The legal requirement for home educators to follow a curriculum

One of the most depressing things about the world of British home education is that year after year, the same nonsense is endlessly recycled; the same fundamental misunderstanding of the law perpetuated, to the confusion of new home educating parents. Take the constant talk about the ’right’ to home educate. There is of course no such thing; the child has a right to an education, while the parents, alas, have only duties. This is one of the commonest myths in home education; that any attempt at monitoring is somehow infringing upon the rights of the adults involved. It is in fact aimed at securing the rights of children.

This basic error of perception has had the most unfortunate consequences for some home educators. Because they get into the habit of thinking about their ‘rights’ and not their duties, they lose sight of what those duties actually entail. Despite what some people tell them, there is far more to their duty than at first meets the eye. Let’s have a look at one or two of the things that home educating parents must do to abide by the law. The first thing that they must do is actively supervise and teach their children. It is not enough from the law’s point of view just to let their children pick up things in their own time and at their own inclination. There is a legal obligation too, to follow a curriculum.  This curriculum will have certain minimum standards  that must be adhered to. Any parent not taking active steps to ensure that the child acquires literacy and grasps the basics of mathematics would be in breach of the law.

These are just a few of the things that home educating parents must do to keep within the law. Many parents do not bother to find out about such duties, because they are instead preoccupied with their imaginary ‘rights’ in the matter.

Joining the movement..

The other day, somebody posted on one of the home education groups on Facebook, saying that she was about to take her child from school and was trembling all over and feeling tremendously emotional about the whole thing; in a dream-like state. She asked if this was abnormal. The correct answer of course is that if you react so violently to the prospect of making a new educational arrangement for your child, whether changing schools or assuming responsibility yourself for his education; then this is definitely not normal and you should see either a doctor or a therapist of some kind. People don’t, or rather they should not, not if they are emotionally healthy,  become hysterical every time a child’s educational setting changes. This being the world of British home educators, there was of course a mad stampede to reassure the woman that her feelings were quite common for those sending letters to a head teacher.

The feelings that those commenting on this post talked of, reminded me of varieties of mystical religious experience; the sort of thing that people report when they are slain in the spirit at an evangelical church, for instance, or have just accepted Jesus as their saviour. Recollect, these are parents who have simply made a new arrangement for their child’s education, nothing more.  One mother had cried for two weeks, another had slept for six weeks. One person cried and was nearly sick, somebody else was shaking so much, it felt as though she was coming down with the flue. Words such as ‘terrifying’ were bandied about, others were ‘scared stiff’.

All this talk puts me in mind strongly of people who have made the decision to join a cult or surrender themselves to some higher power. It is the language of religion, rather than education. Here are parents who feel that they are joining some movement or taking part in an experience which is greater than them and they are seeking reassurance from others. This is frankly weird and I can see how some such people end up being exploited emotionally by stronger characters than themselves. These are vulnerable individuals, who are now desperately seeking guidance and hoping to be told that they have done the right thing. Little wonder that some fall under the spell of self-assured men and women who believe themselves to be leaders of the home educating community. We shall be looking in greater detail at this idea in the next few days.

Abuse and murder of home educated children in the USA

I mentioned a week or two back that in America there have been quite a few cases of the abuse and murder of adopted children by home educators. I don't think that this is a problem in this country, but readers might like to learn a little about this phenomenon:


http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/20821

How home educators can make life easier for themselves when engaging with professionals

I wrote yesterday about how parents could attract unfavourable attention to themselves by displaying too many behaviours of a certain type. Failing 'to engage with services' is one of these, as is not sending your kid to school or nursery and missing appointments which have been made by doctors and health centres. Now it is important to realise that none of these things in themselves are likely to cause problems for a parent. Just ticking three items on one of the checklists or protocols won't result in social services kicking down your door and taking away your children for adoption! What it does mean is that sometimes eyebrows will be raised and nursery teachers, Health Visitors, social workers and so on might exchange emails; asking of there is any cause for concern. I am all in favour of this, because it is a valuable sifting process which often identifies children at risk of neglect or abuse. It's not infallible, of course; as some high profile cases in recent days have demonstrated. Still, it's a good deal better than nothing.

So those who are worried that 'failing to engage with services' will bring them problems, don't need to be overly concerned. The real problems can  start when something out of the ordinary happens to a child who has already been the object of remark in this way. Say. for instance, a child who is not at nursery or school, whose parents do not turn up for vaccinations, who has avoided health Visitors; suppose such a child presents at the GP with what might possibly be non-accidental injuries?  Now, the questions may begin. This actually happened to me when my daughter was a baby and it is worth seeing how such things can work out. I was an habitual avoider of services and dodger of Health Visitors and there was never any question of my daughter attending nursery or school.  When she was young, I used to help run groups for parents who were unable to cope with their under-5s, usually because the kid had a special need of some sort. Some of these children were exceedingly aggressive. One day, i left my daughter asleep in her buggy, turned my back for a moment and a three year-old boy bit her on the face. When I say bit, I mean bit! His mother had to prise him away from my daughters cheek like a rottweiler!

Now without going into too many details, the mark on my daughter's face from this attack, brought questions. I was quite open about the cause, did not resent the implication of those asking the questions that this might be a deliberate injury to my child, caused within the family. The result was that the whole thing fizzled out; which is how it should of course have been.

It is at this stage that some home educators make life needlessly difficult for themselves. Quite a few that one sees on the various lists have gone mad at this point, when they have been asked questions of this sort. Remember, these are often parents like me, who have declined services and refused nursery places. They have already brought themselves to attention in this way. Then, when they are asked what they see as insulting questions, they react with anger and aggression. Worse, they sometimes attempt to conceal the truth from professionals. We recently saw a parent on one list advised to give a false name and address and pretend to be moving out of the district,  just because she has been asked a question. In the past, we have seen parents who do not want to use their local hospital, because they are afraid that the local authority will learn of their existence.  They have travelled to another part of the country to attend A & E for this reason. Others, refuse to register their children with  a GP. Then, to cap it all, when they are asked about any of this, they become aggressive. Little wonder that they are by that time regarded by social services as probable abusers!

In short, no parent is going to run into any real difficulties simply for refusing to engage with any services on offer. They must realise though that they might draw attention to themselves. If, at a later stage, they are asked questions and become defensive or angry, then they could perhaps create problems which will make their lives difficult. Returning to the incident with my daughter, imagine if I had tried to give a false name and address when asked about her injuries! What if I had taken her to a hospital in a neighbouring county, because I didn't want my local authority to learn of her existence?  Worse still, suppose I had raised my voice and become aggressive when the questions began? The systems for identifying children at risk are not designed to trap home educating parents. But from time to time, this can happen, for reasons which I have explained. Under such circumstances, parents can either smooth matters over amicably, or they can make matters a hundred times worse by their behaviour. This is a choice for individual  home educators to make, but I know which I think makes more sense!

