Rumour has it that when Fiona Nicholson was edged out of the lead postion at Education Otherwise by Shena Deuchars and Co, she retreated to a darkened room for a few days, chewing her nails and wondering what to do next. The answer is here;
http://edyourself.org/
This is a new site for information and advice about home education. It begins with a little bit of a white lie; claiming, as it does, that; 'this website is the work of Fiona Nicholson'. Actually, it is the work of her son Theo, but we will let that pass. I was amazed to discover that Fiona had apparently been an 'expert witness' at the select committee in October 2009! I must remember to use this gag myself, it sounds quite impressive. I had never really thought of myself as having been an expert witness before. I have a suspicion that this expression has been pinched from Paula Rothermel's site. Fiona's site is interesting though and I shall be watching with interest to see how it develops over the next few months.
Saturday, 5 March 2011
'Teaching' children; Part 2
Yesterday we looked at the teaching of reading in an informal but very effective way. People have in the past said to me that although they can see how this might work with a small child learning basic skills like reading, they cannot believe that this method would work with formal academic subjects like physics or biology, especially if these are being studied at GCSE level. In fact it is even easier to use this technique for secondary education. The essence of the process was, as readers will remember, to prevent teaching, learning and studying being separate from everyday life and play. By doing this, no resistance to being taught would develop in a child's mind. I want to take two simple topics from the IGCSE biology specification which I used. These are mammalian dentition and the carbon cycle. It is vital to know about both in detail if one wishes to aim for A* in the examination.
The best way of learning about mammalian dentition, the type and distribution of teeth in a mammals head, is to examine a skull. When my daughter was eight, we found a dead squirrel in the road. I suggested bringing it home and cutting off it's head. This is the sort of weird, gruesome idea which appeals to young children. I will deal later with the question of what I would have done had my daughter not wished to do this. In the event, she was very keen, although chose not to decapitate the thing with the branch loppers, preferring to watch and go 'Yuk' when the bones made a satisfying crunching noise. We then buried the head in the compost heap in order to strip the flesh. This was a good opportunity to teach about the carbon cycle. We dug up the head at intervals and watched the maggots feeding on it. We could also see strands of fungus. It was plain that these organisms were eating the flesh. Once I pointed out that they gave out carbon dioxide, it was very easy for my daughter to see how the carbon in the flesh was being recycled and returned to the atmosphere.
We followed this up with a mouse's head, a hedgehog and then a crow. The great triumph was finding a fox which had been run over and bringing that home. I removed its head with the garden spade and stuck that in the compost heap as well. This led to a certain amount of coolness with my wife, as I left the headless fox at the end of the garden for months. There was even more trouble when I tried to smuggle home a dead seal which we found on the beach; it was at this point that she put her foot down!
Once the skulls were prepared, looking at the different types of teeth together and working out which was which was great fun. I have a set of the little stick and ball molecule models and we made an organic molecule and then took it apart and combined the carbon atoms with oxygen to see precisely how the chemical process of decomposition worked. We followed this up with trips to the Natural History museum in London. At no time did any of this feel like teaching, although I was working to a plan, decided what I wanted my daughter to learn and ensured that she learnt it. However, a curriculum does not have to be a dead and sterile thing. It can instead be a springboard; a way of generating ideas for exciting and pleasurable activities.
What were the advantages of doing things like this? First, it was great fun. We still talk about the head hunting days and even my wife now laughs about the headless fox which became for a while a conversation point in the garden. Secondly, it gave my daughter great kudos among her friends. They were madly jealous, because their own fathers were not bringing home dead foxes and chopping off their heads with the garden spade. My daughter was also able to show that she did not mind handling maggots, which was impressive. Another good thing was that my daughter learned first hand by watching it in action, how greenhouse gases enter the atmosphere. This is important because although everybody talks about climate change, few seem to understand the true mechanisms involved. Finally, of course, it enabled her to get a biology IGCSE at A* when she was fourteen.
