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?

A more flexible system with smaller class sizes would make us consider school again. But quite frankly 30 kids in one place is my children's idea of hell. They would not learn effectively, and would be totally miserable. They have no SN or what have you so don't need a special school, they just don't suit school right now. However it is far from a vanity project, and life would be easier and wealthier if school worked.

My kids are great, and will continue to be so.

I think the animosity is because only parents with a certain level of education themselves (and the money to not need to go to work) can educate a child at home. A single mum without qualifications will (in most cases) most likely not be able to home educate a child whereas someone with degree level education and a partner with a well paid job can probably do a good job of it should they wish to. It clearly is only for certain levels of society and therefore people feel attacked by it if they don't feel they are in that group. A bit like SAHM get attacked because others feel either jealous that they can't afford that or guilty that they wouldn't want to do it.

I find people generally think they know what's best for other people's dc. They don't,goodness me just let parents choose how to raise/educate their dc.

It isn't fear,it's judgement that people believe they have the right to meddle in others' choices.

No one is afraid of home ed! But the difference is people are made to feel like they are bullies when they question home ed.

Personal experience of home ed is a mum with mental health issues not wanting the children to associate with other children. Thus meaning the children do not associate with other children and not being on the same academic level as others their age. No matter how many "educational visits" you take them on it doesn't make up for children being children and interacting with others their age.

Let kids be kids without you pushing your alternative ways on your offspring!

I just don't think people understand it. A lot of people think it's against the law not to go to school.

I considered HEing my children because my eldest was being bullied at school. He was very bright and loved to read anything and everything. He read all the Harry Potter books aged 6 and used to read the newspaper, encyclopaedias, anything. His general knowledge was incredible. However school told me to stop him reading so much and that at his age it was important for him to understand the story and not to whizz through books. They wanted him to read 2-3 pages a day. He understood what he was reading completely which they would have found out if they spent any time talking to him.

Then there were the times tables tests that you got coloured badges for as you worked your way up the ranks. He got these without any problem but the next school year they made him start all over again. This really upset him and he was almost refusing to do it which the school just couldn't understand as the other boy in the same position didn't mind starting again.

He hated things like being made writer of the week because he knew his story would go up on the wall for everyone to read and he didn't want everyone reading his stories.

The school couldn't seem to view him as an individual and he was getting very disillusioned and anxious. They told me he was arrogant.

I considered home edding as I felt that he could follow what he was interested in as he had so many interests and could explore them in great detail while covering all the basic stuff at the same time. I thought I'd be able to connect up with lots of other like minded people in our area and we'd be able to pool knowledge and get the kids together for shared activities. I envisaged us going on holidays during term time to interesting destinations. My son's very sporty so already did a lot of sport out of school where he could socialise with other children who went to school. I had a friend with grown up children who'd done this through primary school and had said it was fantastic.

However, when I met up with the local HE people I found there was one family who was just replicating school at home with timetables etc. which seemed to defeat the point. The other families I met were home edding because their children had school phobia / social anxiety. One child would not come out from behind the settee the whole time we were at their house. I just couldn't find anyone with a similar mindset to mine or anyone who was choosing to do it because they thought it would be a great educational opportunity, just people who had felt it was their only option.

In the end I took him out of school for 6 weeks while we figured out what to do next. We found the ideal school for him and he settled in very easily. It hasn't been entirely straightforward as he is a quirky character. He still doesn't have a steady group of friends which seems very sad. I think he's someone who will be happier as an adult.

I think if I'd found a thriving, happy HE network in our area it could have worked in his favour (for primary school at least).

It always makes me laugh when people grandly plop their opinions onto a huge thread and it's quite clear they haven't even read it.

"Life would be easier and wealthier". I can't think about that too much, I get really depressed. I was doing an access to science course with a view to studying radiography after. Diagnosis and a child unable to manage in school put paid to that. So I Started studying psychology with the OU. A second child being diagnosed and marriage breakdown put paid to that, so that's that.

zzzzz,

I think it is a big step from 'a SS did not work for my child' (which i can entirely understand, in the same way that a specific mainstream school, however well chosen, may not work for a specific child)to 'SS is never the best place - or rather a better place than either the available mainstream or HE - for any child'.

