The one-trick ponies of home education

Regular readers will, I am sure, be familiar with Mr Peter Williams of Alton in Hampshire. He frequently comments here and is apparently obsessed by the fact that his son is not receiving a good education at home, but would be better off at an independent school like Eton. Mr Williams belongs to a small subset of home educators, who wish their children to develop one particular skill to the exclusion of all else; in his case, chess.

I say that this is a subset of home educators, but in fact it was once the only type of home educator of which anybody seemed to hear; people like Harry Lawrence and Laszlo Polgar, determined that their children will be the best in the world at something. Whether it is mathematics, chess, piano playing, singing or tennis; these children must be the best in the world. I have remarked several times before that it is always fathers who seem to be at the back of this type of home education, but today I want to focus upon whether this sort of thing is good for the children themselves.

The great problem with being brought up to be better than anybody else at something is that if you spend all the time with your family and don't attend school, then you may come to believe this to be true, even if it is really no more than an ambition or delusion of your father. The shock of discovering the truth, that there are many better musicians, mathematicians or chess players than you, can be profound. Once in awhile, this kind of enterprise pays off. We have seen it with the Williams sisters, who are the best at what their father taught them. We almost saw it with Judit Polgar, but not quite. In most other cases, it does not turn out that the child being raised like this is anything special. This is where the process can be traumatic. For years, a child has been told by her father that she is brilliant and special, that she will be world famous at whatever it is that the father has chosen for her. Every aspect of life is geared towards the realisation of the father's ambitions and the child herself becomes no more than an extension of the father's own thwarted hopes for his life. Sooner or later the realisation dawns for the child. First, she has sacrificed many of the ordinary pleasures of childhood for the sake of somebody else's goal and secondly, she it has all been in vain because she is not the world's best singer, mathematician or chess player at all. This often leads to an estrangement from the pushy father, coupled with a crisis of identity. If the child is not the world champion whom she believed herself to be; then who is she?

We do not hear of most cases of this sort. The ones of which we generally do hear are people like the Williams sisters, who are the best, or those like Ruth Lawrence, who showed great early promise and went to Oxford at a very early age. For every such case, there are many other children who are coached and pushed by their parents to the exclusion of all else in the search for perfection at the field chosen by their parents. There are psychological dangers in this type of home education, but there are ethical considerations too. Ruth Lawrence was not allowed to associate with children, because this would waste her time. All children who are being groomed for stardom in this way, inevitably miss out on many aspects of childhood. These are often things which however successful they might be in later life, are irreplaceable. The chance to become engrossed in other hobbies apart from the important passion of their fathers. Being able to spend a summer not practising tennis or chess, or even taking up something quite different and focusing their energies on that instead.

I have always been fascinated by this particular strand of home education and I have to say that although to most home educators this kind of thing is seen as very unusual; for the man in the street, it is what home education is all about. They have all heard of the Williams sisters or Ruth Lawrence and the popular perception of home education is largely defined by mad fathers pushing their kids on to become champions! Do any readers know of this sort of thing in real life, apart of course from Peter Williams? I would be curious to hear of modern examples of this practice and to know in what field the kids are being trained.

Moderation

I know that some people are getting irritated at the moderation here, but I really can't think of a way to stop this just at the moment. Peter Willliams from Hampshire is still bombarding this blog with dozens of messages every day, under the mistaken impression that I work for Hampshire County Council and can help with his problems. Here is a sample of the sort of thing which he is sending:

'We going to send 2 letters of complaint to Hampshire Council 2day Webb see it has an English lesson LOL'


'new complaint about HCC send today Webb lol tell teacher Julie that Peter on do 3 complants a week in writing LOL'


'we going to bury them in paper work Webb LOL'

'we bury them in paperwork LOL '


'who give to hoots about going to university'

'Balls is finshed your daughter picked a loser lol '
'
'All children should have education like the children get at Eton college LOL '

'Why is home education not as good as good to Eton college Webb '



'anther chess player just been smashed Webb all the life went out of him after Peter 9th move every time Peter wins he does it for home edcuated children who did not agree with uncle Balls/Badman. Peter going to dedicate a game he plays just for you it will be a game where he squeezes every last drop out of the postion really sucks the life out of the opponent but it have to be against a state school child or a teacher you know any who want a game? LOL'

'Peter just played a brillent game on the internet crushing the girl player in 15 moves from what she just said she going to be giveing up playing chess after that seeing to! I hope she was not crying LOL never mind you can hold her hand Webb LO '
'
'What you teach Webb? how to be a loser? or how to pick the loser of a race! like Badman LOL'



'you dont like it webb becuase we and other home educators had the guts to tell the LA to f off! you where weak and allowed home visits did you get scared when they said we must come round and check on you? '

The problem is that there is just so much of this rubbish that I have to delete it en masse and other posts probably go at the same time. I really can't read all this and if I let it through it just disrupts any debates. I must ask readers to have patience and we must hope that Mr Williams finds some better use for his time in the near future, like signing up for remedial English classes or educating his unfortunate son.

