ailbhe | Has anyone here heard of the home ed review?

I've heard of it and read bits of it. It strikes me as overly bureaucratic, and on the issue of whether inspection powers are needed to ensure that home-educated children are safe, it seems to confuse correlation with causation (and the correlation itself is at the authority level, not the family level, i.e. authorities with high home ed rates also have high rates of children-at-risk, which could have all sorts of other causes.) I think some degree of checking that children are being reasonably well cared for and educated is appropriate, but the report strikes me as going too far. We used to have education visitors in Waltham Forest before Labour got in and scrapped them, a bit like health visitors, who visited all families (home ed or not) at certain intervals to offer advice on child development, library services etc until the child was eight, IIRC. The younger the child, the more frequent the visits were, since they develop at such a furious rate when they're very small. If I was in charge of this policy area, I'd restore funding for that and extend it to higher age groups as well. Home-educating families would have the option of more frequent visits, since they could reasonably be expected to have greater needs, but it wouldn't be compulsory.

Thank you for this comment, to which I have been clinging during far more difficult discussions.

I'm sorry people are being difficult. Thanks for taking the time to say that this helped - that means a lot.

I've heard of it but I'm afraid that's as far as my knowledge goes at the moment. I'm more than happy to be educated (Ha!) on the topic

I've just realised that I've run out of Reasonable on the topic - I had lots of Reasonable over at http://whoteacheswhom.blogspot.com/ - and it's not a good idea to start off with my massive rant.

I do HAVE a massive rant, it's just not going to surface until people have had a chance to read my Reasoned Bit first. It's a long reasoned bit. I think the rant is shorter. Certainly it has a lot of very short words indeed in it.

Yes, I have.

Don't. Get. Me. Started.

:-)

This, mostly.

I hadn't heard it until you linked to your review yesterday - have been shockingly out of the loop! But I found your blog posts on it very interesting, and will definitely be writing to my MP.

(I'm hoping that Labour will not get re-elected next year, somehow, and the whole thing will just get quietly dropped.)

Well, yes, of course I have heard of it...

I'm not sure I can come up with a printable response to it.

I managed but it was really hard. I'm saving my unprintable one up for later.

After I've finished isolating and abusing my undereducated children. Oh, I forgot. I'm middle-class, het and white, I'll be ok.

Who are you scared of? And what could they do to you if you wrote what you think?

I just get really tired of adjusting my tone so that the dominant group won't dismiss me as hysterical.

Well, it's your diary, and I think you should be allowed to write any way you like there. That's why I don't have people on my flist whom I don't trust and who I think might dismiss me as hysterical. If you feel strongly about something, surely your livejournal should be a place you feel safe about articulating it? And if you want to compile a more rational document to send on to the authorities in response to Badman, it'll read all the more strongly for you having bashed through your initial reactions in a safe space. Trust yourself, and filter off people who don't!

(I mean, that's just me and how I use LJ. I know several other people on my flist are more into keeping posts public to encourage broad debate from randomers, but, erm, that ain't for me.)

I'm really troubled by this comment. You're deliberately using the language of Derailing for Dummies (or similar), and I don't know whether you're being facetious or whether you're really claiming that home-educators as a group are systematically discriminated against in the manner of women, people of colour, queer and trans people and so on.

If you mean the latter, what are you basing that on? (To my mind, simply being in a numerical minority in terms of your lifestyle choice isn't anything like the same: to put being a vegetarian or a cyclist on the same level as being queer or Black or trans, groups which have objectively measured poorer outcomes on a variety of indicators, is weirdly dismissive of those groups.)

I shared your initial discomfort; but then I decided to keep my mouth shut, because I had a very unpleasant experience yesterday of trying to argue against about 5 people who were all parents of very cute young children that the voluntarily childless are a minority group, and there is a valued, fetishized majority voice silencing our point of view. They absolutely refused to see that angle of things (with only one of them prepared to consider it if and only if I could show how I was actively "discriminated" against), basically because it didn't seem to the to be the case. So I hesitate to dismiss Ailbhe's feelings, cause maybe she feels like I do?..

But I also have a friend who claims that being a parent is being part of a minority group, and uses "bingo card" to talk about that. Feeling pissed off because people are dismissing your feelings and refusing to see something from your point of view is one thing, and of course it's infuriating, but you and rebelraising can't both be right that you belong to a minority group which is being systemicallydiscriminated against, and that this discrimination is something that people should fight against, rather than just silenced because people don't agree with you or don't care about your issues.

I don't know, I'd hesitate to say that empirical evidence is the be-all and end-all of determining who's systemically discriminated against and who isn't, but I do think there has to be something a bit more concrete than just "most people don't seem to agree with me".

Hmm, I don't know... Do you have to be discriminated against at all in order to qualify as a minority group with a valid point of view?

