Oh, politics. Shouldn't be talking about it because it's not home education, is it? It isn't even rocket science which you could, at least, argue is of interest to educators.
But I console myself with the fact that, of my two children, one is vastly interested in politics and even pauses in her day to day life to debate political issues with me.
Everything, in fact, is grist to the home educating mill. Everything is educational. Everything.
What a glorious thought.
Showing posts with label home education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home education. Show all posts
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
Saturday, 9 July 2011
Research, music, pride and fun
Yesterday I reaffirmed what I've thought for a long time.
We like to home educate because it's - well - just plain good fun.
E was speaking to one of her friends about World War II. The friend mentioned what her grandparents did during the war which led E to come along to ask me what my parents did. Some of what they did she already knows and I've even written my mother's story which was published in Ancestors magazine, and there's a side panel about my mother's time in the Women's Timber Corps in my 'Toiling on the Soil' article mainly about the Women's Land Army in Family History Monthly, July 2011.
E was interested in her dad's father's experiences so we started to dig, with our limited knowledge, and found some very interesting things. An afternoon went by. Our knowledge has increased and been enhanced. We know more about my girls' grandfather (sadly not with us now) than we did.
Now I'm listening to music from Lord of the Rings as played by E. So haunting and beautiful. It's a piece I just thought I'd always hear on CD. But now my daughter can play it on her piano. Wonderful.
How talented they are, my once little girls. How much my heart thuds with pride these days. How I have to hide it with a brisk 'That was lovely, dear.' How I love my beautiful young people.
How pleased I am that we home educate, and they have the freedom to be themselves in this world of encouraged conformity.
We like to home educate because it's - well - just plain good fun.
E was speaking to one of her friends about World War II. The friend mentioned what her grandparents did during the war which led E to come along to ask me what my parents did. Some of what they did she already knows and I've even written my mother's story which was published in Ancestors magazine, and there's a side panel about my mother's time in the Women's Timber Corps in my 'Toiling on the Soil' article mainly about the Women's Land Army in Family History Monthly, July 2011.
E was interested in her dad's father's experiences so we started to dig, with our limited knowledge, and found some very interesting things. An afternoon went by. Our knowledge has increased and been enhanced. We know more about my girls' grandfather (sadly not with us now) than we did.
Now I'm listening to music from Lord of the Rings as played by E. So haunting and beautiful. It's a piece I just thought I'd always hear on CD. But now my daughter can play it on her piano. Wonderful.
How talented they are, my once little girls. How much my heart thuds with pride these days. How I have to hide it with a brisk 'That was lovely, dear.' How I love my beautiful young people.
How pleased I am that we home educate, and they have the freedom to be themselves in this world of encouraged conformity.
Saturday, 25 June 2011
Cats and kittens
When a cat wants to eat her kittens she calls them mice.
Old Bulgarian proverb
Or when a government wants to take over your home educated children it calls you, the parent, a child abuser.
A government wants to rule the citizens of its country. How much more comfortable it is for governments to ensure that citizens have no ability to reason, to ask questions, to rock the stability of the boat that does nothing for most of them but everything for some of them, to reassess and retread, to promote change...
When a cat wants to eat her kittens she calls them mice.
Great proverb.
Old Bulgarian proverb
Or when a government wants to take over your home educated children it calls you, the parent, a child abuser.
A government wants to rule the citizens of its country. How much more comfortable it is for governments to ensure that citizens have no ability to reason, to ask questions, to rock the stability of the boat that does nothing for most of them but everything for some of them, to reassess and retread, to promote change...
When a cat wants to eat her kittens she calls them mice.
Great proverb.
Saturday, 18 June 2011
Draughty guidelines
I wasn't going to post about them.
Was I?
Well, if I wasn't I've changed my mind.
On the whole, I'm one of these people who ignores instructions. It's from years of following instructions to find that a) I'm more confused if I follow them and end up somewhere miles from where I want to be or b) I don't have a clue what they are saying and therefore I get more frustrated and upset carefully having tried to follow their careful beckonings. It's just... because the world doesn't come with instructions. There aren't certainties, and attempting to cover ALL the potholes we can break our legs in doesn't just work.
There's always another one to trip us up.
So someone (or more than one someone) who is still nameless to me has laboured long and hard to bring forth guidelines ostensibly for local authorities to get to grips with the incredibly mysterious matters belonging to home education.
These guidelines cover a lot of pages. Here at http://www.box.net/shared/6lk1826muy
But we have guidelines. We already have guidelines. And we have dedicated and sensible home educators telling local authorities how to do it. How to treat home educators. How home educators should be treated and how the law should treat home educators.
In my view it's like this. I live near the sea. Two minutes away. There's a pedestrian path along the side of some grass-covered dunes right beside the mighty ocean. This path is for people to walk on. The path is to keep people out of the way of cars that zoom up and down near them.
The path is shared by many, many cyclists whose cycle path ends just north of where people walk. So the cyclists see the pedestrian pathway as a continuation of their cycle-way, and the people on two feet see the concrete walk-way as their pathway.
The law favours the two-feet: the argument is won by two wheels because soft bodies are a lot more able to be damaged in a row with two wheels.
For me, it's an analogy. Home educators are the two feet. Local authorities peddle themselves along mowing down (or nearly mowing down) home educators who are going about their business legally educating their children. But in a radge between those with wheels and those with bodies but no wheels, the wheels are the winners. And the legal upholders (law/police/the state) of the right of way (home education) do not enforce the right of way.
Either the law upholders don't think that the soft bodies are worth worrying about or they like the wheeled ones better. Or both.
Or neither.
It's just an analogy. One I enjoy.
Hey, phew! watch out for the bikes now!
Was I?
Well, if I wasn't I've changed my mind.
On the whole, I'm one of these people who ignores instructions. It's from years of following instructions to find that a) I'm more confused if I follow them and end up somewhere miles from where I want to be or b) I don't have a clue what they are saying and therefore I get more frustrated and upset carefully having tried to follow their careful beckonings. It's just... because the world doesn't come with instructions. There aren't certainties, and attempting to cover ALL the potholes we can break our legs in doesn't just work.
There's always another one to trip us up.
So someone (or more than one someone) who is still nameless to me has laboured long and hard to bring forth guidelines ostensibly for local authorities to get to grips with the incredibly mysterious matters belonging to home education.
These guidelines cover a lot of pages. Here at http://www.box.net/shared/6lk1826muy
But we have guidelines. We already have guidelines. And we have dedicated and sensible home educators telling local authorities how to do it. How to treat home educators. How home educators should be treated and how the law should treat home educators.
In my view it's like this. I live near the sea. Two minutes away. There's a pedestrian path along the side of some grass-covered dunes right beside the mighty ocean. This path is for people to walk on. The path is to keep people out of the way of cars that zoom up and down near them.
The path is shared by many, many cyclists whose cycle path ends just north of where people walk. So the cyclists see the pedestrian pathway as a continuation of their cycle-way, and the people on two feet see the concrete walk-way as their pathway.
The law favours the two-feet: the argument is won by two wheels because soft bodies are a lot more able to be damaged in a row with two wheels.
For me, it's an analogy. Home educators are the two feet. Local authorities peddle themselves along mowing down (or nearly mowing down) home educators who are going about their business legally educating their children. But in a radge between those with wheels and those with bodies but no wheels, the wheels are the winners. And the legal upholders (law/police/the state) of the right of way (home education) do not enforce the right of way.
Either the law upholders don't think that the soft bodies are worth worrying about or they like the wheeled ones better. Or both.
Or neither.
It's just an analogy. One I enjoy.
Hey, phew! watch out for the bikes now!
Tuesday, 24 May 2011
Graham Stuart and the great ugly puffing dragon
We've narrowly escaped lumbering our future home educating pals with the purgatory of having the Local Authorities and school denizens being given a twenty day bullying permit. That is, prospective home educating families would not start home educating the first day that their children left school, but be left in limbo. Neither in nor out. Shake it all about. Give the LAs a green light to work on the newly fledgling home educator. Let the LA inspector or assessor or whatever their label is for it these days get at the family; let them convince the poor neophyte, struggling-to-become home edders that home education really ISN'T for their kids.
Oh, dear.
But our friendly champion was magnificent in debate last year when Labour was about to get with the action. He was about to ride down the opposition yet again. He was on his horse, hefting the spear of protection and... well, you can read it all here:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm110511/debtext/110511-0002.htm
All in Hansard, at column 1216.
The magnificent Graham Stuart. The thing about Mr. Stuart MP is that he listens, he researches and he thinks about consequences, intended or unintended, and he is able to change his position once he has considered and reconsidered an issue. That's a rare individual.
But it shouldn't be. It's what we should be able to expect of every MP, shouldn't we?
Yet, Mr. Ian Mearns says:
"If a child becomes unwell or is injured at the hands of parents or other relatives, the focus of attention is often not on the family but on the director of children’s services in the local borough."
