. In the summer of 2009, Christer and Annie Johansson disposed of all their belongings. They announced that they intended to go and live in India so that they could minister to the poor; this was in connection with their Christian faith. Two things strike one at once. Firstly, if an individual wishes to sell all that he has, give the money to the poor and then follow Jesus and tend to destitute children in an Indian orphanage, that is a very praiseworthy and good thing to do. I have nothing but admiration for such people. When you have a seven year old son, matters are a little different. Secondly, a person with a history of severe depression who disposes of all his belongings in this way sets alarm bells ringing in professional ears. This sort of behaviour is sometimes a prelude to suicide. When two people with a history of mental health problems and severe depression do this, there can be an awful suspicion that they are on the verge of taking their own lives.
So what actually happened on June 26th last year? Two people, both with histories of mental health problems got rid of all their belongings. They told everybody that they were going to live in poverty in India, tending for children in an orphanage. Their physical health was also poor; both had heart problems. They intended to take their seven year old son with them, a child who had been raised in rather odd circumstances. I don't think we even need to think about home education here. Given this background, I would also be very worried about the child's future welfare. The concern of the social workers in Sweden was not that this child was being home educated. It was that a Swedish child was being taken abroad to an uncertain future in the company of two strange and possibly disturbed people. They acted to protect his welfare, but not because he was being home educated. If a similar case occurred in this country, I for one hope that social workers would behave in exactly the same way to protect the interests of a vulnerable child.
As I said yesterday, this case is a bit of a red herring as far as home education is concerned. I think that the Swedish authorities would have behaved in precisely the same way had the child been a pupil at a school. The real question here is one of protecting the rights of a child when those rights conflict with the desire of his parents to live an unconventional lifestyle. It seems to me that social workers were faced with a very tricky problem and made what seemed to them to be a good decision in the interests of the child. We have to ask ourselves one final question. Is Dominic Johansson better off now living a in a comfortable home in a prosperous European country than he would have been had he spent the last year living in poverty in an Indian orphanage?
Now one of the things which aroused my suspicions was the slick way that this story is being presented by some home educators. We read that 'armed police stormed the plane'. This conjures up images of a SWAT team armed with sub-machine guns bursting in through the windows and grabbing the child. In fact all uniformed police officers are armed in Sweden. They did not 'storm' the plane, simply boarded it with social workers and asked the Johanssons to come back to the terminal. There are a lot of little embellishments to the story of this sort. Another curious thing is that in Western Europe, the fact that the Johanssons are devout Christians and that this was the motivation both for their home educating and also for leaving Sweden, is played down. Sometimes it is not mentioned at all. In the USA though, this is the main line that is being taken on the case. So what is the background?
Christer Johansson is a Swedish man who lived for a while in India. While there, he met and married a woman called Annie who belonged to a very religious Christian family. She became pregnant and the couple went to live in Sweden, where their son Dominic was born on September 9th 2001. Both parents suffer from severe depression. When the boy was two, Christer was very depressed. So depressed in fact that he became addicted to anti-depressants and was recommended for electro-convulsive therapy, which he declined. His wife has also had mental health problems for which she has been hospitalised. Neither parent wished their son to see health workers, possibly for religious reasons, although this is not certain. Both parents also apparently suffer from heart problems;
" Annie has been in bed with a heart condition that was exacerbated by the abduction of their son. (Tonight Christer emailed me that he had fallen into a state of semiconsciousness with an irregular heart rhythm.)"
It is agreed by all sides that the Johanssons did not follow the correct legal procedure for those wishing to home educate in Sweden, which involves submitting a home school plan. Instead, they reached an informal arrangement with the principle of the local school when their son turned seven in the autumn of 2008. At this age, Swedish children start school.
Now things get a little strange. In the summer of 2009, Christer and Annie Johansson disposed of all their belongings. They announced that they intended to go and live in India so that they could minister to the poor; this was in connection with their Christian faith. Two things strike one at once. Firstly, if an individual wishes to sell all that he has, give the money to the poor and then follow Jesus and tend to destitute children in an Indian orphanage, that is a very praiseworthy and good thing to do. I have nothing but admiration for such people. When you have a seven year old son, matters are a little different. Secondly, a person with a history of severe depression who disposes of all his belongings in this way sets alarm bells ringing in professional ears. This sort of behaviour is sometimes a prelude to suicide. When two people with a history of mental health problems and severe depression do this, there can be an awful suspicion that they are on the verge of taking their own lives.
So what actually happened on June 26th last year? Two people, both with histories of mental health problems got rid of all their belongings. They told everybody that they were going to live in poverty in India, tending for children in an orphanage. Their physical health was also poor; both had heart problems. They intended to take their seven year old son with them, a child who had been raised in rather odd circumstances. I don't think we even need to think about home education here. Given this background, I would also be very worried about the child's future welfare. The concern of the social workers in Sweden was not that this child was being home educated. It was that a Swedish child was being taken abroad to an uncertain future in the company of two strange and possibly disturbed people. They acted to protect his welfare, but not because he was being home educated. If a similar case occurred in this country, I for one hope that social workers would behave in exactly the same way to protect the interests of a vulnerable child.
As I said yesterday, this case is a bit of a red herring as far as home education is concerned. I think that the Swedish authorities would have behaved in precisely the same way had the child been a pupil at a school. The real question here is one of protecting the rights of a child when those rights conflict with the desire of his parents to live an unconventional lifestyle. It seems to me that social workers were faced with a very tricky problem and made what seemed to them to be a good decision in the interests of the child. We have to ask ourselves one final question. Is Dominic Johansson better off now living a in a comfortable home in a prosperous European country than he would have been had he spent the last year living in poverty in an Indian orphanage?