What I mean to say is, do I have to be bitter about some of my tax money going on maternity leave or tax credits for parents or whatever (which I'm not, and why should I be? I don't begrudge paying tax that goes towards benefits for disabled people, and I'm not disabled) in order for it to not OK that popular culture dismisses my lifestyle as either misguided, disingenuous or dangerously cracked?

I'm not saying the view isn't valid, or that it's not frustrating when people don't listen to you. Both of these things are true. But sometimes people are just disagreeing with you because they disagree. They're not dismissing you as hysterical because they're trying to maintain dominant privilege and silence you, which is what

ailbhe's comment above implies to me.

I know what you're saying, I do.

But I'm still smarting from a bunch of ostensibly intelligent people not so much trying to maintain dominant privilege over me as sticking their fingers in their ears and going "la la la we can't hear you even say the p word" and then trying to pass it off as a joke.

So I'm inclined to be open minded.

They are both right> they are women, and women whether mothers or not are discriminated against, and their choices about parenting are part of that discrimination. If you have a child, when and how and where and with whom. And if you have a child how you raise that child. I used to think that it was only my choices that were being attacked by people; but a broader world view lets me see that almost all women have their reproductive choices attacked.

I think that women often feel the need to moderate their tone because a woman who is visible/audibly angry is hysterical, or a shrieking harpy, or one of many other nasty misogynist things that people say about women.

Original point> Local radio discussed the report, and seemed to manage to not simply be rude about home schoolers. Reading your Sensible Blog Posts I gain more Facts, and it seems (to me) that they've mixed in some sensible things about resource distribution with a lot of the things that I (stupidly) used to think before I knew anyone who homeschooled, they seem to basically not trust parents to be able to assess their own ability to provide for their children's needs accurately.

Whoa. OK, I'm upset by your comment,

biascut, which is a bad state to be responding in, but if I don't do it now god knows when I'll get around to it.

You seem to imply that demonstrably discriminated-against groups are the only ones who are entitled to articulate a sense of trepidation at the prospect of airing their minority views. This seems to me as unkind as it is dismissive. As you know, I share some of

ailbhe's unease around defending home-education to friends who oppose it, and I don't accept that she (or I) needs to earn the right to mention that.

It's my impression that you and I have very different responses to the experience of vigorous dissent. Being dismissed might not seem so scary to you, but to me it can be a real obstacle. I empathise with

ailbhe's position here, and I have plenty of experience of doing precisely what she describes: "adjusting my tone so that the dominant group won't dismiss me as hysterical". I do not hereby claim equivalence with any systematically oppressed group. There might be no legal or economic consequences to revealing my opinions on home-education, but the potential social and emotional consequences can be troubling nonetheless.

(For instance, I'm scared of how you'll react to this comment. If you turn upon me the full blast of that articulate intellectual scorn with which I have seen you shred opponents on other occasions, I will probably run away and not feel able to talk to you for a while. Yes, saying this might be passive aggressive. I don't feel I can risk not doing so, though. Apologies.)

Comparisons are dubious, as we know, but your mentioning cyclists reminds me of some of your own posts on that subject. You seem to identify a widespread misunderstanding of cycling by non-cyclists (and perhaps also by those who make the rules about it). That seems to me a possibly useful analogy here: home-educators worry that the rules relating to them are framed within a paradigm that simply doesn't fit their circumstances, and will hence impair their ability to make what they believe to be the best choices for their families. Broadly supporting the State's right - indeed duty - to keep tabs on all children's welfare does not imply an obligation to welcome any given implementation of this principle.

I'm not sure what kind of response you want here, because I don't want to upset you and I'm not sure exactly how to avoid the accusation of intellectual scorn. But I'm going to try and explain my position and I'm really sorry if it's hurtful. I don't want to be.

But I didn't say that I object to people expressing minority opinions, or being nervous about doing that, or expressing nerves about doing that. That all seems to me to be perfectly reasonable. What I was alarmed by is the very particular use of language - "tone" and "hysteria" - which have been used over and over again in discussions like RaceFail and which carry a particular baggage.

I ask because I think the point of Derailing for Dummies and How To Suppress Discussions of Racism is that they put a responsibility onto members of the dominant group to accept a subordinate position in that conversation, and to consider very carefully whether any point of disagreement is a genuine point of disagreement, or whether it is a function of privilege and a tactic to silence the minority group. In that context, the demand by the majority group that a minority group moderate its tone is part and parcel of the dominant group's ability to silence the minority.