What are the possible disadvantages of this scheme? Perhaps a child would not be interested in the subject? This is unlikely, as she would not be required to do anything herself. Besides, I have yet to find a child who is not fascinated and horrified by watching heads being chopped off. Suppose my daughter had been too delicate and squeamish for this? Well, one can investigate the carbon cycle in other ways. Try this. Take a transparent disposable cup and put a piece of moist bread in it with orange peel and a few other food scraps. Seal the top with cling film and put it in the airing cupboard for a a week or so. It will turn into a fungus garden. This is another way of exploring the carbon cycle as the fungus also digests the carbon-containing molecules and turns them into carbon dioxide. Even the most sensitive child could not find that too much! Suppose the child does not wish to sit an examination at the end of all this? So what? You will have had a lot of fun anyway and it won't have cost a penny.
Incredibly, it is possible to make mammalian dentition and the carbon cycle really boring and ensure that no normal child will be at all interested in them. This is done routinely at school. Get hold of a GCSE text book and you will find that studying these topics entails looking at little black and white line drawings. I can imagine nothing duller and am not at all surprised that so many children do not wish to be taught science in this way. But then again, that is why I chose to home educate, I suppose. I wanted my child to enjoy learning, not sit staring at a textbook.
The best way of learning about mammalian dentition, the type and distribution of teeth in a mammals head, is to examine a skull. When my daughter was eight, we found a dead squirrel in the road. I suggested bringing it home and cutting off it's head. This is the sort of weird, gruesome idea which appeals to young children. I will deal later with the question of what I would have done had my daughter not wished to do this. In the event, she was very keen, although chose not to decapitate the thing with the branch loppers, preferring to watch and go 'Yuk' when the bones made a satisfying crunching noise. We then buried the head in the compost heap in order to strip the flesh. This was a good opportunity to teach about the carbon cycle. We dug up the head at intervals and watched the maggots feeding on it. We could also see strands of fungus. It was plain that these organisms were eating the flesh. Once I pointed out that they gave out carbon dioxide, it was very easy for my daughter to see how the carbon in the flesh was being recycled and returned to the atmosphere.
We followed this up with a mouse's head, a hedgehog and then a crow. The great triumph was finding a fox which had been run over and bringing that home. I removed its head with the garden spade and stuck that in the compost heap as well. This led to a certain amount of coolness with my wife, as I left the headless fox at the end of the garden for months. There was even more trouble when I tried to smuggle home a dead seal which we found on the beach; it was at this point that she put her foot down!
Once the skulls were prepared, looking at the different types of teeth together and working out which was which was great fun. I have a set of the little stick and ball molecule models and we made an organic molecule and then took it apart and combined the carbon atoms with oxygen to see precisely how the chemical process of decomposition worked. We followed this up with trips to the Natural History museum in London. At no time did any of this feel like teaching, although I was working to a plan, decided what I wanted my daughter to learn and ensured that she learnt it. However, a curriculum does not have to be a dead and sterile thing. It can instead be a springboard; a way of generating ideas for exciting and pleasurable activities.
What were the advantages of doing things like this? First, it was great fun. We still talk about the head hunting days and even my wife now laughs about the headless fox which became for a while a conversation point in the garden. Secondly, it gave my daughter great kudos among her friends. They were madly jealous, because their own fathers were not bringing home dead foxes and chopping off their heads with the garden spade. My daughter was also able to show that she did not mind handling maggots, which was impressive. Another good thing was that my daughter learned first hand by watching it in action, how greenhouse gases enter the atmosphere. This is important because although everybody talks about climate change, few seem to understand the true mechanisms involved. Finally, of course, it enabled her to get a biology IGCSE at A* when she was fourteen.
