Has anyone here heard of the home ed review?

[ailbhe]

I've written something about it in Who Teaches Whom. I did honestly try to give it my most charitable interpretation but at some point in the next few days I expect I'll post something else too. I do feel that if I want anyone who agrees with the review to listen to me I can't point out its worst and most damaging flaws, which hurts somewhat.

Comments

[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.

[biascut.livejournal.com]

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.)

[ailbhe]

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.

[ailbhe]

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.

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

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.

[ailbhe]

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.

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

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.

[ailbhe]

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.

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

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.

[ailbhe]

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.

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

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

[ailbhe]

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

[ailbhe]

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.