A danger in home education

Regular readers will probably know that I am very enthusiastic about home education. There can be difficulties though and we should not allow ourselves to be blind to them. When conducted in a  thoughtful and planned way, home education is astonishingly effective; far more efficient than school based education. When undertaken in a desultory or haphazard fashion though, the  results can be dire. Take history, for example. The great thing about this  for home educators is that it can be brought to life in the most exciting way imaginable  by visits to castles, museums, re-enactments, battlefields and a hundred other different locations. Not for the home educated child, the once a term visit to a museum or stately home! These frequent, even daily visits can be followed up  with Horrible History books and home based activities. The subject is tremendously enjoyable for both parents and children and I defy any school to make history as much fun as it can be for home educated children. On the other hand, learning about history can be absolutely disastrous for home educated children if little or no thought is given to it.

     I was looking yesterday at a blog on home education kept by a fairly well-known parent; her name is not important. She was writing about how she took the opportunity to teach her children some history by reading out to them some interesting facts that she had read on the internet about life in England during the 16th Century. I have actually seen the document she quoted  used before by home educators as a teaching resource. Here it is:

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June.. However, since they were starting to smell . ...... . Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting Married.
Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it.. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water!"
Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof... Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."
There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.
In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire.. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old. Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would Sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.
England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive... So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer.
And that's the truth....Now, whoever said History was boring

Now read as a series of jokes; this is quite funny. I won’t go through every point, this is a spoof which has been circulating on the internet for fourteen years or so. It appeared a few months after the film Shakespeare in Love was released and is thought to have been inspired by it. The horrifying thing is, this home educating mother thought that this was a factual account of life in Tudor England and encouraged her children to believe this nonsense. This highlights a danger with home education.

     The history taught in schools is specified by the National Curriculum. For the Tudor period at key Stage 2, this means;

Britain and the wider world in Tudor times
10. A study of some significant events and individuals, including Tudor monarchs, who shaped this period and of the everyday lives of men, women and children from different sections of society.


We can be pretty confident that children being taught about the 16th Century in schools will not be told that wakes were held in case the dead person should wake up! Nor are they likely to be learning that  dogs lived on the roof in old England… This is the problem with home education. There is nothing to prevent ignorant parents from teaching their children all sorts of  rubbish and persuading them that it is true. Some only use the internet, rather than books, and will, as this mother did, regard a history lesson as consisting of passing on collections of urban myths to their kids. 

     What can be done about this, is another matter. I am very much afraid that nothing can be done without interfering to an alarming extent with family life. After all, we would none of us wish to see home educating parents compelled to teach their children set texts and required to follow the National Curriculum. I suppose that this then is the price of freedom; that parents should be at liberty to misinform their kids if they wish to do so. It is a something of a tragedy though, because when this happens, it is the children who suffer and some are bound to grow up with their heads full of foolishness that their parents have fed them in this way. 

     In short, this is the nature of the problem; that at school, children will be exposed to facts and largely accurate information about Tudor England, while at home they may only be encouraged to listen to old wives’ tales and urban myths. As I say, there is nothing to be done about this. Even regular visits would not uncover this sort of thing. It is well though that home educators bear in mind their responsibility towards their children; a far greater moral responsibility than that borne by the parents of children attending school.

Home educators and the National Curriculum

The National Curriculum is an almost mythical object of detestation to many home educating parents. It symbolises all that they hate about formal education and schools. Anybody who suggests that home educators should plan a little and be more structured in their approach is routinely accused of trying to 'impose' the National Curriculum'. (For some strange reason, such people are always apparently trying to do this 'by the back door') During Graham Badman's review of elective home education in England, the rumour was rife on the Internet lists that he was going to recommend that home educating parents be forced to follow the National Curriculum. This is the ultimate nightmare in some strands of British home education.

Now I have to say straight away that I did not pay any attention at all to the National Curriculum when I was teaching my daughter. I was of course vaguely aware of the ages at which this curriculum says that children should be acquiring certain skills and learning various things, but I found it wholly irrelevant in a domestic setting. From the age of five onwards, the National Curriculum requires that children are taught English, mathematics, science, ICT and history. This seems to be to be just about reasonable. However, one must also make sure that they are learning geography, art and design and religious education as well, to say nothing of music, citizenship, physical education, design and technology and personal, social and health education. Call me a raving autonomous educator if you will, but this seems a little excessive for five and six year-olds! I do not like either the way that these subjects are typically taught. In history for instance, there is no clear and coherent narrative which will allow a child to understand the context of what he is learning. One term he is doing a project on the Aztecs, then the Tudors and then jumping straight to the Victorians. This is an awful approach and one which I would not have dreamt of following with my own child.