What are the possible disadvantages of this scheme? Perhaps a child would not be interested in the subject? This is unlikely, as she would not be required to do anything herself. Besides, I have yet to find a child who is not fascinated and horrified by watching heads being chopped off. Suppose my daughter had been too delicate and squeamish for this? Well, one can investigate the carbon cycle in other ways. Try this. Take a transparent disposable cup and put a piece of moist bread in it with orange peel and a few other food scraps. Seal the top with cling film and put it in the airing cupboard for a a week or so. It will turn into a fungus garden. This is another way of exploring the carbon cycle as the fungus also digests the carbon-containing molecules and turns them into carbon dioxide. Even the most sensitive child could not find that too much! Suppose the child does not wish to sit an examination at the end of all this? So what? You will have had a lot of fun anyway and it won't have cost a penny.
Incredibly, it is possible to make mammalian dentition and the carbon cycle really boring and ensure that no normal child will be at all interested in them. This is done routinely at school. Get hold of a GCSE text book and you will find that studying these topics entails looking at little black and white line drawings. I can imagine nothing duller and am not at all surprised that so many children do not wish to be taught science in this way. But then again, that is why I chose to home educate, I suppose. I wanted my child to enjoy learning, not sit staring at a textbook.
Thursday, 3 March 2011
'Teaching' children; Part 1
Many home educating parents draw a sharp distinction, an opposition even, between what a child learns because she wishes to learn and what a parent teaches because she thinks it wise that the child learn this or that piece of knowledge. Today and tomorrow I want to explain why this seems to me to be a misleading and dangerous idea, liable to harm a child's natural development in the cause of an abstract and fundamentally irrational ideology. I want to begin with the teaching of reading.
At the age of twelve or fourteen months most ordinary children will be indicating to their parents that they wish to know what the name of some object. They usually signal this by the means of what we call 'Telegraphic Speech'. This is some sentence or phrase which is reduced to a syllable or two. In my daughter's case this entailed pointing at something and saying, 'Zat?'. This was, I suppose, a contraction of 'What's that?' All parents, unless they are too busy, will reply, 'That's a dog' or whatever the thing actually is. This is spontaneous learning on the part of the small child. She has asked for information and the adult has supplied it. Most of us go much further than this though; we teach our children about symbolic representation. If our child points at a pink stuffed toy and asks, 'Zat?', we tell her that this too is a dog. It is of course nothing of the sort. It is a piece of nylon fabric stretched around some kapok stuffing. Two round chunks of polymer have been sewn to the front of this object as crude representations of eyes. Nevertheless, it is supposed to be a dog and so we tell our child, 'It's a dog'. We are teaching her that one object can stand for or represent another. We extend this by showing her picture books which have splashes of coloured printers' ink on sheets of paper. When our child asks, 'Zat?', we say 'Its' a dog'. Again, just as in the case of the stuffed toy, this is not true. We are trying to accustom her to the idea of symbols, the notion that one thing can be used to represent another. Of course the splashes of ink are not really a dog, but nor are we deceiving the child. We are teaching her to think symbolically. This is very important, because of course language and thought consist of nothing more than the manipulation of symbols.
So far, I have described what happens in any normal family. Children are taught to associate real objects like dogs with symbolic representations. It is at this point that many parents stop, which is puzzling. If we are prepared to teach a child that one lot of ink splashes, a picture, can represent a dog, why would we not show her another set of ink splashes in this form, dog, and tell her that this too represents a dog? It is precisely the same as telling her that a picture of cuddly toy represents the animal and yet is a step too far for some parents. Above is the wall of my daughter's bedroom when she was fifteen months old. As can be seen, I was teaching her the visual representation of dog, but also the printed version. She learnt both simultaneously and with the same pleasure.
I think that the problem lies in us. We see one activity as being 'play' or normal childhood activity and the other as being 'book learning' or 'school'. Young children do not make this distinction unless they pick it up from us.
The world can be a puzzling and confusing place to a small child. Anything we can do to fill in bits of the puzzle and help them to make sense f their world cannot fail to be good for them. Apart from any educational benefit, they will be less fearful and nervous as they learn to make more sense of what is happening around them. They have seen print all round them, now they learn that it is not just a pattern, that it actually conveys meaning. What's more, they can share in this process by making sense of these little black squiggles themselves.
