'Home Schoolers should be treated robustly'

[maverick]

If you scroll down to igb's posting on this thread/page you'll see he has strong views on home education. He believes that 'the purpose of education is to protect children from their parents' prejudices', and therefore, 'Home Schoolers should be treated robustly'

Any thoughts?

www.badscience.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10249&start=75

I think starting school at 7yrs is much more sensible Sakura-many, especially boys, are too young at 4 or 5yrs.

I just don't think that a wish to HE is suffient-it doesn't mean that they are any good at it. When I trained to teach many dropped out because once they started they realised it wasn't for them and then many were asked to leave because they weren't thought suitable.
Every time I say that I think the DC should decide about school (normally on posts that start my DC loves school but I want to HE what should I do?)I am told that equally the parent should give the choice of HE. To be absolutely fair of course they should but it can't happen because parents don't want to -just because you have DCs doesn't mean that you want to be responsible for every aspect of their lives. I think my brother would have loved HE but my mother,even if she had thought of it as an option, couldn't have done it-she didn't have the patience and had no interest in it. In about another 2 weeks posts will start ot appear saying -'I can't wait for the school term to begin-the DCs are driving me up the wall!' Some posters (like me) will say how much they love it and hate the thought of timetables etc but the majority will agree.
It will be interesting to see how many of the HEed DC actually do it with their own DCs-it is a huge commitment and way of life and I imagine that some selfishly will want other things for themselves. (I don't see anything wrong with being selfish in terms of career).
I am all for HE being an educational choice-like any other-no better-no worse, in general.(Just better or worse for the individual DC and parent).

But it is very unlikely that a school educated child would leave school without at least GCES English and Maths. It wouldn't be considered a valid choice for a 14 year old to say "I don't need GCSE English and Maths so I'm not going to do them" In an autonomous HE environment it would be.

I have never got the impression from any home-educators that I have spoken to that they chose to HE on a whim - that it was something they just 'wished' to do. They have usually looked long and hard into what it entails and lots hold back from taking the plunge for a long time as it is just so against everything they have known to that point. Some turn to HE out of desperation and some have read up and investigated the option before their children are born and then choose it as a way of life. Almost everyone I have met have been committed to it as being in the best interests of their child/ren. There have been a couple of parents I've known who quickly decided that it wasn't for them and that their children and themselves would be better served by the child going to school.

I would say that I haven't met anyone who has chosen to HE who has done so on a whim.

Seeker - there are children that come out of school without any qualifications. Some of our local secondaries boast that every child comes out with at least one GCSE (and that could be less than a 'C' grade). So those children wouldn't have English and maths.
There are also different statistics which give percentages of A-C grades overall and A-C grades including Maths and English. So obviously not everyone comes out with a minimum GCSE in Maths and English even at grades lower than a useful 'C'.

I didn't say there weren't crap schools - of course there are!

But for children to leave a school with no GCSEs is a failure on the part of the school. To leave HE without GCSEs is seen as a valid choice.

It is seen as a failure on the part of the school because gaining GCSEs is what the school is aiming for for the child.

If it is a choice in HE and an alternative route to employment, further education etc is being followed then how can that be considered a failure?

Qualifications are just one feature of the institutionalisation of developed society.

Imagine, for a moment, that our society wasn't institutionalised. What do you HEers (who opt out of the institution of school) think our society would look like?

Oh and these schools are not considered 'crap' by Ofsted.

BonsoirAnna - not all home-educators who opt out of the school system, opt out of all institutions. My dd is not attending secondary school but does want to go to college. So will learn her way around institutional systems at that point.

juuule - imagine if all children had their first taste of institutional life at 18, when they went to college (or whatever further/higher education establishment they chose to attend). How would that work?

People who dip in and out of the institutions of life in developed societies might be considered to be free-riding on the backs of those who participate fully.

How so?

If the people who want to be in the institutions from the start go there then that's their choice. No-one is stopping them doing what they want and I can't see how it's using or abusing them by joining later.

And it's unlikely that all children would choose to do that.

Can't you? Can you not see that learning how to behave in an institutional context is an acquired skill, one that is acquired slowly and surely over the years, and that children who are not used to institutional behaviour and have to learn it later will need to be carried by those who have already acquired the skill?

I just don't think it's as difficult as you are making it out to be BonsoirAnna.
But then I'm looking at it from my point of view and know that my children would have no problems fitting in. Other home-educators that have had children move/return into the education system report that their children settled quickly. Perhaps it's just me and the people I know but that's all I have to base my views on.

I see it from the POV of the HE'd children (now adults) I know, and the very great difficulties that they have had adapting to life in society.

"If it is a choice in HE and an alternative route to employment, further education etc is being followed then how can that be considered a failure?"

I didn't say it was a failure - what I said was that it was a potential future stumbling block that anybody considering HE ought to be aware of.

And there are some occupations/professions that there are no alternative routes into. OK, your child may not want to follow those - but neither you nor they can possibly know when they are 14.

I would think there are adults both schooled and home-ed who have great difficulties that they have had adapting to life in society.

I don't think it's the sole preserve of home-ed children.

I don't either. But I do think that spending too much time outside an institutional context makes it immensely difficult to adapt to adult life within an institutional context.

I do not believe that institutions are the be all and end all of life - far from it. But I do believe that we all need a deep understanding of the institutions we live within (for our own benefit) so that we can navigate them to our own advantage. That, for me, is what autonomy means in a developed society. Not opting out.

interesting points you made sakura, just turning them over in my mind.... Agree we start school far far too early. There is IMO absolutely no need for it.

All this talk of having to be institutionalised in a way has me wondering why it is such a desirable thing in itself. Look at all our delinquent, unhappy, violent, messed up young people; they were institutionalised to no apparent benefit to themselves or society at large. I am just doubtful that this is the measuring stick here, although I do see in some way what Anna is getting at. I rmeember some time back on MN we had a thread on levels of happiness of dc in various countries and we were right down the bottom of the list. Anyone remember which survey / article that thread referred to?

Look at Sweden for example, dc begin school at 7, it is inclusive, they don't attend various types of school, dc attend their local school. Their education is surprisingly free cf. ours and they do not to my knowledge have all the youth problems we have. Why is that?

I would really like to see better provision made for all HE dc to sit exams and gain standard qualifications. I don't see why that's impossible. That would also give the govt a way of measuring the effectiveness of a dc's education which would not involve intrusion in the parental sphere and homelife.

where are you Sakura if school starts there at 7?

Sweden is a deeply institutionalised society! Much more so than the British liberal culture.

tell me a bit more about that Anna, I don't know what you mean

A huge state machine, children in daycare from a very young age, deep-rooted beliefs in conformity and not expressing too much individuality...

have to go, will have a think about Sweden. Interesting thread

If someone is talking about HE why does every statement that isn't entirely positive have to be countered with something on the lines of 'I'm sure that applies to schooled children too'?! This is one of the frustrating things about trying to discuss HE properly - nothing that isn't completely positive about HE is allowed to go by without something negative being said about schools - why? It's not a competition where at the end of the thread someone is going to declare school or HE the winner. It derails the discussion to keep turning it back to that all the time.

Sometimes it would be nice to read about/discuss HE in a context other than 'vs school', with it taken as read that there are various downsides of school that don't need reiterating there and then, because they're not what's being discussed. Otherwise this is how all conversations about HE turn into either uncontentious praise-fests or black and white 'vs school' debates.