Actually, I have never heard of a home educating parent who did follow the National Curriculum. I simply cannot imagine this being done at home and I would be keen to hear if anybody has ever heard of such a parent. The advice is certainly given by both local authorities and the Department for Education that home educators might wish to be aware of the National Curriculum and be guided by it. This is another matter entirely and not bad advice at all. It wouldn't do anybody any harm at least to know what school pupils of a similar age to your own son or daughter were doing. If nothing else, this would be helpful if one decided to send a child back to school; it would ensure that the child had not fallen too far behind his contemporaries. The idea that some wicked future government could ever try and force home educating parents to follow the National Curriculum, a fear regularly expressed on some forums and blogs, is too grotesque for words. I actually asked Graham Badman about this supposed scheme on his part directly and he seemed to be utterly bemused by the thought. As he pointed out, it is hard enough to make sure that every maintained school in the country adheres to this curriculum; quite how one would ensure that scores of thousands of parents did so is mind boggling.

I quite like the way the National Curriculum is brandished about by home educators as being synonymous with structured teaching. I have myself been accused by some of the loopier people of this type as being a slave to this curriculum, a suggestion which has provided a good deal of innocent amusement in the Webb household, where my views on this bloated and unwieldy instrument are pretty generally known. It is, I suppose, helpful for these parents to have something like this which sums up all that they dislike about education so neatly. I doubt though that their dislike of the National Curriculum is anything like as strong as mine.

Finding a curriculum

I have been exploring the QCA website, further to the suggestion by the DCSF that parents would find easy to download curricula there. Actually, some of this stuff for primary pupils is not that bad and could probably be adapted fairly easily by parents, should they wish to do so. First, one must pass the portal of the National Curriculum site though, which begins with the exhortation;

The curriculum should be treasured. There should be real pride in our curriculum: the learning that the nation has decided to set before its young. Teachers, parents, employers, the media and the public should all see the curriculum as something to embrace, support and celebrate. Most of all, young people should relish the opportunity for discovery and achievement that the curriculum offers.

This is a bit creepy! Who are they to be instructing the media what they should embrace and celebrate? It puts me in mind of Star Wars and embracing the dark side. However, some of the actual content is OK. For instance in Key Stage 1 science, there is stuff like this;

Life processes
1 Pupils should be taught:
a the differences between things that are living and things that have never
been alive
b that animals, including humans, move, feed, grow, use their senses and
reproduce
c to relate life processes to animals and plants found in the local environment.
Humans and other animals
2 Pupils should be taught:
a to recognise and compare the main external parts of the bodies of humans
and other animals
b that humans and other animals need food and water to stay alive
c that taking exercise and eating the right types and amounts of food help
humans to keep healthy
d about the role of drugs as medicines
e how to treat animals with care and sensitivity
f that humans and other animals can produce offspring and that these
offspring grow into adults
g about the senses that enable humans and other animals to be aware
of the world around them.

This is the kind of thing that children should probably be knowing at that age and it is no bad idea to have a plan to work to, even if it is not rigidly adhered to. Anybody working with a young child could do a lot worse than to use this section of the National Curriculum as a rough guide. I am not so sure about religion; this is an entirely personal matter. Similarly music and PE. As long as a child is getting exercise and being exposed to different styles of music, I would think that enough. But to teach according to a general framework in science, history and mathematics seems to me a sound scheme.

Of course, the National Curriculum is not the only curriculum that parents could use, but the basic idea of having some notion of what the child will cover over the next year or so is a pretty sensible one. The only problem might come if this curriculum became a type of strait-jacket, preventing one from being spontaneous and going off in unexpected directions. This has of course nothing at all to do with examinations or testing. It is good for children to think about life and what it means to be alive, purely for the sake of it. A curriculum really acts as an aide-memoire, reminding one of what needs to be covered.

I cannot make out when I see people denouncing the National Curriculum, whether they are dissatisfied with this particular curriculum or if there is some deep seated objection to all curricula. If the former, then I can sympathise. The National Curriculum needs drastic pruning and revision. But if the objection is a more general one against any sort of curriculum or plan of study, then I confess myself puzzled. A curriculum is a bit like a map, which shows the broad territory one hopes to traverse. It should not tell you precisely which route you will take, only the area that you will be travelling. As such, it is quite invaluable for those teaching their own child. I hope that the DCSF will issue more detailed instructions regarding curricula, including some which are not connected with the National Curriculum.

