Disowning home educators

I have noticed many times over the last year or two how eager some home educating parents are to distance themselves from other home educators who say or do things which might give a bad impression of home education. This happened to me actually. Because my views were disagreeable to some home educators, it was claimed that I was not really a home educator at all, but a home schooler! More seriously, the claim is frequently made that Khyra Ishaq's mother, Angela Gordon, was not really a home educator. The grounds for making this assertion are that...

Read More

Waiting for children to learn to read

Whenever I write here about the idea that reading can be acquired with no teaching at all, just picked up as it were, I am sure to be denounced as perpetrating a wicked calumny upon autonomous home educators. This is strange, because most of my own personal experience of this theory has been not with home educators at all, but in schools. The notion that it was possible to 'catch' reading, like a cold, through being surrounded with the written word was for some years the mainstream orthodoxy in quite a few schools.I will not weary readers with...

Read More

More about the situation in America

Cases of death resulting from children being educated at home or not sent to school are, mercifully, very rare in this country. In the last eleven years there has been Victoria Climbie, Khyra Ishaq and the three children of one mother who died last year in Edinburgh. That is three serious cases in over a decade. Nevertheless, there is a tendency to take individual cases involving children and then use them as a platform to demonstrate that wide ranging changes in the law are necessary. So the death of Victoria Climbie precipitated the Every Child...

Read More

Services for home educated children with particular needs

According to all the surveys which have been carried out in this country in recent years, home educated children seem far more likely to have problems of one sort and another than the school population as a whole. In 2003, Education Otherwise asked all its members about their reasons for home educating, in 2006 the National Foundation for Educational Research published Some Perspectives on Home educated Children, in 2007 York Consulting found the same thing and so did the Ofsted survey, whose results were published last year. It seems clear that...

Read More

The rate of illiteracy in the UK

We saw yesterday one of the main ways in which those who do not believe that the teaching of reading to children is a necessary or wise undertaking, manage to justify their actions. Or, what is more to the point in this case, their inaction! The starting point is the claim that one in five children taught to read at school remain illiterate, whatever teaching method is used. This figure of 20% is then used to demonstrate that a certain proportion of children will have difficulties in acquiring literacy and it is therefore not surprising to find...

Read More

On the acquisition of literacy after the age of eleven

An integral part of the mythos surrounding home education in this country that it does not really matter if a child learns to read far later than is usual at school. Mothers talk of their children not reading until eleven, twelve or even later and the claim is made that they quickly catch up with those children who learnt to read at six or seven. On the face of it, this seems implausible. It is generally the case that the earlier we acquire some skill, whether it is riding a bicycle, swimming or reading; the easier it is and the more proficient...

Read More

The one-trick ponies of home education

Regular readers will, I am sure, be familiar with Mr Peter Williams of Alton in Hampshire. He frequently comments here and is apparently obsessed by the fact that his son is not receiving a good education at home, but would be better off at an independent school like Eton. Mr Williams belongs to a small subset of home educators, who wish their children to develop one particular skill to the exclusion of all else; in his case, chess.I say that this is a subset of home educators, but in fact it was once the only type of home educator of which anybody...

Read More

American adoptions, home education and abuse

I mentioned a week or two ago that there seem to be a number of cases from the USA of people who adopt children, often foreign children, and then home educate and abuse them. Here are a couple of the latest;http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1359343/Father-acid-attack-adopted-twins-accused-sex-abuse-daughter-years-earlier.html?ito=feeds-newsxmlhttp://www.gazette.com/articles/teen-112180-fled-rebecca.htmlNow I am not drawing any conclusions about this phenomenon, certainly not suggesting that home educators are more likely to abuse their children...

Read More

Another school for home educated children

http://www.witneygazette.co.uk/news/wgheadlines/8864814.First_bid_goes_in_for__free_schoo...

Read More

The next generation of home educators

One of the parents commenting here is unusual in that she was herself home educated. I have been wondering lately what the feeling of home educated children is towards not being taught in school like everybody else. In particular, I was curious to know of any of the older home educated children or young people have expressed any interest or desire in educating their own children in this way.The public pronouncements of some of the more well known home educated children are not encouraging. In recent times , We have heard people like Ruth Lawrence...