The problem with the internet for home educated children

I said yesterday that research on the internet posed special problems for some home educated children. Of course, it is not only home educated children who get a lot of their information from the internet and to illustrate the problem clearly, we shall look first at something which happened recently at a secondary school. The pupils had been told to research on the internet about America’s first inhabitants. One girl turned up at the next lesson with a lot of impressive looking stuff from a university website. She had discovered that the ancestors of the native Americans were in fact Jews who arrived in the country about 500 BC. She had also found a link to an academic article about supposed DNA evidence which backed up this mad idea. Here is one of the sources of her knowledge:

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=18&num=1&id=601&cat_id=488

     Actually, it all sounds very plausible and if it were not for the fact that I know Mormonism to be raving mad, I might almost be persuaded myself by all this fancy, scientific language!

     Now fortunately, the teacher was able to put her right about this and explain that Brigham Young University was not the best place to go to for information on this topic. For him to do this though, he needed to have a good deal of prior knowledge about the subject. He needed to know about the Clovis People, the land bridge over the Bering Strait and also a bit about the beliefs of Mormonism. In other words, the teacher was able to guide the child to a correct understanding of the implausibility of what she had found during her research; not withstanding the fact that she had been getting the information from a university. Left to herself, the girl had gone hopelessly astray. Of course, she should ideally have cross-checked what she had found at Brigham Young with various other sources and perhaps visited the library as well to look at a few books. Teenagers aren’t always like that though and many take the first thing they read as being true; as long as it is from a university and contains many long words.

     Consider the case of a home educated child whose parents might not know  about the origin of humans in the Americas or anything about Mormonism. If their child announced that she had learned that the aboriginal inhabitants of America were from the Middle East, they might not have the knowledge to set her straight. It is entirely possible that the child could stumble across this nonsense and then go off believing it to be true. Of course, if the child were to be told that this was not the true history of America and urged to look more deeply into the subject, she might be able to get the matter a little clearer. But why would she do so if she believed the first site that she came across?  In other words, just roaming around the internet and picking up information in this way without the guidance of a knowledgeable adult is not really the best way to learn things. This is of course because the internet contains an awful lot of misleading and downright untruthful information. 

     There is a strand in modern British home education which holds that the internet is the ideal place for  children to acquire information. Indeed, some believe that a child can more or less educate herself without any guidance, provided that she is given unlimited access to the internet. This is a mistaken view.  Without a teacher and guide to correct errors and set the child along the right path to knowledge, there are too many pitfalls to make this a suitable mode of education. Certainly, the child might bring some of the idiotic things she learns on the internet to her parents, thus giving them a chance to put her right. But there are still likely to be many things which remain uncorrected; urban myths, old wives’ tales and downright fabrications.  This is why most educators feel the need for a skeleton framework of knowledge to ensure that the child acquires the basics in a sound way. Once this is in place and suitable research techniques have been taught, the child will be less at  hazard from falling into beliefs such as that native Americans are really the descendants of the Children of Israel!

More about Pastor Warren

I thought that readers might like to read a little more about Pastor Warren and his strange beliefs. The NCCG, which he founded and controls, is regarded by some as a cult. See:


http://www.nccg.info/strangebeliefs.html


Readers will be surprised and perhaps sightly disconcerted to learn that gay people are not the only ones who have demons in them; those born out of wedlock suffer from the same problem! So too do schizophrenics and even flu is caused by demons. And of course, they are piloting the flying saucers.....

A 'war' on home education?

I have been exchanging emails with some parents in America who say that a worldwide attack upon home education seems to be taking place. They used the expression a 'war' on home education. I can in a way see what they mean.

Here are a few of the developments in the last couple of years which have alarmed home educators. In February 2008, a court in California ruled that only parents with a teaching qualification were entitled to educate their children at home. This ruling was not enforced however. A year later, the British government announced an enquiry into home education. The result was very nearly a law which introduced restrictions to the practice. Although this law didn't make it onto the statute book, there have been several rumblings which suggest that the matter is far from over. In June this year, Sweden passed a law which forbade home education except in 'exceptional circumstances'. These 'exceptional circumstances' have yet to be defined. This new legislation also paved the way for the criminal prosecution of those who failed to send their children to school. In Russia recently, it was announced that the law on education is to change. Currently, 'family education' is explicitly recognised in law; the new education law which will be passed by the end of the year makes no mention at all of this form of education. The stated aim is the modernisation of education in the Russian Federation. There are estimated to be over a hundred thousand home educated children in Russia and, as in other parts of the world, the numbers are growing.

The latest development comes from Botswana in southern Africa. Last month the police raided the homes of several Seventh Day Adventist Christians who were teaching their children at home. They seized teaching materials and the parents were summonsed to appear in court. The judge ruled a couple of days ago that since the children were entitled under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) to a good education, then they should be enrolled in school. They suggested that being educated at home was an education 'on the cheap' and therefore against the spirit of the UNCRC. It is felt by some American home educators that the UNCRC is being used as a vehicle to force parents to send their children into state education and that this is also behind the new, tough Swedish approach to the matter. America is one of only two countries in the world not to ratify the UNCRC; the other is Somalia.

In this country too, some home educating parents sense a conspiracy against home education. Even the inclusion of a storyline on home education in a drama series set in a school, Waterloo Road, was seen as being part of a coordinated government campaign to portray home education in a poor light and thus prepare the way for new regulations.

The truth is that various countries are growing uneasy about home education. Often, as in the case of the united Kingdom, this is not because of any opposition to home education per se, but because of the suspicion that home education is being used as a cover for other things. Thirty years ago, practically every child in Britain attended school. Those who did not were pursued vigorously and made to do so. The situation was similar in the United States, with all but a handful of children attending school. Now there are many children in both this country and the US who are not pupils at any school. Some of these children are being educated at home and some are not. This is also the situation in a number of other countries and the numbers are growing inexorably each year.

As we have seen, some American states, Texas for instance, are becoming uneasy because the number of those being taken out of school with the claim that they are going to be home educated is growing so rapidly that even the home education organisations are baffled. Both school authorities and home educators themselves are beginning to think that these high numbers of new 'home educators' are being used to mask dropouts from the school system. A similar stunt is worked in this country, with local authorities tacitly allowing truants and disruptive pupils to leave school under the pretext of home education. Central governments are trying to put a stop to such practices and one of the ways of doing so is by introducing new legislation which will make it harder for parents to register their children as being home educated. An inevitable result of such laws is that genuine home educators are apt to find their lives being made a little more difficult.