I cannot begin to tell readers of the pleasure that my daughter and I both gained from this activity. Neither of us regarded it as being different from our usual play and yet by the age of two she was reading fluently. I had set out to teach her to read and she had learnt easily as part of her ordinary life. Why I would have denied her this or deliberately delayed the process until she was six or seven, I really cannot say.
Tomorrow I shall look at how this same process can be used to teach any academic subject up to and including GCSE level in physics or biology. I have been racking my brains for any disadvantage to a child in being taught in this way and have been unable to come up with any at all. The only problem would come if I transmitted my own feelings to the child about what was happening and caused her to think that teaching and learning were somehow different from everyday life. Then, I can readily imagine that she might start cutting up rough about it and resisting what was happening. Since learning was never differentiated in this way, this problem did not arise.
At the age of twelve or fourteen months most ordinary children will be indicating to their parents that they wish to know what the name of some object. They usually signal this by the means of what we call 'Telegraphic Speech'. This is some sentence or phrase which is reduced to a syllable or two. In my daughter's case this entailed pointing at something and saying, 'Zat?'. This was, I suppose, a contraction of 'What's that?' All parents, unless they are too busy, will reply, 'That's a dog' or whatever the thing actually is. This is spontaneous learning on the part of the small child. She has asked for information and the adult has supplied it. Most of us go much further than this though; we teach our children about symbolic representation. If our child points at a pink stuffed toy and asks, 'Zat?', we tell her that this too is a dog. It is of course nothing of the sort. It is a piece of nylon fabric stretched around some kapok stuffing. Two round chunks of polymer have been sewn to the front of this object as crude representations of eyes. Nevertheless, it is supposed to be a dog and so we tell our child, 'It's a dog'. We are teaching her that one object can stand for or represent another. We extend this by showing her picture books which have splashes of coloured printers' ink on sheets of paper. When our child asks, 'Zat?', we say 'Its' a dog'. Again, just as in the case of the stuffed toy, this is not true. We are trying to accustom her to the idea of symbols, the notion that one thing can be used to represent another. Of course the splashes of ink are not really a dog, but nor are we deceiving the child. We are teaching her to think symbolically. This is very important, because of course language and thought consist of nothing more than the manipulation of symbols.
So far, I have described what happens in any normal family. Children are taught to associate real objects like dogs with symbolic representations. It is at this point that many parents stop, which is puzzling. If we are prepared to teach a child that one lot of ink splashes, a picture, can represent a dog, why would we not show her another set of ink splashes in this form, dog, and tell her that this too represents a dog? It is precisely the same as telling her that a picture of cuddly toy represents the animal and yet is a step too far for some parents. Above is the wall of my daughter's bedroom when she was fifteen months old. As can be seen, I was teaching her the visual representation of dog, but also the printed version. She learnt both simultaneously and with the same pleasure.
I think that the problem lies in us. We see one activity as being 'play' or normal childhood activity and the other as being 'book learning' or 'school'. Young children do not make this distinction unless they pick it up from us.
The world can be a puzzling and confusing place to a small child. Anything we can do to fill in bits of the puzzle and help them to make sense f their world cannot fail to be good for them. Apart from any educational benefit, they will be less fearful and nervous as they learn to make more sense of what is happening around them. They have seen print all round them, now they learn that it is not just a pattern, that it actually conveys meaning. What's more, they can share in this process by making sense of these little black squiggles themselves.
I cannot begin to tell readers of the pleasure that my daughter and I both gained from this activity. Neither of us regarded it as being different from our usual play and yet by the age of two she was reading fluently. I had set out to teach her to read and she had learnt easily as part of her ordinary life. Why I would have denied her this or deliberately delayed the process until she was six or seven, I really cannot say.