What do home educators understand by "The National Curriculum"?

I ask this question because I have increasingly noticed "The National Curriculum" being used as shorthand for everything that many home educators disagree with. It almost seems to be used as though the very phrase "National Curriculum" was interchangeble with "Structured Education" or "Conventional Schooling". I have also observed when listening to some home educating parents and reading what they write, that many of them do not apparently have any clear idea of what the National Curriculum actually is and why so many people, the present writer included, view it somewhat unfavourably.

My thoughts turned to this subject a few days ago when I read a post denouncing me and and all my works. Most of it was nothing to the purpose, but it did say the following;

" as far as he is concerned, if you don't follow the NationalCurriculum, then you are abusing your child by not providing them with aproper education."

This is a perfect example of the way that many parents on HE lists talk about the National Curriculum. Regular readers will be aware that I regard this horrible creation as monstrously bloated and hideously over-prescriptive. Not only did I not follow it myself, I seriously doubt whether any home educating parent has ever done so. Let me explain.

When my daughter was twelve, I felt that it was time to think about which IGCSEs she would be taking. We agreed on English, Mathematics and Science and I suggested History as well. She herself was keen to study religion, so we added that. As she took the three separate sciences rather than double award General Science and since she was also taking English Language and English Literature as separate subjects; this gave her a total of eight IGCSEs to study for over the next three years. I think I can safely assure everyone that studying for eight subjects in this way kept us very busy and although there was room for other things, it still took a good chunk of our time. Let us now suppose that we had been following the National Curriculum for Key Stage 3.

Well, English, Mathematics, Science, History and Religion are certainly there. So far, so good. However, that is only the beginning. As I said, those subjects alone kept us fully occupied. Now let's see what else we have to fit in to comply with the National Curriculum. Geography and a modern language. Hmmm that's pushing it a bit, but OK. We probably could just have managed this as well. Design and Technology, Information and Communication Technology and Personal, Social and Health Education. Now it's getting silly! How on earth could we fit all this in as well? But wait, there's more. Art and Design, Citizenship, Music, Physical Education and Sex and relationship Education as well. As I said above, not only did we think it absolutely grotesque to try and cram all these subjects in, but I doubt if anybody could. Yet these are all compulsory under the National Curriculum. Any child aged between 11 and 14 must study all this. No wonder the academic results are plummeting in schools. They are too busy fooling around with a lot of nonsense about sex and relationships, as though that is any concern at all of the state!

Not only are the subjects themselves specified, but every minute detail is also laid down. Every pupil learns the same things at the same time in the same way in every maintained school. Horrible! And to think that I am supposed to be a fan of this. When I spoke to Graham Badman, I asked him about this because I knew that the rumour was floating around that home educators would have to follow the National Curriculum. He seemed genuinely astounded at the very idea. As he pointed out, it was bad enough making sure that schools do so, without trying to supervise eighty thousand parents as well. I have since come to the conclusion that those who were worrying about this did not really mean that they were afraid of being expected to stick to the National Curriculum. What they really thought was that they would be told to teach properly and adhere to certain subjects, for example making sure that their child was taught mathematics and English. No bad thing, you might say, but an awfully long way from being obliged to follow the National Curriculum.

Home education - the vital need for a curriculum

It is sometimes suggested that children at school are encouraged to take ten or more GCSEs and that this becomes an end in itself, often filling their heads with a lot of useless information that they will never need after leaving school. Well, GCSEs are of course very useful, particularly if you wish to gain a place at college or university, but there is a far more important reason for undertaking the systematic instruction of children in the rudiments of history, geography, science and so on. This is because without the possession of a body of knowledge, much of the world will be incomprehensible. To some extent, it is irrelevant whether or not the acquisition of this knowledge leads to formal qualifications; it is vitally necessary for its own sake. I wish today to focus upon one subject, history, although most of what I say would be equally applicable to any other part of a well rounded curriculum.

Let us begin by considering just one current news item, the Lisbon treaty and Ireland's referendum on it. In order to make any sense of this, it is at the very least necessary to know that the Irish Republic was once part of this country. It is also necessary to be aware of the fact that France has been the main driving force behind the creation of the European Union. To know what is happening in Europe and why we and the Irish view things a little differently, you really have to know something of the history of Franco-British relations. You need to know about the two World Wars, but also about the Napoleonic Wars, the Hundred Years War and Agincourt and also of course, the Norman Conquest. Without this basic knowledge, nobody could expect fully to understand our ambivalent attitude to France. Similar knowledge is needed to make sense of our relations with Germany.

