I have finally managed to finish Kelly Green's book A Matter of Conscience. I feel a sense of overwhelming achievement, the way one does upon having completed some worthy but exceptionally dull piece of good literature. A bit like finishing Finnegan's Wake, but with fewer laughs. Also, James Joyce is considerably more accessible than Kelly Green; his use of language is clearer and less ambiguous. But hey, don't take my word for it. What do you think that the following sentence is meant to convey?
'Germany seems to be a society in constant struggle with the idea of difference, an interesting case study in irony and backlash when it comes to tolerance and the acceptance of minority groups'
One of the great problems with vanity publishing of this sort is that there is no editor ready with a red pencil to cross through the long and wordy paragraph, the irrelevant anecdote, the pretentious phrase. Without this, any writer is liable to ramble a little and produce prose which is all but indigestible. One can often recognise this sort of writing when the author mentions his great, great grandmother for no apparent reason. A writer like Graham Greene might just be able to get away with this; for the rest of us, it is to be avoided at all costs. How my heart sank when on page 1 of Kelly Green's book, we duly find a reference to her great, great grandmother! (Whose only claim to fame, seemingly, is to have been a Red Indian).
The problems with this book begin on the cover. The blurb reads;
'A family's decisions about the education of children and young people are an intense expression of their very deepest beliefs, aspirations and identity, both collectively and individually'
This is complete nonsense. Most families don't give the matter more than a moment's thought; they just send the kid to the nearest school. Deep aspirations don't enter into the matter at all. Still on the back cover, I notice that the book is endorsed by Diana Varty, who is described as a writer. I have certainly seen her comments around lists and forums, but in what sense is she a writer? More research needed on that one.
Perhaps the most deadly aspect of A matter of Conscience is that it consists of little but blogposts from Kelly Green's blog, Kelly Green and Gold. One can read all this for free; why on earth would you shell out eight or ten pounds to do so? Perhaps I should stick all my posts from here in a book and take them down to a vanity publishers! The problem is that what works well enough in a brief blogpost is not always suitable for printing in a book. There are rare individuals whose journalism and day to day comments on things are worth putting between the covers of a book. Such people are however few and far between. I am not one of them and neither, I am very much afraid, is Kelly Green.
Showing posts with label Kelly Green and Gold. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kelly Green and Gold. Show all posts
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Saturday, 1 January 2011
Kelly Green; the overseas branch secretary of the 'secret group'
I have to confess that I find Kelly Green immensely irritating. It is not so much the fact that she claimed on her blog that far from being a home educating parent, I was really an adviser to the Department for Children, Schools and Families. I suppose anybody might inadvertently spread a falsehood like this. Nor is it that when I commented courteously on her blog correcting this ridiculous lie, she deleted the correction immediately. Why should I worry if she is keen on censorship, opposed to free speech and likes to propagate untruthful and damaging allegations about other home educators? No, these are relatively minor matters. The thing which annoys me about this woman is the confident way in which she shoots her mouth off about things she knows nothing at all about. This is not at all helpful to the cause of home education, particularly in this country. Have a look at this, from her blog Kelly Green and Gold;
http://kellygreenandgold.wordpress.com/2010/12/30/politics-and-paradox/#comments
Several things jump out at one from this post. First, Kelly believes that the Code Napoleon operates in the United Kingdom. She apparently thinks that as in some continental countries, we are limited in our actions to things specifically guaranteed in law. This shows alarming ignorance. She talks of the 'socialist paradise' countries of Sweden, France and Holland. Holland is socialist? Since when? France had a socialist government back in 1993, but even then, I would not have described it as a socialist country. Sweden has not had a socialist government since 2006. Home education in France is growing and has been for years. The situation there is that home education is a guaranteed right in law. Why on earth is she bracketing it with Sweden and the Netherlands, where home education is under threat? Where does this woman get her information? Now have a look at this post:
http://kellygreenandgold.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/a-way-forward-in-a-truly-happy-new-year/
Anything strike you as odd? Wait, Graham Badman is described as a civil servant. This really demonstrates that Kelly Green understands little about what is going on in this country. She says of this country in her post;
'We need to demand that government tells parents up front that this is one of your options when your children reach the age of compulsory education. You can educate them at home. This choice must not be hidden, and should be treated as an equal alternative to public and independent schools.'