What I was asking is whether

ailbhe thinks that a discussion of home-schooling operates on the same model. If it does, in her opinion, then having to moderate one's tone isn't simply a matter of how you talk to different audiences, it's an unreasonable and oppressive demand made by a privileged group in order to silence a minority group. (By extension, if I am a member of the majority group and disagree with a point or choose to leave the discussion because it's too heated or emotional, that's not because I disagree, it's because of my privilege. To me, invoking "the tone argument" in the absence of the institutionally unequal relationship is pretty much death to the conversation.)

I made the comparison with cyclists and vegetarians because they are groups where I belong to the minority (well, sort of, in the latter case!), and yes, I do think the rules are made by a non-cycling majority. But I don't think that puts an onus on non-cyclists to listen and accept what I have to say even if I express it angrily or sarcastically or passionately. I think that's a discussion where we meet as equals - even if I think I'm better informed than they are - and where it's my job to convince them using whatever rhetorical devices are at my disposal. In that context, the way I moderate my tone isn't a function of oppression, it's a function of language and communication. It's frustrating, and sometimes upsetting, but it's not oppression. Of course we moderate our register for different audiences: that only becomes oppressive in the context of a wider discrimination, in my opinion.

I think it's really important to preserve that distinction. It's really important to preserve the particularity of discussions in which one group is systematically and institutionally disadvantaged to their great detriment, and also to preserve access to whatever rhetorical devices are appropriate within the mutually-agreed etiquette of the conversation when neither group is institutionally disadvantaged by the other. If you don't agree which is the case, how you can decide which set of conventions you're using?

So that's where I'm coming from. If that wasn't at all what

ailbhe intended to suggest, then I apologise to her. Knowing that

ailbhe is familiar with that language and how it was used in RaceFail, though, it does seem unlikely that it was completely accidental, though, and if it wasn't, I still think questioning the intent behind the reference is legitimate.

I'm sorry if that makes you feel unsafe talking to me. But I have also been in your company when you've said something dismissive about school or schooling and felt completely unable to answer you. It's not a topic on which I feel very safe around you either, and I don't really know how to handle that.

(oh my god, I am such a nightmare. I'm sorry it's so long,

ailbhe!

Children who are not suited to a schooling environment, particularly children who are not suited to a schooling environment specfically outside the home, do not have a voice other than that of their parents. The parents are not, I grant you, a systematically oppressed and voiceless group, and they do have the luxury of making a lifestyle choice not to (further) traumatise their children by (taking them out of or not sending them to) school, but the children don't have that choice.

I don't know whose oppression is bigger in terms of women generally or non-white people or any other of the groups most right-thinking people recognise as discriminated against, if that's what you're wondering, but the children are definitely more oppressed than a cyclist or a vegetarian or an anarcho-punk with facial piercings who can't get a job or whatever.

But I think I have already heard you say that "If school doesn't work for these children we should send them to school anyway and work on improving the schools," which shows to me a difference in worldview I find almost impossible to grasp.

Thank you, that's a very clear answer. So would you prefer not to discuss this with someone who's starting with a such a different set of values? Because that's absolutely fair enough, if that's what you'd prefer.

(That sounds like a paraphrase of what I believe, but not a completely unreasonable one. I think it's probably true that there are some children who are much better off home-educated than taught at school, though I suspect I think they're rarer than you think they are. Given that home-education simply isn't an option for all parents, and I can't see how it ever could be, I think school provision should be diversified and seek to include as many different children as possible.)

Given that home-education simply isn't an option for all parents, and I can't see how it ever could be, I think school provision should be diversified and seek to include as many different children as possible.

See, I think that too - I see school and state education as a resource which ought to be flexibly designed for the benefit of children.

But the idea that the same set of basic assumptions about how someone's brain is wired will work for almost all people boggles me utterly, and that's what "school more or less works for almost everyone" sounds like to me.

I do quite see that a lot of the economy is based on the "free" childcare that school provides and especially in Ireland the whole thing depends on women being primary carers and having preferably full-time jobs, with free after-school childcare from other women making up the difference. I can *see* that. I only personally know two full-time primary-carer fathers, in all my deliberate socialising excursions, so I feel quite justified in singling the expectations placed on mothers here.

Also, sending them into the schools before the schools are fixed to me seems at best careless and neglectful, and at worst outright cruel and abusive.

Cruely and abuse imply intent to do harm. I think it is monumentally unfair to bandy those terms about when discussing social practices that are normal, common, and the only economically viable option for the majority of parents. I hated school with every fibre of my being, because I was bullied, ostracised, isolated and ridiculed; but that only makes the other kids cruel and abusive, not my mum and dad, thanks.

Please notice that that the above is not a demand that you modulate your tone (I'm not one of those who are sensitive to tone anyway): it's a specific criticism of the license you take with the language you use on a topic you also happen to be passionately and emotionally engaged with, which is not the same thing.