Dear God in Heaven, I mean we're bothered about the director of children's services in the case of a child becoming unwell or injured. We're bothered about the reputation or the job of a man or woman who is so removed from a situation as to be unimportant. And do we know how many directors of children's services have fallen on their swords after they've totally ignored the death or injury of a child/children purportedly in their 'care'? Well, I'm betting is a vanishingly small number if it isn't zero.
Then, again, if you have children you'll know that they become unwell. Now and then some youngsters have accidents. Sometimes they have accidents when they're told not to do something. It even happened to me. My dad told me not to run on a gravel path. He said I'd fall. Sure enough, I did and I hurt my knees. Those poor suckers bled for ages. Dad was unsympathetic: 'You shouldn't have run. I told you.'
These days, the director of children's services would've been phoned and the whole thing would've been made stratospheric.
When you think about it, it's all about vested interests, isn't it? Mr. Mearns goes on to tell us that, although middle class parents can, of course, home educate effectively, these lower class folks just can't.
Do your research, Mr. Mearns. Actually, 'lower class' home educators do really very well. It's not known why. We can take a guess, though. We can feel that those parents want the best for their children. We do better when we're motivated to do better and you can bet your keyboard that those parents want to do better for their youngsters.
I could go on all day praising Mr. Stuart and criticising the prejudice on view and the sleazy logic of people who comment on his speech. But I won't.
I'm going to watch another brilliant St. George in action. I'm going to enjoy the second episode of Garrow's Law. Again.
Oh, dear.
But our friendly champion was magnificent in debate last year when Labour was about to get with the action. He was about to ride down the opposition yet again. He was on his horse, hefting the spear of protection and... well, you can read it all here:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm110511/debtext/110511-0002.htm
All in Hansard, at column 1216.
The magnificent Graham Stuart. The thing about Mr. Stuart MP is that he listens, he researches and he thinks about consequences, intended or unintended, and he is able to change his position once he has considered and reconsidered an issue. That's a rare individual.
But it shouldn't be. It's what we should be able to expect of every MP, shouldn't we?
Yet, Mr. Ian Mearns says:
"If a child becomes unwell or is injured at the hands of parents or other relatives, the focus of attention is often not on the family but on the director of children’s services in the local borough."
Dear God in Heaven, I mean we're bothered about the director of children's services in the case of a child becoming unwell or injured. We're bothered about the reputation or the job of a man or woman who is so removed from a situation as to be unimportant. And do we know how many directors of children's services have fallen on their swords after they've totally ignored the death or injury of a child/children purportedly in their 'care'? Well, I'm betting is a vanishingly small number if it isn't zero.
Then, again, if you have children you'll know that they become unwell. Now and then some youngsters have accidents. Sometimes they have accidents when they're told not to do something. It even happened to me. My dad told me not to run on a gravel path. He said I'd fall. Sure enough, I did and I hurt my knees. Those poor suckers bled for ages. Dad was unsympathetic: 'You shouldn't have run. I told you.'
These days, the director of children's services would've been phoned and the whole thing would've been made stratospheric.
When you think about it, it's all about vested interests, isn't it? Mr. Mearns goes on to tell us that, although middle class parents can, of course, home educate effectively, these lower class folks just can't.
Do your research, Mr. Mearns. Actually, 'lower class' home educators do really very well. It's not known why. We can take a guess, though. We can feel that those parents want the best for their children. We do better when we're motivated to do better and you can bet your keyboard that those parents want to do better for their youngsters.
I could go on all day praising Mr. Stuart and criticising the prejudice on view and the sleazy logic of people who comment on his speech. But I won't.
I'm going to watch another brilliant St. George in action. I'm going to enjoy the second episode of Garrow's Law. Again.
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Freedom from plans
I shouldn't be writing this. I didn't plan it.
I'm too tired.
Don't know why but I could sleep as I'm typing.
I was thinking about how much I hate people interfering with other people's lives.
I was thinking how much discomfort I suffered at the thought of home educators having to put up with strangers judging and assessing them, and proposing plans for their children's education.
That was the plan, wasn't it? From Mr. Badman and Ed. Balls in 2009-2010.
It's the children's freedom to self-educate or be taught or do workbooks or do their own research or sleep in or go to a special educational place that I like in home education. It is the sheer flexibility of home education that delights and enthralls me. It is the unexpected steps or leaps that children suddenly make and without anyone planning them. Planning things - some things - is like trying to plan when a flower will open from a bud. Sometimes some things should just happen and not be regulated.
Home education and plans. No, I don't think so. Not unless the children have the freedom to adopt a plan. Not unless the children have a choice.
Local Education Authority plans? No, I don't think so.
I'm too tired.
Don't know why but I could sleep as I'm typing.
I was thinking about how much I hate people interfering with other people's lives.
I was thinking how much discomfort I suffered at the thought of home educators having to put up with strangers judging and assessing them, and proposing plans for their children's education.
That was the plan, wasn't it? From Mr. Badman and Ed. Balls in 2009-2010.
It's the children's freedom to self-educate or be taught or do workbooks or do their own research or sleep in or go to a special educational place that I like in home education. It is the sheer flexibility of home education that delights and enthralls me. It is the unexpected steps or leaps that children suddenly make and without anyone planning them. Planning things - some things - is like trying to plan when a flower will open from a bud. Sometimes some things should just happen and not be regulated.
Home education and plans. No, I don't think so. Not unless the children have the freedom to adopt a plan. Not unless the children have a choice.
Local Education Authority plans? No, I don't think so.
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Revolutionary
"All revolutions, all revolutionaries, are amazing. The ultimate purpose of the revolution is to work to create a better world to live in. To try to move above and beyond the hierarchies and power structures that inevitably cause the vulnerable in any society to suffer."
From http://www.tibetcustom.com/
Thanks to Just Jo of facebook for pointing this out.
There's a bloodless and whispering revolution going on. All across every land. And, as with all revolutions, it has its detractors and its enemies.
It's the fight for children's souls. It's home education.
They'll say all kinds of nasty things against it. They'll tell lies. They'll make you feel guilty for being interested in it.
Sometimes they'll drive you back to pushing your child into school.
More times they won't.
Because you're a free radical. A secret and hearty revolutionary.
Because it's time.
Because it's time to change.
Because you love your children.
Because, deep down, the guilt at treating your child like a number, like a series of marks, will gnaw at you.
Guilt is a good thing. It tells us that something is wrong. It tells us that we can do better. It tells us that our children need to be free. Free radicals. Radical in owning their lives. Radical in thinking for themselves. Radical in being curious. Radical in being real.
There's a whisper of revolution. Then it'll be a murmur. Then it'll talk. Then it'll shout.
Home education. Home education. Home education. Home education. Home education.
From http://www.tibetcustom.com/
Thanks to Just Jo of facebook for pointing this out.
There's a bloodless and whispering revolution going on. All across every land. And, as with all revolutions, it has its detractors and its enemies.
It's the fight for children's souls. It's home education.
They'll say all kinds of nasty things against it. They'll tell lies. They'll make you feel guilty for being interested in it.
Sometimes they'll drive you back to pushing your child into school.
More times they won't.
Because you're a free radical. A secret and hearty revolutionary.
Because it's time.
Because it's time to change.
Because you love your children.
Because, deep down, the guilt at treating your child like a number, like a series of marks, will gnaw at you.
Guilt is a good thing. It tells us that something is wrong. It tells us that we can do better. It tells us that our children need to be free. Free radicals. Radical in owning their lives. Radical in thinking for themselves. Radical in being curious. Radical in being real.
There's a whisper of revolution. Then it'll be a murmur. Then it'll talk. Then it'll shout.
Home education. Home education. Home education. Home education. Home education.
Friday, 31 December 2010
End of year thoughts
E received her law course results and she got a good pass. The personal feedback about her essay was somewhat disappointing to her until I pointed out that the law students had been set up to fail. Why else would the course demand a rigid word count? My daughter could have (and did) write an essay twice as long as that required then pruned it ruthlessly.
We said, "You have passed a difficult course with a good grade. You were seventeen when you decided to take the course - a University level course - and you passed. This is a magnificent accomplishment so please, please be proud of yourself."
E has great difficulty in being proud of her accomplishments - they are never quite good enough, even though she does exceptionally well. I shall carry the pride for her. I am proud of her huge efforts, her diligence, her determination, her persistence even when she is feeling unwell, her questioning heart and her sense of justice.
She deserves every success. I know it has been hard for her to stand outside the coddling, infantilising cocoon of school and still make her way. No one submits your work for you. No one arranges your exams. It is a lonely road in many respects, but, when you have reached your goals, you can tell yourself that "I did it my way." To do it despite society's pressures must develop your character. To succeed despite the constant chant that 'School is best' is a massive accomplishment.
I salute all home educating young people in their homes, in their friends' and neighbours' and acquaintances' houses as they go about building a real community. I salute them in their places of interest and anywhere they go. They are all magnificent. They are all such examples to us of what people should be. I salute them.
And to their parents: teach your young to recognise, understand and give love. Teach them to listen and watch. Teach them logic. Teach them to respect themselves and other people, and you will have taught them everything of worth that one human can pass to another.
May you all succeed in whatever you choose to succeed in this New Year, and on into the future.
I wish you all happiness and good health, and an exceptionally good 2011.