Tomorrow I shall look at how this same process can be used to teach any academic subject up to and including GCSE level in physics or biology. I have been racking my brains for any disadvantage to a child in being taught in this way and have been unable to come up with any at all. The only problem would come if I transmitted my own feelings to the child about what was happening and caused her to think that teaching and learning were somehow different from everyday life. Then, I can readily imagine that she might start cutting up rough about it and resisting what was happening. Since learning was never differentiated in this way, this problem did not arise.
Ruthless action on the HE-UK list! (again)
Fans of HE-UK, which according to the list owner Mike Fortune-Wood is going from strength to strength, might sometimes notice that everybody there seems in general to be singing from the same sheet. This is a little strange when you have a couple of thousand members. The explanation is fairly simple. We saw a few days ago that somebody asking too many questions is likely to meet with a frosty response and the suggestion that she must be some sort of infiltrator and not somebody with a genuine interest in home education at all. I posted humorously about this yesterday. Readers may have noticed that one of the people who commented light heartedly about my post was Loz, who is herself a member of the HE-UK list under her own name. Incredibly, she has now been thrown off the HE-UK list, presumably for not disagreeing with me strongly enough here!
This is how things often work in the home education world and it is the way in which the appearance of a united front is maintained, promoting a certain orthodox view to which all home educating parents are expected to subscribe. Those who are happy to cooperate with their local authorities are routinely made to feel like Quislings and collaborators; anybody not bitterly opposed to the regulation of home education is not welcome on most lists and forums. Because any dissenting voices are thrown off the lists, as Loz was this morning, it enables some home educating groups to claim that all home educating parents agree with them about everything. How could it be otherwise, when those who even ask too many questions are treated like lepers? That somebody would be thrown out of a major home education support list in this way purely for engaging in a little banter with me here is really quite disturbing. It is not the first time that it has happened though and I don't suppose that it will be the last. The next time that we see a home education group claiming that all their members support this or that point of view, it is worth remembering that maintaining this unanimity has been achieved by chucking out anybody who disagrees!
This is how things often work in the home education world and it is the way in which the appearance of a united front is maintained, promoting a certain orthodox view to which all home educating parents are expected to subscribe. Those who are happy to cooperate with their local authorities are routinely made to feel like Quislings and collaborators; anybody not bitterly opposed to the regulation of home education is not welcome on most lists and forums. Because any dissenting voices are thrown off the lists, as Loz was this morning, it enables some home educating groups to claim that all home educating parents agree with them about everything. How could it be otherwise, when those who even ask too many questions are treated like lepers? That somebody would be thrown out of a major home education support list in this way purely for engaging in a little banter with me here is really quite disturbing. It is not the first time that it has happened though and I don't suppose that it will be the last. The next time that we see a home education group claiming that all their members support this or that point of view, it is worth remembering that maintaining this unanimity has been achieved by chucking out anybody who disagrees!
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Einstein, the famous home educated kid
I have mentioned here before that at one time I was quite involved with the gay scene, forty years ago back in the days of the GLF. One of the curiosities of the more militant gays at that time was that they were very keen to prove that practically every famous person in history had really been gay. Any character who came up, from Napoleon to Alexander the Great, Hitler to Jesus, would be claimed as gay. I have in recent years noticed the same tendency on the part of home educators to pretend that a lot of famous and successful people were in fact educated at home. Almost invariably, the list of such people is headed by Albert Einstein.
Now some of the people who are supposed to have been home educated might have spent a year or two being tutored at home or had a governess or something. C. S. Lewis often turns upon these lists, due to his having started school at eight instead of five. Others were born before schooling was common or lived in an area where there really were no schools. In the case of Einstein though, there can be no possible reason for pretending that he was educated at home. Shortly before his sixth birthday, Einstein was enrolled at a Catholic primary school. Three years later he began attending the Luitpold Gymnasium, where he stayed to the age of fifteen. When his parents moved to Italy in 1894, Einstein stayed at the school in Germany for a while, before following his parents, who had now moved to Switzerland, and at the age of sixteen applying to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, from which he later graduated.
