Home educators set out, very much against their own best interests, to alienate the Open University.

I have for several years entertained the suspicion that home educators are the most quarrelsome and disagreeable special interest group in this country. I am increasingly inclined to believe that some of them must be quite literally stark, raving mad.

The Open University has been a very good thing for home educated children in this country. It has enabled them to gain access to places at universities such as Oxford and Exeter, which might otherwise have been denied them. The OU is one of the most progressive and enlightened universities and given how helpful they have been to home educators and their children, you might think that the news that they are thinking of running a course to teach people about home education would be greeted with pleasure. You would? Why, you gullible fool! Don’t you realise that the OU are all part of the military/industrial complex, in the pocket of Big Pharma, part of the New World Order and probably controlled by the Illuminati? Who funds them? Central government of course and they are heavily involved with orthodox educationalists. What sort of course would they run on home education?

The first angry and suspicious emails have already begun arriving at the Open University and unless I am very much mistaken in my understanding of British home educators, this small trickle will soon become a mighty flood; thus persuading the OU that many home educating parents in this country are completely off their heads.
What are the objections to the Open University teaching about home education, say as part of a course about education and childhood development? Where shall we start? For one thing, they might not let home educators check what sort of things they will be saying before they start the course. This is of course perfectly true. When the OU run a course on Comparative Religion, they will certainly ask leaders of various faiths for their views, but will not allow them to vet the materials used. This is because the OU is independent. Imagine if the only things they were allowed to teach about Islam were those things approved by various Imams. Their impartiality would be shot to pieces at a stroke.

Another problem seems to be that local government officers might take such a course and then think that they know as much about home education as parents. It does not bear thinking about! Suppose that home educating parents wanted to go on the course and did not have the money to afford it? This would mean that the OU was discriminating in favour of professionals and against parents. Perhaps the maddest objection of all is one being promoted by a former head teacher, who fears that such a course might become compulsory for any parent who wished to educate her child. This would mean that a de facto register of home educators would be started and those who were too poor to afford the course would not be allowed to be home educators! You see what might happen? Home education in this country would be restricted to the wealthy. And all because the Open University went blindly ahead and began to teach a unit about it. As one person puts it:

'this would be a very dangerous step towards needing some sort of licence to home educate, and an agreed/prescribed method of doing it.'

All this is so completely loopy that I feel like putting my head in my hands and groaning. At the moment many home educating parents enjoy excellent relations with the Open University. I have a suspicion that this why they are considering running a unit about home education; because they have seen what a good thing it is. They wish to show people that it is a rising trend and that it is something worth learning about. Whether they will still be feeling so amiably disposed towards home educators after they have been on the receiving end of one of the home educating community’s famous campaigns, remains to be seen.

Home educated children and the Open University

The question as to what people might be entitled to if they turn down public services and make their own arrangements with regard to education, is once again rearing its head. We are probably all familiar with the views of somebody who comments regularly here and believes that it is unjust that his son is not provided with money from the public purse to enable him to send his son to Eton. Most of those who come on this blog reject his point of view. A rather subtler, but essentially the same, argument is currently being advanced on some of the British home education support lists.

When we earn money, a certain proportion of it is taken from us in various taxes and used to provide services which are of public benefit. These include hospitals, police forces, fire brigades and of course schools. Nobody is obliged to make use of those services. If I wish to pay for private medical treatment, I am free to do so. If my house catches fire, I can put it out myself instead of ringing the fire brigade. If I don't like the local state school, I can send my child to an independent, fee-paying school or teach her myself. We are not entitled to a cash alternative if we do not use these services. I did not call the fire brigade last year, but I still have to pay a share of their costs in my Council Tax. The same goes for schools, the police and hospitals.

Some home educating parents have advanced the idea that because they don't use schools, they should be given a sum of money as an alternative. This would presumably mean that to be fair, childless people should also receive a similar rebate. It is an unworkable idea and those who advocate this are in the minority. A variation of this idea though is more popular. It is this; because home educators don't send their children to school, they should be allowed to have free education from other sources. The main sources to which they claim they should be entitled are Further Education Colleges and the Open University. There is really no such thing as free education of course and what these people are really asking is that other people pay for their choices. This is exactly the same argument as that used on here by the man who wants £30,000 of public money each year to send his son to Eton!

