Home education and co-sleeping as risk factors in child abuse

The latest piece of paranoia to start a panic among home educators is the Metropolitan Police Child Abuse Investigation Command's tool for detecting the abuse of children and instigating action before a greater tragedy befalls the child, i.e. she is murdered. This document is called the Child Risk Assessment matrix or CRAM for short and it may be seen here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/33823946/Real-Risk-Management-the-MPS-CRAM


Now there are two objections to CRAM from the point of view of some home educating parents. Firstly, it gives 'home education' as a risk factor, thus putting a home educated child automatically on a par with one who has a child protection plan or is displaying sexualised behaviour. Secondly, co-sleeping is also suggested as a risk factor. Some people are already becoming hysterical about this and claiming that this is yet another attack upon home education in this country and that the government is now trying to peer into our bedrooms and criticise our sleeping arrangements

I am in two minds about this approach by the police. On the one hand, it does seem outrageous that the simple fact of home education should be regarded as a risk factor when investigating possible cases of child abuse. Similarly co-sleeping, the practice of allowing babies and small children to share the same bedroom as their parents, is usually harmless enough. Why on earth should that be a risk factor? The problem is that many of those who are raising these objections come from comfortable, happy and well educated families. They simply cannot imagine anybody neglecting their children or having sex with a toddler. In short, they have had no experience of the sort of families which CRAM is designed to be used with.

The home education bit is probably more a matter of semantics than anything else. The police do not really think that those educating their children at home are any more at risk than other children. 'Home education' is a convenient, short phrase which means 'not attending school'. It is perfectly true that Victoria Climbie, for example, was not home educated. It is also quite true that she was not at school. It is this which has been identified as being a factor in some of the high profile cases upon which the CRAM document is based. Similarly, nobody is suggesting that co-sleeping is harmful in itself. It can be though, if it were to continue past puberty say or if a four year old were to be in the room regularly while two or three adults were engaging in noisy sex. One can see how this might lead to sexualised behaviour as well.

I think that part of the difficulty here is that a lot of home educators live such respectable and stable lives with their children that they cannot imagine what the police have to deal with. These risk factors are not taken in isolation, but enable the police to build up a picture of a child's overall circumstance. For example, alongside 'home education' as a risk factor is having a disability. this does not of course mean that if the police visit a home where a child is in a wheelchair that they will immediately contact social services and warn that a child is at risk! How could home education or co-sleeping be relevant in this context? Let us suppose that a visit is made to a home where a twelve year-old girl is sharing a bedroom with a man and woman who are having a sexual relationship. Let us further suppose that the man is not related to her and that there are also signs of substance abuse. If on top of that the child were to be displaying sexualised behaviour and not attending school, then eyebrows might certainly be raised. This would certainly be a family where 'home education' and co-sleeping were relevant factors when looking at the lifestyle of a family. It all depends on circumstance.

In short, I can see why the CRAM tool might seem alarming to some parents, but I do not see it so myself. I have a suspicion though that we shall be hearing a good deal more about this document in the near

Possible disadvantages of giving children too much choice

It is an article of faith for many British home educators that their children should have as much freedom as possible to direct their own lives. It is taken as axiomatic that this freedom to decide upon what is learned, how time is spent and even upon such things as bedtimes is a good thing for the child. I have been thinking this over since my daughter's friend came to stay from America. This girl is twenty one and was raised in a completely free way; not attending school and with a huge amount of responsibility for her own life, starting from when she was a small child. I have to say at once that this lifestyle does not seem to have done her any harm from an educational perspective. She is now at a good university and has no trouble in organising her life and learning. There is a slight problem though and it is one which I have observed with other children raised in this way, whether home educated or schooled.

Many liberal parents, even if they send their children to school, try to give them as much control as possible over their lives in other ways. they allow them to choose what to eat, how they spend their leisure time, what they wear, when they go to bed and a million other things. These choices sometimes start very young; I know parents who allow their three year olds to dictate the course of their lives to a large extent. I suspect that many readers will at this point be nodding their heads approvingly and muttering to themselves, 'Yes, so what?' Young children like to have familiar routines. these are comforting to them; they know what to expect. With the family where the child is in control of matters like bedtime and what he does with his time, such routines can be absent. More than that, a child who has so much power can become scared. Often, he does not really know how to exercise this power and it all becomes a bit much for him. Besides, young children should not have to worry about deciding what they will be eating or studying. This is in any case the adult's job and it can be very disconcerting for a child to have to make decisions of this sort.

