The following is not directly on the subject of this blog. It is the unedited draft of an article that appeared in the Spectator the week before last about home-educating my daughter. But it does contain, among other things, some of my concerns about how education has developed in Britain. It seems to me that the state's influence has extended increasingly from the state schools into the private schools, too. I should emphasise that I believe there are many fine schools and excellent teachers. But there are problems, nonetheless...
Unlike most nine-year-olds, my daughter Alex, is not back at school this week. She is not having last-minute morning rushes to find her self-losing shoes. She is not getting used to a new classroom or meeting a new form teacher. For during this term at least, I am going to home-educate her.
Alex has been at good private schools. Most recently she has been at a warmly encouraging one with an outstanding headmistress (who has been very good about what I am doing). Before that, she was at a school noted for its academic and sporting success.
But by the time you read this, Alex and I will be in a little cottage outside Aix-en-Provence, staying with an old friend who lives with her bee-keeper boyfriend. The first objective of our home-education will be for Alex to learn French.
Of course, in theory, she has already been learning French for five years and more. At the particularly academic school, she had, I think, three French lessons a week. But a few months ago I asked her - and her 12-year-old sister who is now at one of London's top private secondary schools - to decline the verbs etre and avoir. Neither of them got close. Even the best private schools - or most of them - don't seem to teach French grammar any more.
You might wonder what do they do in French classes? I am not sure but I remember the day my elder daughter's French homework at the 'academic' preparatory school consisted of finding pictures of tourist sites on the internet, drawing them and colouring them in. That reflects something about how French is taught these days - and many other subjects. Another great educational tool of our time seems to be papier mache.
I would like Alex to have some notion of English grammar, too. My children often say things like, "There is loads of..." and "I could of gone on the trip". They have little idea about nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. As for their spelling....
I don't want to give the impression that I will be a Gradgrind. We will have some fun, too. Alex loves to paint. We will go to the current major Cezanne exhibition in Aix and see his paintings of Mont St Victoire. Then we will see the mountain itself from the same viewpoint that he used. I hope we will settle down to paint it ourselves - perhaps copying Cezanne's technique.
One of the joys of home education is that one has the freedom to pursue things that already excite a child. Alex is fascinated by bugs. She likes shells and stones. I hope to use these interests to lead us into natural history.
While in Provence we will also go to Arles to see the amphitheatre and other Roman remains. We will learn some Roman history. History is still taught in schools and better, I think, than most subjects. But it has been squeezed into fewer lessons to make way for Information Technology, Design Technology and any other 'technology' that 'educationists' can think up.
I have the idea, which some may think eccentric, of giving Alex a big picture of the past, starting with the creation of the universe, going through the development of the surface of the earth and then on through the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans to the present. Perhaps that will prove overambitious. But having been repeatedly taught the 'Tudors 'n' Stuarts' through my childhood, I want her to get an idea of the big narrative sweep.
I think it is right that parents should be able to pursue particular ideas on what they want their children to learn about. Why should politicians and civil servants decide what is important and cause it to be learnt by every child in the country - in the process ensuring that many other things, such as a second modern language, are not taught?
Private schools are not - in theory - obliged to follow the national curriculum. But they live in terror of a bad report from school inspectors who follow government guidelines. One thing Alex wouldn't get in any London preparatory school I'm aware of is a knowledge of Italian. She is already getting towards the end of the time when she is most easily able to absorb a foreign language and I don't want to leave it any longer.
Home education is growing fast in Britain and has already become big business in America where two million children are now being educated at home. The reasons, as in my case, can be a mixture of things.
One of my minor reasons is that I want to remove her - for a time at least - from the undercurrent of propaganda in most schools today. Geography lessons have, to a remarkable extent, been turned into vehicles for passing on the views of Friends of the Earth. My children come home from school believing as uncontested facts that forests are being destroyed apace and that, if this does not stop, the planet is doomed. .
Much teaching about the environment is based on one side of the argument alone and I think that is the opposite of what education should be. Another kind of commonplace propaganda is a quiet but insistent sub-text in the teaching of many subjects that business and capitalism are bad. I would like her to hear the other side of that particular story.
More personally, I want Alex and I to have more contact while she is young. She is a lively, charming girl. I don't want to see her only in the evenings when she is tired and has homework to do. I want to know her better and for her to know me. I want to enjoy her sparkle and share the learning experience with her. I think that will be exciting.
The reactions of friends are usually positive and teachers, surprisingly, are often the most enthusiastic. But there is one recurring, negative response: "What about her socialisation?" Many worry that children cannot learn to rub along with others without going to school. Yet I am told, by those who have studied the evidence, that it is actually the other way around: those who are home-educated are better "socialised".
I have also noticed with my elder daughter that the longer term goes on, the more she says "whatever" and affects disinterest in pretty well everything (except horses). Only as the holidays progress does she rejoin the human race and allow herself to be enthusiastic. I have come to wonder whether schools have a tendency to put children off learning.
