I've been digging into the consent issue which I see as pivotal in matters that children can understand.
In medical issues children as young as 10.3 years can give assent to a treatment, or disagree with it. So say professionals. Parents believe that their children of around 13.9 are able, and young people themselves think that 14 is the magic age. (From
http://www.cirp.org/library/ethics/shield/)
This is consent to medical treatment. Or refusal to accept medical treatment.
Going to http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_4008977
I notice that the leaflet 'Consent: A Guide for Children and Young People' is available in English, Bengali, Chinese, Greek, Gujarati, Polish, Punjabi, Turkish, Urdu and Vietnamese. The Department of Health thinks it important enough to present it in ten languages.
Ten languages to tell children that they can choose what happens to their bodies and their health.
"While the age of informed consent remains contentious, an attempt should be made fully to explain the procedures and potential outcomes to the child, as stated by the European charter, even if the child is too young to be fully competent. After all it is the child who will have to live with the outcome of the procedure." (From http://www.cirp.org/library/ethics/shield/)
That is an important statement: "After all it is the child who will have to live with the outcome of the procedure." So true. The child will have to live with possible errors, and the parents will have to pick up the pieces.
Your body, your health is vital. A child's health is something incredibly important. We all want children to be healthy. We all want them to be happy with the decisions they make.
Why, then, is ContactPoint, a list of every child's details, being mooted at all? Where is the consent from every child who has to suffer the consequences if their personal information gets into the wrong hands?
Children are either competent to understand what is going on and give their consent or they aren't. You cannot pick and choose areas where children are allowed to have sway over their bodies or their information. Children's rights - another pretty idea - pretty toothless. Every child has a right to maintain their privacy from a totally unnecessary and potentially dangerous group of database users. Yet young people aren't even consulted. LAs are stockpiling children's personal details and adding them to a database which is abysmally insecure and probably illegal.
I wonder which child will challenge it in court?
"After all it is the child who will have to live with the outcome of the procedure."
Friday, 29 May 2009
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
Education of the Oppressed
"The radical, committed to human liberation, does not become the prisoner of 'a circle of certainty' within which reality is also imprisoned. On the contrary, the more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or enter into dialogue with them. "
That's from the introduction to 'The Pedagogy of the Oppressed' by Paolo Freire. If you've been reading other threedegreesoffreedom.blogspot entries you may, just may have noticed his name being mentioned once or twice.
We should all be humanised (or humanized) says Paolo, and, when you think about it, isn't that the best way to live? To be fully human is to recognise, respect and even cherish the humanity of other people. Once you respect others (you don't have to like them) you grow as a person yourself and you flinch from doing anything that negates their humanity.
I think a lot about schools. I've had quite a lot to do with them throughout my years. I've attended one school or another for primary, secondary and, perhaps you could even say. tertiary education. I've gone back to school for evening classes. My children went to nursery, first and secondary schools. When I think of some of the schools, I flinch because all I can remember is the dehumanising qualities that stand out in them. The raising of hands to ask permission to perform a natural function like go to the toilet. The inability to be yourself, the real you, and not just the rough-tough social you who doesn't care that no one hands you a Christmas present, in the schoolyard where everyone is watching, and what that lack says to all the young people around you: it says that you're dispensible, unnoticeable, uncared for...invisible. Unpopular. You don't see, say or do 'the right things.' You don't sound the same as everyone, walk the same, like the same music, actors, films, books... You constantly measure yourself by the yardstick of another, or others, and cannot match up. You are not accepted. You do not exist, but the simulacrum who interacts with peers and teachers and assistants has to be you - yet is not you.
For the most part of the day, you do not exist. You are not verified. You are not validated. You are not loved.
Then there's the passing of knowledge to one group from other knowledge sources and this is what Paolo calls 'the banking system of education.' A teacher deposits knowledge in his or her students.
The teacher narrates, the student listens. There is no room for problem-solving, no room for 'we' (the teacher and student as problem resolvers). There is no space for dialogue. The teacher deposits the fossil of his or her knowledge into the pupil, and the pupil must receive it in silence and without enquiry and without testing. It seems to me mendacious that although we report and aver that we cherish scientific enquiry and the mind that challenges everything we actually encourage the opposite. Schools never request different, thoughtful, challenging answers from their pupils; they want the 'right' answer and they will discard the thinkers' responses as 'wrong' answers. Alan Thomas and Harriet Pattison in their book, 'How Children Learn at Home' tell us that one home educated student went to school and was thoroughly astounded that the teachers, not the pupils, asked the questions in class.
"Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the students to memorise mechanically the narrated content. Worse yet, it turns them into 'containers,' into 'receptacles' to be 'filled' by the teacher. The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teacher she is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are.
Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize and repeat."
Paolo Freire details the 'banking' system of education, and we all know what a mess the banking system itself is in at the moment, don't we?
I'll give him the last word here: "In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance upon others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. The teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence."
That's from the introduction to 'The Pedagogy of the Oppressed' by Paolo Freire. If you've been reading other threedegreesoffreedom.blogspot entries you may, just may have noticed his name being mentioned once or twice.
We should all be humanised (or humanized) says Paolo, and, when you think about it, isn't that the best way to live? To be fully human is to recognise, respect and even cherish the humanity of other people. Once you respect others (you don't have to like them) you grow as a person yourself and you flinch from doing anything that negates their humanity.
I think a lot about schools. I've had quite a lot to do with them throughout my years. I've attended one school or another for primary, secondary and, perhaps you could even say. tertiary education. I've gone back to school for evening classes. My children went to nursery, first and secondary schools. When I think of some of the schools, I flinch because all I can remember is the dehumanising qualities that stand out in them. The raising of hands to ask permission to perform a natural function like go to the toilet. The inability to be yourself, the real you, and not just the rough-tough social you who doesn't care that no one hands you a Christmas present, in the schoolyard where everyone is watching, and what that lack says to all the young people around you: it says that you're dispensible, unnoticeable, uncared for...invisible. Unpopular. You don't see, say or do 'the right things.' You don't sound the same as everyone, walk the same, like the same music, actors, films, books... You constantly measure yourself by the yardstick of another, or others, and cannot match up. You are not accepted. You do not exist, but the simulacrum who interacts with peers and teachers and assistants has to be you - yet is not you.
