Lazy

Of course, some people think that home educating in the ol' autonomous style means that you're basically a good for nothing idle kind of educator. Lazy, in a word. 

They don't say that about the young folk.

They mean me.

I should be schooling. Or educating. Or reading about the latest theories in education. Or finding out how to get the buggers to learn (that's a tip of the hat to a whole series of how to get the buggers to...) and that series is a pretty example of what I think is wrong with forced education. Or 'making' them do something they don't want to do because, hey, everyone else 'has' to do it.

To force someone to learn something seems just intrinsically wrong.

Doesn't it to you?

I mean surely we evolved to learn things about our environment that save us from a) harm and b) stress and c) destroying the environment.

So what do we do now?

Well, we destroy not only our own environment but the environment that maintains other creatures who share our earth.

That's worked out well, then.

Surely, it seems just sensible to assume, that that which you know is something which has relevance and meaning to you. That which you know because you 'had' to learn it in English or Maths or History will vanish like a snowflake in mid-August boiling hot weather. Or it'll stick in your mind like one of the discarded pieces of pot that the Romans dropped in the kitchen years ago, about as useful as the average clod of earth except when you're watching the Eggheads t.v. quiz programme.

I prefer the word facilitator because when my two young people decide they wish to learn something I find a way to help them do it. I don't force them, and, if they don't like it, I don't insist that they do it. 

Force isn't the way.

But I won't make you agree with me, and you won't be tested on the  conclusions you reach later.



If you really want to know more about Sue Cowley's books starting with 'Getting the Buggers to Learn', please google or use some other search engine to find out about them.