I have observed that those children in our own circle who were raised in this way, being allowed lots of choices and making decisions all the time, seem to be more neurotic and anxious than those raised in a more conventional way. This is not of course a scientific survey, I am just thinking the matter over! My daughter's friend is extremely neurotic and I talked to her about her childhood. She says that she felt unhappy as a child at having to make a lot of decisions. She felt that her parents were not in control and this was a scary feeling. This makes sense to me, because most children like to feel that their parents know everything and can always decide what to do for the best. Mind, I am not saying that this is proof of anything. For one thing a circumstance which I have not mentioned is that this young woman's mother is a child psychologist. It is a very strange thing, but I have noticed over the years that the children of specialists in childhood problems always seem to be a lot weirder than other people's kids. One of our friends was a child psychiatrist and his kids were so awful that nobody would ever babysit for him.

I have an idea that it makes children uneasy if they have not got a loving adult nearby who always knows what is best and usually tells them what they should do. I would not be at all surprised if this was a recipe for anxiety and neurosis, because instead of simply enjoying childhood such children are constantly being bombarded with choices and decisions. 'Shall I wear my red shirt or my blue one? Or shall I wear something else? Should I clean my teeth? Do I want toast or cereal? If cereal, which kind?' A great part of the pleasure of growing up is the gradual acquisition of power over one's life. For a four year old, a familiar routine and not being worried over too many choices is probably the best thing psychologically. Because for many children, these choices are a worry and I have observed that some grow up a little odd about making choices in later life.

I am not laying down any dogma here, rather mulling over what I have observed about the children whom I have known and worked with. And I have to say that those from 'progressive', middle class homes where Penelope leach was the Bible seem to me to have been on the whole more highly strung and anxious from those where more conventional and authoritative child rearing practices were the norm. There is a reason why for most of recorded hsitory parents have been authority figures and before we ditch that archetype I think that we should be very sure that a new system is as good for our children as the old one.

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.

Hothousers

In an email to the Guardian a few days ago, Mike Fortune-Wood claimed that only a 'vanishing few' among home educators were of the 'hothouser' type, people like Harry Lawrence. He may well be right, although it is hard to know where he gets his information. After all, the vast majority of home educating parents belong to no support groups or other organisations. However, whether or no, it set me thinking upon this subject.

The year before Education Otherwise was founded, a parent began home educating his daughter. Following in the tradition of John Stuart Mill's father, James, Harry Lawrence wished to turn his child into a genius. Fathers like this, for such people almost invariably are fathers, have seldom presented any particular problem for the authorities. It is always quite obvious that an education is taking place and the proud parent is rarely reluctant to talk about the project or describe his child's achievements. The provision of highly structured and carefully planned education of this sort, delivered in the form of one-to-one tutoring has never alarmed local authorities in the way that the softer and less rigorous teaching which many mothers favour does. Whether this is due to sexism is an open question.

Until relatively recently, this sort of intense education was probably the commonest form of home education. This is partly because it is a form of education readily recognisable and accepted by local authority officers. The academic results of the home education which Ruth Lawrence received were astonishing. Like John Stuart Mill, she was kept by her father from contact with other children. At the age of eleven she began studying Mathematics at Oxford University, completing her degree in two years rather than the more usual three. Her final marks would have been enough to earn her two Firsts! Her father lived with her while she was at Oxford and when she was offered posts first at Harvard and later at Michigan University, he went with her to the United States. While there, she fell in love with a man almost thirty years her senior, about her father's age in fact. They married and moved to Israel. There are rumours that she actually resents her childhood education and feels that it was not a good idea.