For the most part of the day, you do not exist. You are not verified. You are not validated. You are not loved.
Then there's the passing of knowledge to one group from other knowledge sources and this is what Paolo calls 'the banking system of education.' A teacher deposits knowledge in his or her students.
The teacher narrates, the student listens. There is no room for problem-solving, no room for 'we' (the teacher and student as problem resolvers). There is no space for dialogue. The teacher deposits the fossil of his or her knowledge into the pupil, and the pupil must receive it in silence and without enquiry and without testing. It seems to me mendacious that although we report and aver that we cherish scientific enquiry and the mind that challenges everything we actually encourage the opposite. Schools never request different, thoughtful, challenging answers from their pupils; they want the 'right' answer and they will discard the thinkers' responses as 'wrong' answers. Alan Thomas and Harriet Pattison in their book, 'How Children Learn at Home' tell us that one home educated student went to school and was thoroughly astounded that the teachers, not the pupils, asked the questions in class.
"Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the students to memorise mechanically the narrated content. Worse yet, it turns them into 'containers,' into 'receptacles' to be 'filled' by the teacher. The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teacher she is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are.
Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize and repeat."
Paolo Freire details the 'banking' system of education, and we all know what a mess the banking system itself is in at the moment, don't we?
I'll give him the last word here: "In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance upon others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. The teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence."
Monday, 25 May 2009
Motivate me, please!
This is just an interjection. I'll get to my Paolo Freire blog later.
I have been reading or, actually, re-reading the excellent 'Sometimes it's Peaceful' blog and have been struck by the trying to reach 'hard to reach' people with the magic of technology aim. Maybe it's even at 'vision' status now.
Here is how I see it. It's all about motivation, isn't it? The whole kit and caboodle of learning is dependent upon a person WANTING to learn something. If you don't have that motivation, you don't have anything.
Recently, I've been dipping in and out of a very good book about motivation which I'll share with you when I've dipped enough; however, at the moment, I can sum up the problem in an old saw which is "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." To paraphrase, you can lead a child (or anyone) to information but you can't make him/her learn it.
You can pretty up the National Curriculum, whatever its form or content, and wrap it in nice coloured paper on a computer monitor. You can make the avatar sing to me, the avatar dance and talk and give advice, and test my 'progress' but you cannot make me learn. To learn or not to learn. That remains my private and hidden choice.
What makes a person choose to learn? A person learns when he or she chooses to.
No amount of pretty packages from Becta or the government is going to change that.
I have been reading or, actually, re-reading the excellent 'Sometimes it's Peaceful' blog and have been struck by the trying to reach 'hard to reach' people with the magic of technology aim. Maybe it's even at 'vision' status now.
Here is how I see it. It's all about motivation, isn't it? The whole kit and caboodle of learning is dependent upon a person WANTING to learn something. If you don't have that motivation, you don't have anything.
Recently, I've been dipping in and out of a very good book about motivation which I'll share with you when I've dipped enough; however, at the moment, I can sum up the problem in an old saw which is "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." To paraphrase, you can lead a child (or anyone) to information but you can't make him/her learn it.
You can pretty up the National Curriculum, whatever its form or content, and wrap it in nice coloured paper on a computer monitor. You can make the avatar sing to me, the avatar dance and talk and give advice, and test my 'progress' but you cannot make me learn. To learn or not to learn. That remains my private and hidden choice.
What makes a person choose to learn? A person learns when he or she chooses to.
No amount of pretty packages from Becta or the government is going to change that.
Tuesday, 19 May 2009
Power to the oppressed
"What magic process turns evil lobby groups into friendly charities when the money comes from the state rather than from industry? Or is it just that industry is always evil and government is always benign?" asks The Filthy Smoker on http://devilskitchen.me.uk/2009/05/rob-by-name-rob-by-nature.html
Now we know from the Sometimes it's Peaceful blog that both BECTA (Badman) and Notschool (Heppell) are 'charities' and are given government money... Oh, pardon me, our money. The first promotes lots and lots of ICT, and the second promotes ICT for school-aged children that school, apparently, has given up on.
So, we have the government pushing yet more stuff at us that we may or may not want to do, but you bet your buns that the stuff they push now will become statutory in the future. In other words, we won't have any choice.
The government and it's false charities are oppressors, and we, the workers at the bottom of the economic triangle, are the oppressed.
Just to set this blog up, I will explain that I was kindly given 'The Pedagogy of the Oppressed' a book by Paolo Freire, a man my husband has quoted to me for some time. It's my turn to quote Paolo F. to you now.
"Any situation in which 'A' objectively exploits 'B' or hinders his and her pursuit of self-affirmation as a responsible person is one of oppression. Such a situation in itself constitutes violence, even when sweetened by false generosity, because it interferes with the individual's ontological and historical vocation to be more fully human."
Here, I think we have the key. We, the home educating people, are, as objects to bureaucracy, told how to look after our children or rather how to let other people look after them, how to live our lives (expending our days in work, naturally, as it keeps the elite among us in the position to which they have been accustomed), to surrender our little ones to school because that's the place where the truth is taught to them, or hidden from them, but they go on to learn to keep the elite in idle and rich comfort. No wonder the government resents home educators. Our children think for themselves. They observe the inequalities; they may ignite the revolution.
That is why our status quo cannot remain, isn't it, Mr. Badman? In case, we and our children see what you're up to. Your status quo, like those of the masters, will stay the same. Slimy objects like home educators cannot be allowed to challenge the oppressors neat and tidy little world, can we? We cannot speak for ourselves or determine our own course. Now, thanks to Every Child Matters, you're going to appropriate our very dreams and make them work for you too.
