why aren't more people open-minded about HE?

[BeNimble]

why can't they be?

I've not had an option to be either friendly or defensive with my LA - they've ignored me for three years...

I should keep quiet then shrinkingViolet!!

I think also that people see programs like"extraordinary breastfeeding" on tv(the mum who breastfed her 6? + 8? yr olds and home schooled them) and take that as what happens when you homeschool a child eg letting them do pretty much whatever they want all day, exploring nature and animals etc etc without any real "teaching" as such...it makes people assume that this is how all parents home school their children.

Student madwife - I had to laugh at you then my dentist on arrnging ds3s appointment asked when he could go? anytime says i- hes home ed - is he? you dont look like a home educator he said ............,

do u think my forehead tattoo has worn off????

LMAO. really. people shouldnt assume,I never make assumptions after being taught during nursing that assume=make an ass out of u and ass out of me

But home edders shouldn't assume that because you don't, or because you ask questions, or because you think that people who home ed in order to protect their child from the suggestion that the world is more than 6000 years old are loons that you are anti home education!

I think that is a great problem. A lot of HEers (not all) seem to have a massive chip on their shoulders. I ask questions because I am interested and want to know the answers. For example, the post way back about following their passions, I immediately want to know more-what are their passions and how do they follow them and yet the questioner (who also wanted to know)was fobbed off. The immediate assumption is that you are either anti or a nosy, intefering old busybody! Some enthusiastic talk about their passions would show HE in a positive light-being defensive and dismissive adds to the impression that it is some sort of cult thing that you can't possibly understand unless you are one of the chosen few.
The dentist who made the comment about 'not looking like a home educator' obviously had a picture in his mind-people will not become open minded until HEers show some pride and joy in what they are doing and above all tell people what they do.

I was replying to seeker.
I would have thought that you could complain about bullying inspectors riven-you don't have to take it.

Would love to, Riven, but am about 2 hours drive from you

"'ve also never let them see the boys without the boys permission and in recent years the boys refused permission."

Why?

I am anti-school for my children. I can't see any benefit at all for them - and also can't see any benefit at all for many other children. I can see the benefit of school for many children too.

It's all very well saying 'be open about HE' but then we get told off for being 'anti school' because a lot of the reasons HEors HE is because school fails on so many counts.

For the teachers out there who can't understand how a parent could possibly educate their child to the standard that a teacher could, please, please educate yourselves about informal learning - Alan Thomas' new book is brilliant, also John Holt. When children find they need to be actually taught something the parents don't know about (which doesn't happen for a long time because children learn so well without being taught anything), they, with the help of their parents, find them.

seeker I imagine that HEors who don't let inspectors see their children unless the children say it's ok do so because, above all, they respect their children! How would you like it if I said to you 'A random man is going to come and examine your work, test your reading and maths skills, and generally decide whether or not I'm any good at being your mum or if a teacher would do it any better'? And if you decided, quite understandably, you didn't really want that to happen, I then said 'well tough!'.

So you don't say it like that. You say "An inspector is going to come and see what we do and you can show him that fab model/drawing/essay/piece of woodwork/sewing/poem you did last week"

When OFSTED come into my children's school I don't tell them that they are coming to see how good or bad their teachers are!

I don't care how other people educate their children, but I'm surprised they don't welcome the break when their kids aren't there!!!

If my child was being failed somehow, in some way I coucldn't resolve even after talking to teachers, then I might consider trying, but really, I don't think I'd be up to the job.

ny children at school needed to be told by me that OFSTED were only to be inspecting the school and the teachers, because their teachers had convinced them they were being inspected.
Similarly with SATS (which DD2 is doing in a couple of months) - her class teacher is regularly telling the class that how they do in the tests will affect their future progression. It's taken quite a bit of convincing DD2 that they don't matter to her in the slightest, only to her teacher and the school.

'cos the boys consider their education their own business'

Back to secrecy!! It won't improve until the secrecy is banished.

I can't imagine why a HEer would even tell their DCs that an inspector was coming. If I was doing it I would have a friendly open house (as I do at the moment)and it would be just one more person dropping in. I would encourage them to talk to visitors about their interests anyway. (if they have had a negative experience of school there is even more reason to get them used to being friendly and talking to all and sundry).
I certainly wouldn't encourage them to think of it as their own business. I would want them to communicate with the wider world.
I haven't done a course for a long time but when I did a computer course people asked me how it was going, what I was learning, if I would recommend the course. They were quite normal questions-I didn't say 'that is my business, it is nothing to do with you and I am not telling you'!

The wrong school then ShrinkingViolet my DCs have never been told they are being inspected-the school has lots of visitors anyway-they take it in their stride. They also know perfectly well that the SATs don't affect future progression.

we took DD2 out of the "OFSTED" school, she now at the "SATS" school after two years of HE (her choice, she needed to be at a feeder primary to get a place in the secondary cshool she wanted to go to). "OFSTED" school gets better SATS results and better OFSTED reports than "SATS" school, btu was completley useless with my "square peg" DC.
But back on topic - why should I have let LA inspectors into my home to check how I was managing to redress the damage caused at one of their schools? Took the full two years before DD2 would do any writing, and even then things were word processed - caused by the insistence on cursive writing from reception which she physically couldn't manage. How coudl I be sure that an LA inspector would be receptive to how we were working? How would I know that they wouldn't insists that DD2 did some writing for them, and that she wouldn't get upset? She was 8, and wouldn't have been able to explain what the problem was in any case.

The children at my dcs school are also told about the importance of inspections and SATs and most parents I talk to in the area say their schools are the same.

Their is also a difference between secrecy and privacy. Sometimes people don't want to discuss the ins and outs of what they consider their own business with complete strangers.
If I wanted a visit, then I would probably present it to my children in the way that Seeker describes. Older children see through that approach, though and know that they are being assessed. However, I don't want a visit so send a report.

I don't see anything wrong with sending a report instead, but I think it completely wrong to do neither.
If you were to have a visit ShrinkingViolet I would phone up first and speak to the inspector about the writing. Friendly communication gets you much further than defensive 'shutters down'.

"Friendly communication gets you much further than defensive 'shutters down'"

Not always, paticularly if the other person doesn't share your point of view.

Picesmoon, when my ds was 2 and a half, I had heard by word of mouth of a teacher who was HEing. As I played with the idea of HE it felt like something I would like to try. I had no idea about the law or anything and knew of no charities, people etc. Naively, I thought the people best placed to help me would be the Local Authority. So I rang them and asked if it was legal for me not to send my youngest to school. I was put through to a cheery sounding woman, who told me that I would have to cover the national curriculum and receive offstead visits once a year. Just to make me feel better, she also added that HE would cost me loads of money and told me my ds would be isolated since there were very few people in the country HEing. By the end of this short conversation I had completely lost my confidence. I believed the bit about offstead and National Curriculum. I decided it might be easier to send ds to school. (kick myself now for not doing more personal research, but trusted the LA, why would they lie to me?)

I'm not sure if you can understand this, but I feel robbed. I had days where I left my ds crying in the playground, before meeting a woman who invited me to a HE fair, where I learned the truth and realised I didn't have to do all the blah blah the LA told me.

Why exactly should I now be open and trusting with LA officials? I have heard other, similar stories of which mine is a mild example. A friend whose children are now in school was told by her LA it was legal to HE only if her children weren't already in school. She took a different path and consequently now doesn't have the circumstances to HE.

When they come I will open my doors and explain our methods, etc. But I can entirely understand why some wouldn't. LA officials haven't always proved trustworthy themselves.