Free schools are provided for all children between the ages of five and sixteen. After that age, free colleges and sixth form centres are provided. Those who wish can send their children to these places. If local authorities and individual colleges wish, they can allow children under the age of sixteen to use the colleges. This is uncommon and not a right, but something which the college might allow in special circumstances. With the raising of tuition fees at universities, the Open University is now planning to charge more. Some home educating parents are protesting that this is unfair and that because they do not use the free schools, their children should instead be entitled to free university courses! This is a very strange proposition indeed. These courses are not free at all; the rest of us have to pay for them through our taxes. What these parents are really asking is that we subsidise their unconventional lifestyle via our taxes. They are in the position of those whom we mentioned above who have elected not to use the state health service. Having opted not to do so, imagine a family claiming that the state should provide them with some alternative form of health care for them so that they had a better service than those using the NHS, but also, at the same time, had it for nothing. Most of us would regard that as being a bit unfair on those who had stuck with the NHS.

The most grotesque piece of cant which I have seen in connection with this question was the assertion made by one woman that she feels that we are moving towards a position where all learning will be prescribed and that no other learning will be allowed except that sanctioned by the state! Any of us are free to learn anything we wish. We are also free to teach our children anything we wish. We can reject the free school being offered to us for our children, just as we can reject the health service and even the police. The local police are not very often in evidence in my street. If I wished, I could hire a private security guard to patrol my garden at night and deter burglars. I have a perfect right to do this. What I would not have a right to do, would be to expect others to pay for this private arrangement through their taxes. Regardless of how things may have worked in the past, expecting free university tuition for children whose parents have decided to reject the free education already on offer, is precisely the same as hoping that others will pay for private health care. It is not really on.

Reasons for deregistering children from school

A few days ago I posted a news item about a child who had been taken out of school in Manchester and whose father had subsequently tried to murder her. I gave this post the rather ironic title of 'A far from perfect case of home education'. Here is a link to the case;

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1340728/Father-carried-knife-attack-teenage-daughter-wanted-to-college-jailed-10-years.html


In retrospect, it was a mistake to use such a title; many of those who comment here are humourless and literal minded individuals who almost certainly do not do irony. However, a couple of the comments were interesting and I am going to take them at face value and see where they lead us. One person said;

'Where does it say she was home educated???????'

Another remarked;

' Typical Webb: No research, no thought, all invention and doing anything to support his own deranged views of the world.

More lies and distortion'

I am assuming that both of these people were meaning to get across the idea that this child had been prevented from attending school but was not really a home educated child. This is a very good point and one which we encounter quite frequently during the debate about home education, especially where safeguarding is concerned.

When a child is deregistered from school, she becomes for most people a 'home educated child'. This is regardless of the sort of education, if any, she is receiving. Local Authorities generally take this to be the case and so too do most home educating parents. Home educators often claim that it should be assumed that parents are educating their children efficiently, unless there is evidence to the contrary. Of course not all children who have been deregistered from school are really being educated. Here is a case of a child who was deregistered from school supposedly for the purposes of home education, but in fact to give sexual satisfaction for her family:

http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/Plymouth-girl-14-sex-toy-paedophile-parents-traded-online/article-2091055-detail/article.html


The truth is, parents take their children out of school for all sorts of different reasons. Some do so because they wish to educate their children, some want an easier life and an end to rows with their children about school, others feel the need to abuse their child, some are insanely jealous of their daughter meeting or talking to boys, there are those who want to avoid prosecution for truancy, parents who want a companion because they get lonely during the day; there are an infinite number of reasons for taking a child from school or not sending her in the first place. Some of these reasons relate to education, others do not.

It is very hard for anybody outside the family to know why a child is not going to school. Some home educators invite us to assume that as soon as a child is deregistered, we should at once take it for granted that her parents are providing her with a suitable education. I cannot for the life of me understand this reasoning. We have seen two teenage girls above who were withdrawn from school for reasons wholly unconnected with education. Presumably, the Local Authorities in those cases were happy to accept that an education was taking place without making any further enquiries. Maybe these parents sent a version of an educational philosophy downloaded from an Internet site and that was sufficient.

Many home educating parents seem to find it very hard to imagine anybody deregistering their child from school for reasons of cruelty and abuse. They seem to take it for granted that parents love their children and want the best for them. This is not always the case at all. There is no doubt that some children are taken out of school for bad reasons which have nothing to do with education. In the case of the child from Manchester, not being at school meant that anything which happened in the family would be likely to remain secret. She had no school friends in whom to confide, no teachers to talk to, her father did not like her to talk to anybody unless he was present. This meant that a bizarre lifestyle could flourish in a way that school might have prevented. I don't think it would have been as all a bad thing for a sympathetic and shrewd adult to drop by that home and try to see what was going on. Obviously, the warning signs might have been missed; they have certainly been missed in other cases. But this does not seem to me to be a good reason simply to give up trying to rescue children of this sort. As I have said many times before; too much emphasis on the 'rights' of the parents and not enough upon the rights of vulnerable children.