I suspect that many minority groups play this game of 'Lots of famous people were gay/Freemasons/Jews/Home educated'. Home educators, are definitely a little bit over the top about it though. I am afraid that the claim that Einstein was home educated has caused a good deal of amusement among those who know the value of schools. He had a brilliant mind, but it was developed and cultivated not by home education but by the rigorous educational system operating in late nineteenth century Germany. He was a product of formal schooling.
Now some of the people who are supposed to have been home educated might have spent a year or two being tutored at home or had a governess or something. C. S. Lewis often turns upon these lists, due to his having started school at eight instead of five. Others were born before schooling was common or lived in an area where there really were no schools. In the case of Einstein though, there can be no possible reason for pretending that he was educated at home. Shortly before his sixth birthday, Einstein was enrolled at a Catholic primary school. Three years later he began attending the Luitpold Gymnasium, where he stayed to the age of fifteen. When his parents moved to Italy in 1894, Einstein stayed at the school in Germany for a while, before following his parents, who had now moved to Switzerland, and at the age of sixteen applying to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, from which he later graduated.
I suspect that many minority groups play this game of 'Lots of famous people were gay/Freemasons/Jews/Home educated'. Home educators, are definitely a little bit over the top about it though. I am afraid that the claim that Einstein was home educated has caused a good deal of amusement among those who know the value of schools. He had a brilliant mind, but it was developed and cultivated not by home education but by the rigorous educational system operating in late nineteenth century Germany. He was a product of formal schooling.
Twisting my tail
Every time I decide to ignore the HE-UK list and leave them to their own devices, some fool on there twists my tail by recounting a silly and untruthful story about me. Sooner or later it will dawn on these people that such behaviour is counter-productive. The latest example of this occurred yesterday. I have described the reaction to somebody asking for information on HE-UK in a post earlier today. Somebody commenting here on that post reproached me for not mentioning that an explanation for the bizarre response to a few questions had later been made. I must of course put this right. What was the true explanation for the barking mad accusation, that she was asking too many questions, which was made against the mother who wished to find out a little more about home education before she knew if it was the right decision for her and her children? Could it be that some members of that list are paranoid schizophrenics who have been a little remiss in taking their medication? Might it be that some home educators are always looking for a row and are glad of an excuse to have a go at anybody? Or could the churlish and ill mannered reaction be caused by a massive social skills deficit? It was apparently none of these very plausible reasons. It was my fault!
Some readers are perhaps scratching their heads at this point and asking themselves how this could be. I left the list in July 2009, whereas the woman who posted that the request for information had 'set alarm bells ringing' for her, did not even join the list until earlier this year. How could there possibly be a connection between me and the response of this person? Fortunately, Roxanne Featherstone was on hand to explain everything. She told the original poster that, 'There has been at least one example on this list alone of someone pretending to be someone they weren't' Since she follows this up with mention of newspaper articles and select committees, it is not hard to decode this reference to myself. What a mercy that this helpful woman has cleared the matter up so neatly. But hang on a minute, something isn't right here! When I joined the HE-UK list in 2007, I represented myself to be a middle aged home educator called Simon Webb who worked part-time with children with special needs and wrote occasional articles for magazines and newspapers. I have just checked and that is still who I am! The question is, who was I pretending to be, if not this person? I emailed Roxanne to clear this up, but she is evidently too busy to reply.( She is probably writing scripts for Jackanory). I am forced therefore to throw the question out to a wider audience. I claim now and have always claimed to be Simon Webb, a parent who home educated his daughter until she was sixteen. If this is not, as Roxanne claims, who I am then perhaps somebody could help by telling me who I am pretending to be. It is all very perplexing and as an explanation for the awful rudeness displayed to the new member on the HE-UK list seems to be wholly inadequate. If anybody knows who I am pretending to be, or whether or not I am actually pretending to be Simon Webb and am really somebody quite different, perhaps they could share the information with us. I for one am very eager to find out!