I do not myself see anything sinister in these news stories from around the world. True, there are one or two countries like Germany and Sweden who have an historic aversion to home education, but most countries tolerate it to varying degrees. However, as the practice spreads and becomes more popular it is inevitable that some parents and schools should latch onto the idea and use it as the basis for scams of their own. These can range from ridding a school of awkward pupils to keeping a child at home in order to abuse her more easily. It is usually these peripheral activities that concern governments, rather than home education itself.

Progressive education

For most of recorded history, the formal education of children entailed an adult teaching a body of knowledge or skills to those a good deal younger than himself. Perhaps the earliest reference we have to schooling of this kind comes from a clay tablet unearthed in Nippur, in Iraq. Dating from around 1700 BC, it says;

The man in charge of Sumerian said: 'Why didn't you speak Sumerian?' He caned me. The teacher said: 'Your handwriting is unsatisfactory.' He caned me. I began to hate learning...

Sounds a lot like my own school days!

There were experiments with other methods of education, especially from the late eighteenth century onwards and including places like Summerhill, but until the 1960s, most schools remained pretty much the same as they had been in Victorian times and before. Rows of children, sitting at desks, facing the front and being handed knowledge by the teacher in charge. No nonsense about the teacher as friend, guide or facilitator; this was the teacher as pedagogue. Those of us who were at school in the 1950s will remember classes of over forty primary school children being taught in this way; all sitting quietly at their desks, copying down what had been written on the blackboard.

The 1960s saw many changes in society. The legalising of homosexuality and abortion, the pill, abolition of censorship, increased freedom of young people and of course enormous changes in the way that schools were run. These changes were part of the revolution which was taking place generally in society at that time. The scrapping of the 11+, the introduction of new and informal methods to primary schools, these are the kind of things I am talking about as regards schools. The changes to primary schools were especially dramatic. Many schools chucked out the desks and arranged the classrooms with small groups sitting around tables. Everything became a lot less formal. Much of what was happening in schools at that time was known by the general term of 'progressive' education.

It is important to realise that the motivations which prompted these changes to the traditional classrooms and teaching methods were philosophical rather than empirical. I mean by this that it was not that objective observers studied what was happening in schools and concluded that the techniques used there were not working. Instead, it was noticed that schools were still being run in a very old fashioned and authoritarian way and this seemed to be increasingly at odds with the changes taking place in the rest of society. The feeling was that it would be nicer if children could stop being regimented and made to sit quietly in rows and if they, like others in sixties society, were allowed more freedom for self expression. Thus did 'progressive' education begin to take over British schools.

From this progressive educational movement grew many of the teaching methods which are common today in schools. Collaborative learning, discovery learning, enquiry-based learning; all these flourished as a result of the ideas which became popular in the 1960s. A lot of the child centred teaching methods used by home educators had their roots too in this period. As I said above, the adoption of all these techniques was not a result of any sort of educational research or evidence that the old, didactic methods had been found wanting. Rather, it was an ethical and philosophical decision because many people felt that it was wrong to boss children about so much and make them sit still while adults taught them. It is important to understand this distinction and not to muddle up the ethical basis for child centred educational methods with any supposed educational benefits. This is not to say that there are no such benefits, but if there are, then these are definitely by way of being a by-product of the whole business.

As I have pointed out recently, questions are now being asked in some quarters about the efficacy of progressive educational methods. Some evidence is emerging which suggests that these methods may not be as effective as straightforward, old-fashioned teaching. Anybody who has watched 'collaborative learning' in action in a classroom setting will readily understand these concerns. It is not uncommon in a primary school to see an entire morning wasted on letting a group of ten year olds find out which substances will float and which will sink in a tank of water. The huge amount of time wasted in some of these episodes puts British children at a great disadvantage educationally compared with the children in some other European countries where more traditional teaching is the norm.

In any debate about unschooling, child centred learning, natural learning, autonomous education, enquiry-based learning and other strands of the progressive education movement, it must always be borne in mind that the motivation behind these things has always been social and ethical, rather than educational. If progressive education were a great improvement in terms of education alone, then we would by now be reaping the fruits of it in a big way. That this does not seem to have happened is causing an increasing number of professionals in the field to start scratching their heads and asking what the educational benefits have been of this revolution.

A common frame of reference

I don't think that any home educating parent subscribes to the popular myth of the home educated child as a socially inept misfit, irrevocably harmed by his selfish parents' insistence on not allowing him to join a peer group and attend school like everybody else's kids. Certainly, the available research does not seem to bear out this widely held view. Both Rudner in Achievement and Demographics of Home School Students ( Education Policy Analysis Archives Volume 7, No. 8 1999) and also Shyers in Comparison of Social Adjustment between Home and Traditionally School Students (University of Florida, Ph.D Dissertation 1992), found no evidence at all to show that the social skills of home educated children were inferior to those of children at school. Quite the opposite in fact! Both found that home educated children actually scored higher than the schooled. Their social skills tended to be better than those of children confined to classrooms.

There is one way, however, that the home educated child cannot help but be something of an outsider, both during childhood and also in later life. Everybody has been to school. Black or white, Muslim or Christian, rich or poor, male and female, young and old; it is practically the only thing that everybody in this country has in common. The experience of childhood is shaped and defined by school to such an extent that it becomes an integral and assumed part of the background of all the citizens of the United Kingdom. It is a great unifying factor.

Talk to anybody at random and they will have a fund of anecdotes about their childhood, all of them coloured by the background of school. Breaking up for the summer holidays, cold winter's days on the football pitch, school dinners, playtime, the experience of belonging to a close group of friends, even encountering bullying; for almost everybody you meet, this is common ground.
Not so of course for the child educated at home. True, her life might be happier than that of the schoolchild; at least that is what her parents tell themselves. But different, certainly. The children met once a week at a home education group are not the same as the closely knit bunch of friends seen every day for six hours or so at school. Better perhaps, but definitely not the same. Swimming regularly with a parent is not at all the same as changing for PE with your friends at school. Walking to and from school with friends is a different experience from walking to the library or museum with your mother.

Children educated at home by their parents are thus deprived of a common frame of reference shared by everybody else in the country. Even those who have thoroughly enjoyed the experience of being home educated can feel a little wistful about this when all their contemporaries are chatting about school days. Because school still lingers on in the hearts of us, even forty or fifty years after we leave. A lot of adults still have a mental association with September as 'back to school'. It is impossible to see a bunch of schoolchildren without fleetingly remembering one's own school days.