I think it fair to say that this sort of highly structured and academically demanding education is the exception these days, at least in British home education. I don't know whether or not I would go as far as Mike Fortune-Wood in describing it as being limited to a 'vanishing few', but one certainly does not encounter such parents as often as one does the more laid back autonomous educators. The Internet list HE-Exams has a lot of people who enter their children for GCSEs and A levels, but even there, few of them seem to be the hothouser type. I can think of two possible explanations for the relative rarity of this breed of home educating parent.

In the first place, the great majority of home educators now seem to be women. These schemes, where young children are crammed full of knowledge and their skills accelerated, simply do not appeal to women in general the way that they do to some men. Perhaps they don't often regard their children like racing cars which have to be tuned, tested and raced round the track faster and better than anybody else's kid! It could be that that attitude is simply a male trait.

The other reason for the decline of the hothouser is of course that it is very hard work. According to the available research in this country, the majority of home educating parents are keen on home education because of the lifestyle and freedom which it provides for their families. Hothousing is most definitely not a relaxing lifestyle; it is far more taxing than sending a child to school. It is easy to see why a parent would avoid this way of life if lifestyle were the deciding factor in choosing to home educate. Of course, it may be that both Mike Fortune-Wood and I are quite wrong about this. After all, there are tens of thousands of home educators unknown to their local authorities and not belonging to any support groups. For all we know, the majority of them could be loopy and eccentric men who are busily engaged in trying to turn their young children into geniuses.

The death of ContactPoint

I have a strong suspicion that few in the home educating community will be mourning the end of the ContactPoint system. The idea behind this database was of course that the details of every child in the country would be recorded, together with information about their education, allegations by social services and so on. The plan was that no child would be able to 'slip between the cracks' and become hidden from view. Depending upon one's point of view, this was either a very necessary tool for protecting vulnerable children from harm or a piece of the most frightful busy-bodying ever seen in this country. It has of course now been announced that ContactPoint will be going the same way as Identity Cards. I imagine that this will now leave the way open for home educating families to remain 'under the radar' as some of them call it.

I think that there is something to be said both for and against a scheme like ContactPoint. I cannot myself see any harm in various agencies knowing how many children there are in this country and where they are being educated. On the other hand, many parents feel that it is no concern at all of the state even to wonder about such a thing. I shall be curious to see what will be contained in the Education Bill which is due to be described in the Queen's Speech on Tuesday. The official Liberal view before the election was that home education needed to be looked at again via another enquiry; a kind of Graham Badman Review Mark II. Whether they feel strongly enough about this to insist on its inclusion in the new bill remains to be seen. I rather think that the Tories, having been so vociferous in their opposition to Labour's Children, Schools and Families Bill, will be a bit hesitant about tackling the subject for a little while. My guess is that there will be no mention at all of home education for at least a year or so. Unless that is, there are a few more high profile cases like the Khyra Ishaq business.

Everybody seems to have calmed down generally now that the CSF Bill has gone. This can only be a good thing. As well as being able to focus a little more on their children's education, it will give parents a chance to mull over what has happened since the publication of the Badman Report and perhaps see that there is at least some merit in a few of the suggestions which were made. On the local authority side, I think that it has been realised that home education is an area which must be approached with extreme caution. Perhaps the best that can be hoped for is that both sides will take stock and give some thought to the next stage. Because even the most optimistic of home educating parents probably realises that this is not the end of the matter; that things will be changing at some point in the future. The only real question is how will they change and what is the best possible outcome which would satisfy both parents and local authorities.

Towards "informal learning".....

Somebody in one of the comments recently was recommending that I check out Alan Thomas' stuff. I decided to fetch down my copy of "How Children Learn at Home", which he co-authored with Harriet Pattison. (Continuum 2007). A better title for this book would perhaps have been "How Children don't Learn at Home". Unfortunately, it was every bit as terrible as I remembered. What a pompous windbag the man is! Here he is talking about, I think, parents reading to their children;

"Children may not perceive a need to read if they are busy with other things and have adults or older children around who are willing to fulfil their literacy needs".