And, I would say in response to Mr. Heppell accusing Gill (Sometimes it's peaceful blogspot) of bullying him: "It is not the despised who initiate hatred, but those who despise. It is not those whose humanity is denied them who negate humankind, but those who denied that humanity (thus negating their own will as well)."
False generosity: Parents are allowed to educate their children at home, and we have no plans to interfere with that right (to paraphrase the government position). Oh, gee, thanks. Kind of you, I'm sure. Yet, how can lone home educating parents who once had income called, nattily, Income Support, be allowed to stay at home and educate these subversives who might one day lead the revolution against people who have too much? Well, change the law to make the lazy layabouts work and, if in sending them to work, you turf their kids into school, so much the better.
"The oppressors do not perceive their monopoly on having more as a privilege which dehumanizes others and themselves. They cannot see that, in the egoistic pursuit of having as a possessing class, they suffocate in their own possessions and no longer are; they merely have. For them, having more is an inalienable right, a right they acquired through their own 'effort,' with their 'courage to take risks.' If others do not have more, it is because they are incompetent and lazy, and worst of all is their unjustifiable ingratitude towards the 'generous gestures' of the dominant class. Precisely because they are 'ungrateful' and 'envious,' the oppressed are regarded as potential enemies who must be watched."
This explains all the CCTV, the Home Office scrutiny of phone calls and blogs and emails, and the government's championing of databases. Most of us are lazy, scrounging, dirty little layabouts who are enemies of the ruling class. We must be watched, and conquered through 'sloganizing' and being told how lucky we are to have jobs at all where we flag ourselves to death making some other geezers absolutely insanely rich.
The oppressed, in other Freire words, have been reduced to the status of things, and things have no voice. They exist merely to be used.
Next blog - Education of the oppressed.
The author of 'Power of the oppressed' would like to acknowledge the vital part that Paolo Freire's book, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed' has played in this blog. Thank you, Paolo, wherever you are.
Now we know from the Sometimes it's Peaceful blog that both BECTA (Badman) and Notschool (Heppell) are 'charities' and are given government money... Oh, pardon me, our money. The first promotes lots and lots of ICT, and the second promotes ICT for school-aged children that school, apparently, has given up on.
So, we have the government pushing yet more stuff at us that we may or may not want to do, but you bet your buns that the stuff they push now will become statutory in the future. In other words, we won't have any choice.
The government and it's false charities are oppressors, and we, the workers at the bottom of the economic triangle, are the oppressed.
Just to set this blog up, I will explain that I was kindly given 'The Pedagogy of the Oppressed' a book by Paolo Freire, a man my husband has quoted to me for some time. It's my turn to quote Paolo F. to you now.
"Any situation in which 'A' objectively exploits 'B' or hinders his and her pursuit of self-affirmation as a responsible person is one of oppression. Such a situation in itself constitutes violence, even when sweetened by false generosity, because it interferes with the individual's ontological and historical vocation to be more fully human."
Here, I think we have the key. We, the home educating people, are, as objects to bureaucracy, told how to look after our children or rather how to let other people look after them, how to live our lives (expending our days in work, naturally, as it keeps the elite among us in the position to which they have been accustomed), to surrender our little ones to school because that's the place where the truth is taught to them, or hidden from them, but they go on to learn to keep the elite in idle and rich comfort. No wonder the government resents home educators. Our children think for themselves. They observe the inequalities; they may ignite the revolution.
That is why our status quo cannot remain, isn't it, Mr. Badman? In case, we and our children see what you're up to. Your status quo, like those of the masters, will stay the same. Slimy objects like home educators cannot be allowed to challenge the oppressors neat and tidy little world, can we? We cannot speak for ourselves or determine our own course. Now, thanks to Every Child Matters, you're going to appropriate our very dreams and make them work for you too.
And, I would say in response to Mr. Heppell accusing Gill (Sometimes it's peaceful blogspot) of bullying him: "It is not the despised who initiate hatred, but those who despise. It is not those whose humanity is denied them who negate humankind, but those who denied that humanity (thus negating their own will as well)."
False generosity: Parents are allowed to educate their children at home, and we have no plans to interfere with that right (to paraphrase the government position). Oh, gee, thanks. Kind of you, I'm sure. Yet, how can lone home educating parents who once had income called, nattily, Income Support, be allowed to stay at home and educate these subversives who might one day lead the revolution against people who have too much? Well, change the law to make the lazy layabouts work and, if in sending them to work, you turf their kids into school, so much the better.
"The oppressors do not perceive their monopoly on having more as a privilege which dehumanizes others and themselves. They cannot see that, in the egoistic pursuit of having as a possessing class, they suffocate in their own possessions and no longer are; they merely have. For them, having more is an inalienable right, a right they acquired through their own 'effort,' with their 'courage to take risks.' If others do not have more, it is because they are incompetent and lazy, and worst of all is their unjustifiable ingratitude towards the 'generous gestures' of the dominant class. Precisely because they are 'ungrateful' and 'envious,' the oppressed are regarded as potential enemies who must be watched."
This explains all the CCTV, the Home Office scrutiny of phone calls and blogs and emails, and the government's championing of databases. Most of us are lazy, scrounging, dirty little layabouts who are enemies of the ruling class. We must be watched, and conquered through 'sloganizing' and being told how lucky we are to have jobs at all where we flag ourselves to death making some other geezers absolutely insanely rich.
The oppressed, in other Freire words, have been reduced to the status of things, and things have no voice. They exist merely to be used.
Next blog - Education of the oppressed.
The author of 'Power of the oppressed' would like to acknowledge the vital part that Paolo Freire's book, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed' has played in this blog. Thank you, Paolo, wherever you are.