Of course, for the home educating parent, these memories might be more likely to be painful than for most people. It is curious to note the number of high profile home educators whose time at school was unhappy. It may be coincidence, but it looks to me rather a leitmotif of the home educating parent; that they were often bullied or otherwise unhappy at school. Not all of them of course, but a remarkable number make throwaway remarks which reveal that whatever their ostensible motives for home education, the experience of their own school days is a factor in the decision to home educate.

Going to school is, as I observed above, the one thing which we all have in common. I have never met a man of my own age who hadn't been to school and I suspect that this is the case with all the other home educating parents who might be reading this. We all do what we feel to be best for our children, I take that as given, but we should think very carefully before setting our children apart in this way from everybody else in the country whom they are likely to meet!

The strange case of facilitated communication

During the late eighties I was working in a residential unit for autistic adults with severe learning difficulties. This was quite exciting because these people had absolutely no spoken language and some of them were prone to launching murderous assaults upon anybody who annoyed them in any way. They had all be recently released from long term institutions such as Harperbury Hospital in Hertfordshire, as part of the care in the community programme. While I was working there, we were approached by a group of people who offered to help us communicate more effectively with our residents. At that time most of them knew only a few Makaton signs; Makaton is a simplified version of British Sign Language. The method which was now suggested was facilitated communication.

Facilitated communication was very popular among some of those working with non-verbal autistic people at that time. It worked a bit like a Ouija Board. A large piece of cardboard with the alphabet printed on it was used and the autistic person's arm was held by the communicator and they were 'helped' to point to the letters. The person with severe learning difficulties who had never spoken a word in his life could then communicate by spelling out messages; the whole idea being that these people had actually learned to read and spell by themselves, quite unknown to anybody else. In fact they didn't have learning difficulties at all, they were really just normal people locked into bodies which would not obey them.

It sounded odd to me as I knew all these residents very well and simply could not believe that they could really read and write. The thesis was that their aggressive behaviour was caused by their inability to make themselves understood. Anyway, we went along with it and I watched with interest. it soon became clear to me that the whole thing was nonsense. rather than 'helping' the resident to spell out the words, the facilitator was, whether consciously or not, using the persons hand as a pointer and making up the messages herself. I began asking questions and making notes about what was happening, upon which a curious thing happened. The whole thing stopped working at once. It turned out that close observation had the effect of destroying the trust which existed in the room and damaging what was taking place. I agreed to stop taking notes and limited myself to asking questions of the facilitators when we were alone. It then appeared that even the presence of a sceptic was enough to disrupt what was happening. I was banned from even sitting in on the sessions.

I managed to get this stopped in the end, because the residents own money was being spent on this swindle and it was outrageous. Tests were carried out in the USA on this process and it was found that if the facilitator could not hear the questions being asked, then the autistic person could not answer. It was conclusively demonstrated that, as I suspected, the whole thing was ridiculous.

I mentioned Ouija Boards earlier and this was very similar to my experiences with contacting the dead. Because whenever I have taken part in seances or anything similar, exactly the same thing happens. It will not work while I am present. Very odd.

I have for years been suspicious of any unusual phenomenon which people grow angry about when questioned. I am also very suspicious of any sort of activity which is destroyed or disrupted by being watched or which stops taking place when a cynical observer is present. Transcendental Meditation, the transubstantiation of the Host, summoning up the dead, spoon bending, dowsing and so on are all like this in some way. So of course is autonomous education.

While I was allowed on lists such as HE-UK and EO, I asked many questions about autonomous education. The aim was not to make people angry but to try and make some sense of the thing. I soon discovered that people grew angry and defensive very quickly when questioned about this subject. The idea seemed to be that one should take the existence of this on faith and that it was bad form to be sceptical about it. This is how people react when questioned about their religious beliefs. I also noticed that when discussion turned to research, parents claimed that they would not want an unsympathetic observer to conduct research into autonomous education because their cynicism might harm the educational process. Hence the attempt to organise a boycott of the Ofsted survey last year and the determination of many not to take part in the Department for Education's longitudinal study of home education outcomes. This is similar to the way that dowsers will not allow objective observers to test their abilities. Those using telekinesis to bend spoons or clairvoyance to talk to predict the future also dislike being observed by non-believers. Their powers often fade under lack of sympathy!

There is another similarity between facilitated communication and autonomous education. Parents often follow these unconventional treatments when they feel that they have been failed by orthodox medicine and education. So it is in many cases with autonomous education. Conventional schooling has been a flop for their child and so they turn to alternative methods. An alternative method which cannot be measured, assessed or, most important of all, ever disproved. This has to be an attractive prospect. My child was written off as a failure/bullied/struggled/could not cope, but it was nothing to do with her at all; it was the system which failed. I have seen this many times in the field of autism with not only facilitated communication but also Holding Therapy, mega-vitamins and various other things.

Mind, I do not say that autonomous education actually does fall into the same category as some of the other belief systems which I discuss above; only that its adherents behave in the same way. As far as I am concerned, the jury is still out, but I have to say that my own inclination is moving in a certain direction.

Home educated children and socialisation

A mother who teaches her child at home asked me recently about the question of socialisation. It is practically an article of faith among many home educators that the entire socialisation problem is a complete myth. Indeed, even asking about it can make one look like a newcomer to the whole business and probably one who has been got at by their local authority into the bargain! I mean, socialisation! Everybody knows that home educated children aren't stuck at home, but get out to meet loads of people. Well, yes......and no.

The person who asked me about this was well aware that her child would be able to socialise to the extent of meeting other children. What she was specifically concerned about was how her child would be able to build relationships with those children. This is a very good question indeed, and one which is not always addressed by home educators.

There is of course all the difference in the world between seeing the same people at work every day, perhaps going to lunch with them, walking to the tube, going for a drink after work and so on and the situation with those we see briefly for an hour a week; say at an evening class. In the one case, which is very similar to school, we get to know them pretty well. In the other, which is like the ballet class which a home educated child might attend, we barely have the chance to exchange a few words. A lot of the "socialisation" undertaken by home educated children falls into this latter category; an hour or so once a week for specific activities. There is seldom the sustained, day in day out, week after week type of contact with the same bunch of kids which gives rise naturally to friendships at school.

There are ways round this. When my own daughter was little, I would assiduously "court" the parents of children whom I though might make suitable friends for her. This is a damned tricky business for a man, since most of the other parents are mothers. On the one hand you run the risk of looking like a predatory paedophile cruising around looking for new victims, on the other you might present as a lone father yourself, hitting on single mothers! Since my own social skills are nor particularly well developed, this led to some awkward situations over the years. I had a fair number of successes though, children that my daughter could have for sleepovers and so on. I have to say that I had to put quite a bit of work into this, even just to acquire three or four regular friends for my daughter. I must also say that the associations which I was obliged to form with various mothers in order to facilitate this gave rise to a certain amount of pursing of lips, narrowing of eyes and sharp intakes of breath from my wife.