I know that he is popular with many home educators, but really; "fulfil their literacy needs"! His thesis is that many parents set out on the home educating lark with good intentions, intending to do a lot of work with their children, but that after a while they more or less give up. Of course he does not put it quite like that. Instead, he says things such as;

"While most families started out expecting to educate their children in the time honoured way, by carefully planning lessons based on structured teaching materials, few maintained this over any length of time"

He seems to view this as a good thing, but some of the accounts from parents are very sad. Here is one talking wistfully about what she feels her children have missed out on;

"I sometimes think of all the hours that school children spend in classes, they must be there when lots of information is given to them, how much they retain I don't know, but at least they have been told it. My kids haven't heard, I would love to have told them but they never asked."

Many of the parents seem to have given up on teaching their children because the kids cut up rough about it. There is an air of regret though in much of what is said. These parents know deep inside that they should be doing more with their children, but it just does not seem to happen. Partly this is because of what Thomas calls "Children's resistance to formal teaching and learning". Reading the accounts of the parents though, I think it is also because some of them lead pretty chaotic and disorganised lives. Others seem to be anxious that their children won't like them if they keep trying to educate them. For example;

"Sometimes I think we should do something but mostly things just happen.... I started off more formally doing work but gave it up because she began to find it boring. I still think they should do something but mostly things just happen."

Heaven forbid that a child should be expected to do something boring! Thomas encourages this defeatist attitude quite openly. He says;

"There is simply no point in continuing when children are not listening, or going on asking for more effort if they are not responding."

The first question that I would ask myself if I found that a child were not listening to what I was teaching would not be, "Had I better give up at this point?". More likely I would say to myself, "Am I droning on in an irritating and uninteresting fashion, thus boring the child?" If the answer were yes, then I would set out to make the teaching more stimulating in some way. It would be lazy and irresponsible of me to say, as Thomas suggests, "There's simply no point in continuing, the child is not listening". And why on earth not ask for more effort if the child is not responding? I don't get this at all.

The overall picture which emerges from this book is of parents who want to teach their children, know they ought to be teaching them, but have given up because they are worried about upsetting their children or concerned that their children will dislike them if they continue teaching them. Shocking approach for a man of this professional standing to endorse.

Local authority monitoring of home education

One of the great bones of contention between local authorities and the home educating parents who live in their areas, is the extent to which parents can be expected to supply information to those charged with monitoring elective home education. I want to look at extracts from two actual documents submitted to a local authority which requested information about the education being provided to home educated children. Here is the first one, which was sent in by the parents of a fourteen year old girl;

" English
In English literature the focus this year has been very much on the twentieth century. Sophie has read a variety of novels, poetry and short stories by twentieth century writers in English; Evelyn Waugh, Vladimir Nabokov, Christopher Isherwood, Virginia Woolf, Robert Frost, E.M. Forster and James Joyce, to mention but a few. A favourite author is Terry Pratchett and Sophie attended a lecture by him. Visits to the theatre have also been largely limited to this period. The new RSC production of The Crucible was much enjoyed as was another production of this same play at the E15 Theatre School. Sophie saw the Beckett Centenary revival of Waiting for Godot at the Barbican. She has also seen Priestley’s An Inspector Calls and also When we are Married, by the same author, Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo and Suddenly last Summer by Tennessee Williams. In February this year she saw Peer Gynt, by Ibsen and the new production of The Dumb Waiter by Pinter. Studies in literature have of course not been limited to the English scene. Waiting for Godot led to an exploration of the Theatre of the Absurd, which in turn led naturally to Existentialism and the reading of Sartre and Camus. Where possible, studies in literature have been related to other areas of the curriculum. For instance The Crucible led to an examination of the phenomenon of McCarthyism and the Cold War in history. Reading Isherwood similarly led to Sophie’s seeing the new production of Cabaret in the West End. Over the course of the year Sophie has attended two week long drama courses at the E15 Theatre School. She has also acted at the Stratford Festival. Creative writing has not been neglected. Sophie has produced many poems, short stories and other material over the last year. She has joined a creative writing course associated with a local college and she attends this weekly. One of her sonnets and a couple of other pieces appeared in an anthology produced by this group. One of these poems also appeared in a magazine. She belongs to a reading group at the local library. "