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
Judging Society
"The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped." was said by Hubert H. Humphrey in his speech at the dedication of the Hubert H. Humphrey building in Washington, DC, on November 4, 1977."
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/148590.html
I give you our government.
"Parliament will today play host to a high-level meeting on the impact of the Legal Services Commission’s proposed cuts to family legal aid on vulnerable children."
They want to keep vulnerable children safe. So they cut legal aid. Judith Timms, the founder of the National Youth Advocacy Service, says:
"We have a responsibility, as a society, to prioritise their needs. This means adequate funding for the professionals who dedicate themselves to demanding work. Family barristers are public servants, and any threat to their continued work in this field should be resisted. The Department for Children, Schools and Families said, in its Children’s Plan, that families should be “at the centre of excellent, integrated services that put their needs first”. These cuts strike at the heart of the Government’s wider safeguarding agenda for children and young people.’"
http://www.barcouncil.org.uk/news/press/706.html
Dear politicians, will you cut Ministers' salaries, second home allowances, travel allowances, dog food money and dosh for pornographic films for a poor old MP's husband? No way.
You'll take money from advocates of vulnerable children.
The government scores yet another own goal.
It's getting monotonous.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/148590.html
I give you our government.
"Parliament will today play host to a high-level meeting on the impact of the Legal Services Commission’s proposed cuts to family legal aid on vulnerable children."
They want to keep vulnerable children safe. So they cut legal aid. Judith Timms, the founder of the National Youth Advocacy Service, says:
"We have a responsibility, as a society, to prioritise their needs. This means adequate funding for the professionals who dedicate themselves to demanding work. Family barristers are public servants, and any threat to their continued work in this field should be resisted. The Department for Children, Schools and Families said, in its Children’s Plan, that families should be “at the centre of excellent, integrated services that put their needs first”. These cuts strike at the heart of the Government’s wider safeguarding agenda for children and young people.’"
http://www.barcouncil.org.uk/news/press/706.html
Dear politicians, will you cut Ministers' salaries, second home allowances, travel allowances, dog food money and dosh for pornographic films for a poor old MP's husband? No way.
You'll take money from advocates of vulnerable children.
The government scores yet another own goal.
It's getting monotonous.
Fine the breeder of a naughty dog
It's the turn of Mr. Balls to give me another good laugh today.
"Tomorrow, Schools Secretary Ed Balls will release guidelines urging teachers to use the full range of powers at their disposal. Under the guidelines parents can be handed £50 fines and even face court action if they fail to take responsibility for their children's bad behaviour in school."
From http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23675749-details/Action+to+curb+unruly+pupils+as+teachers+blame+parents/article.do
On the same principle, I could say that my dog misbehaved today while in my care so I'm going to sue the woman who bred him. She wasn't present, hasn't seen the dog, doesn't know how I handle the dear naughty mutt, but SHE is responsible because she bred it. Fine her. Heck, hang her.
How exactly do you take responsibility for your child's action when your child is in school? Doesn't the child take responsibility? I can't recall ever doing anything particularly heinous in school, but, if I had, I would've owned up and accepted my punishment. I certainly wouldn't have expected my MOTHER to cough up 50 quid for MY mistake.
If children misbehave in school, maybe it's because they don't want to be there at all.
Maybe they can't be there. Maybe it doesn't suit them at all. Maybe, just maybe, it's not good for them.
They don't want to be there. Perhaps, just perhaps, school isn't a place for children. It's a big business, is school, many thousands of people make their living out of it. But have we ever asked children if they want to go to school? If school fills their deepest needs, if it makes them happy?
Thought not.
My children aren't in school. Put me in gaol now.
But leave my children in the gaol we call school.
I used to think that children who misbehaved were really bad. Now I think that they're the ones we haven't tamed; the ones who haven't given up and begun to conform just to keep other people happy. That is the trick, isn't it? We don't care about their happiness. So long as they are contained in school-gaol.
And I bet the Treasury is having a great time counting those fines.
"Tomorrow, Schools Secretary Ed Balls will release guidelines urging teachers to use the full range of powers at their disposal. Under the guidelines parents can be handed £50 fines and even face court action if they fail to take responsibility for their children's bad behaviour in school."
From http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23675749-details/Action+to+curb+unruly+pupils+as+teachers+blame+parents/article.do
On the same principle, I could say that my dog misbehaved today while in my care so I'm going to sue the woman who bred him. She wasn't present, hasn't seen the dog, doesn't know how I handle the dear naughty mutt, but SHE is responsible because she bred it. Fine her. Heck, hang her.
How exactly do you take responsibility for your child's action when your child is in school? Doesn't the child take responsibility? I can't recall ever doing anything particularly heinous in school, but, if I had, I would've owned up and accepted my punishment. I certainly wouldn't have expected my MOTHER to cough up 50 quid for MY mistake.
If children misbehave in school, maybe it's because they don't want to be there at all.
Maybe they can't be there. Maybe it doesn't suit them at all. Maybe, just maybe, it's not good for them.
They don't want to be there. Perhaps, just perhaps, school isn't a place for children. It's a big business, is school, many thousands of people make their living out of it. But have we ever asked children if they want to go to school? If school fills their deepest needs, if it makes them happy?
Thought not.
My children aren't in school. Put me in gaol now.
But leave my children in the gaol we call school.
I used to think that children who misbehaved were really bad. Now I think that they're the ones we haven't tamed; the ones who haven't given up and begun to conform just to keep other people happy. That is the trick, isn't it? We don't care about their happiness. So long as they are contained in school-gaol.
And I bet the Treasury is having a great time counting those fines.
Let me get this straight
" Of course we would love to build some of our super nurseries—that you have not seen, we have some really magnificent new nurseries all over the county—but we cannot. In the meantime head-teachers are seized of an agenda that says achievement begins by getting children disposed to learn and you have to capture them young. Where we have that conclusion from head-teachers and we have spaces and we have a commitment from staff to be trained, if they are not already trained, and we have quality criteria then I say, "Let us do it." At the moment it is for four year olds, let us do it. I would rather do that than not provide it."