We said, "You have passed a difficult course with a good grade. You were seventeen when you decided to take the course - a University level course - and you passed. This is a magnificent accomplishment so please, please be proud of yourself."
E has great difficulty in being proud of her accomplishments - they are never quite good enough, even though she does exceptionally well. I shall carry the pride for her. I am proud of her huge efforts, her diligence, her determination, her persistence even when she is feeling unwell, her questioning heart and her sense of justice.
She deserves every success. I know it has been hard for her to stand outside the coddling, infantilising cocoon of school and still make her way. No one submits your work for you. No one arranges your exams. It is a lonely road in many respects, but, when you have reached your goals, you can tell yourself that "I did it my way." To do it despite society's pressures must develop your character. To succeed despite the constant chant that 'School is best' is a massive accomplishment.
I salute all home educating young people in their homes, in their friends' and neighbours' and acquaintances' houses as they go about building a real community. I salute them in their places of interest and anywhere they go. They are all magnificent. They are all such examples to us of what people should be. I salute them.
And to their parents: teach your young to recognise, understand and give love. Teach them to listen and watch. Teach them logic. Teach them to respect themselves and other people, and you will have taught them everything of worth that one human can pass to another.
May you all succeed in whatever you choose to succeed in this New Year, and on into the future.
I wish you all happiness and good health, and an exceptionally good 2011.
Thursday, 28 October 2010
Dancing pigeons and tv programmes
I'm starting this blog entry without knowing what to write about.
I'm reading the above sentence.
Now I'm thinking isn't that what home education is all about?
A lot of finding out and muddling along until you look back and say that everything turned out all right?
That's how I do home education.
I'm not organised into 'Well, let's all learn how to teach a pigeon to dance today' because I wouldn't know where to start, and my young people (after laughing) wouldn't wish to spend their time teaching a pigeon to dance.
Would yours?
But my young people learn their own things, teach their own version of pigeons to dance, and check in with me to chat about it.
And now I've got to go watch 'Have I Got News for You' to keep E. company. There's nothing like sharing jokes with another human being to make you feel like you're bonding with them.
Which you are.
I'm reading the above sentence.
Now I'm thinking isn't that what home education is all about?
A lot of finding out and muddling along until you look back and say that everything turned out all right?
That's how I do home education.
I'm not organised into 'Well, let's all learn how to teach a pigeon to dance today' because I wouldn't know where to start, and my young people (after laughing) wouldn't wish to spend their time teaching a pigeon to dance.
Would yours?
But my young people learn their own things, teach their own version of pigeons to dance, and check in with me to chat about it.
And now I've got to go watch 'Have I Got News for You' to keep E. company. There's nothing like sharing jokes with another human being to make you feel like you're bonding with them.
Which you are.
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
Free education?
At dinner last night, I had an image of free education (as you do).
It was rather like those wild-eyed and enthused people who stand on soap boxes and talk at the tips of their voices about something that is meaningful to them.
I think my vision involved Socrates; although it could have been Plato or another of the philosophers who spent their time down the Forum spilling out their wisdom, without pay. Doubtless, they were wealthy because your average slave wouldn't have survived the trip down to the Forum without being carted off by his master and because, other than lifetime-taught knowledge, they were kept ignorant.
Post-image I did what I often do. I went surfing. Not the kind with big waves. The kind with radio waves or microwaves or whatever the net uses.
"The word 'education' is derived from the root word 'educare'. Education refers to acquiring information from outside while 'educare' means to bring out or to elicit that which is inside. Man should bring out the sacred qualities latent in his heart and put them into practice. The worldly education that you pursue and the jobs that you undertake are related to the head. They are subject to change. But the human values like compassion, forbearance, truth, which originate from the heart, are changeless."
I am always thinking about this, but seldom organising the words to say it. If you do not have a moral and spiritual base on which to stand, you are an animal. A sentient animal, maybe. A clever animal, perhaps. But still an animal. Inhuman and inhumane.
From home educated roots grow values like compassion, forbearance, truth, vision, enthusiasm and empathy as well as spirituality. That is, I believe that home education is the one sure place where young people can grow into themselves and grow into their humanity.
" Education should transform man into one of compassion. It should not make him stone-hearted. Once a Britisher found Mahatma Gandhi in a very dejected mood and asked him for the reason. Gandhi replied, "The hard-heartedness of the educated makes me feel sad." He was worried about the current education system, which was making man stone-hearted. True education is that which fosters compassion and love and ultimately leads man to divinity. Such education is the need of the hour.
Can one be called educated just because one knows how to read and write?
Does mere acquisition of college degrees make one truly educated?
Can that which has no moral and spiritual values be called education at all?
If education is meant only for a living, don't we find the birds and the beasts living without any education ?
(Telugu Poem)"
Looking at our world, we can see why Gandhi might be depressed with the hard-heartedness of the educated. We know he wasn't speaking about home educated people - he spoke of the products of 'free' schools.
"When, on seeing someone in pain, you feel the urge to relieve it, when your heart melts at the misery of your fellow beings, then you are a true human being."
Are we now true humans? Are we? There is a government in power now seeking to reduce the deficit, and reducing so many people to despair and illness for which they (the people) alone will be blamed because, if you are poor, it is your fault in the view of our leaders. If you are poor, you must be punished. If you are poor, you must suffer for your poverty, as if poverty were itself a religion.
"Modern education has become artificial. True education is that which inculcates in the students the noble qualities like truth, devotion, discipline, compassion and sense of duty. What is the use of possessing high intelligence if one lacks virtues? Mere intelligence is not enough. Is not a fox also intelligent? Intelligence should be coupled with virtues."
What is the use of being human if we treat our fellow humankind like secondary citizens? What is the point of having a brain and thinking if we label our co-travellers on this earth as losers or scroungers? There is so much plenty to go around everyone yet most people struggle and strain to live a reasonable life, not even a good life.
Why do we elevate the pursuit and conquest of money to the status of a god while abasing and debasing mankind?
All quotations from
http://www.eaisai.com/baba/docs/d000515.html
True Education Leads to Divinity
It was rather like those wild-eyed and enthused people who stand on soap boxes and talk at the tips of their voices about something that is meaningful to them.
I think my vision involved Socrates; although it could have been Plato or another of the philosophers who spent their time down the Forum spilling out their wisdom, without pay. Doubtless, they were wealthy because your average slave wouldn't have survived the trip down to the Forum without being carted off by his master and because, other than lifetime-taught knowledge, they were kept ignorant.
Post-image I did what I often do. I went surfing. Not the kind with big waves. The kind with radio waves or microwaves or whatever the net uses.
"The word 'education' is derived from the root word 'educare'. Education refers to acquiring information from outside while 'educare' means to bring out or to elicit that which is inside. Man should bring out the sacred qualities latent in his heart and put them into practice. The worldly education that you pursue and the jobs that you undertake are related to the head. They are subject to change. But the human values like compassion, forbearance, truth, which originate from the heart, are changeless."
I am always thinking about this, but seldom organising the words to say it. If you do not have a moral and spiritual base on which to stand, you are an animal. A sentient animal, maybe. A clever animal, perhaps. But still an animal. Inhuman and inhumane.
From home educated roots grow values like compassion, forbearance, truth, vision, enthusiasm and empathy as well as spirituality. That is, I believe that home education is the one sure place where young people can grow into themselves and grow into their humanity.
" Education should transform man into one of compassion. It should not make him stone-hearted. Once a Britisher found Mahatma Gandhi in a very dejected mood and asked him for the reason. Gandhi replied, "The hard-heartedness of the educated makes me feel sad." He was worried about the current education system, which was making man stone-hearted. True education is that which fosters compassion and love and ultimately leads man to divinity. Such education is the need of the hour.
Can one be called educated just because one knows how to read and write?
Does mere acquisition of college degrees make one truly educated?
Can that which has no moral and spiritual values be called education at all?
If education is meant only for a living, don't we find the birds and the beasts living without any education ?
(Telugu Poem)"
Looking at our world, we can see why Gandhi might be depressed with the hard-heartedness of the educated. We know he wasn't speaking about home educated people - he spoke of the products of 'free' schools.
"When, on seeing someone in pain, you feel the urge to relieve it, when your heart melts at the misery of your fellow beings, then you are a true human being."
Are we now true humans? Are we? There is a government in power now seeking to reduce the deficit, and reducing so many people to despair and illness for which they (the people) alone will be blamed because, if you are poor, it is your fault in the view of our leaders. If you are poor, you must be punished. If you are poor, you must suffer for your poverty, as if poverty were itself a religion.
"Modern education has become artificial. True education is that which inculcates in the students the noble qualities like truth, devotion, discipline, compassion and sense of duty. What is the use of possessing high intelligence if one lacks virtues? Mere intelligence is not enough. Is not a fox also intelligent? Intelligence should be coupled with virtues."
What is the use of being human if we treat our fellow humankind like secondary citizens? What is the point of having a brain and thinking if we label our co-travellers on this earth as losers or scroungers? There is so much plenty to go around everyone yet most people struggle and strain to live a reasonable life, not even a good life.
