to keep longing to home educate my DC's

[ValentinCrimble]

I find school tough...there's always something I am unhappy with or suspicious of...I KNOW the kids are fine...it's a good school...I know that they will get through it all and have an education/friends and all that...but I keep thinking that they would have all that anyway and without my having to support the 6 year old with reams of homework every night and crap reading scheme books.

Is it still thought of as odd or weird to home ed? I sense a bit of a change in people's opinions recently...DC is in a private prep...money is not an issue as we are lucky enough to have a bursary...don't know how I would deal with state as our local one is notoriously bad (I am talking rife with bullies and under special measures) and the others are rammed to the gills with locals on waiting lists.

I'm not unhappy with the school as such but feel that its an awful lot to trust strangers with my DC's education...come on...give me your best for and againsts of home ed?

Um - I am a dedicated, enthusiastic secondary school teacher

I only know primary level teachers to chat to- so I was on primary too. My DSs have certainly had some fantastic teachers at secondary but I can't be more general.

I teach secondary as well.

valentincrimble "Cote...bless you...I'm not "Mom"..this is the UK and I am Mummy. Over here, we don't endow those with degrees with super-human status as I have seen some people in the USA do..I have a degree though...two in fact...but even if I did not that would be no indicator of my ability to teach my own children.

In the UK you can qualify as a teacher by the age of 24 or so...I am almost 40 with vast life experience in comparison to some teachers...so I am comfortable with my ability to teach young minds."

I can honestly say I've not come across something so smug, patronising and sneering on here, ever. And that's saying something.

Ditto whoever made the comment about "teachers only being able to impart large lumps of information". So horribly rude and downright insulting. Being a teacher is bloody hard work!! Getting to be a teacher is bloody hard work.

And TBH all this "learning through play" and "child directed learning" to me sounds like parents being lazy, allowing the children to dictate and breeding a generation of narcissists. There is no way these children will cope in your average working environment. And I strongly doube they'll all be successful self made entrepreneurs either. they'll never have successfully have separated out from their mothers.

FallenMadonna, I think that just the fact that you are reading this thread means that you are one of the very many dedicated and enthusiastic secondary teachers.

Or she could be avoiding work

"Plus, why should a child control the teaching structure, they are to learn and need guidance from somebody with skills"

There is a strand of home education (called "unschooling" in the USA and "autonomous education" in the UK) where the child choses what to learn, when to learn it and how to learn it. That might be what the poster was referring to.

A couple of links cos I'm not an AHEr and I'll make a pig's ear of explaining it.

www.home-education.org.uk/ac/article-ae.htm

sandradodd.com/unschooling

It takes time to really get to grips with the concept, the links should be seen as a starting point, rather than a "dummy's guide to.."

Busted!!

School is a blunt instrument. For some kids it's great, but for others it's terrible. Some leave having fulfilled their potential, but many others leave with few skills, and no prospects. Some thrive socially while others dread every morning.

Compare the post of CurlyhairdAssasin:

"Because to me, that's all well and good, but again, how is being in control teaching them how to just get on and deal with the boring bits of a paid job? Or having their line manager giving them a task and expecting them to get on with it without moaning and whingeing that they aren't in the mood for it?"

With that of a director of Tesco:

"They can't read, can't write, keep time or be tidy: Tesco director's verdict on school-leavers"

Or the post of Nellykats:

"learning to dodge the bullies is what gives you confidence."

With this (not unique) article from the Guardian:

"Nine teenagers have been charged over the death of a 15-year-old Irish girl who killed herself after months of merciless and sometimes violent bullying by fellow students at school"

Home-ed may have its problems, but then so does school. Go for it! You won't regret it, and you and your kids will have a fantastic time.

Cakeretention: I read things like that in the Guardian or wherever and think "what a tragedy that they didn't/couldn't home educate".

Personally I think that in extreme cases, where school is actually FAILING a child in some way, then Home Edding would be a better idea. I'm just not sure that for MOST children it would be the better option.