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmeduemp/386/0040412.htm
That's our old friend, Graham Badman, Head of Becta, Head of the Home Education Review, speaking. He agrees that head teachers want to capture our children, and that you have to get the children disposed to learn. Capture them young. We've heard that before. Or something like it: "He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future." (Adolf Hitler)
The government have been taking leaves out of Nazi Germany's book. They want our children. But they don't want our children to be our children anymore. They want them to go to school at four years old. So send their mothers to work. Then the children will have nice happy healthy well-adjusted relationships with strangers at nursery, and with other small children who, of course, make useless role models.
Nurseries, yes. I worked in one. It was a well-equipped, pleasant nursery. There were well-motivated, good staff. They had a lot of sense at that nursery. If the child was ill, for example, Mum or Dad or other adult got a phone call. Mostly, Mum turned up to take her baby home. Once, though, the staff rang the mother of an ill baby. The mother's mobile phone was turned off. And the father's mobile was switched off too. What could be so important that you were out of touch with the strangers who were looking after your child, parents?
I saw a lot of children in that nursery. I saw many children crying and asking for Mum. When they couldn't get Mum, they hitched, trailed, crawled, bawled after, one of the fairly youthful staff members whom they had known them the longest.
It was a good nursery. Lots of common sense. Lots of caring. In a vague sort of way.
The carers were, for the most part, lovely. They did their best. But they weren't Mum. They weren't family. They cared, certainly, but they didn't love. They hadn't given birth to these tiny people. They weren't Mum.
It killed me. Little tiny innocent children all bewildered, with that puzzled and searching look on their faces. Sometimes, it became too much for them and they retired to a corner to lie down and stare blankly at a wall. But, oh, later on when they were reunited with Mum or Dad or Gran... their faces glowed and they sprang to life after the day they'd spent waiting for the real event.
The return of Mum. The rescue. The beginning of real time. Of life.
Have you been inside a nursery, Mr. Badman? Have you worked in one? For a day? A few hours?
My guess is no. If you had, you wouldn't talk as you did to the Select Committee on Education and Employment.
"...there are schools that can offer a vision for education for four year olds. Appropriately trained staff will make sure it is a different curriculum for four year olds from what they would get as a rising-five. Let us do it. It may be a long, thin room, and I have been to Carswell several times, but the quality of what those kids get there is great. I have spoken to parents who are absolutely enthused by how their child has been changed by the benefit of that."
So says Mr. Badman about nursery education provision.
Of course parents are enthusiastic about good nursery provision. It leaves them free to work, to make money, without feeling that they are failing their children. Education for four year olds. What do four year olds need to know? How to play, how to learn that they are loved and appreciated for what they are, not an economic pawn in the great game that none but a few people win at... Do they have to be educated at four? Your type of education, Mr. Badman, where they're instructed and tested?
I had a strange experience a few years ago. A mother I knew at the school gate had a new baby - a beautiful little red-headed daughter. The mother took her maternity leave, and I saw her one day, waiting for her elder child to walk out of school. "What a beauty," I said of her baby. Her face was pleased but then a troubled expression appeared. "What is it?" I asked.
The woman hitched her baby up. "I am supposed to go back to work next week..." She was crying. "But I can't leave her. I really can't..."
The baby looked over her shoulder; an innocent, a lovely rosebud, mildly curious at her surroundings. I spent ten minutes reassuring her mother that it was fine to care, natural to wish to spend the fleeting baby months with her new daughter. That I had to bolster her already-made decision surprised me. What is more natural than raising your own baby? What better start, for all your educating, experienced-staffed nurseries, can a little one have?
I have no doubt that the mother of the little rosebud has done the right thing. She has embraced her true nature. She has heard the cry of her little one, and decided to respond to that voice.
What job could ever compare with that?
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmeduemp/386/0040412.htm
That's our old friend, Graham Badman, Head of Becta, Head of the Home Education Review, speaking. He agrees that head teachers want to capture our children, and that you have to get the children disposed to learn. Capture them young. We've heard that before. Or something like it: "He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future." (Adolf Hitler)
The government have been taking leaves out of Nazi Germany's book. They want our children. But they don't want our children to be our children anymore. They want them to go to school at four years old. So send their mothers to work. Then the children will have nice happy healthy well-adjusted relationships with strangers at nursery, and with other small children who, of course, make useless role models.
Nurseries, yes. I worked in one. It was a well-equipped, pleasant nursery. There were well-motivated, good staff. They had a lot of sense at that nursery. If the child was ill, for example, Mum or Dad or other adult got a phone call. Mostly, Mum turned up to take her baby home. Once, though, the staff rang the mother of an ill baby. The mother's mobile phone was turned off. And the father's mobile was switched off too. What could be so important that you were out of touch with the strangers who were looking after your child, parents?
I saw a lot of children in that nursery. I saw many children crying and asking for Mum. When they couldn't get Mum, they hitched, trailed, crawled, bawled after, one of the fairly youthful staff members whom they had known them the longest.
It was a good nursery. Lots of common sense. Lots of caring. In a vague sort of way.
The carers were, for the most part, lovely. They did their best. But they weren't Mum. They weren't family. They cared, certainly, but they didn't love. They hadn't given birth to these tiny people. They weren't Mum.
It killed me. Little tiny innocent children all bewildered, with that puzzled and searching look on their faces. Sometimes, it became too much for them and they retired to a corner to lie down and stare blankly at a wall. But, oh, later on when they were reunited with Mum or Dad or Gran... their faces glowed and they sprang to life after the day they'd spent waiting for the real event.
The return of Mum. The rescue. The beginning of real time. Of life.
Have you been inside a nursery, Mr. Badman? Have you worked in one? For a day? A few hours?
