Where are the adults?

I have been wondering recently what sort of things happen to home educated children after the age of sixteen. Do a lot of them go on to college and university? Do they start their own businesses? Go on the dole? Of course nobody really knows, because official interest ends on the last Friday in June of the academic year that they turn sixteen. My thoughts have turned to this topic because I have been reading a new edition of an American book called Real Lives - eleven teenagers who don't go to school tell their own stories. I can thoroughly recommend this book, which was first published in 1993 by Lowry House Publishers. The woman who edited it, grace Llewellyn, also wrote a book called The teenage Liberation handbook.

All the children featured in the books were autonomously educated, although being American the do not actually use the expression. What is interesting is that the latest edition of Real Lives, which was published in 2005, follows up on the teenagers and tells what they are doing in their mid twenties. It also includes their comments upon the whole experience of home education. By and large, they all seem to have turned out OK. By which I mean that they are not drop-outs or drug addicts and seem to be enjoying their lives. Their adult perspective on being home educated is very enlightening. Although none have any major regrets, some of them acknowledge that the problems which led their parents to withdraw them from school were partly of their own making. A couple say that it is a matter of regret that they did not at least try being at school.

The accounts in this book are the only attempt that I know to follow up the long-term outcomes for a group of home educated children. I know of nothing similar that has been done in this country. A few days ago, I mentioned Ruth Lawrence and was promptly accused by somebody of using an extreme case. The reason for this is that we only seem to hear of the extreme or freakishly atypical cases. Alex Dowty at Oxford, Ruth Lawrence falling out with her father, Sufiah Yusof, who ended up on the game, these are the only home educated children whom we ever seem to hear about after the age of sixteen! This does not of course mean that all home educated children are like these; simply that we never hear about the rest and have no idea how they turn out.

I have to say that I find it a little curious that with all the fuss about the Badman report, the select committee, Children, Schools and Families Bill and so on, that no adults have come forward and said, " We were home educated and we've all turned out just fine!" After all, there must by now be thousands, probably tens of thousands of people in their twenties and thirties who were taught at home. Where are they now and what are they doing? Are any of them architects or solicitors? Vets or doctors? Engineers, accountants or surveyors? I am puzzled that not one of them is apparently ready to come out and boast about the advantages which home education brought them. Indeed, it is not only the adults who have been home educated, from whom we never hear. One never even sees children and young people on the lists; all the opinions expressed are by parents, rather than by the young people themselves. This is a little odd. I am surprised that no teenagers go on the EO and HE-UK lists to make their views known. My daughter tried to sign up to the EO list last year, but because she was my daughter, they refused to allow her on the list. Ironic really, that there was a genuine opportunity to hear from a home educated teenager and that Education Otherwise were determined that she should not be given the chance. I can't help wondering whether it is a general policy and that some of these places actually do not want the young people themselves to muddy the waters by expressing their own opinions on the lists!

This is also the case with the long term outcomes. I have certainly seen lists drawn up by home educating parents who know of successful outcomes and children who have done well. What I have not seen is posts by home educated young people or adults themselves. There is of course the HEYC site, but this tells us only that this group of home educated teenagers and young people think that home education is a good thing. There is no information about what they are doing with their lives and what their prospects are for the future.

None of this is meant to suggest that I think that home educated children don't go on to have successful careers and satisfying lives; just that we don't hear about it from them. I have to say that I am not alone in noticing this and if a few professional types who had been home educated came forward, it might do the cause of home education a bit of good.

Home education-the next generation

Many home educating parents are not over keen on schools because of their own experiences there. This has been a trend in British home education right from the very start; Joy Baker in the fifties did not send her children to school largely due to the wretched time she herself had at school. I'm not at all sure how good a motive this is for home education, but it certainly seems to be common enough. One cannot help but wonder what those who are currently being taught at home will make of it all when they are themselves grown up and have children of their own. Will they too become home educators in their turn?