Different strokes, of course.

Whoops! Sorry jobettany. Of course I did.

When I read cakeretention's examples, I didn't wonder about what kind of school those children attended- I wondered about what kind of parents they had. Surely even the most fanatical school supporter believes that parents are the most important influence on the way a child behaves?

And if my suspicions were right on that score, then it is hard to see that HE would have been a better alternative for those children.

"which will probably struggle due to the current evil "reform""

Since it will be used as a lever to cut costs rather than solve issues, I'd agree.

One serious issue that should have been addressed by the reforms is the insidious ?shuffling?.

This is an extreme case (up the road from me)

violenza-donne.blogspot.com/2010/03/briona-la-bidella-di-briona-fu.html

, but if cases like this can't be dealt with, what hope do parents have when the issue is a "shuffled in" teacher (or three) who would rather chat on their mobile than teach the kids anything ?

I think that the examples that cakeretention gave wouldn't have done better with their parent at home. They were extreme! My DS couldn't get a Saturday job with Tesco when he was in the 6th form-the competition was intense-they could take their pick. He had to have a CV and 2 interviews-there was nothing wrong with his literacy skills-just too many applicants.
Schools cover the whole range from excellent to dire and HE parents cover the whole range from excellent to dire. You can't generalise about either and it isn't one or the other-it is which one suits your DC.
Anyone with extremely negative views about schools themselves should leave it right out of the equation IMO-your DC isn't you. They are a different person and a different school. My father didn't have a good time at school but I saw him as old (he was in his 20's when I was born!)and enjoyed the funny stories-it never crossed my mind that I would have similar experiences-why would I?
There is only one person to consider -the child.

I think HE might be a perfectly valid choice, as long as your ds is on board obviously. Many parents do this very successfully and the HE board is very helpful: I think you should have more chats with the people who know. And then with your ds.

At the same time, it is not a dried and cut choice between full time home education and completely entrusting your child's education to strangers. My children go to school, but I still regard myself as their most important educational influence (after all, I get them for more hours than the school does).

What the school does for my dcs, and actually does very successfully, is to reinforce and complement the home influence: dcs get to see more adults who are also passionate about their subjects and they get to use resources that are slightly different from the ones we can offer at home. We have a better humanities library, they have a better chemistry lab. The fact that they attend formal schooling doesn't mean we don't talk to them, don't share books with them, don't take them out.

Yes, occasionally they come across a teacher who is quirky or difficult, but then I am occasionally quirky and difficult myself. There is the occasional teacher who does not appear very enthusiastic, but then tbh there are lots of subjects I am not prepared to be enthusiastic about either: trying to learn maths or textiles in my company probably wouldn't leave them exactly inspired.

Most of the time I feel that the advantages of school education are almost similar to the advantages of being around our large extended family: there is always someone who can show them a different take on life (and you don't have to actually be close to every single third cousin twice removed for this to be an advantage). But I am still the parent.

I do find the notion that an untrained almost 40-yo would make a better teacher than a BEd with four years' training and many, many hours classroom experience a bit

If my experience of helping ds with his homework is anything to go by, I simply do not have the patience to HEd, which is fine as ds enjoys school. I would certainly consider it though if ds had serious problems at school (and I could afford it) or if the schools he attended were dreadful (they're not).

But I am under no illusion that I could do a better job of teaching him Maths, say, than an entusiastic (or even a mediocre) professional - even now, in Y5 (I am a graduate, a fairly competent computer programmer and have experience working in schools so in theory I should be well equipped!).

I know two families who HE now or have done in the past. One withdrew their DCs from school for absolutely dreadful (imo) reasons that ultimately came down to them not being able to get their act together in the mornings, finding HW a bit of a bind and wanting to go on holiday when it was cheaper. Seriously. They thought school was too much like hard work - for the parents. They lasted a year, iirc

The other family weren't happy with the schools in their area, and I think also have a bit of an anti-establishment bent. They appear to be doing a great job. They aren't madly keen on other HE-ers locally though, so don't tend to take part in many HE group activities.

