Educational Technology: Ruth O'Hare

I must crave my readers' indulgence as I reflect that this blog has now been running for just over a year. I have been prompted to muse about this by something which I was reading on the HE-UK list recently. A new forum for home educators has been started, called Other(wise) Inclined and the woman who started it mentioned the fact on the HE-UK list. Mike Fortune-Wood, owner of the list, rather sniffily expressed the view that nobody really needed another HE forum and he couldn't see why anybody would want to start one. Others agreed. This struck me as being a bit strange. Imagine if somebody commented here and said that they were starting a blog on home education and I told them that it wasn't necessary because there were already enough blogs on the subject! A little thought though, made things clearer.

I have noticed lately that very few people are posting on either the HE-UK or the EO list. I have observed the same thing about the Badman review Action Group. In fact, looking at a typical day recently, August 17th, I see that the HE-UK, EO and BRAG lists had a total of only twenty four posts. This blog, by contrast, had forty seven; in other words twice as many as the other three lists put together. The number of visitors who come here without posting is of course much greater than that. I must confess that I was a little surprised to discover that numbers of some HE sites have fallen so dramatically. I see that poor Mike Fortune-Wood has now been reduced to trying to drum up visitors for his website by pimping it on BRAG and other lists.

Why are so many people coming onto this blog? Well of course it might be that they are attracted by my facility for (hem, hem) turning out such brilliant prose. I am inclined to doubt this. The writing is competent, but not really worth reading for its own sake. Initially of course, many people came here to hurl abuse at me and denounce me as a traitor and quisling to the cause of home education. Those types seem to have left though. It certainly can't be my winning personality and engaging charm which draws people because, as is generally known, I am an exceptionally abrasive and unpleasant sort of fellow. Exchanging comments with me is about as agreeable as having root canal treatment! Perhaps I am asking the wrong question. Maybe its not that this is an especially wonderful blog, perhaps it's that the other places where home education is discussed have something about them which people don't like and they come here because it is different.

A couple of years ago, there were some very spirited debates taking place on the HE-UK and EO lists. I say 'spirited'; downright vicious would be more accurate. In fact I have never encountered anything like it in my life. New members would join, express an opinion and be immediately savaged. It really was quite exciting. Many of the people who hung out on those two lists seemed to be permanently angry. One or two of them are still around. Ruth O'Hare from Godalming, AKA firebird2110, for instance. Anybody remember the angry pixie from the Faraway tree? That's what she always reminded me of. Also a bit like some retired colonel in Tunbridge Wells, going purple in the face every five minutes over some imagined slight or other. Of course, these angry home educators provided a certain amount of innocent amusement, but the novelty swiftly wore off. Many parents would join the lists, watch what was happening and then leave. The atmosphere on those places really was poisonous, with people being bullied and driven off a lot. I have remarked before on the irony that some of the worst offenders seemed to be mothers who had taken their children out of school due to bullying.

Now I fancy things are a little different here. True, I piss people off with my smug arrogance, but then again some of the people who comment here piss me off, so honours are pretty well even on that score. What I do notice is that there do not seem to be any really unpleasant arguments; people give the impression of trying to find common ground. Also, there is a good deal of humour, which has always been lacking from some other blogs and Internet lists on home education. All in all, if one forgets about the odd mad chess playing father, I think that this is a rather good natured and easy going place to visit, compared as I say with some home education sites.

Well, that's it folks. I'm not much given to nostalgia, but nor did I feel able to leave such a significant anniversary unremarked. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow.

I was fascinated to watch the reaction among some well-known home educators to my daughter's heterodox views on home education, as expressed in the Guardian recently. Now you must remember that these are people who contrive to give the impression that they are fighting to protect home educated children from the oppressive power of the state. One might have thought that they would be pleased to hear the views of a genuine home educated young person; one who had never spent a single day in school. Not a bit of it! To appreciate this fully, you have to realise that I am not talking about a few random strangers, but people who are very well known in the world of British home education; they run groups, write blogs, send letters to the papers, make Freedom of Information requests to the Department of Education, submit evidence to select committees, that sort of thing. I shall not name them because this seems to irritate people; I am accused of 'naming and shaming'. However, the guilty may look into their own hearts!

