Why do people fear Home Educators so much?

[sebumfillaments]

Not a TAAT but inspired by the other thread, I was stunned by the level of vitriol aimed at home education. Is it all borne from fear and ignorance?

Home Ed isn't about replicating school. And education isn't (in our case) about gaining qualifications from an institution to increase their value in the workforce!

So why so much animosity?

Yes one of the very first steps in families where there is concern is to facilitate attendance at nursery/ pre school.

sebumfillaments
I don't consider a child to be well educated if they leave school with a fist full of certificates. I consider a good education to be that which equips them to be able to follow their passions. That's it really.

Exactly how I feel. Traditional school forces children to arbitrarily study subjects they may have no interest in. People are happiest pursuing careers and vocations they love not by getting an A grade in everything possible.

Because it shows they are lying when their children don't want to go to school and they say, "It's the law, you have to go."

Well that was the experience I had, mothers told me how much it annoyed them.

Totally disagree. I have certificates in subjects that I didn't love, that have been necessary for my career. And certificates in other subjects I didn't love at the time, but as I got more into depth grew to love.

The people who have been snarky about home ed to me, have invariably been the same people who also moan about children with SN in mainstream, being disruptive or 'taking up resources'. I wonder what they think I should do with my child then.

It seems to me that HE fall into 3 groups:

1. Those who do it on principle. Quite often from what I read these seem to be ex-teachers which makes sense as they have the confidence they know what they are doing. In USA I guess this also includes fundamentalist religious people who don't want their child mixing with others outside the religion.

2. Those who don't set out to HE but switch to it because their child doesn't fit well within the school environment. Often due to some level of SN, or because bullying wasn't sorted out, or mental health.

3. Feckless parents who use HE as an excuse not to bother or to cover up abuse. I suspect this group is tiny in comparison to the other two.

I consider a good education to be that which equips them to be able to follow their passions. That's it really.

I hate to say this because education should be about passion. But to function in the real world you need more than that. I follow my passions independently of work and I did outside of uni too - I could have done s degree in it. That would have been lovely but it would also mean I'd be unemployed.

I think a good education leaves a student with a number of attributes.

They must be capable of critical thought.

So able to examine and combine multiple sources of data, to critique the strength of that data. To acknowledge that not all information is equal, to see possible bias /agenda etc. So I'd expect t them to be able to read say a newspaper article saying 'x cures/causes cancer!' And be able to look at the statistics within and evaluate them, to see where that's published, and to look at primary sources.
Similarly a politics based article. Who's writing this? Why? What's the conclusion? The possible bias? What are MY biases?

I'd expect them to be as literate and numerate as their ability allows.

I'd expect them to have a good grounding in history, sciences, modern languages, English, maths, and humanities. I'd expect that grounding to be good enough that avenues at 18 are not closed - so no closing off of say a maths degree, or a degree in literature, or language, or arts.

Passion is great but passion alone doesn't let you function or earn a wage. And no, bring a high earner isnt the be all and end all. BUT we mustn't close avenues off for kids by telling them passion is all they need. They need skills too.

I think you're correct teen but I'd say that you may underestimate the influence of religion in the uk.

I agree that parents who deliberately remove a child in order to abuse are a small minority. However, let's go back to that JW example earlier. Those kids are neat and tidy and cared for and I'm sure their parents would be appalled at suggestions of abuse. But in a way it is abuse. And I think that indoctrination/religious aspect group is much bigger than you may at first suspect.

N/c d for this but I am a regular poster.

I do not fear home educators. Some do a great job and home ed is the right option for some families.

BUT

Many children in the UK are being removed from school and "home educated" because the schools do not want them on their books because they will not achieve 5 A-C grades. This is often because they are not attending as a result of mental health and social problems. Many of them have been on the social services radar since birth.

Instead of addressing these underlying issues, schools and LEAs are persuading parents - often single mothers with health and social problems - that they can "home ed" their children. Parents take this option as it gets the attendance officers off their backs and means they do not have to battle daily with a child who will not get up/truants/self harms. Oversight of the "education" these young people are receiving is a joke.

The end result in these cases is that already disadvantaged young people are left to their own devices - playing video games, mixing with other drop outs, messing about - until they are picked up again by another social services team on a different budget when they are 16.
But since the underlying problems have not been resolved the fresh start at college often fails.

This is a particular issue in some LEAs. They should be forced to use their "home ed" stats as a performance measure.

Children are also HE in the UK, as a way of avoiding fines for non attendance. This group appears to be on the increase.

Beast I really can't see that. I can't imagine HE is easy so it seems rather a lot of work just to get a couple of cheap weeks on a sunbed!

Yes, deregistering, risking losing their school place, going on hols and then reregistering....

I don't think I have ever aimed any vitriol at a HE, and I know for a fact that HE has been a great success for some of dc's friends.

I did feel slightly nervous of some HE'ers I knew, though, because of their utter conviction that what had worked well for them had got to be the right solution for us and their complete unwillingness to listen when I tried to explain why our choices were different. It's a little bit depressing to hear that your own child is just being a sheep and is going to lose all love of learning and ability to think independently because they are part of an exam factory.