Interestingly, now that she is sixteen and more or less her own boss, Simone does not choose to see any of these friends whom I so carefully engineered for her. Some of them, she saw for over eight years, but the friendships, if that is what they were, died without my input. I was of course always careful to ask her, "Would you like to see Joanne?" or Mary or whoever, so this was all done with her approval. Never the less, I do not really know just how good an idea it is for a parent to be arranging a child's social life in this way. In retrospect, perhaps not a very good idea.

The good news is that now she is at college, she does not seem to have any difficulty socialising and making friends. Presumably the experience of being home educated did her no particular harm in that regard. (This does not of course mean that when she is thirty, she will not be weeping to her therapist about the lonely childhood which she was forced to endure in the company of her mad father.) I am curious to know what others have found about this, especially those whose children have now grown up. The person who asked me this question visits this Blog and I am sure that she would like to hear other people's views about this.

The "Tasmanian Model"

During his review of elective home education, Graham Badman touted around the idea of the "Tasmanian Model". To put it briefly, in Tasmania home education is in effect supervised by home educators themselves, via a council funded by the government. Most home educating parents who reject the idea of anybody inspecting the educational provision which they are making for their children, seemed no keener on this idea than that of local authority officers entering their homes.

The Tasmanian Home Educators Advisory Council was set up in 1993. It has six members. Three of these are home educating parents and three are nominated by the Minister of Education. Together with paid staff, they are responsible for the registration and monitoring of home education in Tasmania. The scheme seems to work pretty well and the monitoring is not at all onerous. they simply seek to establish that some sort of an education is actually taking place. Many home educating parents in Tasmania feel happier having these people monitoring their provision, rather than retired teachers, as is often the case in this country.
Even this modest idea was dismissed out of hand by most of those to whom Graham Badman spoke. For many, the stance was firmly against any type of monitoring at all. I have to say on a personal note that I would rather have dealings with an ex-teacher than some loopy home educating parent, by there that is just me! The whole idea now seems to have sunk from sight. And yet......

The obvious candidates as partners with the DCSF in such a scheme were Education Otherwise. This is because for most local authorities as well as the DCSF, Education Otherwise is home education in this country. As many readers will know, there is a strong trend among some home educators against EO, for reasons I do not feel competent to judge. The idea of having somebody from Education Otherwise coming into their home to judge their educational provision seemed to enrage a lot of parents almost as much as the thought of the local authority doing it.

I have an idea that we have not heard the last of the "Tasmanian Model" though. Graham Badman seemed so keen on it, that I could not help but wonder whether or not somebody had been telling him about it and urging him to consider its merits. I have to say, I have no solid grounds for believing this, although there have been a few curious pointers in that direction. Paula Rothermel, for instance, spent several months in Tasmania a while ago. Spooky coincidence? And of course there is Education Otherwise's curious ambivalence with regard to registration. Everybody else, with the possible exception of the present writer, has damned this idea publicly in no uncertain terms. Education Otherwise however, are playing their hand exceedingly close to the chest on this. Witness Fiona Nicholson's brilliant prevarication when the topic was broached at the select committee hearing last month.

Although not myself a member, I have observed with pleasure how Education Otherwise manages to run its affairs. The gambit of holding AGMs in odd locations which would mean members having to book into an hotel for the night, is not of course an original one. It is the sort of thing that large companies tend to do more, in order to frustrate the provisions of the Companies Act. I have never before seen it done by small charities. Their use of lawyers to try and prevent transparency is also curious and likely to arouse suspicions that something is afoot! We shall see. In the meantime, I hold to my original suggestion that we have not seen the back of the "Tasmanian Model" and that I would not be at all surprised to see Education Otherwise suddenly lurch out of the mists bearing a commission from HM Government to supervise home education in this country.

Giving choices to children

For me, one of the greatest things about home education has been the opportunity to give my daughter the widest possible range of choices in her life. When a child is two or three, it is quite impossible to know what direction her interests will lie in. Will she want to be a carpenter? A doctor? A writer? Nobody can tell. When children are taught at home, it is of course far easier to arrange for a variety of experiences and activities so that they can find out what they enjoy doing, perhaps get some idea what they might want to do in later life. As an example, to this end I took my daughter to the Royal College of Surgeons Pathology department when she was five and showed her the body parts there and let her examine the preserved corpses. She did not care over much for this. I got her to dissect hearts and livers of animals when she was a bit older, which was helpful for the IGCSE Biology examination. As a result of all this, she decided against medicine as a possible career, which was a pity!

At other times, I made it possible for her to help a garage mechanic at work, fire a shotgun, go down a couple of mines, stroke a tiger and crocodile, as well as a huge number of other things. Always, the aim was for her to discover what she liked, what she herself wished to do. At the same time that all these activities were taking place, I was providing her with the tools which would enable her to make the most of her abilities. She was very early in speaking and adored books from an early age. Obviously it would give her pleasure to be able read books independently, rather than be reliant upon me or her mother. Accordingly, I taught her to read. This was not a tricky job and by her second birthday she was reading fluently. This enormously increased her chances of finding out what she liked, what she was interested in. She could look at reference books and find out stuff for herself. This again freed her and gave her the power to choose for herself what she wished to read about. Teaching her to write allowed her to put down her thoughts and ideas in permanent form. This has been important to her since she was three or four.

By the age of eleven, she was talking about going to university when she was older. Of course, she could easily have changed her mind, but it seemed a wise move to keep her options open. A child of that age cannot really be expected to know what will be needed to get a place at college or university. As an adult, that was my job. I therefore chose a fairly broad range of IGCSEs such as would be likely to impress a university if that was still what she wished to do when she was eighteen. At the same time, I made sure that they were the sort of qualifications which would also impress an employer. Covering all bases again, you see. Physics, Chemistry and Biology were obvious choices, as were English Language and Mathematics. As for the rest, I thought History and English Literature would be interesting for her. She also wanted to study Religion, so at the last moment I also included that. The purpose of taking these examinations was always to make sure that she had as many choices open to her as possible. Imagine if she had reached her sixteenth birthday, wanted to take four A levels in order to get into a decent university and then found that no college would accept her without GCSEs! This would restrict her options greatly.

Underpinning all my work with my child's education has been the awareness that she alone must decide the course her own future. To do this though, she needs enough knowledge to make an informed choice. The amount of knowledge needed has changed as she has grown older. Being literate increased enormously the information available to her and therefore made it possible for her to make more and better choices. Without the ability to read, children are often dependent upon their parents and other adults for information. This is not a good thing, because the adults around them may have motives of their own for wanting their children's access to information to be restricted. Being a fluent reader from a young age also opened up vistas for my daughter. It was reading "Brideshead Revisited" when she was twelve which caused her to decide that she would like to go to Oxford!