The reason that I am curious about the above question is partly because of the way that we all determine to avoid at all costs the mistakes which our own parents made when rearing their children. Sometimes, this can lead to an over-reaction. If our parents were harsh; we are over relaxed about discipline. Often, the children who have been dragged to church become atheists and so on. Children whose parents drank heavily and smoked sometimes become fanatical non smoking teetotallers. This might well account in part for the reason that so many home educating parents seem a little bitter about their childhood experiences of school. Reading what a lot of home educators say, they seem to have a deal of resentment about their childhoods; perhaps they think that their own parents should have protected them by taking them out of school. Will this phenomenon result in parents who were themselves home educated, sending their children to really strict and formal schools in twenty years or so?

There have been a few high profile cases of children who were home educated being a little bitter about it in later life. Aaron Stern's daughter, she of the so called "Edith project" , was outspoken against home education as an adult. Ruth Lawrence has also made it plain that she would not have wanted to home educate her own children. There have been other examples. Does anybody know of any home educated person who has gone on to home educate her own children? We are reaching the stage at which there should soon be quite a few people in their twenties and thirties who were taught at home and now have children. Will home education become a family tradition for some, as sending a child to a particular school is now in some families?

Paul Ennals and the NSPCC

I am of course a supporter of the new Children, Schools and Families Bill. Even I choked over my coffee this morning though, when I read the following letter in the Observer;

Tomorrow, the Children, Schools and Families Bill will go to the House of Lords for its second reading.
The proposal to make personal, social, health and economic education (PHSE) a statutory foundation subject in the national curriculum is a quietly radical reform. PSHE supports young people to develop the understanding, and skills they need to lead fulfilling, safe and happy lives, which is why we, as leading children's charities, are committed to the importance of this section of the bill passing.
More than any other measure in this bill, statutory PSHE education speaks directly to, and for, children and young people, who repeatedly say they want good quality PSHE taught by trained professionals. This is serious educational reform that is long overdue and parliamentarians should not ignore it.
Taking this opportunity to secure the well-being of children and young people through PSHE education is a step we must take.
Paul Ennals Chief executive, National Children's Bureau;
Sarah Smart Chief executive, PSHE Subject Association;
Gill Frances Chair, Teenage Pregnancy Inter-agency Group;
National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children

It is, to say the least of it a bit much for Paul Ennals to sign this letter. He gave evidence at the select committee in October and is dead keen on this bill for reasons quite unconnected with PSHE! He calls this proposal about sex education, "a quiet revolution". One also notices the NSPCC supporting it. Again, they have another reason for wanting it to go through. I wouldn't describe this as actually dishonest, but anybody who does not know the background might not know what the real interest of these people is in the business.

Cui bono?

I am confident enough of my readers' erudition to believe it unnecessary to translate the above expression. It means of course "who benefits?" and is the classic question asked by those investigating a murder. I have been considering this question very carefully in connection with the practice among some home educating parents of not encouraging their children to study for and sit formal examinations. Cui bono? Who benefits from this action, or perhaps one should more properly describe it as lack of action?

It is fairly plain at once that the person who benefits cannot really be the child. It is hard to think of any benefit or advantage for a child in reaching the age of sixteen without any qualifications. It will make life difficult if she wishes to attend a Further Education College, prospective employers will raise their eyebrows; indeed according to a recent survey, many will not even consider a candidate lacking any GCSEs at all. Some parents say that these examinations can, if required, be taken later by the home educated child. In some cases this is true, but it is hardly an advantage for the child to find himself several years behind his contemporaries in this way. It might perhaps not be a grave disadvantage, but that is the best one can say. Others claim that children can get into college on the strength of portfolios or auditions and this is certainly true if one wishes to study Performing Arts, Photography or Textile Design. It won't usually help for Physics or mathematics. The lack of GCSEs has restricted their life chances and closed off many options. This is a great disadvantage. Even if they would not have chosen the academic pathway in higher education, it would at least be nice if they were given the choice!

If the decision not to sit GCSEs or other similar examinations does not benefit the child, could there be anybody else who might gain an advantage from this peculiar and on the face of it perverse decision? Why yes, there are the parents! For the mother or father of a home educated child there are many advantages to this course of action and no disadvantages at all. Let's look at some of the advantages.

