katylyle tell us why you'd not HE your children please

BeNimble · 2007-07-07T21:59:30+00:00

my children are preschool yet though i'm serious about HE

juuule · 08/07/2007 08:09

I would be really interested to hear why, too.

McDreamy · 08/07/2007 08:11

I don't think I would have the patience or the discipline to do it, I really admire those of you that do though

katelyle · 08/07/2007 08:41

Very briefly - and I am happy to expand on any or all - and I will come back later when I've finished mucking out the house. Heath Warning, though - this is just my personal experinceand the way my parents did it and I know everyone's different and all the rest. I was home educated til I was 12. I had a truly wonderful time in many ways - I learnt loads, and I loved the flexibility - I could get interested in someting and focus on it for ages - I remember spending a couple of weeks on bridges-I drew them, made them, wrote stories about them, did maths about them, you name it, I did it! I remember going out with my mother in the early morning and doing nature walks...But. there was so much I didn't learn that made things hard for me later and which I see my children learning every day at their very ordinary primary school. I didn't learn about rubbing along with people I didn't like very much. I didn't learn about team games. I didn't learn that sometimes you just have to do things that bore you rigid (still have a huge problem with this!). I was never in a nativity play or a school choir. I was never a prefect or a Buddy. I never got a yellow card or got sent to the head teacher. I didn't learn that sometimes people are better or worse than you at stuff and that's OK. I mixed with other children at Brownies and other activities, but nearly all my social interactions had to be planned. And they were nearly all with nice white middle class children like me!
I'm sorry if this is incoherent - it's just my initial thoughts - I'll stop now or it'll get too long. I hope the discussion continues -and I'm happy to be a Mumsnet sociological study if it helps people. I might learn something too!

katelyle · 08/07/2007 08:43

That was steam of conciousness - sorry. And I realize that it was mostly negatives. The positives are so obvious, I think, that I didn't think it was necessary to list them. I'll try to use paragraphs next time!

FrannyandZooey · 08/07/2007 08:46

Katy that is very interesting to read but my first reaction is that you may be blaming any problems you have in your life on the fact that you were home educated.

I went to school from age 4 to 18 and I have problems with many of the things you mentioned, especially

"I didn't learn that sometimes you just have to do things that bore you rigid (still have a huge problem with this!)."

fillyjonk · 08/07/2007 08:57

kate, thank you for that, it is always very interesting to hear from someone who has been home educated

what i will say is that, having been through the school system, much of what you are saying applies to me also

-I didn't learn about rubbing along with people I didn't like very much. - nope, not really, not through school. More through extra-curricular stuff where there was a common aim, I suppose.

I didn't learn that sometimes you just have to do things that bore you rigid (still have a huge problem with this!). - nope, still am bad at this. I just didn't do stuff if I wasn't interested , really.

I was never in a nativity play or a school choir. I was never a prefect or a Buddy. - (ok I went to a music - orientated primary, but aside from this-no never did that stuff. Lots of schools don't.

I never got a yellow card or got sent to the head teacher. - nope. Whats a yellow card?

I didn't learn that sometimes people are better or worse than you at stuff and that's OK. - I didn't learn this either, I learnt that to be worse was Bad and so I made sure that I was always the Best, or else didn't bother trying

I mixed with other children at Brownies and other activities, but nearly all my social interactions had to be planned. And they were nearly all with nice white middle class children like me! - this was true of me, really, except that my SCHOOL was like this. I wasn't though . What I DID do was play out with local kids- who DIDN'T go to my school. My kids do that too.

reikizen · 08/07/2007 08:58

I have worked with home educating families in the past and I have niggling doubts about how good this is for children AND parents. Lots of them took the decision for religious reasons so kind of wanted to be apart from the rest of society but I suppose I think kids need to be part of the rough and tumble of a school and absolutely to spend time away from their parents! I also have concerns about how this can be abused by people who want to keep their kids away from the authorities for one reason or another as the LEA has virtually no power over such situations. I think for anyone considering home ed Education Otherwise are the people to speak to, and the LEA of course who should be able to offer a list of resources and guidance.

katelyle · 08/07/2007 08:58

Just have to add, before I proceed to the mucking out. I should have said that I don't have any major problems in my lfe and never have had. I am a well balanced happy person, reasonably confident, and I have a good degree and had a very sucessful career pre children. I also had a vary good relationship with my parents (my father is dead now, but my mother is still going strong at a feisty 87 today!) I realize that all the "I never"s in my initial post sounded like a moan. It wasn't. It was supposed to be a reasonably objective list of negatives for people to consider and shoot down as appropriate!

juuule · 08/07/2007 08:58

I thought similar. You could have gone to school and still not had those things happen. Or if they did happen, they would not be the big deal that you think they would be. I've asked my children who have been to school whether they miss some of the things that were on your list. There responses were either 'no' or 'well it was okay, but I don't miss it'. They know the option is there to return to return to school if they missed it too much.
Did you enjoy school when you went from 12 onwards?

juuule · 08/07/2007 09:00

Their

juuule · 08/07/2007 09:02

Here we go again.
Reikizen - with respect you are on the wrong thread. This isn't an opportunity for you to voice your prejudices. Start a new thread.

muppetgirl · 08/07/2007 09:07

This is very interesting especially as we are all worried about education/or children and doing the right things for them....

fillyjonk · 08/07/2007 09:07

"I should have said that I don't have any major problems in my lfe and never have had. I am a well balanced happy person, reasonably confident, and I have a good degree and had a very sucessful career pre children"

I really do not think that that is something to dismiss

Those are fabulous thngs to be able to say

Thats pretty much all I want to be able to say of my kids. Actually am not SO bothered about the career/degree

fillyjonk · 08/07/2007 09:08

(sorry i know you weren't dismissing it. But HONESTLY,a LOT of people can't say that)

Judy1234 · 08/07/2007 09:19

We used to try to persuade my mother (a teacher) to teach us at home but we failed. That list is good. Learning you're not the best in the world, that some people are dull, how to handle a teacher who very unfairly just doesn't like you, how to be regimented and sit in lines and no move and do what you're told helps you fit into this particularly society where eventually you'll in most cases have to do that - go to work, obey orders, conform.