I have sometimes been accused of believing that the way that I educated my daughter is the only true path and that I see other parents as foolish and negligent. This is of course absolute nonsense. I am very strongly committed to young people being able to make their own choices. Ignorant, ill-informed and illiterate people though, are not generally well placed to make good choices. This is why I find so much of the cant about childrens' "choice" to be a little hollow and unconvincing. Without a proper base of knowledge and skills there can be no real choice.

The way the wind is blowing

One sometimes sees a news item which although seemingly trivial in itself, appears on reflection to indicate something of a sea change in attitudes or opinions. One such appeared a few days ago. It was to the effect that some high profile employers take at least as much notice of the GCSEs which a prospective employee has, as they do of the quality of his or her degree. This could have serious repercussions in the world of home education. A number of universities already set more store than others by GCSEs when making offers; Oxford for example expects as routine, six or eight at A*.

For some years now, the feeling among home educators is that they don’t generally need to bother with GCSEs and if they do then it need only be English and Mathematics. It is common to hear remarks like, “Oh, nobody takes GCSEs seriously now, they’re completely devalued”. Or again, “It’s up to my daughter if she takes any exams”. All the evidence is that precisely the opposite is happening, that is to say rather than becoming less important as the years go by, GCSEs appear to be actually growing in significance for employers, universities and colleges of further education. I have mixed feelings about this trend, but it is undeniably true that this seems to be the way that things are moving.

I have of course remarked before on the number of colleges and sixth forms who will not accept as A level students any teenager who does not have at least five GCSEs. This means in practice that home educated children often end up on arts based courses rather than academic ones. This is because these are the sort of courses which can be accessed by audition or portfolio. Even studying GCSEs when they are sixteen is becoming very hard. Few areas now have colleges which offer GCSE courses and those that do often want the student already to have some GCSEs, a genuine Catch 22 situation! If employers too are going to start grading job applicants, even those who have degrees, by the number of GCSEs, then the prospect for teenagers who have none at all may soon be pretty bleak.

Many parents do not face up to this problem until their children are fourteen. Sometimes they then try and enter them for a few GCSEs, only to discover that the child has not the necessary skills to apply herself for the sustained and methodical study needed to take a formal qualification like the GCSE. Others pin their hopes on Open University points and various non-conventional examinations in basic English. Unfortunately, both colleges and universities tend to be a little sniffy about some of this. They actually want GCSEs.

This is not really leading anywhere in particular, I am just thinking out loud. I can assure readers that I do not myself especially value GCSEs, but many do. I have a strong suspicion that a few years down the line it will be all but impossible for a child to gain access to either a job or post sixteen education without the them. This would of course really make autonomous education impossible, proving even more effective than anything which Graham Badman’s report recommends. The New Diplomas are not really suitable for home educated children and neither is the International Baccalaureate. The bad news is that the GCSEs themselves are moving towards a system where controlled assessments in the classroom will be needed.

I am guessing that pretty soon home educating parents will be faced with two choices. Either they will continue to reject studying as a routine business for GCSEs, in which case their children will not be able to go on to college or university, or indeed get any but the most menial job. Failing this they will be obliged to register their children at least part of the time at schools so that they are able to take GCSEs there and take part in the controlled assessments and so on which must be undertaken in classrooms. Either way, I think that the days of home educators refusing to engage with the educational system at all could well be numbered.

The offbeat ideologues of home education

Every discipline has its share of mavericks and oddballs, who are generally eyed askance by other professionals in the field. Fred Hoyle the astronomer springs to mind, as does John Allegro the Dead Sea Scrolls expert. Allegro of course was once a respected scholar, until he got it into his head that the early Christians had belonged to a hitherto unknown cult which worshipped hallucinogenic mushrooms. Often these weird individuals are very well known and admired by the general public, while fellow professionals regard them as either harmless cranks or raving lunatics. They are fond of writing popular books expounding their strange ideas, rather than submitting well researched papers to respectable journals for peer review. Such is the case with the half dozen or so academics who have espoused the cause of home education.

In common with wild cards from other fields such as psychology, astronomy, archaeology and so on, they tend to appeal directly to the laity. There is good reason for this. When John Allegro became convinced that Jesus was a magic mushroom, he wrote a book about it which was serialised in the Sunday Mirror. There would of course have been little point in trying to interest other Orientalists and archaeologists in his theory; they would know at once that it was sheer nonsense. Far better to address the readers of a tabloid newspaper. Similarly, when some professor of education convinces himself that children do not need to be taught to read, there would not be much point in getting an academic journal to take up the idea. The readers of such a publication would require detailed and properly conducted research to back up such an astonishing hypothesis. A crazy idea like this would probably not even make it through the peer review. The answer is to talk to ordinary parents, who do not really know enough about these ideas to see them for what they are and will in any case be very receptive to the idea that they do not have to teach their children, that the whole process of education can take place automatically.

Apart from books aimed at the public, these characters present papers to obscure conferences in out of the way places like Latvia. These papers are subsequently quoted as reverently as if they had been published in "Nature"! Some of the most popular assertions about home education can be traced back to this sort of paper. Books on the subject are often based upon a mere dozen or so families, some of whom are close personal friends of the author. Fortunately, the left leaning, libertarian parents reading them know less about the matter than those actually involved in education and child development and so are not likely to spot the glaring holes in the reasoning presented.

Throughout the world there are many thousands of people studying and teaching education, the psychology of childhood and so on. Few parents ever hear about these people. They prefer to listen to the six or seven who say reassuring things like, "Children learn without teachers. Don't bother to teacher Johnny to read, he'll pick it up of his own accord." They either do not know, or more likely do not care, that 99.99% of these experts' own colleagues view them as amiable and well meaning crackpots.

The middle of the road, Part 2

A week ago I was injudicious enough to post a light hearted piece in which I suggested that at either end of the home education spectrum are groups of fanatics whose opinions are diametrically opposed to each other. I gave it as my view that Ed Balls and his cronies are at one end and autonomously educating parents at the other. I also mused that those like the present writer who remain resolutely in the middle of the road are apt to be run over. Ironically, but quite predictably, I was promptly knocked down by a bunch of autonomous educators who took exception to the thesis advanced, which was that they were by way of being extremists!

