"teachers should be academically able" discuss incl with relevance to home ed

[Theas18]

Following on from an AIBU were the OP was cross that the teacher didn't appear to have a grasp of basic spelling and grammar, which was followed by some examples of factual errors from teachers, what do you think?

How does that then sit with home educators??

My 2p worth as a parent (and not an "official" home educator but as a parent you do it all the time anyway!) is that I expect teachers to have a really good grasp of literacy and numeracy. If they don't have a wide vocabulary and correct use of language for the children to model, especially when very small, can't see that working. I would include TA and support staff in this too, and this often worries me.

However, particularly with older children of secondary age do you really need to have higher qualifications? Of course secondary teachers usually have a degree in the area that they teach, but is it really necessary? I know that my DD1 in year 12/13 did the AQA bacc which was an extended study, and this was researched at the local uni library etc. She certainly knew more than her teachers in that area- but they (and even I, with no qualification in that field) were able to guide her and direct her use of her own skills to produce an amazing piece of work.

Primary teachers teach all areas. They may have a degree but they teach everything (my DH has a degree in metallurgy LOL) there is an element of teaching things they don't really know but can work round (eg in PE you don't have to be sporty or have sporting interests to teach primary PE etc- you find out what the curriculum is and deliver it- maybe letting kids with a footballing interest explain the offside rule etc). I don't think this matters at all.

Home educators clearly educate in different ways, especially if this is "autonomous" then the role is clearly supporting the child in developing their own interests, but HE kids do GCSEs in subjects their parents aren't specialists and often do very well.

So how qualified do you expect teachers to be... and is society willing to pay them at the appropriate level??

Re: Are there some people who shouldn't home-educate, I was reminded of this Penelope Trunk post: archive.feedblitz.com/777200/~4095070 - which makes a parallel with breastfeeding that I found convincing, at least. (Link starts with a big picture of the latter activity, but that shouldn't be shocking to anyone here!)

I found that article bizzare. I don't see how breastfeeding can be compared to home education. There is plenty of evidence that breastfeeding is good for babies and is encouraged as a result. There are loads of options on how to feed your baby and different mothers (and indeed toddlers) have their own opinons.

However a good education widens opportunites. I worry about an educational choice that restricts what a child can do as an adult. I know that many home ed children do pubic exams and indeed go to uni if that is what they want.

If a child is pulled out of school to prevent them having aspiration beyond their parents then that is something seriously sinister. I don't agree with different ethnic groups having their own education systems. That is a kind to appartite in South Africa.

I was once on a forum where someone said that they were choosing to home educate. In the midst of the conversation where people were offering tips etc. they said something along the lines of "I hated maths at school, so for my ds I'm not going to do any because it's important for children to be happy."

Various people suggested tutoring/other methods for maths but she was adamant he wouldn't want to do it so she wouldn't. Later she admitted that she couldn't spell (which was obvious) and struggled with any punctuation above full stops and capital letters.

She was not planning on getting any outside help, even work books. She was going to make her own. This was (her intention) to do it up to age 16.

I wasn't quite sure how she thought this was going to work, but I sometimes wonder how they're getting on.

I'm not sure she should have been banned from HE, but I do think she needed someone to guide her how she could make it work. Unfortunately she was also resistant to any suggestions of outside help from other HE-ers.

ReallyTired, I agree with you that a good education widens opportunities, but I doubt that we mean the same thing about a "good education". You say, "I worry about an educational choice that restricts what a child can do as an adult."

But are there any such educational choices in this country?

You seem to be assuming that if a child hasn't acquired a particular skill or knowledge base by the age of 16 then she cannot do so later. There are very few educational opportunities which cannot be undertaken a few years later than average.

Now, if someone has absorbed the idea at an early age that these avenues aren't open to her, that if she isn't well along the path toward mastery of a subject by 16 then she's left it too late, that may stop her in her tracks. If her educational experiences have left her with the impression that she isn't capable of doing certain things, that will definitely put paid to starting something new as an adult. Many schoolchildren do have these ideas.

However, these attitudes toward education are much less prevalent among home educated children. Rarely do they go right through their early academic career lock-step with their schooled age peers. They know there are many paths leading to their goals. They may see that learning to read after the age of seven doesn't stop a person from writing novels in her teens. They are likely to know of other HE children who have done GCSEs at thirteen or seventeen or not at all.

It seems to me that in talking about foreclosing children's future opportunities by failing to educate them properly when they are young, we do not take seriously the idea that learning is a lifetime pursuit. Look at the success of adult education in countries where people have had no opportunity to go to school or otherwise acquire a formal education previously. Apparently it takes just 40 hours of instruction for such an adult to achieve functional literacy. My friend who teaches basic skills to adults in England says it is a different story here, where there is a huge hurdle to be overcome; namely, the adults with whom she works have been told repeatedly for years that they would be failures in life if they left school unable to read and add up, and they have believed it.