Most of the historical knowledge mentioned above is of the sort which any educated person will take more or less for granted. Of course, a young person or child might pick up such information in the course of desultory reading and browsing the internet, but this is rather a large gamble to take on such an important matter. Suppose that he does not pick up this knowledge of his own accord? Will he in later life be able to take an intelligent interest in foreign affairs? Will he be fit to hold an opinion on the EU? What actually is the autonomously educating parent's approach to this subject? Is learning about the Hundred Years War and the battle of Waterloo one of those things that must be left to the child's choice? Deborah Durbin, author of "Teach Yourself Home Education", which is incidentally quite the worst book on the subject of home education which I have ever seen in my life, talks about history in her book. She says, "History lessons can be covered by exploring your family tree". It would be hard to imagine a more parochial attitude! How studying my family tree would help anybody to make sense of the Lisbon Treaty is a complete mystery to me. The Good Lord alone knows if this is a standard approach for autonomous educators to such a crucial subject.

Let me give another example. To understand why Russia is manoeuvring and intriguing in the Black Sea, one must be aware of their historic quest for warm water ports. Without knowledge of the Crimean War and the significance of the Dardanelles, news that Russia is exerting pressure on Georgia will be meaningless. Basic geopolitical facts such as these are crucial to anybody's understanding of the modern world. Again, why leave a child to stumble across such important information by sheer chance? What could possibly be the rationale for this perverse course of action? A child could not be expected to guess that in order to understand Russian motives in the modern world, he will need to know about the Crimean War. We as adults know it though and it is up to us to transmit this useful knowledge to our children.

I am aware that many home educating parents have a profound antipathy towards the National Curriculum, an antipathy which I fully share. Indeed, my dissatisfaction with the scope and depth of the National Curriculum was a major factor in my decision to teach my own daughter. Dissatisfaction with one curriculum did not however make me think that there should be no curriculum at all! It simply meant that I should have to devise a better curriculum. Without studying a coherent and well planned curriculum in history, geography, science, English and mathematics, our children will struggle to understand the world around them. It is out duty and responsibility to see that they are equipped with the background knowledge which will enable them to participate as active citizens in the modern, industrial society in which they are growing up.

The National Curriculum

The National Curriculum is a particular bugbear of the autonomous home educators. Again and again one sees them expressing the fear that it will be "imposed" upon them, thus ending their freedom to home educate. Mind you, more than a few of them seem to be a little vague about what the National Curriculum actually is. For many, the expression seems to be synonomous with conventional schoolwork; they use the term simply to signify structured academic work.

I am not sure where the rumour started that Graham Badman was seeking to impose the National Curriculum on home educators. It was certainly rife during the review. It never apparently occurred to anybody to adopt the straightforward course of asking him outright whether there was any truth in the notion that this was his ultimate aim. When I did ask him, he seemed genuinely amazed at the idea. As he pointed out, just getting schools to abide by the enormously complex and cumbersome provisions of the National Curriculum is a nightmare. The thought that anybody would try and do this with tens of thousands of eccentric and often awkward home educators seemed to bemuse him! That he was being honest about this is suggested by the final recommendations made in his report to the Secretary of State. Recommendation 2 limits itself to a bit of waffle to the effect that the DCSF should review the definition of a "suitable" education. This should not be "overly prescriptive", which seems at once to rule out the National Curriculum; possibly the most prescriptive body of instructions ever produced in human history!

While it is true that I am not a huge fan of the National Curriculum, at least not in its current, unwieldy form, it is worth asking why the thing was introduced in the first place. At one time, any school could teach precisely as it saw fit. This meant of course that some schools taught pupils a lot of skills and knowledge which stood them in good stead once they left. Others taught very poorly and the pupils left school fit only to be street sweepers or millgirls. This was not fair. The idea of a National Curriculum was to create a level playing field, so that all children would acquire a good grasp of literacy and mathematics, science and history and that they would all leave school with an equal grasp of these things. This was a noble aspiration, but like so many grand schemes it became bogged down in the pettifogging details of precisely what should be taught and when. This does not mean that it is not a good aim, just that it needs to be radically revised.

Although for a home educator to teach every aspect of the National Curriculum would be impossibly demanding, I can't see any reason that some of its targets should not be used as a very rough framework for what children should be able to achieve and know at various stages of their development.