Read More

Defining terms

One of the great difficulties one finds when debating with some home educating parents is in the definition of terms. In other words, being sure that you are both talking of the same thing and mean the same thing by the same words. Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated than with the use of the expression 'autonomous education'. I am regularly denounced for not understanding this concept and many proponents of the practice undertake to explain in simple language exactly what it is. Unfortunately, their definitions are not all identical.I have...

Read More

The 'new guidelines'

I wonder if I am the only one to notice that the planned 'New Guidelines', intended to replace the 2007 guidelines for local authorities dealing with home education, seem to have vanished without a trace? Readers will recall that in December there was a lot of fuss because a group of people connected with Graham Stuart MP, Chair of the education select committee, were busy rewriting the 2007 guidelines. Some people were angry about this; Tanya Berlow, one of those involved, was banned from the Home Ed Forums as a result. Alison Sauer and Imran...

Read More

Registration of home educators in Illinois

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-02-16/news/chi-110216payne_briefs_1_school-legal-defense-association-home-educated-students-successful-educational-sys...

Read More

Formal teaching and purposive conversation

I have been reading Roland Meighan lately, on the topic of 'purposive conversation'. Both he and Alan Thomas, as well as many home educating parents, seem to imagine that this is somehow different from 'teaching'. It is not. When Socrates instructed his pupils while strolling about in Athens, he may not have used books and whiteboards but he was still teaching them about ethics and philosophy. He did this through the conversational technique which became known as 'Socratic Dialogue'. This is an early example of purposive conversation. Using this...

Read More

Home educated children and the Open University

The question as to what people might be entitled to if they turn down public services and make their own arrangements with regard to education, is once again rearing its head. We are probably all familiar with the views of somebody who comments regularly here and believes that it is unjust that his son is not provided with money from the public purse to enable him to send his son to Eton. Most of those who come on this blog reject his point of view. A rather subtler, but essentially the same, argument is currently being advanced on some of the...

Read More

The value of experiences

Two people made comments yesterday which really tie in neatly together. One person had found, like me, that even with a structured and planned education, it could all be done in a few hours in the morning, leaving the rest of the day free for other things. Another person remarked that I had mentioned the teaching of facts and skills, but not mentioned the value of experiences in a child's education. The fault is definitely mine here, because I have not explored this idea before.I must say at once that I was an extremely structured home educator,...

Read More

A 'good' education

Somebody commenting here yesterday asked me how I would describe a 'good' education. It is a fair question. I have offered much criticism of other people's idea; what do I myself regard as an acceptable type of education? Actually, the answer is fairly simple and straightforward. In any company other than that of some home educators and the trendier kind of teacher, my notions on the subject would probably pass without any remark at all.There is a tendency among some parents and teachers to recoil in horror from the idea of shoving facts into young...

Read More

Copyright and privacy on the internet

The suggestion has in the past been made that I have behaved illegally, or at the very least unethically, by quoting things which people have posted on home education lists. A few days ago, somebody here compared me to a mugger, while another commented that I was like somebody who intercepted a private letter and broadcast the contents. It might be as well to look at these ideas, because the thinking behind them is distorted and irrational.The first thing to bear in mind is that precisely the same rules and laws apply to communications on the internet...

Read More

Letting the cat out of the bag

My mention of Parent A, as somebody here wishes to call her, has recently irritated a number of people. Defence of her privacy and right not to be quoted has been used as a stalking horse for many in the home education world who are really operating to quite another agenda, rather than their ostensible one of defending the rights of a poor woman with a disabled husband and son. I drew attention a while ago to this particular individual boasting on home education lists and other places that she would not be entering her child for any GCSEs because...

Read More

From the USA

Positive bit about home education from across the Atlantic:http://www.nptelegraph.com/articles/2011/02/13/news/40001408....

Read More

Pro-home education or anti-school?

I have lately been reading an interesting book which denounces school. It is called School is Dead and was written by an associate of Ivan Illich's called Everett Reimer. It is not a new book; it was published in 1971. The thesis is that schools are little more than tools of capitalist society and that they are useless for education.Most of the ideologues of home education, those who provide the theoretical underpinning for the practice, are American. I am thinking of Gatto and Holt, the Moores and so on. Their influence though has heavily permeated...