Why do we elevate the pursuit and conquest of money to the status of a god while abasing and debasing mankind?
All quotations from
http://www.eaisai.com/baba/docs/d000515.html
True Education Leads to Divinity
Friday, 13 August 2010
What have I forgotten today?
Darn, I've forgotten to lock the front door and now the dog's lying in front of the inner door in front of the front door and I just can't move him because he's fast and twitching in his lovely doggy dream.
What else have I forgotten?
Well, I haven't forgotten to spend time with my youngsters. I went in to see them sleeping this morning before I uttered those awful words, time to get up, and I saw them as I saw them years ago when they were tiny. Funny how in sleep they are tiny again. I bent over them and gently kissed their beloved, blessed little heads. At least I didn't forget to do that.
I hugged H. That was something important, not forgotten, and I thanked him to go along with the hug too because he does stuff for me, and sometimes, just sometimes, I do forget to say 'thank you.' My manners, they're slipping. 'Please' was the first to go. Do you notice? No one says it anymore. A few foreign folk and elders and that's more or less it...
I think I nearly forgot to do some research, but no I did it, and read all of my favourite blog entries to catch up on what everyone is doing and admire their zest for home education and their energy doing things and thinking about things that sound so interesting.
I remembered to cradle my dear demented old darling mother's head, and tell her that everything would be all right as she looked up at me; she looks to me to fetch her shopping and pay her bills and generally take care of her. I remember to send thoughts of love to her, even when I'm not with her, and hope that, on some level, she is content and even happy.
I recall the need to stay positive, and how we all struggled last year and what a difference a few months make, but I remember how it felt to struggle and strain and stress and feel like the bottom and top were knocked off my personal egg space and how invaded and looted my life felt and how afraid I was for all the home edders starting out, and those going along and the other ones finishing, and I wondered if the finishing ones would be the last to know a precious and wondrous freedom of thought.
It is so precious, and so precarious. I hope I remember what it was like to face colonisation of our rights forever. I hope I always remember the frantic phone calls of a home ed. friend who was terrified by the unyielding and unrelenting power of the state. I remember the faith and hope and constant belief of home educators when faced with this terrible time. I recall their words, their sacrifices, their unceasing flow of doing and being in the face of a juggernaut intent on destruction.
I hope I never forget important things like those.
Now, where did I put that key?
What else have I forgotten?
Well, I haven't forgotten to spend time with my youngsters. I went in to see them sleeping this morning before I uttered those awful words, time to get up, and I saw them as I saw them years ago when they were tiny. Funny how in sleep they are tiny again. I bent over them and gently kissed their beloved, blessed little heads. At least I didn't forget to do that.
I hugged H. That was something important, not forgotten, and I thanked him to go along with the hug too because he does stuff for me, and sometimes, just sometimes, I do forget to say 'thank you.' My manners, they're slipping. 'Please' was the first to go. Do you notice? No one says it anymore. A few foreign folk and elders and that's more or less it...
I think I nearly forgot to do some research, but no I did it, and read all of my favourite blog entries to catch up on what everyone is doing and admire their zest for home education and their energy doing things and thinking about things that sound so interesting.
I remembered to cradle my dear demented old darling mother's head, and tell her that everything would be all right as she looked up at me; she looks to me to fetch her shopping and pay her bills and generally take care of her. I remember to send thoughts of love to her, even when I'm not with her, and hope that, on some level, she is content and even happy.
I recall the need to stay positive, and how we all struggled last year and what a difference a few months make, but I remember how it felt to struggle and strain and stress and feel like the bottom and top were knocked off my personal egg space and how invaded and looted my life felt and how afraid I was for all the home edders starting out, and those going along and the other ones finishing, and I wondered if the finishing ones would be the last to know a precious and wondrous freedom of thought.
It is so precious, and so precarious. I hope I remember what it was like to face colonisation of our rights forever. I hope I always remember the frantic phone calls of a home ed. friend who was terrified by the unyielding and unrelenting power of the state. I remember the faith and hope and constant belief of home educators when faced with this terrible time. I recall their words, their sacrifices, their unceasing flow of doing and being in the face of a juggernaut intent on destruction.
I hope I never forget important things like those.
Now, where did I put that key?
Friday, 9 July 2010
Thought you might like...
Some John Taylor Gatto.
From my friend's kindly lent book, 'Weapons of Mass Instruction'. Thank you, I, for parting with it, entrusting it to me and letting me read it.
'Weapons of Mass Instruction' will blow your mind while making you cry. It is such a relief to read John Taylor Gatto's complete and utter understanding of what school is and what it is meant to do and the damage it can cause.
"School is about learning to wait your turn, however long it takes to come, if ever. And how to submit with a show of enthusiasm to the judgment of strangers, even if they are wrong, even if your enthusiasm is phony." p. 62
We're so well-mannered, aren't we? Waiting, just waiting to have our ship come in, to hop on the show boat of life, bolstered up by the Cheryl Coles of this world who happen to hit big paydirt. Yet not everyone can hit the bigtime. There isn't enough big time to go around. It's a falseness like the enthusiasm with which you fooled your teachers that you felt for their classes (if you bothered).
School teaches you to wait in line for something you're told will happen if you're good, if you behave, if you toe the line. Something that doesn't happen for most people, can never happen because there is no something to drop into the palm of your hand, even if you've laboured all your life.
You wait because that's how you were taught. We are all Englishmen and women here. We don't push to the head of the queue. We don't grab opportunities or chances because we are silently standing waiting for the right time to be told to start. The opportune moment.
We'll always be waiting.
It's a farce.
Those who refuse to wait, who go and do, who dive in; the ones who get in are the ones who get on.
Entrepreneurial. Business-like. Positive. Thrusting. Puissant. Go-getters. High flyers.
School teaches you to wait.
Home education teaches you to carpe diem, seize the moment, grab the big fish with both your outstretched hands. It instructs you in doing because you do for yourself and, in doing for yourself, it causes you to verify that your enthusiasm is genuine.
At the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 2010, fifteen year old James Callicott is the youngest designer to participate. He's already designed gardens for family and friends. James is home educated, and he is seizing the day.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/hampton-court-flower-show/7872531/Hampton-Palace-Court-Flower-Show-2010-James-Callicott-a-bright-young-thing.html
James is a bright, young thing according to the Telegraph. An escapee from school, he has the time to concentrate on his designs and sees himself 'doing questioning gardens'. Severely dyslexic, he learned to read gardening magazines because he was interested, and otherwise he watered the strawberries in his own garden and, generally, pottered around.
I can't see James waiting in line for permission to start his life and no one is forcing him down a road he finds dusty, empty and barren.
Home education - seizing the day.
From my friend's kindly lent book, 'Weapons of Mass Instruction'. Thank you, I, for parting with it, entrusting it to me and letting me read it.
'Weapons of Mass Instruction' will blow your mind while making you cry. It is such a relief to read John Taylor Gatto's complete and utter understanding of what school is and what it is meant to do and the damage it can cause.
"School is about learning to wait your turn, however long it takes to come, if ever. And how to submit with a show of enthusiasm to the judgment of strangers, even if they are wrong, even if your enthusiasm is phony." p. 62
We're so well-mannered, aren't we? Waiting, just waiting to have our ship come in, to hop on the show boat of life, bolstered up by the Cheryl Coles of this world who happen to hit big paydirt. Yet not everyone can hit the bigtime. There isn't enough big time to go around. It's a falseness like the enthusiasm with which you fooled your teachers that you felt for their classes (if you bothered).
School teaches you to wait in line for something you're told will happen if you're good, if you behave, if you toe the line. Something that doesn't happen for most people, can never happen because there is no something to drop into the palm of your hand, even if you've laboured all your life.
You wait because that's how you were taught. We are all Englishmen and women here. We don't push to the head of the queue. We don't grab opportunities or chances because we are silently standing waiting for the right time to be told to start. The opportune moment.
We'll always be waiting.
It's a farce.
Those who refuse to wait, who go and do, who dive in; the ones who get in are the ones who get on.
Entrepreneurial. Business-like. Positive. Thrusting. Puissant. Go-getters. High flyers.
School teaches you to wait.
Home education teaches you to carpe diem, seize the moment, grab the big fish with both your outstretched hands. It instructs you in doing because you do for yourself and, in doing for yourself, it causes you to verify that your enthusiasm is genuine.
At the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 2010, fifteen year old James Callicott is the youngest designer to participate. He's already designed gardens for family and friends. James is home educated, and he is seizing the day.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/hampton-court-flower-show/7872531/Hampton-Palace-Court-Flower-Show-2010-James-Callicott-a-bright-young-thing.html
James is a bright, young thing according to the Telegraph. An escapee from school, he has the time to concentrate on his designs and sees himself 'doing questioning gardens'. Severely dyslexic, he learned to read gardening magazines because he was interested, and otherwise he watered the strawberries in his own garden and, generally, pottered around.
I can't see James waiting in line for permission to start his life and no one is forcing him down a road he finds dusty, empty and barren.
Home education - seizing the day.
Friday, 30 April 2010
What am I? What do I learn?