Providing proof that a suitable education is taking place

According to Ian Dowty, who is of course a lawyer specialising in home education, a recent court case in Oxfordshire ruled that the burden of proof in establishing that a home educated child is receiving a suitable education falls upon the parents. In other words, the onus is not upon the local authority to demonstrate that the child is not receiving an education, but the ball is in the parents' court to show that the child is. This is quite interesting, because many local authorities are dubious about the 'evidence' produced by parents to show that an education is taking place.

Quite a few parents whose children are not at school get irritated to be called upon to prove that they are educating their children. Why can't the local authority just take their word for it? Why do they need evidence at all? Well the reason is of course that everybody lies and an awful lot of home educating parents say anything at all that they think will get the local authority off their backs. Local authorities know this perfectly well and so they require something other than mere words. Parents often tell the local authority officer whose job is to monitor home education a pack of fairy stories and hope for the best. Here is Myra Robinson, a Home Education Advisor from Newcastle;

'Other pupils are unable to produce work samples on demand or demonstrate an understanding of the basics, despite parents' claims about their level of education.
"One girl said she worked in the library, but didn't seem to know where the library was," Ms Robinson said'

This is a fairly typical example of what many local authority officers encounter. Parents send them an educational philosophy, backed up with a diary of supposedly educational activities. Then when they get to meet the kid, it turns out that this is a lot of nonsense. This is one of the reasons, incidentally, that local authorities are so keen to visit. It is often only during such visits that the truth comes to light. Presumably many parents are reluctant to accept visits for the opposite reason; so that they can prevent the truth coming to light. Mind you, maybe Myra Robinson is not telling the truth. After all, she works for a local authority and it could be that she is unjustly maligning home educating parents for sinister reasons of her own. Let's see what a few home educators have to say.

Up in Herefordshire, a well known and vociferous home educating mother gave an interview to her local newspaper recently. During the course of the interview, she repeated what she had already told her local authority;

'Mrs Gxxxx added that Mxxxx is looking to do between six and eight GCSEs at the end of the year.'

Blimey and the kid is only twelve! Small wonder that the local authority have been led to believe that she is a dedicated and fantastically structured home educator. But hang on a moment! What does she say when she is relaxing with her friends of one of her favourite Internet lists?

'We are thinking that GCSE's are going to be a no-no. The stress would stop
his brain working'

See the problem? How can the local authority take seriously what she is telling them? No wonder that they want proof and not just empty words. At the other end of the country, Hampshire County Council served notice of their intention to issue a School Attendance Order upon parents in Alton. Subsequently, they were provided with evidence of this child's academic work. Can you believe it though? They expressed doubts that the work they had been given was actually done by the child. How can people be so suspicious and lacking in trust? What reason could they possibly have had for doubting that the work which they were given was in fact the unaided efforts of the child himself? Well, let's look at another recent example of this same boys work, namely an email which was sent to Penny Jones at the DCSF on November 20th last year. He signed his name and so we can be sure that he wrote the thing. He says;

'I’m not scared of a school attendance order do it go for it. I burn it on the fire like the other one! I’m not scared of you Ed Balls DCSF come on Ed takes us to court I’m soooooooooooo scared! '

All right, stop laughing at the back! It is sheer coincidence that his style of writing is so uncannily similar to that of his father. I am shocked and disgusted that anybody could be so cynical as to assume that the father produced both this email and the written work sent to Hampshire County Council.

I have recently had the impression that some local authorities are becoming a little tougher about the standard of evidence which they require to establish that a suitable education is taking place. Some have attributed this to their behaving as though the Children, Schools and Families Bill was actually passed intact. The case in Oxfordshire which Ian Dowty mentions might well provide another explanation. I have an idea that more local authorities will be adopting a hard line now and requiring a bit more convincing that a suitable education is really being provided to children. I for one find this a very encouraging development.