Where a very severely disabled child also comes from a background of deprivation and very low adult educational level, and where the needs of the child far outstrip the mainstream school's ability to provide them (e.g. much of the equipment described in describing the lowest P levels of attainment - valid at that time - e.g. bubble tubes, large switches, multi-sensory environment, was simply unavailable to the class teacher), then a SS environment may be the best option. It depends entirely on the child, the disability, the different settings available, and their specific home environment.

I would also say that, as all the children I am thinking of WERE in mainstream, and remained there during my knowledge of them, of course every attempt was made to replicate and provide all possible educational experiences that a more specialist provider could have done, with the aid of very willing class teachers, TAs and SENDCo, and with specialist advice wherever possible.

So would you say that SS is never the best available option for any child, with any level of disability and any type of home life?

But zzz as I said upthread, you know parents of children with SEN who are home educating. You don't have the schoolgate acquaintances who are either using mainstream with support or SS and who are doing it successfully.

I too can't see how a child with PMLD could have access to the equipment and resources they'd get in a SS.

A friend has a DC who has PMLD and who is in a great special school. Friend is v involved in school (governor/PTA type things) because a very large proportion of the children are in foster care, their parents having been unable to cope with the child in the home full time, and FCs have enough on their plate without volunteering a lot of time at school, too (plus they are of course not parents).
For children like that, there is no way home ed would work, either.

I'm thinking of a particularly extreme case, as you can probably guess - a very, very severely disabled child, working at low P scales here - so 'begin to show interests in people, events and objects, e.g. briefly follow a moving image across a screen]], physically disabled, pre-verbal, needing full personal care,physically disabled, very low vision and hearing impairment.

What i can say is that in the mainstream school environment, they were physically safe, generally clean (difficult without a full-size shower / changing room but we managed), and treated with affection. All of these were in some contrast to the home environment, which we were familiar with and visited.

What we couldn't provide - what the SS could have provided - were many specialist items of equipment, and trained staff, to actually make some impact on this child's life and experience day to day.

Tbh, I don't think it is so much the expertise (and remember that i knew the staff from the SS, because they visited to give advice - I know that they had significantly more expertise than we did) as the physical equipment and building. 'Being part of the community', in a building that is so ill adapted to your needs (and would have needed tens of thousands of pounds' worth of adaptation to make it so) that yiour route from part to part of it, though tortuously carefully designed, takes a good part of each break or lesson to navigate, is not necessarily 'worth it'.

Of course SS wasn't 'the answer' - the child had enormous difficulties in all aspects of their life that were not going to go away. But the equipment to make their life more enjoyable, less painful, easier and more dignified was available there in a way it wasn't in MS.

The child visited the SS. Loved it. Lit up. Communicated pleasure in ways that we had never seen before. Parent refused to consider placement.

Transport - negligible - about 3 miles away.

Could we have replicated the SS environment by spending a single child's cost at a SS in a small (very small) primary? Could we do it in a way that tracks emerging and developing needs through 7 years of a child's life, and keep up with their needs? Is that good use of money? Would it not be better spent in a central resource?

Could we have influenced or changed that particular home environment? No. Not in any way, at any point, with any money. There are things a school cannot do, and no way to ensure that money provided is spent in a way that benefits the child.

(As I say, this was a particular and extreme case. It still distresses me, because i still believe that there was something that we as society and we as educators could / should have done better)

Brave of you to share that, Rapunzel.

A single mum without qualifications will (in most cases) most likely not be able to home educate a child whereas someone with degree level education and a partner with a well paid job can probably do a good job of it should they wish to

You know that it's perfectly possible to be a single mum and be educated, don't you? I'm a single mum and I'm also a teacher. I would suggest that one reason people home educate is to avoid having their children fed this digest of stereotypical drivel and actually teach their child to think outside the bloody box a bit. Sigh.

Oh, negligible extra - transport already provided to mainstream rural school. Sorry.