Is this meant to be serious? If so, it again shows how little she really knows about the situation in this country. Let's have a look at the Department for Education's website;
http://www.education.gov.uk/popularquestions/childrenandfamilies/parenting/a005376/can-i-take-my-child-out-of-school-and-educate-them-at-home
What actually is being hidden here? How are the government not telling parents up front that this is one of their options? They even go out of their way here to draw parents' attention to the 2007 guidelines. Why does Kelly Green think that this choice of educational provision for children is being 'hidden' by the government? Is she not aware that both this government and the last went out of their way to emphasise that parents had a right to home educate and that there was no intention to change this?
I said earlier that I found Kelly Green's ignorance about home education in Britain and the rest of Europe alarming. The reason that I am alarmed is that this ill informed individual is now intimately mixed up with the group who are writing the new guidelines on home education. Frankly, this could be a disaster, judging by the level of her ignorance. Why would you wish to involve a person who knows nothing about British law when drawing up guidelines to the application of the law in Britain? This should be making us uneasy on a number of different levels.
On the plus side, she seems accidentally to have outed a few more members of the so-called secret group, which is interesting. Most of us knew that she and Alison Sauer have been running a mutual admiration society for a while and chatting regularly on the telephone about the best way of phrasing the new guidelines. In one of her recent blogs though, she thanks various other parents in this country for their help. Tania Berlow is one and we know that she is a member of the 'secret group'. Also mentioned is 'Leaf Lovejoy' (One of these days, I too am going to start using a whimsical name of this sort when commenting on lists and blogs. I can't decide though between 'Dreamcatcher' and 'Flower fairy). I think that Leaf Lovejoy has been doing some proof reading of the guidelines. The other names were Diane Varty and a woman who wishes only to be known as Grit. She has a blog called 'Grit's day'. Mind, I don't say that these two people are definitely members of the 'secret group', but it seems likely.
http://kellygreenandgold.wordpress.com/2010/12/30/politics-and-paradox/#comments
Several things jump out at one from this post. First, Kelly believes that the Code Napoleon operates in the United Kingdom. She apparently thinks that as in some continental countries, we are limited in our actions to things specifically guaranteed in law. This shows alarming ignorance. She talks of the 'socialist paradise' countries of Sweden, France and Holland. Holland is socialist? Since when? France had a socialist government back in 1993, but even then, I would not have described it as a socialist country. Sweden has not had a socialist government since 2006. Home education in France is growing and has been for years. The situation there is that home education is a guaranteed right in law. Why on earth is she bracketing it with Sweden and the Netherlands, where home education is under threat? Where does this woman get her information? Now have a look at this post:
http://kellygreenandgold.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/a-way-forward-in-a-truly-happy-new-year/
Anything strike you as odd? Wait, Graham Badman is described as a civil servant. This really demonstrates that Kelly Green understands little about what is going on in this country. She says of this country in her post;
'We need to demand that government tells parents up front that this is one of your options when your children reach the age of compulsory education. You can educate them at home. This choice must not be hidden, and should be treated as an equal alternative to public and independent schools.'
Is this meant to be serious? If so, it again shows how little she really knows about the situation in this country. Let's have a look at the Department for Education's website;
http://www.education.gov.uk/popularquestions/childrenandfamilies/parenting/a005376/can-i-take-my-child-out-of-school-and-educate-them-at-home
What actually is being hidden here? How are the government not telling parents up front that this is one of their options? They even go out of their way here to draw parents' attention to the 2007 guidelines. Why does Kelly Green think that this choice of educational provision for children is being 'hidden' by the government? Is she not aware that both this government and the last went out of their way to emphasise that parents had a right to home educate and that there was no intention to change this?