The fault is of course entirely mine, because I worded a couple of sentences somewhat elliptically and several readers jumped to the wrong conclusions about what I was saying. Referring to autonomous educators, I said that this group thought that children shouldn't be taught. I cannot really complain about readers being literal minded and failing to read between the lines; I am after all a world class pedant in my own right! What I actually meant to imply was, "This group believe that children shouldn't be taught (as a matter of routine and certainly not unless they actually want to be taught)." I did not for a moment suppose that autonomous educators would actually refuse to teach their children if the kids actually asked to be taught.

Mind you, I have to say that in my experience this is a rather rare occurrence. My own daughter has often asked me to take her to the theatre or buy her various magazines. I do not ever recollect her asking me to explain the failure of the Schlieffen Plan in August 1914 or to teach her about the Gallipoli Campaign in 1915. Perhaps she is a very weird and atypical teenager, but I was obliged to arrange this myself and set times when I would teach her that sort of thing. I have a suspicion that had it been left to her, she would not have come to me and asked to be taught about the six specific themes of World War I which she needed for the IGCSE History; I always had to take the initiative. Perhaps other readers have teenagers who are a little more enthusiastic about stuff like that and do actually ask to be taught about it.

To put the case for there being two groups of extremists involved in home educations, I will say this. The vast majority of people, both parents and teachers, believe that children should be taught regularly and that this teaching should take place according to some sort of plan. I myself believe this. I think most of us would agree that this is the commonly held view. Ed Balls and some of his friends go much further than this and believe that teaching can only take place in schools and that a child not at school is a child not being taught, or at least not being taught properly. I imagine that he has reached this conclusion by some exceedingly faulty induction. I guess that he has said to himself, "Teaching takes place in schools, home educated children are not at school; therefore, home educated children are not being taught." That muffled whirring noise which is faintly audible, is Wittgenstein spinning round like a Catherine wheel in his grave.......

In short, the folk at the DCSF are saying that children need teaching and that parents are not really capable of providing it and that the education of their children will suffer as a consequence.
Autonomous educators seem to be saying precisely the opposite. They seem to be saying, from all that I am able to apprehend, that children do not need to be taught, unless they particularly want to be and that they are in any case quite capable of learning without formal teaching or even any sort of plan. Their views thus differ both from that of the Ed Balls faction and also from most ordinary people. My own views lie between both these extremes and firmly with the majority of normal people. I believe that children need to be taught and that this teaching has to be done in a planned and systematic fashion. I don't think it matters much whether the teaching takes place at home or in a school, although it is easier and more effective to do it at home. And that is why I regard myself as a middle of the road type of home educator who has little patience for the extremists whom one finds on the fringes.

What is a curriculum?

So many autonomously educating parents seem to be vehemently opposed to the very idea of a curriculum, that I think it worth considering what we mean by the expression. A curriculum, at its most basic, is no more than a plan of study. It can be as simple as a list of subjects which will be covered over the next year or so. This is in itself hugely controversial, because of course the Badman report recommends that some such plan be compulsory and many parents are determined to have nothing to do with the idea. It has even been suggested that just giving such a plan would render autonomous education impossible. This seems very strange. Let us have a look at a curriculum and see whether or not it really would have this effect.

Here is a very simple curriculum; English, Mathematics, History, Geography, Science, Art, Music. How could such a curriculum work in practice? Let's look at one subject, Art. This could involve painting, drawing, making models from plasticine, visiting art galleries, looking at books about artists, watching television programmes, the list is endless. Just by doing one or two of those things each week, Art has been covered. What about science? Visits to zoos, keeping and observing an ant farm, hunting for fossils, watching tadpoles grow, going to a museum, attending a lecture, reading a Horrible Science book, watching television. One or two of those activities each week and science is covered. And so it goes on.

Most of these things are already being done by most home educating parents. In other words, the lifestyle and educational techniques used with their children will not have to change in the slightest degree in order to comply with the recommendation for a "Plan of Work". I am guessing that many parents are following a curriculum already, even if they do not call it by that name and have nothing written down. Most of us arrange a programme of event for out children which cover areas like art and music. Few parents fail to read to their children or discuss aspects of science with them. A curriculum like the one above does not tie a parent down to any particular activity or force the child to do anything against her inclinations. There is nothing scary about it, still less is it likely to destroy the fun of the child's learning!

A good thing about a curriculum is that it can act as an aide-memoire, reminding us of what we hope to do each week. It would not of course be a disaster if we missed out on science one week, or spent more time on Music than on History. The curriculum just tells us what we hope to be covering one way or another. I honestly cannot see why so many people are afraid of it.

What are the advantages and disadvantages for home educated children in collecting half a dozen GCSEs?

There are a number of advantages for a teenager in taking GCSEs. Firstly, the possession of a clutch of GCSEs demonstrates to a college, sixth form or potential employer that a teenager has some kind of basic education and can probably read, write and carry out the four basic arithmetical operations. Another advantage is that a child cannot help but pick up some useful information about science, history and English literature while studying these subjects. It provides a good training ground for the self discipline which will be needed if the teenager decides to go on to college or university. Of course, it is still possible to get a college place or job without any formal qualifications, but it is often much harder. Many of the better universities regard GCSEs as almost as important as A levels. It is of course also possible to acquire general knowledge without studying for formal qualifications, but learning is a habit which can be nurtured and encouraged by regular practice. Systematic study can provide just such practice. Humans are often lazy and many of us avoid thinking about difficult problems if at all possible. Academic study presents the student with a constant series of problems and tasks which must be tackled, whether he wishes to or not. Even if the student does not retain much afterwards, the very act of carrying out calculations involving calculus, say, stretches the brain in a way that it might not otherwise experience. It is like muscle training; the more it is done, the stronger and more agile the brain grows. These are just a few of the benefits which might accrue to the child taking a variety of GCSEs as a teenager. There are of course many others, but these should serve to give some idea of why the project is worthwhile.

The only disadvantage which is immediately apparent to me is that it means a considerable expenditure of time and effort on the part of both parent and child.

Walking in the middle of the road

Those who spend too much time in the middle of the road are apt to get run over from time to time, a familiar enough hazard for the present writer. The problem is that when any ideology or belief system has mad extremists at its fringes, many reasonable folk wish to steer a course somewhere between the opposite ends of the spectrum. In the case of home education, there are two groups connected with it which I tend to avoid as far as possible and with whose opinions I disagree strongly.