Children with Asperger's Syndrome often have trouble at school.
I know of one in particular.
He attempts to be himself which is a perfectly reasonable stance to take; however, through being himself he does not conform to what school wishes him to be and that is a malleable, biddable pupil.
Witness the word pupil.
Pupil, student, schoolchild, class, sixth former, kindergarten, freshman, graduate
All words for children or collections of children or young people.
A boy with Asperger's, R, doesn't like school.
He shows signs of physical stress and anxiety, and stays off a lot.
When he is there, the school responds with warnings about behaviour then detentions.
Detention. Word for imprisonment, punishment.
The medium is the message.
"...the most important impressions made on a human nervous system come from the character and structure of the environment within which the nervous system functions; that environment itself conveys the critical and dominant messages by controlling the perceptions and dominant messages of those who participate in it. Dewey stressed that the role an individual is assigned is an environment - what he is permitted to do - is what the individual learns. In other words, the medium itself, i.e., the environment is the message. 'Message' here means the perceptions you are allowed to build, the attitudes you are enticed to assume, the sensitivities you are encouraged to develop - almost all of the things you learn to see and feel and value. You learn them because your environment is organised in such a way that it permits or encourages or insists that you learn them."
From Teaching As a Subversive Activity, p. 28-29, talking about Marshall McLuhan's 'the medium is the message'.
So what does the boy learn?
R learns that he cannot be himself. His 'I' is unacceptable and it is unacceptable to him to substitute a mask for the 'I' which he expresses. He learns that he is 'outside' the zone of approval. Many other children are 'inside' the zone and so receive positive reinforcement for their non-'I'/conforming behaviour.
R cannot do that. He sees no need to conform. He is true to 'I'.
Is this boy learning to be accepted?
Since he is frequently punished, no.
Is he learning to conform?
Quite the opposite.
Is he learning that the 'I' of him is OK?
No, anything but.
What is he learning?
R is learning that people who are supposed to guide and look after him in the school do not. He learns that it is OK for those who have a duty of care towards him not only to fail him but to actively seek to undermine him, abuse him and bully him. R knows now that it is fine for another human being to abuse him, and he realises that he has no power to fight back or protest against the maiming of 'I'.
All that the teachers are teaching in the way of useful knowledge is being lost for R because the boy is employing all his psychic energy in the constant battle to try to keep himself safe.
The battleground is his soul. His very being.
Anything extra is draining away. Maths, English, Science, all going to waste.
When will the school realise?
Schools do not realise. They are set up to induce conformity. They will seek to punish those who retain 'I'. They will bring in educational psychologists/counsellors to label the boy in order to shift the blame from school to boy and boy's parents/home. They will muster their weapons: other children, social workers, teaching assistants, even police.
The school will continue to fail the boy.
The parent will revolt at some stage of the closing of professional ranks and seek to home educate the boy.
That day cannot come soon enough.
During the non-coercive education process inside and outside the home base the child will receive reinforcement for 'I'. The 'I' will strengthen and recover. This process may take years - post traumatic stress syndrome is not easy to alleviate.
One day the boy will see he is 'I' and 'I' is worthy and strong and has its own place in the world.
Home education - putting the 'I' in CHILD
I know of one in particular.
He attempts to be himself which is a perfectly reasonable stance to take; however, through being himself he does not conform to what school wishes him to be and that is a malleable, biddable pupil.
Witness the word pupil.
Pupil, student, schoolchild, class, sixth former, kindergarten, freshman, graduate
All words for children or collections of children or young people.
A boy with Asperger's, R, doesn't like school.
He shows signs of physical stress and anxiety, and stays off a lot.
When he is there, the school responds with warnings about behaviour then detentions.
Detention. Word for imprisonment, punishment.
The medium is the message.
"...the most important impressions made on a human nervous system come from the character and structure of the environment within which the nervous system functions; that environment itself conveys the critical and dominant messages by controlling the perceptions and dominant messages of those who participate in it. Dewey stressed that the role an individual is assigned is an environment - what he is permitted to do - is what the individual learns. In other words, the medium itself, i.e., the environment is the message. 'Message' here means the perceptions you are allowed to build, the attitudes you are enticed to assume, the sensitivities you are encouraged to develop - almost all of the things you learn to see and feel and value. You learn them because your environment is organised in such a way that it permits or encourages or insists that you learn them."
From Teaching As a Subversive Activity, p. 28-29, talking about Marshall McLuhan's 'the medium is the message'.
So what does the boy learn?
R learns that he cannot be himself. His 'I' is unacceptable and it is unacceptable to him to substitute a mask for the 'I' which he expresses. He learns that he is 'outside' the zone of approval. Many other children are 'inside' the zone and so receive positive reinforcement for their non-'I'/conforming behaviour.
R cannot do that. He sees no need to conform. He is true to 'I'.
Is this boy learning to be accepted?
Since he is frequently punished, no.
Is he learning to conform?
Quite the opposite.
Is he learning that the 'I' of him is OK?
No, anything but.
What is he learning?
R is learning that people who are supposed to guide and look after him in the school do not. He learns that it is OK for those who have a duty of care towards him not only to fail him but to actively seek to undermine him, abuse him and bully him. R knows now that it is fine for another human being to abuse him, and he realises that he has no power to fight back or protest against the maiming of 'I'.
All that the teachers are teaching in the way of useful knowledge is being lost for R because the boy is employing all his psychic energy in the constant battle to try to keep himself safe.
The battleground is his soul. His very being.
Anything extra is draining away. Maths, English, Science, all going to waste.
When will the school realise?
Schools do not realise. They are set up to induce conformity. They will seek to punish those who retain 'I'. They will bring in educational psychologists/counsellors to label the boy in order to shift the blame from school to boy and boy's parents/home. They will muster their weapons: other children, social workers, teaching assistants, even police.
The school will continue to fail the boy.
The parent will revolt at some stage of the closing of professional ranks and seek to home educate the boy.
That day cannot come soon enough.
During the non-coercive education process inside and outside the home base the child will receive reinforcement for 'I'. The 'I' will strengthen and recover. This process may take years - post traumatic stress syndrome is not easy to alleviate.
One day the boy will see he is 'I' and 'I' is worthy and strong and has its own place in the world.
Home education - putting the 'I' in CHILD
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Religion
Labour needles religion and those who practice it.
Have you noticed?
Faith schools are attacked:
"That Mr Brown has been willing to tolerate a campaign against faith schools in England that he would not countenance in his own country is another reason for deploring what has been done since June 2007, when Mr Balls was given charge of the English education system. This newspaper published striking evidence earlier this week of the extent to which faith schools are suffering under the admissions rules he introduced in 2008. Over the past six months, more than 30 have been investigated by the Government's admissions adjudicator, and censured for doing what you would expect them to do: ensuring that their intake represents the faith they were founded to serve. "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/benedict-brogan/6983794/The-crusade-against-faith-schools-is-an-attack-on-our-freedom.html
You would expect a faith school to accept children of the same faith into their fold. To expect anything else is a nonsense.
"With his witch hunt Balls hopes to appeal to an influential constituency that lies beyond his party stalwarts. The secular establishment views religion as a wilful rejection of social liberalism and science. They joyfully report any incident that seems to support their thesis, and conveniently ignore any counter-argument. "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/6969468/Why-does-Labour-hate-faith-schools.html
And again from the above:
"The fight for our faith schools goes to the heart of our society. At stake is our understanding of education. Should it be a tool for social engineering or a consumer service? Should it ensure equality or fairness? Government policy promotes neither.
Ed Balls thinks nothing of stomping on the rights of Christian, Jewish or Muslim parents to raise their child in a school environment that matches the morals-based approach of the home. He so loathes the notion of religious-based education that he prefers to tolerate Britain's increasing social inequality, which leaves the well-connected to flourish and the children of the humble and disadvantaged ill-equipped to hold down any but the most menial jobs."
Is this the motivation behind the animus against home educators? Is Ed Balls really afraid that home edders all over England and Wales are busily inculcating decency and morality into their young via the teaching of religious principles?
Is it his business?
Well, no, not one bit. When did government start to dictate religious instruction or belief? Isn't that a free choice for every man, woman and child? Can't you be allowed to make up your own mind which religion to follow or whether, indeed, to follow a religion at all?
Or is it even more sinister a move to alienate people from their humanity, their acts of kindness motivated by a belief in a God, their togetherness fostered by the knowledge that they are all one?
Does it make sense to slice apart a deep feeling that God cares about you and knows you? Will it improve anyone's life to be torn from the body that they have chosen to join?
Belief in God restricts the worst of human impulses, to maim and hate, to conquer and degrade other human beings.
By separating people from their choice to believe in whatsoever they choose, a government can fracture lives and disorder behaviour.
But maybe that creates better consumers because if you empty a person of religion or, at least, the ability to believe in something bigger and better than himself, you create a black hole of discontent to be filled with consumables. That is really what government wants. A race of slaves to the machine they make themselves slave to buy.
God help them.
Have you noticed?