This of course, is just the sort of thing that local authority officers love. It tells them what the child is doing and they can, in the course of conversation, draw the child out about her interests. They can be reasonably sure that this fourteen year old is working to at least the level which she would be were she to be at school and they can rest assured that here is a child who is receiving a full time education, suitable to her age and aptitude. Of course, the whole thing might be a tissue of lies, which is why they will want to visit the home and speak to the child. It shouldn't take long to see whether she really has done all the things listed in the report. It has to be said that such detailed reports are fairly rare. Far more common is something like this, sent by the parents of an eleven year old boy;

"Our approach to Zach's education is in the main opportunity based, child led and very flexible. It is impossible to provide a timetable or to specify in advance which activities we will shall be undertaking.
We work to keep a good balance between child led, informal learning and a more directed approach. In general, it is our aim to facilitate learning through Zach's interests rather than artificially to contrive situations to reach pre-determined outcomes. We are always vigilant for any gaps which should arise in our provision and ready, willing and able to make the necessary adjustments to fill them."

It goes on for four pages in this vein; I shall not weary the reader with the full text! Now, what's wrong with this picture, boys and girls? Well for one thing, it is quite impossible to say whether or not the child concerned is in fact receiving an education. He may be. On the other hand he may not be. Can he read? We are not told. Does he study history? Couldn't say. Will he sit GCSEs? No idea. This is quite a cunning move, because the local authority cannot really say that the child appears not to be receiving a full-time education suitable to his age and ability. This makes it hard for them to consider issuing a School Attendance Order. If the family continue to refuse a visit or give further information, then matters have reached an impasse.

This sort of waffle, frequently based upon an educational philosophy found on the Internet, is very common. It is infuriating for those monitoring the education because it does not really say anything at all. The child might, for all that anybody knows to the contrary, be a child prodigy. He may equally well be little better than a congenital idiot. One of the reasons that local authorities are irritated by documents like this is that it seems to be verging on bloody-mindedness to refuse to tell others what your child is capable of, what he is studying, how he is achieving. Why would anybody wish to conceal these things, either from a local authority officer or anybody else?

It is this which has been one of the driving forces behind the move to define a "suitable education". Local authorities wish for a rough guide which they can use to check if children are achieving well, falling badly behind, have special educational needs or just in need of a little extra help. Some people, and I am certainly one of them, cannot see why parents wish to be so secretive about their children's accomplishments.

What shall we tell the children?

Like most parents, I have always seen it as part of my duty not only to protect my child from harm, but also from worry and anxiety, at least where this is possible. For example, a few years ago it seemed that we might lose our house. This was very worrying for me as an adult, but I could see no earthly reason to make the children upset about the prospect of being turfed out of their home, especially as there was absolutely nothing they could do to help. I accordingly said nothing to them about it. In the event, matters resolved themselves. If it had been inevitable that we would have to move, then I might of course have adopted a slightly different strategy, slowly accustoming them to the idea of moving. I am circuitously approaching the subject of visits by local authority officers to home educating families, something about which many parents are up in arms.

The truth is, coverage of the Badman report in the newspapers and on television has been sparse in the extreme. Unless their parents had made a point of telling their children about it and explaining what they see as the hidden implications in the recommendations, it is unlikely that many children would even know anything of the matter. I find it strange then that so many children are apparently becoming distressed and anxious over the possibility of home visits. Such anxiety must surely be coming from their mothers and fathers?
It is by no means certain at the moment whether the law relating to home education is actually going to change. If and when it does, there will be many months to prepare children for the prospect of a visit by the local authority. What reason can there be to upset children by telling them a lot of scare stories about new laws that have not even been passed yet? It strikes me that it is the parents who are getting worked up about all this and frightened of the idea that people will be entering their homes to assess the quality of the educational provision being made for their children. I make no comment at all on this; I have no idea whether they are right to be concerned about it. What I am quite sure of is that it is, to say the least of it, unfortunate, if their children are roped into the business as well and made to share their parents anxieties. In other words, I think that it is not Graham Badman, the local authority or its agents who are making the children distressed, but their own parents.