I think it's great children don't have to go to school but I didn't choose that for ours (we paid fees to buy the education of our choice).

I might have home educated if the local schools were bad or I lived on a commune or farm miles from anywhere or a remote Scottish Island or travelled around the world as a lifestyle.

fillyjonk · 08/07/2007 10:24

" Learning you're not the best in the world, that some people are dull, how to handle a teacher who very unfairly just doesn't like you, how to be regimented and sit in lines and no move and do what you're told helps you fit into this particularly society where eventually you'll in most cases have to do that - go to work, obey orders, conform. "

am not especially desperate to teach my kids to be a corporate drone, really

thats what WORK is for

The way that thats put makes it sound like work is so crappy that you have to spend 15 years practising for how to survive it

If my job consisted of this "go to work, obey orders, conform", then I would have been utterly miserable. Thankfully it didn't.

katelyle · 08/07/2007 10:44

Oh, Lord - I've come for a coffee break in the tidying up to find extreme views - I did hope that wouldn't happen!

A few points. I don't want my children to be corporate drones either, and I don't recognize Xenia's picture of school life (maybe that's what it's like in the private sector where they're being prepared for life in merchant banking But I do think that one of the things school does teach you is how to get on with things. And that's important, not just at work, but in life generally.

I do worry a bit about children being taken out of school because their parents have "extreme" views. I know that in the States, there is a growing number of home educating Creationists, and (maybe this is my prejudice) I really don't think that's a good thing for the children in particular and society in general.

A "yellow card" is just someting you get at my kid's school if you've been "bad" I just used it as an example of learning that it's possible to get into trouble, sort things out and move on - it's not the end of the world.

I only said that about being well balanced etc to underline that I wasn't using my education to explain things that have gone wrong in my life. I do feel that I had to learn a lot of things the hard way in my teens and twenties that my children are learning at school.

No I didn't enjoy school when I went there. I was streets ahread of my peers academically - which was fortuntate beause I wouldn't have had time to do any work because I was frantically catching up with all the other stuff (like not whistling while I worked, for example!)

moondog · 08/07/2007 10:49

I was home educated for a while (through necessity,not choice.)
It was fun but we missed out on a lot of the things katie refers to.

As a salt i am bothered by social and pragmatic implications of deliberately keeping children apart from others,althoguh I too have many problems with mainstream culture and the assumptions that every kid likes Disney/Macdonalds/Bratx/Spiderman/chicken nuggets and so on.

I hope to teach my children that they can be in close contact with all those things and people who like them without having to be thier slaves.

Blandmum · 08/07/2007 10:51

Kate.....I 'lost' a child to HE in the circumastances you decribe. His parents didn't want him to learn about religions other than Christianity. I do worry when HE is used to prevent a child learning something, rather than it being used as a positive choice.

I also feel that sometimes kids do need teaching (well I would, wouldn't I? As a teacher you do act as a facilitator of learning, but there are times when concepts are so hard that the child does need teaching. And for that to happen well, you do need some expert understanding of the subject.

Also I would worry that I would inflict my own enthusiasms on my children, and they would never get the chance to 'run across' a teacher who enthuses them in a subject that they previously thought dull. I still remember my english teacher, for example, a wonderful woman who changed my view of the world.

And yes, you can find tutors who can be wonderful and enthusiastic, but that has to be planed, and may not cover areas that a child isn't already interested in, IYSWIM.

There are lots of Pros to HE but the children do miss out on some positives of school as well. Liek everthing in life it comes with pros and cons

Blandmum · 08/07/2007 10:52

and anyone who thinks that schools turn out corporate drones only should meet my current sixth formers! LOL

IsabelWatchingItRainInMacondo · 08/07/2007 10:53

A beginners' question here... how did you feel when you moved into traditional education? did you enjoy it? did you find it a bit daunting?

Did you or your mother felt you needed some "space" away from each other?

If you had been bullied at some point after your return to traditional education, did you feel you cope well with it?

juuule · 08/07/2007 10:53

Thank you, Kate, for your input about this. It has been helpful to me.

fillyjonk · 08/07/2007 10:59

extreme views?

where?

I think everyone on this thread is pretty moderate, really

Anna8888 · 08/07/2007 11:09

I think that HE is a big mistake most of the time. School is a very useful way to learn to get on in society.

If you think school doesn't do everything - well, no, it doesn't, and as a parent you have lots of time outside school and in the holidays to teach your children the things they aren't learning in school that are important to you.

katelyle · 08/07/2007 11:12

Sorry - it was the school is there to teach them to be regimented and sit in straight lines like corporate drones idea that bothered me. I really don't think that's what school's for. Maybe "extreme" was a bit extreme - I just didn't want to be associated with that idea.