That could be arrogance before a fall. Alex may be going to resist learning even more when I am her main teacher. She may refuse to decline etre and not give tuppence for the universe. I can't know whether this is going to work. But I am going to have jolly good go at it.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Education
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Good for you. I hope you are studying the US model. We have trouble with it in the UK because of the strong Christian element, (although that is the foundation of our own educational heritage) but the US homeschooling movement has largely been an attempt to restore the ideal of liberal education: that education due to a free human being, as argued for by Matthew Arnold and Cardinal Newman. In the UK, as witness a recent Sunday Times colour supplement article, homeschooling is more about 'alternative' methods and lifestyles, idiosyncrasy rather than tradition. The Americans are tapping into the great tradition of education invented by the ancient Greeks as the necessary adjunct to democracy. Parents have always had an important role to play in its transmission. Gilbert Highet, looking back over the west's history in 'The Classical Tradition', put it like this: '...the group we tend to forget, although we should remember them with admiration and affection. These are the fathers who introduced their sons to the great books and the beautiful languages of Greece and Rome, who awakened their interest, and helped them over the dry sands and stubborn fences, and studied along with them, until often the sons became famous men whom we admire as though they had produced themselves out of nothing. It was for this, more than for their physical existence, that Pitt and Casaubon, Browning andd Montaigne, were grateful to their fathers. That is true fatherhood, not only to beget the body but to help in making the mind of your son.' These days, it can be true of daughters as well.
Posted by: Marc Sidwell at September 25, 2006 11:24 AM
James,
Good on you - what you plan sounds delightful for both parties & I'm sure I'd do the same in your situation.
Trouble is, most people aren't in your situation and never will be. Their "school day" is taken up with work to pay mortgages and taxes. Can you see a way of extending the benefits of home schooling beyond the leisured few - say, by some sort of shared enterprise between parents?
BTW pedants R us: I'm not sure that construction (or "Alex and me went shopping") is necessarily wrong. Conjunction does funny things to case, e.g. in French you say "Je suis allé" but not "*Alex et je sommes allés" - it has to be "moi".
Posted by: Yaffle at September 25, 2006 02:24 PM
Good luck. I hope you can keep your readers posted on how home-ed is working out for you. I hope I have the courage to do the same with my children when they're a bit older.
Posted by: Bishop Hill at September 25, 2006 07:43 PM
home educating is the most liberating coicemy family and I have ever made. we find that the children (3 boys) learn far more far more quickly because they are interested and feel involved in the process, rather than dictated to. We know each other far better than before, and there is more harmony in our lives because we know when to back off, by watching the kids behaviour. I honestly believe that any parent taking the time and trouble to Home Ed. can only see improvements in their relationship with their children.
As to only the 'idle rich' having the time or money to choose to Home ed. this is a very long way from the truth - a huge number of those I know who also Home ed. have taken the decision that what is 'right' for their child(ren)is worth more than a career of financial gain. In the same way that many parents choose to live a more frugal lie in order to stay at home with their child(ren) the same choice can be made to Home ed. We exist on an extraordinarily tight budget, but I firmly believe that giving my children my time and showing hem that they are more important to me than anything else will pay dividends in the future.
Posted by: Jenn Impey at September 25, 2006 08:12 PM
Good for you, I home educate 2 of my 4 children. It's not just for the middle classes, I am disabled and unable to work, we survive on benefits most of the time as my husband had to give up work to care for me and the children. We manage to educate and broaden their horizions. The last thing we do is homeschool, we home educate. time to stop schooling the kids and time to start educating them!
Posted by: Gbass at September 25, 2006 08:15 PM
"In the UK, as witness a recent Sunday Times colour supplement article, homeschooling is more about 'alternative' methods and lifestyles, idiosyncrasy rather than tradition."
In the UK, most ppl who practise it call it home education rather than home schooling. There's a huge number of different ways of going about it, and it isn't by any stretch of the imagination all about alternative methods and lifestyles, that is just the bit that the media likes to focus on.
Posted by: Jax at September 25, 2006 08:48 PM
James, all the best with this endeavour!
My children will probably all be homeschooled for all the reasons you cite, although it is the plain reality of the alternatives that is the clincher: our choice is between the hell of state education which I am forced to pay for in taxes, and the excellent private school I attended, which after taxes I cannot afford. It only makes sense then for my wife to stay home and take care of our children's education and for me to work.
Posted by: PL at September 25, 2006 08:59 PM
Welcome to HE, James. Hope it goes well for you.
Had a bit of a pop at Rod for making sweeping assumptions about the demographics of HEors without clearly checking up on the evidence: a much larger proportion of HEors get into HE not for precise complaints about the curriculum, but because they see that school is often mostly about crowd control and learning to avoid being bullied.