Firstly of course, one does not risk any sort of confrontation with one's child about study. This is a major cause of friction in families where a teenager is at school. Have they done their homework? Why are they going out late on a school night? Do they want to fail their GCSEs and end up working in McDonalds? Acrimonious debates of this sort are a regular feature of life for many parents whose children are at school. Home educate your child and don't trouble with GCSEs and you are free of this at a stroke! That's got to be a good motive. It is also extremely time consuming to teach your child to this level. Not only will you have to spend time doing it during the day, but your evenings will be taken up with preparation of the next days activities. No more relaxing in front of the television or computer once the child is in bed! For a single parent, this aspect of the matter alone can be a deal breaker. There simply will not be enough hours in the day to teach all those GCSEs and also keep on top of all the housework and everything else that needs to be done. Sometimes also, there is a living to be made. It is more practical to allow the child to spend hours browsing the Internet while you get on with your work.

Which would most parents rather do with their children; visit a park with a sketchbook and supply of pastels or stay indoors on a lovely day and learn about covalent bonding of molecules? Wow, this is a hard one! Personally, i think I'd opt for the park. Minor decisions of this sort can also have the effect of easing a child onto the non-academic pathway in life. Most of us would rather spend the day relaxing with our kids like this, rather than working at a table.

It seems clear that for parents there can be many advantages and benefits in not teaching their children to GCSE standard. Since this ties in neatly with the ideology of autonomous education, this becomes a lifestyle which is much easier for parents and can seem, even to them, as a principled decision made in the best interests of their child. In some cases it may well be so, but it is hard to avoid the suspicion that for many it is a justification for a life with children and teenagers which is far less stressful. The only ones who do not benefit from this arrangement in the long term are of course the children themselves.

Childhood Mythologies

All families create elaborate myths around their members. Johnny is the "practical one", Mary is "a dreamer". Uncle Joe is the "artistic one" and so on. There is little harm in this sort of thing where adults are concerned, but with children it is another thing entirely. Having such labels attached to children can have the effect of making them behave in certain ways; either to confirm or vehemently to reject their chosen mythic role. In other words, because Susan is seen as being artistic, her parents might buy her lots of art materials and so on. Susan might then feel that this is in a sense her destiny and fall in with the family view of seeing herself as "artistic". With the best will in the world, the family is shaping her in a certain way. She might rebel and refuse to have anything to do with her assigned role. She might do this by throwing herself into mechanics or something, thus showing that she is her own person. This too has been caused by the family expectations. What has all this to do with home education?

For most children, there is the opportunity to develop an alternative mythic role. This happens at school. There, the child whose parents think she is "the quiet and good natured one" can instead be "the troublemaker" or "the awkward one". This can be very satisfying to a child anxious to overthrow her familial mythic role and it explains why many parents become puzzled and unhappy when they learn how their children are viewed at school. They aren't like that at home! It must be the bad influence of the school. It is nothing of the sort; it is a human being asserting his or her right to be somebody defined by themselves rather than their relatives!
A hazard with home education is that children are often deprived of this opportunity to develop other mythic roles. The child who is seen as "artistic" will be encouraged in that and perhaps allowed to abandon science in favour of art. The "practical" one might end up tinkering around with machinery, with little attempt being made to introduce her to Keats or Shakespeare. Thus the family of a home educated child can without really being aware of it, mould the child and close off certain options.

At school, the case is quite different. the National Curriculum takes no account at all of the mythic role which an adolescent might have adopted! He may see himself as a latter day Van Gogh, but he will still be required to study mathematics. This is a good thing. Although as many home educators have remarked, children can be put off subjects by being made to study them, it also happens frequently that a child with no interest in poetry discovers through being compelled to study it, that he actually likes poetry. Or biology or many other things which left to his own devices he would have avoided.

None of this is an argument against home education, simply that I am musing upon a theme which I have seldom seen mentioned by home educating parents. It certainly happened in my own family. Simone is "the academic one", her sister Morgan was always "the practical one". To what extent I have maintained the myth of my younger daughter and how far she would have created her own myth if given the opportunity afforded by school is an interesting point!