My guess is no. If you had, you wouldn't talk as you did to the Select Committee on Education and Employment.
"...there are schools that can offer a vision for education for four year olds. Appropriately trained staff will make sure it is a different curriculum for four year olds from what they would get as a rising-five. Let us do it. It may be a long, thin room, and I have been to Carswell several times, but the quality of what those kids get there is great. I have spoken to parents who are absolutely enthused by how their child has been changed by the benefit of that."
So says Mr. Badman about nursery education provision.
Of course parents are enthusiastic about good nursery provision. It leaves them free to work, to make money, without feeling that they are failing their children. Education for four year olds. What do four year olds need to know? How to play, how to learn that they are loved and appreciated for what they are, not an economic pawn in the great game that none but a few people win at... Do they have to be educated at four? Your type of education, Mr. Badman, where they're instructed and tested?
I had a strange experience a few years ago. A mother I knew at the school gate had a new baby - a beautiful little red-headed daughter. The mother took her maternity leave, and I saw her one day, waiting for her elder child to walk out of school. "What a beauty," I said of her baby. Her face was pleased but then a troubled expression appeared. "What is it?" I asked.
The woman hitched her baby up. "I am supposed to go back to work next week..." She was crying. "But I can't leave her. I really can't..."
The baby looked over her shoulder; an innocent, a lovely rosebud, mildly curious at her surroundings. I spent ten minutes reassuring her mother that it was fine to care, natural to wish to spend the fleeting baby months with her new daughter. That I had to bolster her already-made decision surprised me. What is more natural than raising your own baby? What better start, for all your educating, experienced-staffed nurseries, can a little one have?
I have no doubt that the mother of the little rosebud has done the right thing. She has embraced her true nature. She has heard the cry of her little one, and decided to respond to that voice.
What job could ever compare with that?
Sunday, 10 May 2009
A bit of a laugh
I've had a good laugh. I wanted to share the source with you. It's healing and feels so great to have a good laugh. They seem to be rare these days of government agents throttling parents right, left and centre.
I was having a look at NASWE's constitution. Yes, NASWE has a constitution. It's on here:
http://www.naswe.org.uk/constitution/
Take a peek. Do you see it?
The Constitution
Title
Objectives
Membership
Organisation
Officers of the Association
Meetings of the Association (Standing Committees)
Revisions to the Constitution and Rules
Rules
Subscriptions
Expenes
Funds
The Annual General Meeting
Dissolution of the Association
Appendix A Regions - Definition
Caught it yet?
Below subscription and above funds. Expenes.
I can hear you laughing now.
For a few moments, I tried to imagine what it meant, 'Expenes,' and my thoughts flew to snakes, males ones in particular. They have two male organs so they're 'hemipenes.' So was expenes - er - a lack of the male organ? Was it some type of code?
In a flash, I was there. Expenses. Of course.
Educational social workers, their constitution. Sounds like it could be a film title. But the principles are interesting:
The voice of all those working to promote school attendance and social inclusion in education.
1. believes the welfare and well-being of the child and young person is of paramount concern.
2. is fully committed to ensuring that all children and young people have access to and benefit from a wide range of educational opportunities.
3. believes that all young people, their parents and carers have an entitlement to be treated with dignity and respect. This includes being listened to, consulted on any decision affecting them, and giving due regard to confidentiality.
4. believes safeguarding should be reflected in every aspect of practice. Children and young people can best benefit from educational opportunities if they feel safe and secure from harm.
5. views opportunities for professional development as essential if services that support children and young people are to be improved. This includes:
Professional supervision and support.
Regular training to update and inform practice.
Development opportunities which enrich and enhance practice.
Access to professional progression leading to nationally recognised qualifications.
6. celebrates diversity and promotes anti-oppressive practice.
7. fully supports The 1989 United Nations convention on the rights of the child.
8. promotes the adoption and implementation of the General Social Care Council (GSCC) codes of practice and the registration of practitioners.
NASWE believe that the welfare and well-being of the young person and the child is of paramount concern. Me too. Any right-minded person does. So far so good.
The Association is fully committed to ensuring that all children and young people have access to and benefit from a wide range of educational opportunities. Once again, bang on. Home education is a stonking great educational opportunity made of countless other educational opportunities so where is the problem here? It sounds like we're on the same side.
Number 3 is even better. NASWE believes that all children and young people, their parents and carers have an entitlement to be treated with dignity and respect. This includes being listened to, consulted on any decision affecting them, and giving due regard to confidentiality. Once again, splendid stuff. You've got to be treated with dignity and respect, and you'll be listened to, although that can be a bit of a cop out. I listen to my husband's side in an argument, then I do what I was planning to do before I listened to him.
Yeah, yeah, safeguarding. A whole can of worms which reminds me of the film 'Minority Report'. Cops stopped people from committing crimes, just before the crimes were committed. The whole thing fell apart, of course. It did help that seriously good precognitive people were sensing the crime before it happened. I suppose we make do with feelings and reading into people's behaviour what we want to see.
The rest are obvious. Training etc. Rights of the child...
But how come what they say and what they sometimes do are two separate things?
I was having a look at NASWE's constitution. Yes, NASWE has a constitution. It's on here:
http://www.naswe.org.uk/constitution/
Take a peek. Do you see it?
The Constitution
Title
Objectives
Membership
Organisation
Officers of the Association
Meetings of the Association (Standing Committees)
Revisions to the Constitution and Rules
Rules
Subscriptions
Expenes
Funds
The Annual General Meeting
Dissolution of the Association
Appendix A Regions - Definition
Caught it yet?
Below subscription and above funds. Expenes.
I can hear you laughing now.
For a few moments, I tried to imagine what it meant, 'Expenes,' and my thoughts flew to snakes, males ones in particular. They have two male organs so they're 'hemipenes.' So was expenes - er - a lack of the male organ? Was it some type of code?
In a flash, I was there. Expenses. Of course.