The first group are headed by Ed Balls, who suggested recently that children should be removed from their parents to be educated by the state no later than the September after their fourth birthday. He presented this proposal in the form of a classic false dichotomy, telling us that the parents could choose between nursery at that age or a school place. The thought that there is a third way which involves neither of these possibilities honestly did not seem to occur to him. This is mildly alarming coming from an Education Secretary. He typifies a certain sort of person in the field of education who feels that a child out of school is a child at risk of failing academically. One of his acolytes was on Radio 4 on Sunday. A Headmaster called Steve Wright was talking about the idea that parents should teach their own children. He gave it as his opinion that he would himself be unable to provide a full and varied curriculum for a child single-handed, singling out religion and science as subjects that parents would not be able to cover effectively at home. His message was, "Leave it to us professionals!" Regular readers of this Blog will be aware that I always try to discuss matters in a dispassionate and scholarly fashion, but here I feel bound to say that this prize fathead should be set up in a pillory so that right thinking citizens can pelt him with mouldy vegetables.

In short, the opinion of the faction led by Ed Balls is that parents cannot teach their children and would be foolish even to try. There is of course another group which holds that parents shouldn't teach their children and that it is harmful to the children to attempt to do so. This party is spearheaded by the so-called autonomous educators. A fairly typical example of the breed is Deborah Durbin, author of Teach Yourself Home Education, without doubt the worst book I have ever read on the subject. Ms. Durbin believes that her children are able to acquire correct grammar and syntax by writing thank you letters by themselves while their mother works on the other side of the room. Rather than teach them history, she feels that researching her family tree should meet the bill. In the face of such idiocy, words fail me. ( I am tempted to suggest that Deborah Durbin should join Steve Wright in the pillory, but since I have recently been accused of misogyny on the Home Education Forums, I shall refrain from doing so).

So there you have it in a nutshell; one group thinking that children cannot be taught at home and the other thinking that they shouldn't be. I cannot decide which of these two groups of extremists irritate me more. Ed Balls and his cronies are pretty annoying, with their absolute mania for prescribing every last, tiny detail of a child's education, but then again so are those parents who are resolutely opposed to anything even remotely approaching structure and planning in their children's education. Those of us who hold more moderate views are constantly at risk of being caught in the crossfire between these two sides. In my own case, for instance, I am regarded by the local authorities with whom I deal, as a dangerous fanatic who encourages the parents of children with special educational needs to withdraw their children from school and keep them at home. To the autonomous educators, on the other hand, I am a stooge of the DCSF and probably an employee of some LA education department to boot!

The problem is of course, that as both sides become more and more entrenched, so they become more and more extreme in their positions. The idea that home education was being used as cover for forced marriage was a ludicrous slur which originated with the DCSF. It was they who got Graham Badman to conduct his review. This rather makes it look as though the DCSF are, at the very least, a little uneasy about the whole business of home education. The autonomous educators are not much better, with their refusal to acknowledge the need for any sort of monitoring, registration or planning for a child's education. In the middle are the average home educators who just want to get on with their children's education and are quite happy to allow the officers from their local authority into their homes and see no reason at all not to share with them the plans that they have for their children's education. It is to this average, middle of the road crowd to which I belong. I suspect that they form the majority of home educators.

The perils and pitfalls of informal learning

Many home educators in this country favour a method known as "informal learning". Alan Thomas, the famous educationalist, has written a great deal about this. The idea is that learning takes place quite naturally during the course of ordinary life, often just through the medium of conversations between the child and her parents. There are advantages and disadvantages to this method of learning.

When our children are small, we all of us probably do this sort of thing quite naturally. Our child might ask what some animal is and we tell them. As they grow older, children might begin to ask more complex questions such as, "Why do people fight wars?" or "Why is the Earth getting hotter?" or even perhaps, "Why are some people born blind?" These are all marvellous and unforced learning opportunities. As a personal example, I remember my daughter at the age of two or three pointing to a rat in the local park and saying interrogatively, "Squirrel?" What a brilliant chance that was to explain about mammals and rodents, herbivores and omnivores, arboreal and ground living animals and so on. Until the age of perhaps nine or ten, this is a fantastically effective and perfectly natural way of educating a child. As they grow a little older, a problem presents itself.

The minds of most adults are a jumble of half understood facts, vague ideas, popular misconceptions, prejudices and a ragbag of facts which we have picked up over the years and are often hopelessly out of date. Very few of us are able to be objective, even about the simplest subject. Of course, if we are just explaining how birds build their nests, it isn't that important if we get it a bit wrong. It is when we attempt to move on to more complex issues that the trouble can begin.

Take for instance the matter of nuclear power. Most people have opinions about this and I am guessing that many people reading this are more or less opposed to it; a common enough view. We muddle it up in our head with nuclear weapons, the CND, Hiroshima, dangerous radioactive waste and a whole lot of other stuff, much of it completely irrelevant to the generation of electricity by using a nuclear reactor. Very few of us have at our fingertips the facts about the proportions of the different isotopes of U238 and U235, the significance of these different isotopes, the actual mechanism of a reactor, the fuel cycle, the methods for storing and disposing of waste, the amount of radioactive exposure that we get from the background as opposed to other sources. The almost inevitable result is that if we are asked about nuclear power in the course of a casual conversation with our child, we will be unable to supply the facts. We are far more likely to trot out our own prejudices and misinformation.

I plead guilty at once to doing this myself and in fact it was noticing that I was doing so which made me realise that it was time for my daughter to study the writings of people who actually knew about these things, rather than be satisfied with some garbled and more or less inaccurate version served up by me.

Most of us have opinions which we have held for many years, often without re-examining them regularly in the light of new evidence. When my daughter actually began studying physics in earnest, I was shocked at the number of things which had changed since I last looked hard at the business. Even the fundamental particles were different! In fact much of what I had transmitted to her in the course of "informal learning" was at least thirty or forty years out of date! The only thing that she had been learning from me about many subjects was a lot of wrong headed nonsense that any sixteen year old would be able easily to refute. This was a sobering realisation.

The problem was, that if I simply left it for my daughter to ask questions or for various topics to be raised spontaneously in the course of ordinary conversation, then I would not be able to tell her the elementary facts that she needed to know. I had to know in advance what she would be "informally" learning, so that I could be sure of giving her the facts rather than misleading her with a lot of nonsense. It was for this reason that I began working out ahead of time what sort of things she might ask about, what she might want or need to know. This gave me a chance to acquire the books that she would need and for me to gen up on the subject myself. I dare say that many home educating parents do exactly the same as this. In effect, this is what a curriculum is; deciding roughly what sort of knowledge will be necessary or desirable and planning to be able to provide accurate information when the time comes.

The alternative is not attractive. It can entail children being limited by our own educational background and general knowledge, influenced by our own prejudices, handicapped by our own lack of understanding of certain aspects of the world. Unless we are keenly aware of this possibility and work to combat it, we risk ending up with children growing up to share our political views, tastes in literature, failure to grasp certain ideas, even our preferences in food and hairstyle! I cannot imagine a worse fate for any child than to be moulded like this in his parents' image.