Faith schools are attacked:
"That Mr Brown has been willing to tolerate a campaign against faith schools in England that he would not countenance in his own country is another reason for deploring what has been done since June 2007, when Mr Balls was given charge of the English education system. This newspaper published striking evidence earlier this week of the extent to which faith schools are suffering under the admissions rules he introduced in 2008. Over the past six months, more than 30 have been investigated by the Government's admissions adjudicator, and censured for doing what you would expect them to do: ensuring that their intake represents the faith they were founded to serve. "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/benedict-brogan/6983794/The-crusade-against-faith-schools-is-an-attack-on-our-freedom.html
You would expect a faith school to accept children of the same faith into their fold. To expect anything else is a nonsense.
"With his witch hunt Balls hopes to appeal to an influential constituency that lies beyond his party stalwarts. The secular establishment views religion as a wilful rejection of social liberalism and science. They joyfully report any incident that seems to support their thesis, and conveniently ignore any counter-argument. "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/6969468/Why-does-Labour-hate-faith-schools.html
And again from the above:
"The fight for our faith schools goes to the heart of our society. At stake is our understanding of education. Should it be a tool for social engineering or a consumer service? Should it ensure equality or fairness? Government policy promotes neither.
Ed Balls thinks nothing of stomping on the rights of Christian, Jewish or Muslim parents to raise their child in a school environment that matches the morals-based approach of the home. He so loathes the notion of religious-based education that he prefers to tolerate Britain's increasing social inequality, which leaves the well-connected to flourish and the children of the humble and disadvantaged ill-equipped to hold down any but the most menial jobs."
Is this the motivation behind the animus against home educators? Is Ed Balls really afraid that home edders all over England and Wales are busily inculcating decency and morality into their young via the teaching of religious principles?
Is it his business?
Well, no, not one bit. When did government start to dictate religious instruction or belief? Isn't that a free choice for every man, woman and child? Can't you be allowed to make up your own mind which religion to follow or whether, indeed, to follow a religion at all?
Or is it even more sinister a move to alienate people from their humanity, their acts of kindness motivated by a belief in a God, their togetherness fostered by the knowledge that they are all one?
Does it make sense to slice apart a deep feeling that God cares about you and knows you? Will it improve anyone's life to be torn from the body that they have chosen to join?
Belief in God restricts the worst of human impulses, to maim and hate, to conquer and degrade other human beings.
By separating people from their choice to believe in whatsoever they choose, a government can fracture lives and disorder behaviour.
But maybe that creates better consumers because if you empty a person of religion or, at least, the ability to believe in something bigger and better than himself, you create a black hole of discontent to be filled with consumables. That is really what government wants. A race of slaves to the machine they make themselves slave to buy.
God help them.
Saturday, 6 March 2010
How to damage a person without really trying
"Personal identity was perceived as being challenged through experiences which were felt to be disempowering, dehumanising and devaluing. Gender, class and race differences also emerged in respondents' perceptions of identity threat."
From
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119070406/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
Everyone has a Personal Identity made up of thousands of little pieces. Things like your beliefs, your genes, your gender, your sexual orientation, your political stance, your age, your educational background, your cultural background...
I'm sure you can think of a few more.
All of the parts add up to the magnificent whole which is YOU.
The You then fits into some sort of Social role. For example, a social role can be created when you join a group or become part of a group. Like I became a home educator - tentatively at first and then joyfully and whole-heartedly.
I am also a baby boomer, and a political wanderer in the mix: I don't know where I belong except, because of the events of the last few years and the harassment that I've seen home educators face, I'm inclining toward anarchism as an ethos!
You get the picture I'm sure.
Then come the insults. The You of you is insulted because you know You are an expert (in the truest sense of that word) on your children which then extends to finding out more about the new group you have joined, the home educators. In the past, generally, no one reasonable has ever challenged your beliefs about your children or your role as your children's mentor and guide. You give opinions and dispense rules and justice to your family, and proceed to raise your own offspring.
Until the 'experts' come along, see your child once, and think that they can pronounce on your child and your parenting with impunity. What they say shocks YOU. That is a personal identity shock. They insult You. They exterminate You. They indicate that You are not the power in your child's life and that They are.
The LA inspector tootles along, and you accept a visit. It seems to go all right. Your child talks to the inspector, and the inspector is polite and friendly enough, except he never quite catches your gaze and you see his eyes wandering all over the DVD and video collection in the corner and the fine collection of spiders' homes in the corner where you keep forgetting to clean. Where you live is part of who You are, and where you dwell is being judged. This, then, is another personal identity threat.
Your social self is bound up in the home educating community. Not many friends stay the course when they cannot moan about how horrible their child's school is and have you sympathise because, these days, you're likely to tell them to get their babies out NOW and point them towards an example of a deregistration letter. That puts them into a slight tizzy. They just wanted a bonding bitch, and you confront them with the truth that school is not healthy for their child.
Your old friends dwindle away. You become a card-carrying member of that wild bunch of people called home educators.
The government spreads bull about home educators abusing their children. That leads to social identity shocks as we all absorb the fact that we are being attacked and lied about. We stick close together. We email. We band. We listen to each other. We become politically active.
The shocks don't end. A man reviews home education and calls us names and slings mud which sticks and stones us.
His boss does the same, diverting attention from where attention should be which is squarely on the overworked, underfunded and inadequate social services.
Every time someone tells us that we are not parenting properly, we are being less than our best as parents, we encounter more personal identity shocks and more social identity threats.
It continues....
On and on it goes...
Little wonder that we are tired. Small wonder that we seethe and rage.
Our very selves are at risk in the onslaughts. Our personal selves and our social selves.
And the government, it's tame charities, it's favoured 'experts' and 'inspectors,' BBC cronies and thickly ignorant members of the public keep on and on taking the PIS.
It's completely shocking.
From
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119070406/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
Everyone has a Personal Identity made up of thousands of little pieces. Things like your beliefs, your genes, your gender, your sexual orientation, your political stance, your age, your educational background, your cultural background...
I'm sure you can think of a few more.
All of the parts add up to the magnificent whole which is YOU.
The You then fits into some sort of Social role. For example, a social role can be created when you join a group or become part of a group. Like I became a home educator - tentatively at first and then joyfully and whole-heartedly.
I am also a baby boomer, and a political wanderer in the mix: I don't know where I belong except, because of the events of the last few years and the harassment that I've seen home educators face, I'm inclining toward anarchism as an ethos!
You get the picture I'm sure.
Then come the insults. The You of you is insulted because you know You are an expert (in the truest sense of that word) on your children which then extends to finding out more about the new group you have joined, the home educators. In the past, generally, no one reasonable has ever challenged your beliefs about your children or your role as your children's mentor and guide. You give opinions and dispense rules and justice to your family, and proceed to raise your own offspring.
Until the 'experts' come along, see your child once, and think that they can pronounce on your child and your parenting with impunity. What they say shocks YOU. That is a personal identity shock. They insult You. They exterminate You. They indicate that You are not the power in your child's life and that They are.
The LA inspector tootles along, and you accept a visit. It seems to go all right. Your child talks to the inspector, and the inspector is polite and friendly enough, except he never quite catches your gaze and you see his eyes wandering all over the DVD and video collection in the corner and the fine collection of spiders' homes in the corner where you keep forgetting to clean. Where you live is part of who You are, and where you dwell is being judged. This, then, is another personal identity threat.
Your social self is bound up in the home educating community. Not many friends stay the course when they cannot moan about how horrible their child's school is and have you sympathise because, these days, you're likely to tell them to get their babies out NOW and point them towards an example of a deregistration letter. That puts them into a slight tizzy. They just wanted a bonding bitch, and you confront them with the truth that school is not healthy for their child.
Your old friends dwindle away. You become a card-carrying member of that wild bunch of people called home educators.
The government spreads bull about home educators abusing their children. That leads to social identity shocks as we all absorb the fact that we are being attacked and lied about. We stick close together. We email. We band. We listen to each other. We become politically active.
The shocks don't end. A man reviews home education and calls us names and slings mud which sticks and stones us.
His boss does the same, diverting attention from where attention should be which is squarely on the overworked, underfunded and inadequate social services.
Every time someone tells us that we are not parenting properly, we are being less than our best as parents, we encounter more personal identity shocks and more social identity threats.
It continues....
On and on it goes...
Little wonder that we are tired. Small wonder that we seethe and rage.
Our very selves are at risk in the onslaughts. Our personal selves and our social selves.
And the government, it's tame charities, it's favoured 'experts' and 'inspectors,' BBC cronies and thickly ignorant members of the public keep on and on taking the PIS.
It's completely shocking.
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Advice to a possible home educator
I gave this advice on a home education forum to a prospective home educator. I'd like to share it with you although it probably doesn't qualify as a mini-blog. Whatever, I like the sound of my own vice (er, that should be voice!)
"You are your baby's mother. Not one person in the world knows her better or what is best for her than you. Do not take the parc from other people. Tell them that school is an institution that dominates human beings, squeezes out their natural life and joy and turns them into slaves who are seen as economic units by a wealthy elite. Buy them books by John Taylor Gatto. I can recommend Dumbing Us Down.