Yes Cory, I feel the same. Some HEers I know are very anti-school and scathing of anyone who sends their kids. Which of course I do as well as HE. And my kids in school are doing well, and love it. And they have a love for learning that extends beyond the school gates, and are definitely not sheep!

Yes, it's the one size fits all sausage factory sheeple discourse that grates rather. It must be particularly galling for people who want to HE but can't afford to.

Thinking about it, it's quite similar to some private school parents. The "well, I want the best for my children" ones........

I have been a home educator - for the reasons given upthread about bullying / anxiety - and am now a teacher (and have taught in a school with a very high percentage of Traveller children, in which group all the girls were removed from school at 11/12 for home 'education' / preparation for becoming a wife and mother).

So I can see this from all sides. i have never seen 'fear' as a response to HE, though I do know that my decision to HE my DS did cause quite a lot of other families to look very closely at the school we left, with the result that a significant number left to go elsewhere. I have seen a certain amount of antagonism / defensiveness in all directions - ie from HE families to schooled families, and vice versa - but i would say that this is in no way greater than that between any groups who have chosen different educational paths for their children - e.g. private vs state or selective vs non-selective.

Home education is not wholly good, or wholly bad. It's a bit like the 'are state or private schools better' debate - for an individual child, a particular state school may be better than a particular private school, and vice versa. However, home education (or rather 'education organised wholly by parents', because the term can include groups / classes / tutors) is very highly variable, even more so than the school sector. The private school sector can range from Steiner to Eton; the state sector from Tiffin to tough secondaries in highly deprived neighbourhoods, via Jewish schools and tiny schools in remote areas, but the variability in specific parent educator / child pupil pairs can be VAST.

The 'good' end of this range - looked at in terms of 'progress made by the child in all aspects of their life' can be exceptionally good. DS;'s first school rendered him a bruised selective mute with suspected autism; a few months of HE transformed him back into a bright, curious, courageous child once again (though the ASD traits, which turned out to be linked to acute anxiety, remained clear for at least another 5 years). However, the 'bad' end - again looked at in terms of progress in all aspects of their life - can be horrendous. Even the 'not very good end' - children with no SEN who are loved and physically cared for but not offered any form of specific education - can further marginalise already marginalised children.

It does HE no service to deny that the 'bad' end exists alongside the 'good' end. If a form of sympathetic oversight could be developed, that takes into account the fact that the decision to HE can be taken by those with greatest distrust of the authorities, either through being part of a marginalised cultural group or through experience in a school or school system that has caused actual harm, then this would seem to me to be a good thing. It would enable the good home educators (not those who 'produce the best clutch of certificates, but those who genuinely enable their children to make progress in all aspects of their lives) to be able to trumpet their success while removing the 'dark shadow' of potential neglect, or at worst abuse, which currently taints the sector.

It's a bit like having a boarding school sector that still includes Dotheboys Hall - the bad taints the good. However modern oversight has removed the worst end of the boarding sector, so the overall reputation and image of all those schools that still remain is improved.

Can'tkeepawayforever, I think sympathetic oversight would be ideal but quite often by the time a family find themselves home educating, they've been so let down by the LA and education system that all trust is gone.

I don't think I've ever, EVER heard or read a home educator use the word "sheeple" Bertrand (and I did do extensive research at one, desperate, point). That's more tin-foil hat, UFO hunter type parlance, is it not?

Considering how many HEed DC are autistic, dyslexic, dyspraxic, anorexic, mentally ill etc., and considering the hard struggle to get some of those needs met in mainstream education in the current climate, one would have to be very intolerant indeed to be irritated by any "one size fits all" point being made.

I would also say that, in my experience of HE groups where we liveed, that there can be an element of 'groupthink' - that unschooling and autonomous Home education is 'the true from' of HE, and that those who (like me) offered structured home education were 'not doing it properly'.

It is perhaps the strident voices within such groups - who may in the end represent only a small minority of the whole HE community - who influence the 'public perception' of HE, whereas there is perhaps a significant number who just get on quietly providing an education in a relatively structured way, leading to a relatively conventional outcome in terms of 'those certificates necessary for the next stage'.

sebum, I know that sympathetic oversight would be hard - without blowing my own trumpet in any way, it probably requires someone a bit like me, in the sense that it would need someone with a 'foot in both camps', or maybe other alternative education experience such as the education service for those who for health reasons cannot attend school, rather than a conventional Ofsted / LEA / senior teacher / Social Services type.

Serf,

I think you raise a really interesting point. If poorer and poorer provision for those who 'don't fit the mould' is offered in mainstream schools - for reasons of money and high stakes accountability for results in the form of league tables, as well as a shortage of Special School places - is driving parents to home educate as a 'last resort' (rather than as a first choice from conviction), is our energy / money (as a society) actually best spent on improving in-school provision, rather than seeking to develop a complex system of oversight for HE?

It would make sense cant.