Obviously the HE families near you might be absolutely fab, but I do think that if working alongside other families might be important to you, that it would be worth meeting with a few if at all possible. Having said that, I imagine the Internet opens up a whole new world of other HE parents to collaborate with.

"I'm not unhappy with the school as such but feel that its an awful lot to trust strangers with my DC's education"

Whatever else is in the OP, as Cote pointed out this is a control freak statement.

"They are doing a good job, but I still think I could do better"

I don't know what the OP's profession is but they are demonstrating the professionals delusion - that success and ability in one area translates to success and ability in another. This is what makes Doctors think they can tell IT how to do their jobs, and Lawyers to try and design buildings. And all of them to think they can teach.

I'm also surprised that the OP thinks that because they have their own business they are not managed. Surely they have clients?

I feel really ashamed, reading the last few posts. I have been teaching at university level for the last 20 years or so, and have always been considered a success by the institutions employing me- but like many of my colleagues, I have no formal teaching training. Am I deluded to think I can teach?

Of course not, cory. But teaching at university level isn't the same. And I bet you're a better university teacher now than you were 20 years ago!

I don't have time today to get into an in-depth discussion on this subject, but I will say that home education has been a blessing to not only my son as an individual but to my whole family. He was almost ten when I took him out to HE after several years of neglect across two schools, neither of which was prepared to support his autism.

The harm that was inflicted on him was so bad that it took me best part of a year to even begin to correct the damage. He is now thriving because of the balanced curriculum I give him, and he is socially more involved than he's ever been because he is calm enough to take part in leisure activities, which he never was during his time in school.

The family has benefited because we no longer have the intense stress of trying to get support for him that was persistently refused, despite his obvious need for it. We are calmer and happier and our relationships have strengthened dramatically.

I'm not a qualified teacher, nor any profession. But I'm intelligent and capable and above all I love my child and want him to have a future, and am prepared to do whatever it takes to ensure he gets one. Not a single teacher I encountered in the five years he was in schools had the same attitude - he was just another name on a register. IMO extensive subject knowledge and teaching experience aren't enough and teachers should also care about their pupils' future development. I didn't see much of that with my son, though I do appreciate that such teachers do exist.

I can appreciate both sides of this argument. I am aware that we have been spectacularly unlucky with the schools, LEA and medical services that have been involved with my family and that good schools do exist. I'm genuinely pleased for anyone whose children attend them. But please don't knock HE outright as it's been the only worthwhile option for countless families, especially those with children with SENs.

I agree that teaching at university level is different and would not equip me to teach a whole class of somebody else's children. But I think that experience does make me a force to be reckoned with when it comes to teaching my own children who have grown up with me and are used to the way I think. And whose characters and strenghts I know very well.

My parents were Sixth Form teachers. They taught me a lot of what I know, starting from an early age. They were very good with me. But they wouldn't necessarily have been any good at teaching down the local primary. Where a trained teacher has the advantage is that she can teach lots of different children, in lots of different styles, she can teach across totally conflicting attitudes and influences brought from home, she can teach an extremely wide ability range and she can do this whilst exercising crowd control. Hats off to teachers! But a parent teaching her own children doesn't have to do all this. It really is very different from primary school teaching in a school.

My dd can be taught in very much the same way as I teach my undergraduates, because we have always had that kind of reasoning discussion at home. Also, some people just have a natural knack for pedagogy, or story-telling, or whatever you like to call it- my mother for one.

So yes, I do recognise the value of schools and I would not want my children to miss out on that. But I do think it is perfectly possible to HE without formal teacher training. Where I would fall down is that I really find so many subjects totally boring and I am afraid my children would pick up on that.

I'm not sure it's ignorance, Riven. Rather, people's different opinions. There is a difference.