There is nothing wrong with home education. It is a superior way of educating the 'whole' person, unlike school which creates fear, terror and doesn't even see a child as a person (they can't even go to the toilet when they need to which can cause health problems later on). If your child has a will of her own, that's terrific. She will turn her attention to what interests her and will study it for as long as she needs to.
People are brainwashed. There is nothing normal or sane about school. Nothing. We are not Prussians to be trained up as an army nor are we all destined to work in factories (hence the bells at school) and that is where school originated. It is merely warehousing for children.
It's hard doing the right thing for your child when society would have you do what everyone else does, but you will get so strong that you'll be able to twizzle people around on their stupid and illogical arguments. Education has been made a big business so millions of people can be employed by the education business. Tell those who would direct you to 'normality' to do some educating themselves and look into it further. They may learn something. They may become supporters. If not, it's their loss. Your child's future is non-negotiable."
"You are your baby's mother. Not one person in the world knows her better or what is best for her than you. Do not take the parc from other people. Tell them that school is an institution that dominates human beings, squeezes out their natural life and joy and turns them into slaves who are seen as economic units by a wealthy elite. Buy them books by John Taylor Gatto. I can recommend Dumbing Us Down.
There is nothing wrong with home education. It is a superior way of educating the 'whole' person, unlike school which creates fear, terror and doesn't even see a child as a person (they can't even go to the toilet when they need to which can cause health problems later on). If your child has a will of her own, that's terrific. She will turn her attention to what interests her and will study it for as long as she needs to.
People are brainwashed. There is nothing normal or sane about school. Nothing. We are not Prussians to be trained up as an army nor are we all destined to work in factories (hence the bells at school) and that is where school originated. It is merely warehousing for children.
It's hard doing the right thing for your child when society would have you do what everyone else does, but you will get so strong that you'll be able to twizzle people around on their stupid and illogical arguments. Education has been made a big business so millions of people can be employed by the education business. Tell those who would direct you to 'normality' to do some educating themselves and look into it further. They may learn something. They may become supporters. If not, it's their loss. Your child's future is non-negotiable."
Monday, 1 March 2010
New series - mini blogs
I'm beginning a series of small, snack-like blog entries because I want to.
No one is forcing, coercing, telling me or promising me either money or qualifications if I behave in a certain way at the correct time.
Today's mini blog is Mini blog 1.
Catchy title, eh? I thought it up myself without help from a co-worker or reference to a - well, a reference book.
It's this:
If home education is part of the educational system, like Mr. Balls insists, why don't we get the pupil money?
If home education is not part of the educational system, why do they want to monitor something which is none of their business?
End of mini-blog 1.
No one is forcing, coercing, telling me or promising me either money or qualifications if I behave in a certain way at the correct time.
Today's mini blog is Mini blog 1.
Catchy title, eh? I thought it up myself without help from a co-worker or reference to a - well, a reference book.
It's this:
If home education is part of the educational system, like Mr. Balls insists, why don't we get the pupil money?
If home education is not part of the educational system, why do they want to monitor something which is none of their business?
End of mini-blog 1.
Saturday, 27 February 2010
Invasion
Funny how this home educating business gets a hold of you.
Odd how you can wake up in the dead of night/middle of dawn/early morning and feel totally violated and see your abuser parading around London in a ministerial car (guzzling your money down its engine).
It feels like an invasion.
Then, that's what this government is good at. Invading.
They invade our streets with cameras watching every move we make, and targeting young women's behinds in their own homes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/4609746.stm
"You only have to read the impact statements of the lady to realise the harrowing effect that this had on her. Her life has almost been ruined, her self-confidence entirely destroyed by the thought that prying male eyes have entered her flat."
I can imagine. In her own flat. Her privacy invaded.
Then, there's the banking system. The 'light touch changes' (oh, and we know that stupid phrase so well) proposed by Brown and his glove puppet Balls.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/gordon-brown/4949859/Gordon-Brown-calls-for-morality-in-financial-system.html
"Ministers including Alistair Darling, the current Chancellor, and Ed Balls, Mr Brown's former economic adviser, have admitted that Labour made mistakes regulating the banks before the current crisis.
But Mr Brown has refused to concede any errors or apologise."
Invaders love to take over your language and debase it. Like they take you and your family over and debase them.
"Gordon Brown calls for morality in financial system."
And that from the moral wizard who sold off Britain's gold at its lowest price, who stripped the country's savers of £100 billion. Morality. A sweet word you can swing around shedding incense from. Not one you can bite for authenticity. Not a coin that rings true when invaders shout it at you. When they are standing on the moral high ground screaming 'abuse' at you.
Meanwhile, there are so many comments and outpourings of hatred from our invaded land for the glove puppet. Here's one round up. There are many more.
http://johnrentoul.independentminds.livejournal.com/21314.html
"Blair’s relationship with Balls was not usually so fruitful, and it got worse. One aide who worked for Blair at Number Ten said: “I respect him but I don’t like him.” Just in case I missed it: “I really did dislike him.” Why? “Fundamentally he is an intellectual bully. The tone was hectoring.” Yes, but, I asked naively, was he personally offensive? Hollow laughter. I was told how he would belittle civil servants, for example, when they came to the Treasury asking for more money. “You are complete tossers,” he would say. “You haven’t got a grip.” I have lost count of the number of Blair’s former advisors who have said that there were times when they could not bear to be in the same room as Balls. His rudeness and his bearing of grudges were said to “reflect and reinforce the worst aspects of Gordon”. One MP who came to the House with a reputation as a Blairite told me that Balls has never said hello when their paths cross. This is, you will observe, the one known exception to the rule that everything about him can be explained by the requirements of the next Labour leadership election. "
The glove puppet wants more:
"Despite that, Balls is now well placed to contest the leadership of his party when the chance comes. There is no question that he will try to seize his chance. He has moved beyond being his patron’s creature to being a big beast in his own right. The ruthlessness and determination that for years was deployed for Brown is now pressing his own cause. He always said that Brown’s advancement was a means to a Labour end; just as his own ambition is now."
Ruthless and determined? Oh, yes, we can believe that. That's what invaders are, isn't it?
Remember the stories about Genghis Khan? He was no patsy. No Mr. Nice Guy.
Balls has invaded schools like some kind of evil fungus. Cookery classes? Certainly. Academy schools? No problem. Independent schools? Don't like 'em, can't control 'em so invade them and take over. Sex education? Oh, you WILL learn how to put condoms on bananas, children, and no matter if you're too young to realise what bananas are.
That's what invaders do. Take over your duties. Take over your children (because they can treat them so much better than you do). Take over your lives (because local authority sock puppets are SO much better at educating than parents are).
Then there's the ultimate invasion: IRAN which equalled WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.
Send in the investigators. Find those nuclear bunkers. I wonder they didn't PLANT some. A few courageous souls said: "Oh, we went to look for those weapons - but, whaddya know? - there weren't any. Anywhere."
IRAN= WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
HOME EDUCATORS = ABUSERS + NON-EDUCATORS
Yeah, right!
INVADERS.
Odd how you can wake up in the dead of night/middle of dawn/early morning and feel totally violated and see your abuser parading around London in a ministerial car (guzzling your money down its engine).
It feels like an invasion.
Then, that's what this government is good at. Invading.
They invade our streets with cameras watching every move we make, and targeting young women's behinds in their own homes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/4609746.stm
"You only have to read the impact statements of the lady to realise the harrowing effect that this had on her. Her life has almost been ruined, her self-confidence entirely destroyed by the thought that prying male eyes have entered her flat."
I can imagine. In her own flat. Her privacy invaded.
Then, there's the banking system. The 'light touch changes' (oh, and we know that stupid phrase so well) proposed by Brown and his glove puppet Balls.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/gordon-brown/4949859/Gordon-Brown-calls-for-morality-in-financial-system.html
"Ministers including Alistair Darling, the current Chancellor, and Ed Balls, Mr Brown's former economic adviser, have admitted that Labour made mistakes regulating the banks before the current crisis.
But Mr Brown has refused to concede any errors or apologise."
Invaders love to take over your language and debase it. Like they take you and your family over and debase them.
"Gordon Brown calls for morality in financial system."
And that from the moral wizard who sold off Britain's gold at its lowest price, who stripped the country's savers of £100 billion. Morality. A sweet word you can swing around shedding incense from. Not one you can bite for authenticity. Not a coin that rings true when invaders shout it at you. When they are standing on the moral high ground screaming 'abuse' at you.