As many realise, the opposition to any increased regulation of home education in this country is often coordinated via Internet lists and also by communicating on twitter. It was on twitter that some really awful opinions were being expressed, opinions which provided a window into the true nature of some of these staunchest advocates of the right of children to have their opinions respected. One woman made a sleazy and misogynistic joke about my daughter, a play on words about 'Balls' and called her a 'little tart'. My daughter responded vigorously, pointing out the sexism inherent in this remark. This prompted another home educating mother to describe my daughter and me as 'a pair of c**ts'. What an extraordinary thing for a home educating mother to say of a sixteen year old home educated girl who had expressed an opinion about home education! The tweeter who had called her a tart agreed with this description. Then began a series of exchanges between six prominent home educators in which she was variously called 'a sad little troll' and an 'attention seeker'. (This last was a bit rich, coming from a woman whom it is impossible to avoid tripping over in the comments section of any online article on home education!) There followed doubts being expressed as to whether she really is sixteen or was even home educated.

Two things strike one about all this. The first is that almost all the stuff posted on the Internet about home education is by parents. Parents who claim to be speaking on behalf of their children, it is true, but parents never the less. All the comments posted on Ed Balls' article in the Guardian last week were adults; nearly all seemed to be parents. My daughter was the only home educated young person to say anything there. One gets the distinct impression that most of the parents there would rather keep the whole home education debate in their own hands, without home educated children and young people muddying the waters by expressing their own views on the matter! As soon as a real home educated youth pops up to say something, she is dismissed as a 'cunt', 'little tart', 'sad little troll' and 'attention seeker'. This, I think, says a great deal about how these people really view children and young people, even home educated ones.

The second thing which occurs to me is this. I have regularly been mocked by some home educators for being a lone voice; the 'only' home educator who agreed with Badman. Where are all the other home educating parents who feel as you do, I have been asked rhetorically. Well I think that quite a few of them keep well clear of the established home education scene in this country because they know that there are some pretty unpleasant types to be found there. A year or two ago there were a few people on some of the Internet lists who had varying opinions to most of those who post there. All have gone now. Some were made to feel unwelcome, others were bullied and driven off by some of the same parents who were being so abusive on twitter recently. Parents who join these lists soon learn that if they do not go along with the majority view, then they are liable to be ostracised and incur disapproval. A similar thing happens at some home education groups. I had an email recently from somebody who posts here from time to time. She has been frozen out of her local group because she told everybody that she hoped that her seven year old son would be taking examinations in a few years. Since these parents are often facing negativity from those who send their children to school, the prospect of also being frowned upon by fellow home educators is sometimes too much. I also know this to be true, because when I posted on HE-UK, I would not infrequently receive private emails from folk who agreed with me but did not like to say so publicly for fear of the reaction. Perhaps we need to remember what John Stuart Mill said about the 'Tyranny of the Majority'.

I hasten to add that my daughter is well able to stand up for herself and in fact her response was as forcefully expressed as anything I could have said myself. It has given me food for thought though. Ian Dowty recently suggested that home educators might consider compromising to the extent of agreeing at least with registration. Up went the predictable cry of 'No surrender'. One would get the impression that home educators were completely united in not giving an inch on this question. And yet, as I have mentioned before, when opinions were collected anonymously as responses to the Badman review, a third of home educating parents were in favour of registration. The reason that these parents are not speaking out publicly is almost certainly because they do not want to be abused and insulted by some of the more gung ho members of the home educating community. We have seen what happens when even a young girl from a home educating family says publicly that she agrees with this idea; one shudders to think what these characters would say to a mother or father who dared to speak out like that!