Some readers are perhaps scratching their heads at this point and asking themselves how this could be. I left the list in July 2009, whereas the woman who posted that the request for information had 'set alarm bells ringing' for her, did not even join the list until earlier this year. How could there possibly be a connection between me and the response of this person? Fortunately, Roxanne Featherstone was on hand to explain everything. She told the original poster that, 'There has been at least one example on this list alone of someone pretending to be someone they weren't' Since she follows this up with mention of newspaper articles and select committees, it is not hard to decode this reference to myself. What a mercy that this helpful woman has cleared the matter up so neatly. But hang on a minute, something isn't right here! When I joined the HE-UK list in 2007, I represented myself to be a middle aged home educator called Simon Webb who worked part-time with children with special needs and wrote occasional articles for magazines and newspapers. I have just checked and that is still who I am! The question is, who was I pretending to be, if not this person? I emailed Roxanne to clear this up, but she is evidently too busy to reply.( She is probably writing scripts for Jackanory). I am forced therefore to throw the question out to a wider audience. I claim now and have always claimed to be Simon Webb, a parent who home educated his daughter until she was sixteen. If this is not, as Roxanne claims, who I am then perhaps somebody could help by telling me who I am pretending to be. It is all very perplexing and as an explanation for the awful rudeness displayed to the new member on the HE-UK list seems to be wholly inadequate. If anybody knows who I am pretending to be, or whether or not I am actually pretending to be Simon Webb and am really somebody quite different, perhaps they could share the information with us. I for one am very eager to find out!
Asking too many questions
Anybody considering an enterprise such as buying a car, moving house, applying for a job or changing the whole style of their children's education would be well advised to look into the matter carefully before making a final decision. This is only common sense. A first step would be to gather as many facts about the projected course of action as possible and then examine them carefully before deciding whether or not to proceed. This is particularly so when what you are planning will have a dramatic effect upon the lifestyle and future prospects of your children. It was heartening therefore to see somebody posting on the HE-UK list, not to announce, as is all too common, that she had withdrawn her children from school and did not know what to do next, but in order to request as much information as possible about home education so that she could make an informed decision about whether she wished to undertake it. She headed this thread, 'Considering home education'
Incredibly, this attempt to find out a few basic facts about home education was treated with the gravest suspicion by others on the list. A parent who wished to think carefully before deregistering her child from school? Somebody who wanted to look at the facts first? Must be a dangerous troublemaker! Why on earth should she ask about the efficacy of home education or want to know about any research on the subject? Why was she wanting to know about the long term prospects if she chose to home educate; GCSEs, further education and the attitudes of potential employers? The list owner, Mike Fortune-Wood, urged others on the list to refuse to answer these questions. Addressing her directly, he challenged her motives and asked what use facts and figures would be in making a decision such as this. Others swiftly joined in, starting a new thread called, almost unbelievably, 'Too many questions'! This simple request for information had, according to one parent, 'started alarm bells ringing' for her. The idea that it would be possible to ask too many questions before making a decision of this sort about one's child's education is so absolutely mad that it leaves one clutching one's head and reeling with disbelief! Presumably, those who feel this way withdrew their own children from school without asking too many questions or giving the matter too much thought.
This incident says a great deal about home education in Britain today; none of it good. Part of the animosity which was displayed towards the person making this post was motivated by the fact that her concerns were entirely educational and not related to problems at school or a desire for a different lifestyle. This in itself raised hackles; it is a rare parent in this country who chooses to home educate for educational reasons! Another thing which put people's backs up was that here was a person wishing to make a rational decision by examining all the available evidence before making up her mind. Again, this is at odds with the way such decisions are often made by home educating parents in Britain, that is to say either when they have reached such a point that there seems to be no choice in the matter or as an instinctive desire for a particular mode of upbringing for their child.
Withdrawing a child from school is a very serious decision indeed. It is common enough to hear of parents who have taken this step and are then at a loss to know what to do next; one sees them all the time on the forums and lists. Joining a list like this and asking for information first, before taking the kid out of school, that is an unusual person indeed!