I said earlier that I found Kelly Green's ignorance about home education in Britain and the rest of Europe alarming. The reason that I am alarmed is that this ill informed individual is now intimately mixed up with the group who are writing the new guidelines on home education. Frankly, this could be a disaster, judging by the level of her ignorance. Why would you wish to involve a person who knows nothing about British law when drawing up guidelines to the application of the law in Britain? This should be making us uneasy on a number of different levels.
On the plus side, she seems accidentally to have outed a few more members of the so-called secret group, which is interesting. Most of us knew that she and Alison Sauer have been running a mutual admiration society for a while and chatting regularly on the telephone about the best way of phrasing the new guidelines. In one of her recent blogs though, she thanks various other parents in this country for their help. Tania Berlow is one and we know that she is a member of the 'secret group'. Also mentioned is 'Leaf Lovejoy' (One of these days, I too am going to start using a whimsical name of this sort when commenting on lists and blogs. I can't decide though between 'Dreamcatcher' and 'Flower fairy). I think that Leaf Lovejoy has been doing some proof reading of the guidelines. The other names were Diane Varty and a woman who wishes only to be known as Grit. She has a blog called 'Grit's day'. Mind, I don't say that these two people are definitely members of the 'secret group', but it seems likely.
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Free speech about home education
When I wrote a couple of articles on home education last year for national newspapers, I was swiftly chucked off the HE-UK and EO Internet lists. The ostensible reasons for this were that I had used information from the lists to write the articles and that other parents would feel uneasy at my continued presence. I have said several times since that both arguments struck me as weak, which led some of those commenting on this blog to suggest that I must be autistic!
I am observing the same reluctance to tolerate dissent or heterodox opinions now operating on various other home education lists and blogs. I am not the only person whose views are being suppressed; Tania Berlow has also been barred from several places, the Home Ed Forums for example.
There is something deliciously ironic and satisfying about watching stout libertarians imposing censorship in this way. It is not called censorship of course. I have always been perfectly courteous on the Badman Review Action Group list, but that did not stop somebody making an extremely personal attack on me, speculating about my childhood, possible relationship with my parents and resultant hatred of women! When I attempted to respond to this, I was put on moderation. This was done on the grounds that my posts were not helpful, informative or interesting and from then on posts which I have made have been deleted. I have of course stopped posting there, which was the intention of those using moderation in this way. The grounds for censoring Tania Berlow from the Home Ed Forums was that she had been defaming people. Quite untrue of course, but it provided a neat excuse to get rid of her. Kelly Green in Canada, the great defender of civil rights and freedom of speech, simply deletes any posts of mine at once from her blog. This is because she disagrees with what I say and does not wish to have anything on Kelly Green and Gold which suggests less than 100% agreement with her own views.
Sometimes, the censorship is done in a very unpleasant way. On HE-UK, a small group of playground bullies have in the past driven off parents who have asked too many questions or failed to be firm enough in their resolve to refuse visits from their local authority. Several women have contacted me after such episodes, one or two of them very distressed at the treatment which they have received. On other lists, the strategy is a little subtler. Certain people are put on moderation without being told and their posts simply deleted. This means that when somebody posts a message which denounces them, it appears that they are unable to formulate a response! I am not the only person against whom this particular tactic has been successfully used.
Readers of this blog will know that there is no moderation at all. Anybody can say anything they please and their comments will appear at once. I had to use moderation briefly on two occasions, but that was more for disruption that one person was causing, not because I wished to stop his views appearing. I do not agree with Tania on a number of points, as can be seen from things which I have said here, but I consider it absolutely scandalous that her views are being censored by people who claim to be hard-line libertarians. If these people were to be honest, they would admit that they were taking such a step not because Tania is defaming anybody, but rather due to the fact that she is disagreeing with others. This is a terrible reason for introducing censorship. There have been rumblings of discontent on the BRAG list, which Tania has chosen as her vehicle to put across her motives and plans for the project with Graham Stuart and Alison Sauer. I have a suspicion that if she is not careful, she is going to find herself in difficulty there as well. It is rumoured that Action on Home Education have also thrown her off.