Educational social workers, their constitution. Sounds like it could be a film title. But the principles are interesting:
The voice of all those working to promote school attendance and social inclusion in education.
1. believes the welfare and well-being of the child and young person is of paramount concern.
2. is fully committed to ensuring that all children and young people have access to and benefit from a wide range of educational opportunities.
3. believes that all young people, their parents and carers have an entitlement to be treated with dignity and respect. This includes being listened to, consulted on any decision affecting them, and giving due regard to confidentiality.
4. believes safeguarding should be reflected in every aspect of practice. Children and young people can best benefit from educational opportunities if they feel safe and secure from harm.
5. views opportunities for professional development as essential if services that support children and young people are to be improved. This includes:
Professional supervision and support.
Regular training to update and inform practice.
Development opportunities which enrich and enhance practice.
Access to professional progression leading to nationally recognised qualifications.
6. celebrates diversity and promotes anti-oppressive practice.
7. fully supports The 1989 United Nations convention on the rights of the child.
8. promotes the adoption and implementation of the General Social Care Council (GSCC) codes of practice and the registration of practitioners.
NASWE believe that the welfare and well-being of the young person and the child is of paramount concern. Me too. Any right-minded person does. So far so good.
The Association is fully committed to ensuring that all children and young people have access to and benefit from a wide range of educational opportunities. Once again, bang on. Home education is a stonking great educational opportunity made of countless other educational opportunities so where is the problem here? It sounds like we're on the same side.
Number 3 is even better. NASWE believes that all children and young people, their parents and carers have an entitlement to be treated with dignity and respect. This includes being listened to, consulted on any decision affecting them, and giving due regard to confidentiality. Once again, splendid stuff. You've got to be treated with dignity and respect, and you'll be listened to, although that can be a bit of a cop out. I listen to my husband's side in an argument, then I do what I was planning to do before I listened to him.
Yeah, yeah, safeguarding. A whole can of worms which reminds me of the film 'Minority Report'. Cops stopped people from committing crimes, just before the crimes were committed. The whole thing fell apart, of course. It did help that seriously good precognitive people were sensing the crime before it happened. I suppose we make do with feelings and reading into people's behaviour what we want to see.
The rest are obvious. Training etc. Rights of the child...
But how come what they say and what they sometimes do are two separate things?
Monday, 4 May 2009
We must be assured of your safety, kid
"Wherever a child is educated, local authorities need to be assured that each child is safe, well and receiving a full time education, suitable to their needs and abilities. The safety and wellbeing of all children is of the utmost importance and where local authorities have concerns about the safety and welfare, or education of a home educated child, effective systems must be in place to deal with those concerns."
From http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/ete/homeeducation/
It is obviously untrue. In just one incident, when my child was in school, she was pushed up against a wall face first and had both arms wrenched back. It hurt. Not just the pain from the assault, but the pain from being excluded, being the butt of someone else's disdain for your privacy and self-hood, your safety, your personal power as an individual. Let's face it. If a person slams you up against the wall like that, it probably means they don't like you. Of course, it also means that they are in serious trouble. They are possible psychopaths. They damage themselves and are poison to others around them. They need interventions to help them understand that they cannot so treat another human being. They need help. But they don't get it. And they go on and on and on hurting other children...
Our local Local Authority never even knew, I guess. If they had known, would they have bothered to investigate? Would they have come along to deliver a workshop about bullying entitled: "We all hate bullying" or "Bullying is bad. Don't do it!"? When the workshop, with the bullies in ringside seats sitting comfortably, butter wouldn't melt, nodding solemnly at every word, was over did the LA people trundle off in their various cars congratulating themselves that they had made the school safer for targets of bullying? Likely.
The government statistics say that 450,000 children are bullied every week. With 52 weeks in the year, well, kids aren't in school every week but you get the idea. That's a whole lot of bullying. That's a whole lot of children NOT being safe in school, isn't it? That's a whole lot of lonely traumatised children on the fringes of playgrounds, ostracised by their peers, picked on when they speak, ridiculed when they stay silent, living in a confusing, frightening daymare of absolute misery and pain with no way out.
That's 450,000 children every week that the Local Authorities do not keep safe.
There are about 50,000 home educated children in the United Kingdom. 450,000 children. 50,000 children.
I can understand really. 450,000 children you are bound to keep safe but don't must be a huge drain on mental resources. The guilt must weigh heavily. The weighty sadness must tug at your guts. Who haven't we saved from hell today? Which child has been beaten up for a bit of fun by a gang of other kids? How many tinies are hurting because we cannot do anything?
450,000 children every week are suffering.
So much for your aims and missions and visions. Your religion of pronouncements that 'children are safe in school.'
It is quite clear that children are not safe in school. That is a lie. You can tell a lie six million times but it doesn't make it true. Many home educators have to take their children OUT of school to ensure their children's safety. Meanwhile 450,000 school children are being bullied every week.
And we, responsible parents who often agonise about the best thing to do with no help from schools, no support from Local Authorities and in a constant state of anguish over the safety of our beleaguered children, are told we are suspects in child abuse cases. Go monitor that over which you have control, LAs. Go to the source of evil and leave responsible parents alone. All I want for my children is that they are unmolested in their young lives, and I can ensure that. I can hold their hands as they move towards independence and let go when they are ready to fly.
Leave us alone to do our utmost for our children.
Because I've seen what you can do (or rather what you do not do).
Leave us alone.
Let our children learn to fly when their wings mend.
From http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/ete/homeeducation/
It is obviously untrue. In just one incident, when my child was in school, she was pushed up against a wall face first and had both arms wrenched back. It hurt. Not just the pain from the assault, but the pain from being excluded, being the butt of someone else's disdain for your privacy and self-hood, your safety, your personal power as an individual. Let's face it. If a person slams you up against the wall like that, it probably means they don't like you. Of course, it also means that they are in serious trouble. They are possible psychopaths. They damage themselves and are poison to others around them. They need interventions to help them understand that they cannot so treat another human being. They need help. But they don't get it. And they go on and on and on hurting other children...