The CSF Bill

I find it quite ironic that while many home educators are campaigning furiously for the Children, Schools and families Bill to be scrapped, other groups are campaigning just as vigorously for it to be passed at top speed. The Red Cross is one such organisation. They have arranged for MPs to be deluged with demands that the bill be passed. Below is an example of the letter which they are urging people to send to their MP;

1. Visit the WriteToThem website and enter your postcode to find your local MP.2. Click on your local Member of Parliament.3. Fill in your personal details, then paste the pre-written text (provided below) into the message box.4. Email your MP.
Re: Children, Schools and Families Bill 2009
I am writing to you regarding the Children, Schools and Families Bill as it contains a proposal to make first aid training – within PSHE – a statutory part of the national curriculum.
First aid saves lives, reduces the impact of serious injury and can play a significant role in reducing the burden on the healthcare system. It should play a central role in any preventative health education programme. This is particularly pressing as more than half of the 5.5 million attendees at accident and emergency departments could have benefited from first aid.
For example, more than 100 young people (aged under 15) attend accident and emergency departments every day in the UK with a scald or burn injury. Such injuries are quite easy to treat and benefit greatly from imediate attention, but sadly most people lack the necessary basic skills.
The importance of basic first aid training makes the inclusion of statutory first aid training in the bill a welcome step forward. I am aware that there is a small window of opportunity for this Bill to become law before an expected General Election. As such I would urge you to support the Bill in the upcoming report stage on the 23 February.
Yours sincerely,
(Insert your name)

Actually, others have also been bombarding MPs with letters asking them to spped up the passage of this bill. I just thought that readers might be amused by this and was also wondering whether a big organisation like Red Cross has been able to muster more letters in support of the thing than home educators have against!

How can parents teach A level Chemistry?

At the second meeting of the All party Parliamentary Group on Home Education, which was held on Tuesday, Baroness Deech distinguished herself by asking some particularly foolish questions. Being herself a former teacher, she really should have known better! Her basic point was that parents could not be expected to teach their children sciences and languages, because they might not know about these subjects themselves.

Those whose friends are in the main teachers will be more than a little staggered at Baroness Deech's remarks. She seems to be under the impression that science teachers know all about science and simply transfer the knowledge in their heads to their pupils. This is not how it works at all. Catch a science teacher at a party and ask him to give you the balanced equation for photosynthesis and he may very well be stuck for the answer! And yet the children whom he teaches will need to know this for GCSE. How will they learn it, if he himself apparently does not remember it? The answer is of course that teachers do not need to be super brain-boxes whose heads are crammed with all the facts which their pupils will need to learn. If the topic next week is photosynthesis, all that is necessary is to prepare the lesson and swot up on the thing yourself a day or two before. After all, the teacher is not going to be tested; he will have all the relevant materials in front of him. Why should he stuff his head full of all this stuff when he can just consult a book?

Parents can teach any subject in precisely the same way if they wish to do so. Baroness Deech specifically asked about A level Chemistry as though this were a knockdown argument against home education. It is not. I know somebody who has taught her child A level chemistry. I am no chemist, but I managed to get my daughter through the International GCSE at A* in this subject. It is not particularly easy to do this, but for somebody to suggest that it cannot be done is very irritating.

In any case, the question is largely irrelevant. As we know perfectly well, many parents would not even attempt to teach their children chemistry unless they were asked to do so. It is true that very few children probably take GCSEs or A levels in chemistry from home, but this is not because the idea is at all impractical; it is due to the ideology of parents. Many home educators subscribe to a theory of education which would prevent them from saying to their child, "Come on Johnny, sit down. we're going to do an hours chemistry." Baroness Deech might have done a little better to concentrate on this aspect of home education. She did at least notice that many of the lists and Blogs are apparently populated by illiterate maniacs, which is heartening!

I must say a few words about Rumer Lacey, the Essex elective home education advisor. She was at this meeting, although strangely reluctant to give her name. Everybody who meets Rumer has the impression that she is a very nice person. It is not generally known that she taught her own child at home. The problem that I have seen with Essex is that although all the people who work in the elective home education department are seemingly dead keen on home education and think it a great idea, their submissions to the DCSF do not always reflect this. When the 2007 guidelines were drawn up, Essex were even then pressing for it to be a criminal offence to teach a child at home without notifying the local authority.