Saturday 9 November 2013

Through the looking-glass; a look at the mad world of the Fortune-Woods



I have had one or two things to say over the last few weeks about those in the British home educating scene who manufacture scare stories and spread alarming rumours. Of course, no mention of this subject would be complete without a look at the stuff that Mike Fortune-Wood and his former wife have turned out. I have been browsing on the Home Education UK website and thought that I might just  publish some of the things to be found there. It provides a fascinating glimpse into an alternative universe; a world such as few of us have seen.

Lots of home educating families feel nervous about being out in the daytime and lots of  children never go out 'just in case'. Imagine if you could be routinely be stopped in the  street by policemen checking up on whether you should be in work and suspecting that  you might be committing a crime just because you were going to a bookshop on a  weekday morning. 

Is it really true that a lot of home educating families feel nervous about being out in the daytime? Apart, obviously, from the crossover group of families who are both home educators and also vampires.  And who are these, ‘lots of children’ who never go out, ‘just in case’? Have any readers yet met a home educated child who never goes out, 'just in case'?  One hardly likes to ask, 'In case of what?'  Are we to understand that these unfortunate children never leave their homes at all? That doesn't sound like a healthy model of home education!  Presumably, if they never go out,  those children won’t be worried about the curfews which are about to be imposed on them, which will make it illegal for children  to be on the streets at all, apart from, ‘the twilight world between 3 and 9PM’ What, you haven’t heard about this? You really ought to check the Home Education UK website more often! The Fortune-Woods have the facts about the new law;


A new education act is being planned which would make it illegal for children of compulsory  school age to be in a public place during school hours without good reason. This legislation is  primarily aimed at excluded children who are perceived as being a public menace but will affect other children such as those being home educated. Home educators can expect  problems similar to those experienced with anti truancy legislation which has been a nuisance for HE families almost since the day it was introduced. It largely depends of course upon the wording of the bill and how local police, who still have  difficulty understanding the nature of home education and how it works, interpret it. At worst  it could effectively make HE children prisoners in their homes from 9 till 3. Given that children in some areas are already under curfew after around 9pm that means that children  are only allowed out in the twilight world between 3 and 9 pm. 

And then there are those idiots who have contact with their local authority…

Many parents, having made the decision to home educate, are aware that other home educators  have  had their  decision  in  some  way  “second  guessed”.  This  leads  many  home  educators to actively  avoid  any  contact with  education  authorities, fearful that LAs will  assess the parents’ decision to deregister their child against the national policy of ensuring that all children are in school. Experience suggests that parents known to authorities do come under undue pressure to return  children to  school  and this pressure  sometimes  extends to maliciously contacting social services to put further pressure on the parents to ‘cooperate’.  


And what about those parents whose children need to be taken to the Casualty Department at the local hospital? Don't they know what is likely to happen? The fools!

I have heard examples of parents discussing the wisdom of taking a child to an emergency ward when they know that a visit will be noted and passed on to the social services

Is this true? Do Casualty Departments generally pass on details of children seen there to social services? Or does this only happen with children educated at home? We need to know a little more about this, I think.

Remember the old Connexions service? You might, like me have found them to be pretty useless, but I bet you didn’t know this about them:

Not since Germany's Third Reich has the state systematically gathered information about  parents by using their children - it is truly reminiscent of "1984" …the introduction of the electronic Connexions card for young people, with its overtones of Hitler Youth reporting on their parents

It easy to laugh at lunacy such as this, but that would, I think, be a mistake. Home Education UK and its associated support group, the HE-UK Yahoo list, is one of the biggest  British home educating sites on the internet. For thousands of home educating parents, this is, heaven help them, their first contact with the wider world of home education.  Once there, many of them  get sucked into this delusional world-view and believe that these paranoiac ravings are what home education is all about.  No wonder there is so much friction between home educators and local authorities with poison like this being poured in the ears of parents.

6 comments:

  1. We go out every day. We stop and chat to police officers, traffic wardens and even (shudder) local Council staff when we meet them in our local Subway. We've met a truancy patrol. They said 'You home educate, don't you.' I said 'Yes' and we went our separate ways.