Internet security, Part 2

I have for some years been puzzled about all the fuss about the dangers which the Internet poses to children and young people. What is particularly interesting to me is that when I ask ordinary people what these dangers actually are, they seem unable to tell me! I am very much inclined to think that it is another aspect of the obsessive protection which so many parents today are determined to afford their children; protection which does them no favours once they are a little older. The peak age for deaths from road accidents among children and young people is eleven and twelve. The reason? These are children who have always been driven to school by their parents and not allowed out on their own to cross the road. As soon as they start secondary school and travel by themselves, they find they do not know the elementary principles of road safety. Mind you, a lot of parents now continue to take their kids to school even when they are fourteen or fifteen. No wonder such children are unable to assess hazards by themselves.

Returning to the subject of the perils of the Internet, a particular anxiety for parents seems to be that the child might reveal her personal contact details; in ordinary language, her address. This is apparently extremely dangerous. I wonder what the danger is thought to consist of? let us look at the past and see how things worked for many years, without any great harm befalling children. I have already mentioned that anybody leafing through a local paper will be able to take his pick of photographs of children and teenagers. May Queen, winner of a Duke of Edinburgh's Award, choristers, school sports days; the list is endless. It has often been the custom to describe the young person by name and road, as in; 'Gladys Jones of Church Lane won the prize for best kept garden' or something similar. A quick trip to the local library to consult the electoral register would soon tell you what number in Church Lane the Jones live at. Oh, no! Somebody has hold of the child's personal details! Still, it might be argued, this is only a local matter. With the Internet, anybody in Britain might find out a child's home address if she isn't careful. Looking through a pile of old magazines and comics from the fifties and sixties, we find that a number have sections for penpals. Children and teenagers write in and ask for others to write to them. They typically detail their hobbies and interests, sometimes send a photograph and, horror of horrors, their address is there for all to see in a nationally circulated publication!

Now I don't recall ever reading a guide to 'Penpal Security' or even 'Having Your Picture in the Local Paper Security' and I never heard of an child being abducted, raped or murdered as a result of these things. What actually is the danger of a complete stranger seeing a photograph of a teenager or child and knowing her address? Obviously, if there is a danger then it must also have existed in the fifties and sixties.

One threat which many parents worry about is that their child could be 'groomed' by a paedophile. I don't doubt for a moment that some weird adults wrote to children in the sixties and engaged them as penpals by pretending to be children themselves. I am sure that the same thing happens today, although it is unlikely to be by letter. Instant messenger or email is more likely. A child's home address in this context is quite irrelevant. The grooming adult is not likely to send the kid a letter!

What other dangers are there? Could a stranger stake out the home of a child? Well this is possible, but unlikely. If I were that way inclined and wanted to watch the house of a teenager, why would I go any further than my own neighbourhood? There are plenty of children and teenagers living round here and if I wanted to, I suppose that I could go and hide in their back gardens at night. I would hardly need to get an address from the Internet if that was what I enjoyed doing. There has never been a shortage of Peeping Toms, even before the Internet was even thought of.

What about rape and murder? The same applies really. Children are almost always raped and murdered by their friends and families; the risk from complete strangers is very small. Besides, what am I going to do? See a kid's picture on the Internet, note with pleasure that her address is there and then take a train to her home town and knock on the door? Why would I go to all that trouble when there are plenty of other kids locally?

Those adults who wish to form inappropriate relationships with and abuse children do not need to use the Internet. having an address would not really help such people. They need to build a friendship with the child, gain their trust. Such people generally get jobs as teachers, tennis coaches and swimming instructors. That way they can actually get to know the children. A random address of some child who is unknown to them would be useless.

Perhaps readers can give me a few tips here on why the addresses of children are so much more likely to bring harm to them now than was the case fifty years ago? I am genuinely intrigued by this.

The use of operant conditioning upon home educated children

I have always been a fan of Skinner, possibly the most influential psychologist of the twentieth century. His ideas about operant conditioning, changing behaviour by making sure that actions produced consequences, always seemed to me ideally suited for the early education of children. It can be time consuming, frustrating and often pointless to try and reason with small children. Far better and more effective simply to work upon modifying their behaviour. Certainly, I used these methods upon my children with great success.