This sort of activity by supposedly liberal and right-on home educators is hard to justify. If these people actually approve of censorship and believe that those holding other opinions should be denied a voice, then they have a perfect right to believe that. What sticks in my craw is the way that people like Kelly Green in Canada and others in this country make such a song and dance about freedom and civil rights and then at the drop of a hat impose censorship upon anybody whose views do not coincide with their own.
I am observing the same reluctance to tolerate dissent or heterodox opinions now operating on various other home education lists and blogs. I am not the only person whose views are being suppressed; Tania Berlow has also been barred from several places, the Home Ed Forums for example.
There is something deliciously ironic and satisfying about watching stout libertarians imposing censorship in this way. It is not called censorship of course. I have always been perfectly courteous on the Badman Review Action Group list, but that did not stop somebody making an extremely personal attack on me, speculating about my childhood, possible relationship with my parents and resultant hatred of women! When I attempted to respond to this, I was put on moderation. This was done on the grounds that my posts were not helpful, informative or interesting and from then on posts which I have made have been deleted. I have of course stopped posting there, which was the intention of those using moderation in this way. The grounds for censoring Tania Berlow from the Home Ed Forums was that she had been defaming people. Quite untrue of course, but it provided a neat excuse to get rid of her. Kelly Green in Canada, the great defender of civil rights and freedom of speech, simply deletes any posts of mine at once from her blog. This is because she disagrees with what I say and does not wish to have anything on Kelly Green and Gold which suggests less than 100% agreement with her own views.
Sometimes, the censorship is done in a very unpleasant way. On HE-UK, a small group of playground bullies have in the past driven off parents who have asked too many questions or failed to be firm enough in their resolve to refuse visits from their local authority. Several women have contacted me after such episodes, one or two of them very distressed at the treatment which they have received. On other lists, the strategy is a little subtler. Certain people are put on moderation without being told and their posts simply deleted. This means that when somebody posts a message which denounces them, it appears that they are unable to formulate a response! I am not the only person against whom this particular tactic has been successfully used.
Readers of this blog will know that there is no moderation at all. Anybody can say anything they please and their comments will appear at once. I had to use moderation briefly on two occasions, but that was more for disruption that one person was causing, not because I wished to stop his views appearing. I do not agree with Tania on a number of points, as can be seen from things which I have said here, but I consider it absolutely scandalous that her views are being censored by people who claim to be hard-line libertarians. If these people were to be honest, they would admit that they were taking such a step not because Tania is defaming anybody, but rather due to the fact that she is disagreeing with others. This is a terrible reason for introducing censorship. There have been rumblings of discontent on the BRAG list, which Tania has chosen as her vehicle to put across her motives and plans for the project with Graham Stuart and Alison Sauer. I have a suspicion that if she is not careful, she is going to find herself in difficulty there as well. It is rumoured that Action on Home Education have also thrown her off.
This sort of activity by supposedly liberal and right-on home educators is hard to justify. If these people actually approve of censorship and believe that those holding other opinions should be denied a voice, then they have a perfect right to believe that. What sticks in my craw is the way that people like Kelly Green in Canada and others in this country make such a song and dance about freedom and civil rights and then at the drop of a hat impose censorship upon anybody whose views do not coincide with their own.
Sunday, 19 September 2010
A final word about Kelly Green and Gold
I simply had to draw attention to this. As I remarked yesterday, Kelly Green has banned my comments from her blog. Well fair enough, it is after all her blog and she has a perfect right not to want a smart alec like me hanging round there! However children, have a look at this and see if you can see what's wrong with this picture. Both quotes are from Kelly Green in the last twenty four hours. The second reference is to me.
'It’s my blog, and expresses my own personal point of view, and the truth, as close as I can get to it.'
'He was an advisor to Graham Badman and the Department of Children, Schools and Families over the course of the Badman Review,'
What a breathtaking piece of cheek! If that's as close as she can get to the truth then she really needs to try a little harder! And of course the best of it is that she will not even let me correct this. I don't think that I need to say anything more about this dreadful woman.