    We also use the local hospital services far more regularly than I'd like to. We take work with us if it's likely to be a long wait, and the only comments have been 'glad I haven't had to do THAT' and a fair amount of gloating from a young man who can do logic puzzles faster than the doctors and staff who stop to have a look at what they're doing.

    I have once had a consultant appear in A&E after they found we home educate, but that was a plus as far as I was concerned because my son had had 'status epilepticus' (uncontrollable seizures) and had stopped breathing, it was late on a Friday night and I was scared out of what few wits I have.

    That said, my 2 are so conspicious that I'm not so much under the radar as tap dancing all over it!

    Atb
    Anne

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    1. 'That said, my 2 are so conspicious that I'm not so much under the radar as tap dancing all over it!'

      Yes, like so many home educators, we too were very well-known in the locality, with no ill effects. The truancy patrol thing was quite funny, because my daughter and I had a game going, whereby we tried to see how long it would be before the local authority officially took notice of us. Doctors, hospitals, schools in the area, libraries and a host of other people knew all about us, without it reaching the LA. The rules of the game were that we had to answer honestly any questions and must not go out of our way to conceal the fact that we were home educating. At the age of seven and eight, my daughter enjoyed all this enormously. Then, when she was nearly nine, we bumped into a truancy patrol. After having reminded the police officers that their powers did not extend as far as home educated children, the officer then asked whether, as a favour, we would at least talk to the EWOs. Since there was never any intention to hide, we did so and because I am not ashamed of my name and and address, we freely gave them. The rest is history... We were more annoyed at the game coming to end than anything else.

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    2. i never seen a truancy patrol where we live.are the state where you are really bad Webb?

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  2. "Out and proud" is the way it should be - just like other sub-groups of society who are nevertheless part of the spectrum of normality, e.g., left-handed people, vegetarians, gay people, women, atheists etc. But don't forget that most - if not all - of these once faced (and sometimes still face) irrational prejudice, persecution or even legal sanctions.

    MFW's paranoia is - at least in part - understandable; I don't share all or necessarily much of it (I rarely look at the site), but I understand the roots, and as Heller wrote: "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you”

    A couple of personal examples spring to mind:

    1) I have met elected representatives who are unable to distinguish between the concept of home educated children and marauding gangs of truants or compulsorily off-rolled children. They were convinced of the need for registration and monitoring of HE kids in order to keep them off the streets. Now, this is stupidity rather than conspiracy, but it can be just as damaging given that their minds (for want of a better word) were made-up and they could vote for damaging legislation.

    2) More than twenty-five years ago it was common knowledge among many - perhaps most - internet users that the NSA was conducting mass surveillance of electronic mail. But then, as internet use became widespread, this notion was frequently derided as the paranoia of "tin-foil hat wearers". Now who looks silly? But of course, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.

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  3. "Is it really true that a lot of home educating families feel nervous about being out in the daytime?"

    My son wasn't worried, until he was picked up and brought back home by the police, because he was out alone during school hours (I think he was 10 or 11 the first time it happened). Not that it stopped him wandering, but it was a bit unnerving initially to be picked up by gun toting police (we live near a facility that requires high security) just for the 'crime' of going for a walk during the day. He became rather blasé about it after a few times and thanked them for saving him the walk home the last time!

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  4. Simon wrote,

    "What, you haven’t heard about this? You really ought to check the Home Education UK website more often! The Fortune-Woods have the facts about the new law;


    A new education act is being planned which would make it illegal for children of compulsory school age to be in a public place during school hours without good reason. This legislation is primarily aimed at excluded children who are perceived as being a public menace"

    After the problems faced by some people as a result of truancy patrols, I can see why the introduction of fixed penalty notice fines for parents of excluded children who are found in a public place might be a concern. Luckily, although the law was introduced (The Education and Inspections Act 2006), I've not heard of this being an issue for home educators. In fact, I've not heard or read about parents of excluded children being fined for this. I wonder if the law is used much?

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