I have never subscribed to the theory that small children are naturally virtuous and must be given free rein for self expression. True, some will explore the world gently and respectfully, but others will pull the wings off flies or try and burn the house down. It seems to me self evidently true that the one type of behaviour should be encouraged and the other stopped. In other words, I as an adult had a pretty shrewd idea how I expect my kids to behave and I tried to find the best way of accomplishing this end. Asking children how they would feel if somebody did that to them, or giving them long explanations about what would happen if everybody acted like that are not very effective. Besides, suppose the kid is a young sociopath? He might not even care how others feel! Operant conditioning on the other hand fits the bill perfectly. Rather than agonising about the reasons for the behaviour, we just try to make it happen more often or stop it entirely. Before we look at this in detail, perhaps we should ask ourselves why it matters all that much. If a small child wishes to behave destructively or in a selfish and cruel manner, could we not just let him get on with it? Might his apparent destructiveness just be a way of exploring his environment and finding out how things work? Perhaps killing insects is in the same category. And can we really describe a toddler as greedy or cruel?

For my part, I never worried overmuch about the finer points of the motives for children's behaviour. Some behaviour must be nipped in the bud at a very early age. I have worked with disturbed youths and almost all had histories of fire setting, vandalism and cruelty to animals. Most started young. Conversely, those who did well had certain habits which started early. To my mind, moulding the habits of a child in the right way is a duty. If we can train a child to behave in a socially acceptable way, then after a while this behaviour will become second nature. As the Bible says, 'Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it' (Proverbs 22.6). Home education is particularly suited to this sort of work because of course the child is in the company of the person undertaking the conditioning for more or less twenty four hours a day.

Behaviour of the child which is desirable is rewarded. The reward can be as simple as a smile, a hug or a friendly word of praise. This is called positive reinforcement. To begin with, it should be frequent and lavish. As the child gets older, it can be reduced until the behaviour is only occasionally rewarded. Punishment or other negative consequences are called negative reinforcement. This is less effective than rewarding good behaviours. The best strategy for reducing unacceptable behaviours is of course by simply ignoring them; giving no reaction at all. This is called extinction. I am aware that some home educators view this idea with distaste. They feel that the child's love of learning and exploration should be an intrinsic thing, not forced upon her from without. This is a bit of a gamble. Some kids are like that, many are not. If one can turn a child into a decent human being who is kind to others and loves learning and studying, then I think we should do so.

It seems to me pretty obvious that a small child who can be taught to sit still and remain quiet on certain occasions will benefit from this as she gets older. She will be better able to study, as well as being less likely to get on other people's nerves. Much the same goes for eating in a civilised fashion, keeping her room tidy, and not breaking things, being nice to others and not behaving in a selfish or cruel way. Everybody benefits from these behaviours. Training a child in this way from the start is a damned sight easier than waiting until the bad behaviours have become established as habits and then trying to change them.

Of course operant conditioning is also perfect for the academic education of the child. Having trained her to sit quietly at a table, then it is fairly easy to get her to draw only when sitting at a table. This can usually be accomplished by the age of two or three. From then, it is a short step to expecting the child to write while sitting at a table. The advantages for the child of this sort of early conditioning are immense. The attention span is lengthened and concentration improved . The classic difficulty with getting children to understand why education is so important is that the goals and rewards are so distant that they mean nothing at all to the child. What child cares that she will be able to pay the mortgage in twenty years time or that her social life is apt to be filled with intelligent and cultured friends? These rewards are so remote as to be meaningless; they certainly won't act as an incentive to study at the age of six or seven! A smile or hug for a four year old is a far greater reason to sit still now than a possible mortgage in twenty years time.

I would recommend these methods to anybody who hopes to raise a studious and well balanced child. Learning to learn and learning to behave like a civilised being are both things which can be taught painlessly to the child with very little effort. All that is required is consistency. The dividends though are stupendous and now, as my child approaches her seventeenth birthday, I am seeing more and more of those early behaviours, which were instilled in her by operant conditioning, bearing fruit. Of course the constant reinforcement is no longer needed. Instead, I moved some years ago to a schedule of variable reinforcement, which over a period of years is hugely effective. As a six year old, I had to get her to sit in a certain spot and work at her handwriting for increasing lengths of time. Now, when she gets in from college in the evening, she sits in that same spot for an hour or two with no prompting to write essays and study mathematics. The only reinforcement needed is a smile and cup of coffee, and these need not even be provided regularly. I really do not know what other technique could have yielded such impressive results for so little outlay on the part of the caregiver.