'It’s my blog, and expresses my own personal point of view, and the truth, as close as I can get to it.'
'He was an advisor to Graham Badman and the Department of Children, Schools and Families over the course of the Badman Review,'
What a breathtaking piece of cheek! If that's as close as she can get to the truth then she really needs to try a little harder! And of course the best of it is that she will not even let me correct this. I don't think that I need to say anything more about this dreadful woman.
Saturday, 18 September 2010
Kelly Green and Gold
I have remarked before upon the way that anybody disagreeing with the prevailing orthodoxy among home educators tends to be shouted down and where possible suppressed. The only reason of course that I began this blog in the first place was because I had been barred from all the Internet lists on home education! One gets the feeling that only those who follow a certain ideology and have a particular attitude towards matters such as the Badman Review and so on are welcome on those lists. I have also found the same thing happening with some blogs; I comment in a perfectly courteous and good natured fashion and a few hours later my comment is deleted. Since both the list owners and those keeping the blogs are keen to brandish their libertarian credentials, I find this odd and a little inconsistent.
The latest example of this is on the blog Kelly Green and Gold. I was surprised when reading the submissions to the select committee last year to find one from somebody who was not a citizen of this country and did not even live here. I must confess, I found this strange. It would be as though I had heard of a government enquiry in Uganda or South Africa and not liking the law that was being proposed, decided to submit evidence of my own in an attempt to influence their legislature. It would be a bit of a cheek if I were to do so!
Somebody recommended to me that I read the blog written by Kelly, the American/Canadian who submitted the statement to the select committee. I did so yesterday and found that she had been posting about two things which I have noticed before being said by parents in this country. Firstly, there was a gloating reference to a teacher in her country and an education welfare officer in ours who had been discovered to be using child pornography. She went on to link this to the supposed attempt to pass a law making it possible for local authority officers to see children alone, without their parents being present. This was a reference to Schedule 1 of the Children, Schools and Families Bill 2009. The inference was clear; if such a law had been enacted, home educated children would have been at risk from paedophiles working for the local authority.
Now while it is quite true that Graham Badman suggested this, there was never any realistic prospect of the idea finding its way onto the statue books. It would have required a wholesale revision of our common law! Badman is not a lawyer though and this was just one of his ideas. When the CSF Bill was actually published, it was made clear that any such interview would only take place with the agreement of both the child and her parents. It was also made plain that this sort of interview was not intended to be a routine event, but rather was something which might have happened only in very rare circumstances. I pointed this out in comments on Kelly's blog. Here is her post, with my comments;
http://kellygreenandgold.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/here-be-monsters/#comments
Her response was swift. She posted a piece referring to me as a troll or monster and saying that any further comments of mine would be deleted at once. I have noticed before that many home educators call anybody who disagrees with them 'trolls'. I have even been accused of trolling on my own blog, which is a truly surreal notion. I have not yet, even by the most dedicated autonomous educator, been described as a monster though! Her post about me may be found here;
http://kellygreenandgold.wordpress.com/2010/09/17/are-trolls-monsters-or-just-irritating/
I answered, again in a good humoured fashion saying;
'Dear me, harsh words indeed! There were certainly problems with Schedule 1 of the Children, Schools and Families Bill 2009, but children being seen alone by local authority officers without the presence of their parents was not one of them. I felt this was worth pointing out. You say that I am ‘ well-known in the home education community for these kinds of tricks’, but I am probably better known for being a lifelong, ideological home educator, whose own daughter never spent a single day in school. As such, I am very concerned about home education and do not feel that it is helpful to perpetuate misleading rumours about things like the CSF Bill, such as that it would have given education workers the right to see children alone without their parents. Including this inaccurate piece of information in a post mentioning paedophile teachers and education workers would naturally lead to the inference that these two topics were connected.'