Plus, as far as the Christian fundamentalist issue is concerned, I would have little anxiety about this situation in the UK, where there are as many fallibilistic humanist libertarians as there are religious dogmatists.
Posted by: Carlotta at September 25, 2006 09:18 PM
Good Luck James - I too have been home - edding for 18months now with my 11 year old son and I can honestly say it has been the best thing for all of us as a family.
I also rejoice in being able to find a subject which interests us both and studying it in far greater detail than at school. This in turn then overlaps all other subjects and doesnt feel too much like 'learning'.
You may also find that it is not only french grammar that is lacking, I was truly appalled at the lack of knowledge in almost all subjects and those that he had touched on were so spartan as to be almost useless.
Socialisaton really need not be a problem and you and your daughter will soon start to reconize other home educated families out on your travels - we are everywhere.
Don't be disheartened if the road is bumpy - you will both have good and bad days - its the destination that is important.
Posted by: Karen at September 26, 2006 08:21 AM
Forests in many countries are being destroyed.
Do you not believe that species of animals are becoming extinct ?
It is very sady that you put rubbish like this in your blog as what you say about single mums and benefits is brilliant.
Posted by: David at September 27, 2006 11:36 AM
As a life educator of our nine year old daughter for the last decade (started pre birth) I trust you will enjoy this experience. It is about joint learning, enjoyment with ups and downs.
Don't fall for the world's model of comparing your child's skills with other children. It is tempting (because schools operate on these principles) but do refrain from it. Focus instead on the thing that really matters - character. Even if our children do the most wonderful things, but lack the grace and modesty to be excellent examples to the world, what has been gained?
We follow the Hebrew model (as opposed to the 'Greek' model in which the 'expert' delivers the curriculum) where the family is the base for nurture and learning. That's our choice.
Have an enjoyable journey - and listen to your little girl. She will have some excellent ideas - and don't flatter yourself that they're all from you! Children only blossom under ideal conditions. Your responsibility is to dig deep, water, fertilise and harvest!
Posted by: Susanna Matthan at September 27, 2006 05:40 PM
Well, David, did you not read James's text, namely that (according to FoE) if the destruction of forests "does not stop, the planet is doomed"? The world might indeed be a poorer place - but "doomed"? I don't think so. If you disagree, then perhaps you might explain just how you think this doom will result?
Posted by: Philip Talmage at September 27, 2006 06:21 PM
The purpose of state education now is to turn out obedient little conformist consumers. Its a policy we imported from across the pond where several of my friends are home educating because they found their children were not learning basics.
It has been going on a while though. My daughter is 28 now, when she was doing CSE's I helped her research something for a project. She was given a fail and I received a snottogram from the teacher saying they knew I had helped Gabby as the class had not been taught this particular topic yet.
In other words "they're only allowed to know what we want them to know."
Posted by: Ian Thorpe at September 28, 2006 04:53 PM
Good luck with your Home Ed.
With regard to the Environmental / Non-Environmental issues I suspect it is not so much the information itself, as the way it is packaged and delivered, which could kindly be described as unbalanced.
More accurately, the 'mandated' curriculum is bent to push the views of those in power, which is taught as if it is the only possible view and no other view is even worth considering. Such approaches apply especially to Geography (which will be unrecognisable from when you did it), Science (even worse), and Citizenship (you will have no idea what this is, you haven't missed anything)
This isn't, as is often suggested, down to the teachers being left wing, PC, whatever. Teachers have spectacularly little choice in what they do. The Govt, through DfES and OFSTED, imposes teaching styles, topics, tasks down to ludicrous levels of minutaie ; whilst never, of course, taking responsibility for the numerous failures. It's always a "they didn't follow our plans well enough" (a never-lose situation for the DfES et al), even in spectacular u-turns such as Phonics vs Real Books.
The solution, as in so much else is for the Government to XXXX off, because it hasn't got a clue.
With regards to socialisation. There is a valid point here ; some children can become mini-adults if they mix only with adults. This can be avoided though by encouraging children to join in and mix with other children in non-school activities.
There is a problem in that in the UK things such as "being quiet" and "working hard" "being respectful" "interest in learning" "patience and persistence" are almost going "against" the flow of the masses and a child displaying these characteristics in many schools will be viewed as "unusual" or a "wierdo" by the other children.
Also there is an issue of socialisation with *who*. Bluntly, and this sounds *real* snobbish, but there's a large proportion of the school age population I would be perfectly happy for my children to have zero contact with.
Posted by: Paul at September 29, 2006 07:29 AM
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You say you want your kids to have a notion of English grammar. Then you write a sentence like "I want Alex and I to have ...". Irony. You might like to teach them that the object goes in the accusative.
(Keep up the rest of the good work of this blog though.)
Posted by: pedants R us at September 25, 2006 11:05 AM