I'm more talking about the system than the parents, there - and I think a system which ignores or devalues the needs of specific people because forcing them to conform in ways which are specifically traumatic for them is abusive. Not necessarily sadistic - I don't think the system needs to *enjoy* doing it for it to be abusive.

I do *not* mean that parents who have no choice, through economic necessity or other causes, and who have to send their child-who-is-damaged-by-schooling to school for whatever reasons, are abusive. Miserable, probably, but that's not the same thing.

Parents who can't afford to feed their children adequately are also not necessarily abusive, after all. And usually damn hungry themselves.

I have to say, I thoroughly agree with

the0lady's comment. Bullies may be cruel and abusive; parents and teachers who believe sincerely that school is the best or the only viable option for their children are not. Not all parents believe that the answer to bullying or other difficulties with school is to withdraw their children from formal education; this does not make them abusers.

(I too was horribly bullied, but my loving parents were in no way abusive nor cruel for sending me to a school where abuse happened. I was damaged by my schooling experience, yes, but my parents never for a second considered that taking me out of school was best for me, I never wanted to be taken out of school and my school did its best to protect me. Neither the school, my parents nor the system were abusive; they did their best in a difficult situation. We believed in addressing the problem within the system: this makes us neither cruel nor miserable.)

I'm not going to ask you to moderate your tone either, but I do get profoundly hurt and angry when people (parents and teachers) who participate in the formal educational system, with the highest ideals and the best of wishes for children, are dismissed as 'outright cruel and abusive'. Who is 'the system'? Is it not just teachers, civil servants, parents and social workers, who do not in the least intend to cause damage or force trauma on children? Because cruelty and abuse are about intent, not enjoyment.

I don't want to jump all over your posts and demand that you not offend me, but I'm not quite sure how you want dissenters to react to your sentiments: are you trying to set up a discussion, here, where contributions are welcomed from all sides? Or do you want to express your feelings in a space where you won't encounter such dissent? Like

biascut, I don't want to attack your safe space, but I'm very uncomfortable with the terms of the debate here.

I want (generic) you to acknowledge the existence of a set of people who are harmed by school and for whom school is not appropriate.

I assume that if (personal) you and your parents felt that school, though not without its downsides, was the best space for you to do the things you do at school (learn stuff, express self, interact socially, etc), that it was. I know several people who benefited from school and also an awful lot of people who actively enjoyed it. I don't disregard the existence of those people or claim that their experience was misperceived or self-deception. Why should I?

I have repeatedly seen the set of people about whom I am talking *completely disregarded* and I have seen many people doubt their existence or misunderstand them entirely (Oh, if we just change the way schools are then they'll work for these people! - that's not necessarily true, because schools are based on groups, among other things).

I'm *tired* of that. These people exist, according to themselves and some of their parents, and I don't see why they should be presumed not to or why they should be forced to alter so that they fit what the system thinks they ought to do better.

I want (generic) you to acknowledge the existence of a set of people who are harmed by school and for whom school is not appropriate.

I acknowledge that there is a set of people for whom school is not appropriate, yes, and who would benefit from alternative learning. Absolutely, yes.

I don't see, though, why advocating the rights of these people needs to go hand in hand with denigrating school, teachers and parents who choose school for their children. I feel profoundly unhappy and uncomfortable reading posts where teachers, people who work in education and parents who choose school are insulted and demonised in support of your valid argument.

I do believe that school should change to accommodate as many different kinds of learner as possible; I don't see that as incompatible with your belief that, with the best will in the world, some will still be better off outside school. It is a very sad fact that at present, neither schools nor parents are provided with the full range of resources to support different learners, but trying to improve the provision offered by school is not abusive or cruel; it's one part of a solution.

And I also don't quite see what any of this discussion has to do with the Badman report, which also does not want to take away the rights of parents to homeschool, nor to force anyone to school.

I also don't quite see what any of this discussion has to do with the Badman report, which also does not want to take away the rights of parents to homeschool, nor to force anyone to school.

No, it's fine for people who want to homeschool, more or less. I am not one.

Ah, that makes sense! Do you feel that the report imposes a homeschooling model?

I feel it assumes one and the recommendations impose conditions which are only compatible with homeschooling.

ALSO it recommends things which I'd love to see happen, but because it's so sloppily put together I can't use it to support my arguments for even the things I agree with. Which is infuriating. I would love to see even non-wealthy home educated children allowed to study for GCSEs etc at home, instead of having to get through school just because they can't afford to pay for the exams privately. I don't actually think either of the children I have at present will NEED that but it seems unfair to me that it's not already there.

I caught a news item on the BBC website about it briefly, and thought - Ailbhe will blog about this, and provide me with better links than the BBC. And now you have, and I shall read it, and come up with a better response than my initial mildly negative but uninformed one from the BBC article.

That's more or less what I thought, too.

Has anyone here heard of the home ed review?

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