True to her word, this was deleted almost immediately. This leaves all subsequent people commenting free to say further misleading things to which I am unable to respond. I find this particularly staggering in view of the fact that this blog is touting a self-published book of Kelly's called A matter of Conscience - Education as a fundamental freedom. This is precisely the kind of libertarian slant to which I referred above. Home educators often claim that they are pursuing their lifestyle in the name of freedom. Part of the book deals with media bias and what is described as 'combating uneducated, unsubstantiated opinions and hate speech about home-based education'. That anybody could write about these topics and then react to the views of a home educator with whom she apparently disagrees by calling the person a monster or troll and then refusing to allow any response says all that I need to know about this woman! 'Monster'? Sounds a bit like hate speech to me......
The latest example of this is on the blog Kelly Green and Gold. I was surprised when reading the submissions to the select committee last year to find one from somebody who was not a citizen of this country and did not even live here. I must confess, I found this strange. It would be as though I had heard of a government enquiry in Uganda or South Africa and not liking the law that was being proposed, decided to submit evidence of my own in an attempt to influence their legislature. It would be a bit of a cheek if I were to do so!
Somebody recommended to me that I read the blog written by Kelly, the American/Canadian who submitted the statement to the select committee. I did so yesterday and found that she had been posting about two things which I have noticed before being said by parents in this country. Firstly, there was a gloating reference to a teacher in her country and an education welfare officer in ours who had been discovered to be using child pornography. She went on to link this to the supposed attempt to pass a law making it possible for local authority officers to see children alone, without their parents being present. This was a reference to Schedule 1 of the Children, Schools and Families Bill 2009. The inference was clear; if such a law had been enacted, home educated children would have been at risk from paedophiles working for the local authority.
Now while it is quite true that Graham Badman suggested this, there was never any realistic prospect of the idea finding its way onto the statue books. It would have required a wholesale revision of our common law! Badman is not a lawyer though and this was just one of his ideas. When the CSF Bill was actually published, it was made clear that any such interview would only take place with the agreement of both the child and her parents. It was also made plain that this sort of interview was not intended to be a routine event, but rather was something which might have happened only in very rare circumstances. I pointed this out in comments on Kelly's blog. Here is her post, with my comments;
http://kellygreenandgold.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/here-be-monsters/#comments
Her response was swift. She posted a piece referring to me as a troll or monster and saying that any further comments of mine would be deleted at once. I have noticed before that many home educators call anybody who disagrees with them 'trolls'. I have even been accused of trolling on my own blog, which is a truly surreal notion. I have not yet, even by the most dedicated autonomous educator, been described as a monster though! Her post about me may be found here;
http://kellygreenandgold.wordpress.com/2010/09/17/are-trolls-monsters-or-just-irritating/
I answered, again in a good humoured fashion saying;
'Dear me, harsh words indeed! There were certainly problems with Schedule 1 of the Children, Schools and Families Bill 2009, but children being seen alone by local authority officers without the presence of their parents was not one of them. I felt this was worth pointing out. You say that I am ‘ well-known in the home education community for these kinds of tricks’, but I am probably better known for being a lifelong, ideological home educator, whose own daughter never spent a single day in school. As such, I am very concerned about home education and do not feel that it is helpful to perpetuate misleading rumours about things like the CSF Bill, such as that it would have given education workers the right to see children alone without their parents. Including this inaccurate piece of information in a post mentioning paedophile teachers and education workers would naturally lead to the inference that these two topics were connected.'
True to her word, this was deleted almost immediately. This leaves all subsequent people commenting free to say further misleading things to which I am unable to respond. I find this particularly staggering in view of the fact that this blog is touting a self-published book of Kelly's called A matter of Conscience - Education as a fundamental freedom. This is precisely the kind of libertarian slant to which I referred above. Home educators often claim that they are pursuing their lifestyle in the name of freedom. Part of the book deals with media bias and what is described as 'combating uneducated, unsubstantiated opinions and hate speech about home-based education'. That anybody could write about these topics and then react to the views of a home educator with whom she apparently disagrees by calling the person a monster or troll and then refusing to allow any response says all that I need to know about this woman! 'Monster'? Sounds a bit like hate speech to me......
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