This business also touches upon another aspect of British home education; the almost visceral distrust of research on the subject. Whoever the person asking for information was, whether she was even a parent at all, there could hardly have been any harm in pointing her towards Alan Thomas and Paula Rothermel's work on home education. The fear expressed though was that she might have been a 'researcher', one of the most feared and alarming characters whom a home educating parent might encounter! It is because of this ridiculous attitude towards researchers that so little is known about home education in this country. Even a sympathetic researcher like Paula Rothermel found that 80% of those whom she asked wished to answer no questions about what they were doing. Education Otherwise found the same proportion a few years later when they tried to conduct a survey among their members. I won't even mention the campaign to boycott the Ofsted research at the end of 2009.
Fortunately, some members of the HE-UK list have realised what a completely bonkers view the 'Too many questions' approach was giving of home educators. More information has been forthcoming, although the list owner is still deeply suspicious of somebody who could even think of asking all those questions! This little incident casts a revealing light upon home education in this country and I shall be exploring some further implications over the next day or two.
Incredibly, this attempt to find out a few basic facts about home education was treated with the gravest suspicion by others on the list. A parent who wished to think carefully before deregistering her child from school? Somebody who wanted to look at the facts first? Must be a dangerous troublemaker! Why on earth should she ask about the efficacy of home education or want to know about any research on the subject? Why was she wanting to know about the long term prospects if she chose to home educate; GCSEs, further education and the attitudes of potential employers? The list owner, Mike Fortune-Wood, urged others on the list to refuse to answer these questions. Addressing her directly, he challenged her motives and asked what use facts and figures would be in making a decision such as this. Others swiftly joined in, starting a new thread called, almost unbelievably, 'Too many questions'! This simple request for information had, according to one parent, 'started alarm bells ringing' for her. The idea that it would be possible to ask too many questions before making a decision of this sort about one's child's education is so absolutely mad that it leaves one clutching one's head and reeling with disbelief! Presumably, those who feel this way withdrew their own children from school without asking too many questions or giving the matter too much thought.
This incident says a great deal about home education in Britain today; none of it good. Part of the animosity which was displayed towards the person making this post was motivated by the fact that her concerns were entirely educational and not related to problems at school or a desire for a different lifestyle. This in itself raised hackles; it is a rare parent in this country who chooses to home educate for educational reasons! Another thing which put people's backs up was that here was a person wishing to make a rational decision by examining all the available evidence before making up her mind. Again, this is at odds with the way such decisions are often made by home educating parents in Britain, that is to say either when they have reached such a point that there seems to be no choice in the matter or as an instinctive desire for a particular mode of upbringing for their child.
Withdrawing a child from school is a very serious decision indeed. It is common enough to hear of parents who have taken this step and are then at a loss to know what to do next; one sees them all the time on the forums and lists. Joining a list like this and asking for information first, before taking the kid out of school, that is an unusual person indeed!
This business also touches upon another aspect of British home education; the almost visceral distrust of research on the subject. Whoever the person asking for information was, whether she was even a parent at all, there could hardly have been any harm in pointing her towards Alan Thomas and Paula Rothermel's work on home education. The fear expressed though was that she might have been a 'researcher', one of the most feared and alarming characters whom a home educating parent might encounter! It is because of this ridiculous attitude towards researchers that so little is known about home education in this country. Even a sympathetic researcher like Paula Rothermel found that 80% of those whom she asked wished to answer no questions about what they were doing. Education Otherwise found the same proportion a few years later when they tried to conduct a survey among their members. I won't even mention the campaign to boycott the Ofsted research at the end of 2009.
Fortunately, some members of the HE-UK list have realised what a completely bonkers view the 'Too many questions' approach was giving of home educators. More information has been forthcoming, although the list owner is still deeply suspicious of somebody who could even think of asking all those questions! This little incident casts a revealing light upon home education in this country and I shall be exploring some further implications over the next day or two.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