Our local Local Authority never even knew, I guess. If they had known, would they have bothered to investigate? Would they have come along to deliver a workshop about bullying entitled: "We all hate bullying" or "Bullying is bad. Don't do it!"? When the workshop, with the bullies in ringside seats sitting comfortably, butter wouldn't melt, nodding solemnly at every word, was over did the LA people trundle off in their various cars congratulating themselves that they had made the school safer for targets of bullying? Likely.
The government statistics say that 450,000 children are bullied every week. With 52 weeks in the year, well, kids aren't in school every week but you get the idea. That's a whole lot of bullying. That's a whole lot of children NOT being safe in school, isn't it? That's a whole lot of lonely traumatised children on the fringes of playgrounds, ostracised by their peers, picked on when they speak, ridiculed when they stay silent, living in a confusing, frightening daymare of absolute misery and pain with no way out.
That's 450,000 children every week that the Local Authorities do not keep safe.
There are about 50,000 home educated children in the United Kingdom. 450,000 children. 50,000 children.
I can understand really. 450,000 children you are bound to keep safe but don't must be a huge drain on mental resources. The guilt must weigh heavily. The weighty sadness must tug at your guts. Who haven't we saved from hell today? Which child has been beaten up for a bit of fun by a gang of other kids? How many tinies are hurting because we cannot do anything?
450,000 children every week are suffering.
So much for your aims and missions and visions. Your religion of pronouncements that 'children are safe in school.'
It is quite clear that children are not safe in school. That is a lie. You can tell a lie six million times but it doesn't make it true. Many home educators have to take their children OUT of school to ensure their children's safety. Meanwhile 450,000 school children are being bullied every week.
And we, responsible parents who often agonise about the best thing to do with no help from schools, no support from Local Authorities and in a constant state of anguish over the safety of our beleaguered children, are told we are suspects in child abuse cases. Go monitor that over which you have control, LAs. Go to the source of evil and leave responsible parents alone. All I want for my children is that they are unmolested in their young lives, and I can ensure that. I can hold their hands as they move towards independence and let go when they are ready to fly.
Leave us alone to do our utmost for our children.
Because I've seen what you can do (or rather what you do not do).
Leave us alone.
Let our children learn to fly when their wings mend.
Sunday, 3 May 2009
NASWE to share views with Home Ed. Review chairman
Well, well, well. We approach a wicked day.
On May 7th, NASWE members are to share their views with Mr. Graham Badman about the home education review.
http://www.naswe.org.uk/events/
Why?
I suppose because educational social workers are concerned with children who are electively home educated. They want to give their views, the social workers do, and we can bet their views are that home educators should be weighed and measured and monitored and curtailed and then, for preference, have their kids sent back to school because school is so wonderful.
They have a vested interest. Their job is getting children into school and keeping them there.
I'm not a social worker so I'm not invited to a meeting with Mr. Badman. If he reads my views, I'll be surprised. I'd be more surprised if, having read them, he took any notice.
But I'm just one of those unruly, unimportant home educators, and my children are missing something by not being in school.
Maybe I'll sneak into the conference and heckle. No, can't do that. I would be arrested.
I'll just ask openly - why are social workers' views being solicited? I understand Mr. Badman was one at one time or, if I'm incorrect here, perhaps he could grant me a conference to which all us pesky irritating home educators would be invited.
I know it's much less important than government diktats and job demands.
It's only our lives, after all. It's only our most precious children's lives after all.
Democracy in action. Fairness. Quangos.
The usual government path of 'reviewing' something then telling everyone that you, the government, were right after all. The NFER trick of asking who you like and who agrees with you what they think.
The cult of the expert. Three years of college or university and they know what is best for you.
It's only our lives. It's only our children: our most precious children and their lives.
Step outside the herd. Stop wanting what you're approved of for wanting - the big house, the car, the extension on the big house, lots of money, holidays, things... And you must be suspect. You don't conform. You are other. Not one of us. You are alien. You might direct your life, and be a success on your own terms.
It's our lives. Our most precious children and their lives.
I'm a mother - hear me roar.
On May 7th, NASWE members are to share their views with Mr. Graham Badman about the home education review.
http://www.naswe.org.uk/events/
Why?
I suppose because educational social workers are concerned with children who are electively home educated. They want to give their views, the social workers do, and we can bet their views are that home educators should be weighed and measured and monitored and curtailed and then, for preference, have their kids sent back to school because school is so wonderful.
They have a vested interest. Their job is getting children into school and keeping them there.
I'm not a social worker so I'm not invited to a meeting with Mr. Badman. If he reads my views, I'll be surprised. I'd be more surprised if, having read them, he took any notice.
But I'm just one of those unruly, unimportant home educators, and my children are missing something by not being in school.
Maybe I'll sneak into the conference and heckle. No, can't do that. I would be arrested.
I'll just ask openly - why are social workers' views being solicited? I understand Mr. Badman was one at one time or, if I'm incorrect here, perhaps he could grant me a conference to which all us pesky irritating home educators would be invited.
I know it's much less important than government diktats and job demands.
It's only our lives, after all. It's only our most precious children's lives after all.
Democracy in action. Fairness. Quangos.
The usual government path of 'reviewing' something then telling everyone that you, the government, were right after all. The NFER trick of asking who you like and who agrees with you what they think.
The cult of the expert. Three years of college or university and they know what is best for you.
It's only our lives. It's only our children: our most precious children and their lives.
Step outside the herd. Stop wanting what you're approved of for wanting - the big house, the car, the extension on the big house, lots of money, holidays, things... And you must be suspect. You don't conform. You are other. Not one of us. You are alien. You might direct your life, and be a success on your own terms.
It's our lives. Our most precious children and their lives.
I'm a mother - hear me roar.
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