So I would say there are children whose opportunities are restricted by their inadequate education. But these are not the children who haven't learned xyz by the age of 16. It is the children who have been taught that it is really really important to have learned xyz by the age of 16, and that if they haven't learned it by the deadline then they may as well give up.

"You seem to be assuming that if a child hasn't acquired a particular skill or knowledge base by the age of 16 then she cannot do so later. There are very few educational opportunities which cannot be undertaken a few years later than average.."

I think that if you don't get to a certain academic level by sixteen years old it is much harder as an adult to achieve professional qualifications etc. For example many apprenticeships are restricted to under 25s. It is very hard to get funding to do A-level standard qualifications after 19 years old. The cost of evening courses has gone up dramatically recently.

A young traveller who gets married at 16 and three children by 20 years old will struggle to get a degree. Study gets harder as you get more adult responsiblies.

A traveller with a skill whether it being a car mechanc, electrican or even a doctor has the ablity to earn money and provide a good lifestyle for their family.

I don't honestly think a lot of education or qualifications is necessary to successfully home educate. There are lots of resources available these days and there is a long tradition in the colonies, for example, of correspondence and Home Ed. There is as much value in exploring and learning together as there is in the formal dissemination of knowledge.

What's really important in my professional opinion is an openness and creativity in designing learning. A large part of my job is trying to introduce teaching techniques and discussing the pedagogical advantages of these with higher education lecturers. In all honesty, I find the home educators I've met far more open to trying new things than academics, many of whom are wedded to chalk and talk.

What does worry me about home educated students is sometimes they have not been exposed to as many different viewpoints as they may have in traditional schools, though this, of course, depends somewhat on the makeup of the school body. It's not something I see particularly often in UK HE students I encounter, though in the ones I see from the USA who typically come from strictly Christian communities, the realisation that the Bible, or even the belief in God, is not automatically accepted can come as a major shock and proves a real barrier to educational success. It's the insularity that can be an issue. Sometimes this leads to some of the more subtle analytical skills being missed.

ReallyTired, I thought I was following your argument until we got to the example:

"A young traveller who gets married at 16 and three children by 20 years old will struggle to get a degree. Study gets harder as you get more adult responsiblies.

A traveller with a skill whether it being a car mechanc, electrican or even a doctor has the ablity to earn money and provide a good lifestyle for their family."

Could we say "young person" instead of "young traveller" because I'm not well-informed enough to discuss a particular group of people I don't live with?

Any 20-year-old with three young children will struggle to embark on a degree, yes. That is the case regardless of how many GCSEs she may have racked up by the age of 16, surely. It's the family commitments that make advanced study difficult, not the early academic achievements or lack thereof.

I can't see this hypothetical person finding it easy to qualify as a doctor at this stage, with or without a nice clutch of GCSEs. On the other hand, she'd have had a head start toward being a competent mechanic or doing some other practical job if she'd been out of school before the age of 16 and helping relatives in the house or with their work.

So in what sense has a lack of academic achievement pre-16 caused her to miss the boat on getting an education and having a good career? It was having the babies that did that, wasn't it?

I said "young traveller" because that is the group that teacherwith2kids and Dromratlee mentioned further up the thread. I agree it could apply to any young person.

I don't know many travellers. The few travellers I have met have been intelligent people and would be capable of higher education.

"On the other hand, she'd have had a head start toward being a competent mechanic or doing some other practical job if she'd been out of school before the age of 16 and helping relatives in the house or with their work."

The world is changing and cars have far more complex electronics than in the past. Also she would need an employer to take her on for an apprenticeship and a college to accept her. The lack of GCSEs may well be a bar to doing a modern apprenticeship. In our modern world higher standards of numeracy, literacy and IT skills are needed than in the past.

The toughest bar is lack of funding for students over 19. The governant has scrapped all funding for access courses, which I feel is desperately sad.

It's true, cars do have complex electronics and different skills are needed now, but I don't think a formal education is particularly helpful in learning them. I know three young people on my estate who are pretty good with that side of things. All of them picked up their skills by hanging around with other local people who have those skills. Two of them (maybe the third, I don't know) also spend time on online forums which are great for getting help on diagnosing obscure problems. My husband is also self-taught in this area. There are still a few things he gets done at the garage, because it's easier with the right equipment. My limited knowledge suggests that sorting out tricky computer car problems is most easily done if you have the good people skills which can be developed from hanging around in the shared car park behind our house, and from knowing how to use the internet effectively.

I don't know about GCSEs and modern apprenticeships - I only know one young man who's done one recently and his best GCSE was Grade D. He was taken on because he was keen and he demonstrated very basic maths and reading skills through some sort of test, I think. If lack of formal qualifications is now a bar to undertaking apprenticeships and college study post-16, then surely this situation can't continue for long - with the new requirement for young people to continue in education longer, won't there have to be viable alternatives made available for all those teens (schooled or otherwise) who didn't achieve at GCSE level?