Read More

Graham Stuart and home education

I received an email a few days ago from somebody claiming to be on the fringe of the group who were drawing up the new guidelines on how local authorities should deal with home education. These, it will be remembered, were going to replace the 2007 guidelines. According to this person, the process has stalled because Graham Stuart has become increasingly disenchanted with the world of home education and is no longer as keen on acting as a conduit to Nick Gibb, the Schools Minister.I remember clearly the occasion when Graham Stuart became embroiled...

Read More

Twelve thousand children supposedly missing from education

This is quite interesting. Of course not all those twelve thousand are missing from education, just from school. I wonder once again if there is some sort of campaign to persuade people that thousands of children are going missing and that something must be done. If so, it is a matter of time before people start to muddle up 'missing from school' with 'missing from education'. This will lead inexorably in the direction of home education.http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6069...

Read More

Problems with the internet

A few years ago, well forty or fifty years ago really, written communication was as formal as it had been since the days of the Roman Empire. One took a sheet of paper, got out the typewriter or fountain pen, wrote the letter and then put it into an envelope, bought a stamp and posted it. All this rigmarole made one think quite carefully about what was said and how it was expressed. One also, incidentally, invariably signed one's name to the communication!Things have changed radically in the last decade or two as regards writing to other people....

Read More

A final word about HE-UK

I write a personal blog. In this blog, I express my own purely personal opinions in a humorous and seldom entirely serious way; although I do try to take note of and include the opinions of others. That's why I don't operate any moderation, so that others can come here and express their own views if they wish. I also read other blogs and websites in order to keep in touch with things in the field of home education. From time to time, I refer to things which I have read elsewhere. I usually do this in the vaguest way possible; perhaps by saying...

Read More

On the legality of routine monitoring

I think it fair to say that there is considerable opposition among some home educators to the idea of regular or routine monitoring by local authorities of the education which they may be providing for their children. Some parents, and we saw one commenting here yesterday, take the view that having told the local authority that they are home educating should be the end of the matter. Yesterday, somebody said here;'If the LA knows nothing about a child, and have concerns about the child receiving a suitable education, they are entitled to ask. In...

Read More

Mike Fortune-Wood explains about 'honour and personal integrity'

Now I think that some of the old hands on the HE-UK list, should not be saying too much about people who take posts from that list and disseminate them to third parties. We saw Wendy Crickard make a fool of herself doing this a few days ago and now it is the turn of the list owner, Mike Fortune-Wood. He says, referring to me;'I rely largely upon the sense of honour and personal integrityof those who apply for membership. Unfortunately these values are notuniversally held notions'This is shamelessness upon an heroic scale! Just to remind readers,...

Read More

The feminised world of home education

From time to time, some fool accuses me of misogyny, on the grounds that I sometimes say sharp things about women who get on my nerves. The assumption underlying such criticism is that while it is OK to engage in verbal rough and tumble with men, where women are concerned one must tread more carefully in order to avoid upsetting their more delicate sensibilities. I like this idea, with its Victorian suggestion of women as sensitive, maidenly-modest creatures who cannot engage in tough debate. I am bound to say that it does not accord with my own...

Read More

A breathtaking piece of effrontery

A couple of days ago I mentioned here that a mother was reluctant to send back to her local authority a questionnaire which they had asked her to complete. I gave no details of the list which this was on, let alone the woman's name. However, it appears that she feels upset by my use of her case here. Other members of the list are now expressing annoyance that I have taken a private message and spread the contents around. Wendy Crickard, a former teacher, had this to say;' What a pathetic creep it is - perhaps 'Get a life' is the appropriate adviceto...

Read More

Heading for a confrontation

The more militant home educating parents in this country have constructed for themselves a mythos regarding the legal situation which surrounds home education. They have been supported in this by one lawyer, whose own child was educated at home. The problem is that it is becoming increasingly apparent that other lawyers do not agree with the interpretation which has become accepted by home educators. Let us take the case of monitoring home education.The standard view among members of some home education groups is that the local authority should...

Read More