Sunday, 4 July 2010
The Swedish model
It was, to say the least of it, unfortunate that Michael Gove should have chosen to announce his 'free schools' initiative and trumpet the wonders of the scheme as it works in Sweden, only a few days before the Swedes began moves to abolish home education in their country. It goes without saying that many home educating parents in this country smelt a rat and saw the introduction of free schools as the beginning of the end for British home education. There are no coincidences in Home Education Land and it wasn't long before conspiracy theorists were seeing a sinister pattern. Here's how the theory works out.
The Swedes have free schools which seem to do very well. They also grudgingly allow home education. Then they introduce a law which simultaneously outlaws home education for philosophical or religious reasons and also imposes a state approved curriculum in all schools. Could this be the shape of things to come in this country?
One can see why some home educators might be getting a little twitchy about this sequences of events. Here's the Education Secretary in this country shooting his mouth off about how wonderful Sweden's educational system is and then a few days later their parliament approves a law which effectively bans home education. As if this was not enough, the case of Dominic Johansson also came back into public awareness at pretty much the same time. I am a little dubious about this case. The more we learn about it, the more it seems that the Swedish authorities were acting in the best interest of the child. I think that the Johansson case is really a bit of a red herring; nothing to do with home education in fact.
So what is it about the whole free schools thing that some home educating parents find a little alarming? It seems that the suspicion is that some home educating parents, probably the more structured, organised and middle class ones, will take the opportunity to set up such schools. After a while, more home educated children might be enrolled in free schools and the number actually learning at home could dwindle. This could be a chance for a new government to start trying to discourage the practice and perhaps imposing new restrictions. And then, as we have seen in Sweden, there is nothing to stop a government imposing a very detailed and prescriptive curriculum on the free schools, something a bit like the National Curriculum. In Sweden from now on, every child will be compelled to learn precisely what the government dictates. This will be the case whether they are at a state school or one of the soc-called free schools.
I have to say, I don't see this scenario as being very likely. To begin with, the number of parents who will be setting up schools here is likely to be very tiny indeed. I doubt that many of those who have expressed interest in this scheme will get past even the first stage of the process. Any new schools which are set up are far more likely to be run by charities or churches than they are by groups of parents. Besides, I can't see the government being willing to fund a places like Summerhill. If they do give out taxpayers' money, it will only be to schools which are providing teaching and will have measurable outcomes. I think that might just rule out most autonomous educators right from the start. Secondly, I have never felt that anybody in either this administration or the last is actually opposed to home education. True, there is an uneasiness about some aspects of it and a feeling that new regulations are needed, but I honestly don't think anybody wants to ban it. This is in stark contrast to Sweden, where the practice has always been discouraged and home educators have been viewed as being dangerous cranks.
Personally, I can't see that the free school thing is going to make any difference at all to home education in this country. I suppose that one or two groups of home educators might get it together to start schools, but I find even that pretty unlikely. I certainly don't think that home education is going to be squeezed out of existence by all these new schools and that after a time some new government will begin acting like Sweden.
The Swedes have free schools which seem to do very well. They also grudgingly allow home education. Then they introduce a law which simultaneously outlaws home education for philosophical or religious reasons and also imposes a state approved curriculum in all schools. Could this be the shape of things to come in this country?
One can see why some home educators might be getting a little twitchy about this sequences of events. Here's the Education Secretary in this country shooting his mouth off about how wonderful Sweden's educational system is and then a few days later their parliament approves a law which effectively bans home education. As if this was not enough, the case of Dominic Johansson also came back into public awareness at pretty much the same time. I am a little dubious about this case. The more we learn about it, the more it seems that the Swedish authorities were acting in the best interest of the child. I think that the Johansson case is really a bit of a red herring; nothing to do with home education in fact.
So what is it about the whole free schools thing that some home educating parents find a little alarming? It seems that the suspicion is that some home educating parents, probably the more structured, organised and middle class ones, will take the opportunity to set up such schools. After a while, more home educated children might be enrolled in free schools and the number actually learning at home could dwindle. This could be a chance for a new government to start trying to discourage the practice and perhaps imposing new restrictions. And then, as we have seen in Sweden, there is nothing to stop a government imposing a very detailed and prescriptive curriculum on the free schools, something a bit like the National Curriculum. In Sweden from now on, every child will be compelled to learn precisely what the government dictates. This will be the case whether they are at a state school or one of the soc-called free schools.
I have to say, I don't see this scenario as being very likely. To begin with, the number of parents who will be setting up schools here is likely to be very tiny indeed. I doubt that many of those who have expressed interest in this scheme will get past even the first stage of the process. Any new schools which are set up are far more likely to be run by charities or churches than they are by groups of parents. Besides, I can't see the government being willing to fund a places like Summerhill. If they do give out taxpayers' money, it will only be to schools which are providing teaching and will have measurable outcomes. I think that might just rule out most autonomous educators right from the start. Secondly, I have never felt that anybody in either this administration or the last is actually opposed to home education. True, there is an uneasiness about some aspects of it and a feeling that new regulations are needed, but I honestly don't think anybody wants to ban it. This is in stark contrast to Sweden, where the practice has always been discouraged and home educators have been viewed as being dangerous cranks.
Personally, I can't see that the free school thing is going to make any difference at all to home education in this country. I suppose that one or two groups of home educators might get it together to start schools, but I find even that pretty unlikely. I certainly don't think that home education is going to be squeezed out of existence by all these new schools and that after a time some new government will begin acting like Sweden.
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