I was not exactly enchanted when Essex LEA notified me that they wanted to come busybodying round the place to see what I was up to with my own daughter. However, as I said at the select committee, I do recognise that society has a stake in my child and so I did not tell them to get lost. Nor did I mention the matter to my eight year old daughter. There would have been no point; it might have made her feel nervous. Instead, I waited until after breakfast on the morning that the visit was due and then said casually, as though I had just remembered it, "Oh by the way, some fool is coming from the council later. They want to make sure that I'm not keeping you chained up in the attic." She laughed and we carried on as usual. the result was that the woman's visit was of no more significance to my daughter than a visit from the man coming to read the gas meter. This is in stark contrast to accounts that have been placed in the comments here from mothers who say that visits from the LA cause the family to be tense for a couple of months in advance and for a month or so afterwards. According to such parents, the whole business causes disruption to their way of life and alters the style of their educational methods. I am pretty sure that tension of this sort is all too often created, or at least greatly exacerbated, by parents.

I rather suspect that as the prospect of new regulations draws ever closer, so we shall be hearing more and more alarming stories of children on the verge of nervous breakdowns at the thought of LA officers entering their homes. I do not for a moment suppose that the children's fears are being encouraged deliberately, but I cannot help but think that it is unnecessary for us to pass our own worries onto our children in this way.

The angry autonomous

As a home educator, I have encountered many negative attitudes to the idea of home education over the years. These have come from members of my own family, neighbours, colleagues, passers by, librarians, shop assistants; in fact all sorts of different people. The methods which I have used have also attracted unfavourable comment. For instance, I have always been a great believer in the Look and Say technique of teaching reading. This goes very much against the grain today, with the emphasis being firmly upon synthetic phonics. I mention all this for a reason.

The conversations which I have had with other people about my daughter's education, although often lively and spirited, have in the main been good natured. Amicable relations have continued, even with those who bitterly oppose my lifestyle and educational methods. The same is true of all my email exchanges and telephone conversations about education. This is as it should be. I am always happy to debate robustly my beliefs about education and indeed almost any aspect of my life. The only group of people who seem consistently unable to behave like rational human beings when it comes to discussing education are certain autonomous educators. I have never known an advocate of synthetic phonics grow angry or abusive because I prefer to use Look and Say. Certainly, none of them have made offensive remarks about my family or relationship with my daughter or launched internet campaigns to smear me! I cannot help but wonder why this should be. Let me give an example of the sort of thing I mean.
In June, I said something which Maire Stafford, who else, objected to on the EO list. She posted as follows;

"You sound like a /%&*^"

Well, it's not the wittiest thing I've ever heard, but I responded good humouredly;

"Sorry Maire, I'm not sure what an /%&*^ is. Could you be a little more specific?"

Imagine my surprise when I received the following message as a personal email;

From: maetuga Subject: Re: [eo] Re: Targets? Showing proof of work?To: simon.webb14@btinternet.comDate: Friday, 12 June, 2009, 8:58 AM
"I think she meant to say "authoritarian motherfucker son of a bitch asshole." Just a guess, though."

Now I can assure readers that I have never had an email like that from an enthusiast for synthetic phonics or Real Books! Only an autonomous educator could have sent such a message. This is not, by the way, an isolated example.

I am not suggesting of course that all autonomous educators are as vulgar and abusive as that. What I am saying is that any sort of abuse, personal attack, lies and innuendo always comes from autonomous educators and nobody else. I find this a little strange. Why should it be that not a single person who disapproves of home education should be violently rude to me about my decision to home educate and yet many autonomous home educators become furious when I disagree with their methods? Why is it that I can have a good natured exchange of emails with somebody who believes strongly that synthetic phonics are the only effective way of teaching reading and that I am a complete idiot for championing Look and Say, but when I express doubts about the autonomous acquisition of literacy, the abuse is sure to start?

I am honestly puzzled about this. I am quite used to disagreeing with many different people about education. These include teachers, local authority officers, psychologists, academics, even Graham Badman. All these disagreements have been very pleasantly expressed and at the end of the discussion I have invariably parted on good terms with the person concerned. With autonomous educators, this never happens. Almost invariably, they become rude and personal. I don't think it can just be me, because otherwise I would be on bad terms with all those other people with whom I disagree about education. I am also far from being the only person to experience this sort of thing when dealing with autonomous educators. Perhaps this is destined to remain a mystery!