Meanwhile, there are so many comments and outpourings of hatred from our invaded land for the glove puppet. Here's one round up. There are many more.
http://johnrentoul.independentminds.livejournal.com/21314.html
"Blair’s relationship with Balls was not usually so fruitful, and it got worse. One aide who worked for Blair at Number Ten said: “I respect him but I don’t like him.” Just in case I missed it: “I really did dislike him.” Why? “Fundamentally he is an intellectual bully. The tone was hectoring.” Yes, but, I asked naively, was he personally offensive? Hollow laughter. I was told how he would belittle civil servants, for example, when they came to the Treasury asking for more money. “You are complete tossers,” he would say. “You haven’t got a grip.” I have lost count of the number of Blair’s former advisors who have said that there were times when they could not bear to be in the same room as Balls. His rudeness and his bearing of grudges were said to “reflect and reinforce the worst aspects of Gordon”. One MP who came to the House with a reputation as a Blairite told me that Balls has never said hello when their paths cross. This is, you will observe, the one known exception to the rule that everything about him can be explained by the requirements of the next Labour leadership election. "
The glove puppet wants more:
"Despite that, Balls is now well placed to contest the leadership of his party when the chance comes. There is no question that he will try to seize his chance. He has moved beyond being his patron’s creature to being a big beast in his own right. The ruthlessness and determination that for years was deployed for Brown is now pressing his own cause. He always said that Brown’s advancement was a means to a Labour end; just as his own ambition is now."
Ruthless and determined? Oh, yes, we can believe that. That's what invaders are, isn't it?
Remember the stories about Genghis Khan? He was no patsy. No Mr. Nice Guy.
Balls has invaded schools like some kind of evil fungus. Cookery classes? Certainly. Academy schools? No problem. Independent schools? Don't like 'em, can't control 'em so invade them and take over. Sex education? Oh, you WILL learn how to put condoms on bananas, children, and no matter if you're too young to realise what bananas are.
That's what invaders do. Take over your duties. Take over your children (because they can treat them so much better than you do). Take over your lives (because local authority sock puppets are SO much better at educating than parents are).
Then there's the ultimate invasion: IRAN which equalled WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.
Send in the investigators. Find those nuclear bunkers. I wonder they didn't PLANT some. A few courageous souls said: "Oh, we went to look for those weapons - but, whaddya know? - there weren't any. Anywhere."
IRAN= WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
HOME EDUCATORS = ABUSERS + NON-EDUCATORS
Yeah, right!
INVADERS.
Thursday, 14 January 2010
Picking up the pieces
Gill of Sometimes it's peaceful has pointed out that Balls, Coaker and various denizens of Parliament actually don't care about our children, and I think that is true.
So, if these dreadful proposals come to pass, it won't matter to them because, even if their children were to be unhappy at school, Balls etc. would just find them a private one to suit.
I don't know whether Parliament has always looked like a children's playground with a bunch of bullies riding roughshod over truth and other people's lives, but I know this: I will never vote Labour again. Most of my dead family members would be astounded and probably quite hurt to hear me say that. But most of them would not understand that those amazing people who were from quite ordinary backgrounds and who struggled to right imbalances in this country (UK) were different to what we have now. Now it is all career politicians. They're like barristers, hired to pontificate on and force through policies that they haven't thought through and they never put themselves in anyone else's place. They haven't 'become' home educators who are battling to have jurisdiction over a precious, beloved child's life opposed by ignorant and pathetic wage slaves who cannot understand that we would rather be sawn into little pieces than hurt our children in any way.
It's like the story in the bible where the wise Solomon saw a baby placed in front of him, and he asked what was the problem. His attendant said that two women claimed to be the child's mother. Woman A shouted that she was and Woman B cried that no, it was her baby.
Solomon looked from one to the other. Then he said, "Let the child be cut in two and give one half to each."
Woman A looked smug and nodded. Woman B screamed, "No, no, please, oh, mighty lord. Give the child to her," and pointed desperately at the smug Woman A.
Solomon said, "The child belongs to Woman B. He is hers. Return him to her."
I see this government as Woman A, wanting to dance its puppets, wanting to know every inch of our children's lives. Wanting to have the time to indoctrinate them in whatever our bosses would have us all think.
We are their mothers and their fathers. Their grandparents. Their friends.
We know every twitch and glance from those beloved little faces. We care so much that we would cry, "Give them to her," if it would save those lives.
It is a pity that there is no Solomon. It is a pity that there are viruses infecting what could be such a great institution as Parliament. Perhaps, though, we have outgrown Parliament. Maybe we children are ready to govern ourselves and those for whom we are responsible.
The prophets said that the sheep and the goats would be separated. That we would see the difference in men (as in all people) made most clear and so now it happens. There are those who would gladly throw our children to the wolves and who have power and have no humility and no ability to hear truth (possibly because they do not respect it), and there are home educators who would rend ourselves to pieces and eat stinking mud rather than have our children's lives infringed upon.
So what will happen if destroyers like Balls and Badman have their way? What will happen? We will be left to pick up the pieces. We are responsible. They will attempt to destroy and we will salvage what is left.
Is that any way to run a country? Is that any way to be in the world? Are these people even remotely fit to govern another human being, never mind the millions they apparently can control at will in Britain?
We will be the ones to pick up the pieces when you've had your fun and games with our children's lives, Mr. Balls. You can laugh at the destruction you cause, but we will be left with the consequences.
And so will our children.
So, if these dreadful proposals come to pass, it won't matter to them because, even if their children were to be unhappy at school, Balls etc. would just find them a private one to suit.
I don't know whether Parliament has always looked like a children's playground with a bunch of bullies riding roughshod over truth and other people's lives, but I know this: I will never vote Labour again. Most of my dead family members would be astounded and probably quite hurt to hear me say that. But most of them would not understand that those amazing people who were from quite ordinary backgrounds and who struggled to right imbalances in this country (UK) were different to what we have now. Now it is all career politicians. They're like barristers, hired to pontificate on and force through policies that they haven't thought through and they never put themselves in anyone else's place. They haven't 'become' home educators who are battling to have jurisdiction over a precious, beloved child's life opposed by ignorant and pathetic wage slaves who cannot understand that we would rather be sawn into little pieces than hurt our children in any way.
It's like the story in the bible where the wise Solomon saw a baby placed in front of him, and he asked what was the problem. His attendant said that two women claimed to be the child's mother. Woman A shouted that she was and Woman B cried that no, it was her baby.
Solomon looked from one to the other. Then he said, "Let the child be cut in two and give one half to each."
Woman A looked smug and nodded. Woman B screamed, "No, no, please, oh, mighty lord. Give the child to her," and pointed desperately at the smug Woman A.
Solomon said, "The child belongs to Woman B. He is hers. Return him to her."
I see this government as Woman A, wanting to dance its puppets, wanting to know every inch of our children's lives. Wanting to have the time to indoctrinate them in whatever our bosses would have us all think.
We are their mothers and their fathers. Their grandparents. Their friends.
We know every twitch and glance from those beloved little faces. We care so much that we would cry, "Give them to her," if it would save those lives.
It is a pity that there is no Solomon. It is a pity that there are viruses infecting what could be such a great institution as Parliament. Perhaps, though, we have outgrown Parliament. Maybe we children are ready to govern ourselves and those for whom we are responsible.
The prophets said that the sheep and the goats would be separated. That we would see the difference in men (as in all people) made most clear and so now it happens. There are those who would gladly throw our children to the wolves and who have power and have no humility and no ability to hear truth (possibly because they do not respect it), and there are home educators who would rend ourselves to pieces and eat stinking mud rather than have our children's lives infringed upon.
So what will happen if destroyers like Balls and Badman have their way? What will happen? We will be left to pick up the pieces. We are responsible. They will attempt to destroy and we will salvage what is left.
Is that any way to run a country? Is that any way to be in the world? Are these people even remotely fit to govern another human being, never mind the millions they apparently can control at will in Britain?
We will be the ones to pick up the pieces when you've had your fun and games with our children's lives, Mr. Balls. You can laugh at the destruction you cause, but we will be left with the consequences.
And so will our children.
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Select Committees and all that jazz
The trouble with Select Committees... well, there are a few troubles with Select Committees. The first is that they are made up of a bunch of people who – er – want to rule the rest of the population. That is an odd thing to want to do. Personally, I don't seem to want to rule anyone, except myself and I have a darn difficult time doing even that on occasions being as I'm so multi-layered and mysterious.
Another trouble with Select Committees is that they have to read a tremendous amount of information in a fairly short time. How can they sort out the chaff from the wheat? It would take me a couple of years to properly digest what some interesting and erudite characters have had to say in support of home education and some fascinating points they have raised too. I'm proud to call myself a home edder.
Of course, I've had a tremendous advantage. I belong to some lively and thoughtful lists with some incredibly dedicated folk adorning them so I've been able to sharpen my little Shrek pencil as I've watched their amazing contributions to the outstanding learning opportunity afforded by home education to even the parental contingent of the home educating family. Me, in fact.
Yet another concern of mine about Select Committee is that they employ discreet language. I want to shout Balls is a moron and Badman is a (er, I cannot think of a suitable thing to shout. Perhaps the DCSF would like to consult on that. Suitable names for Badman. It would probably be as meaningful as consulting on a suitable education).
Then, again, there's the fact that people sitting on a Committee are not exactly unbiased. They are biased in many different ways, but one specific way is that they will be biased towards state schooling. If you skin the average person you will find state schooling writ large upon his or her heart. It's a strange thing how something so potentially damn dreadful, and no matter what atrocities of either the educational or bullying kind were perpetrated upon you, you STILL insist that 'they were the best days of mah life.' What PR school has enjoyed. How deep it has sunk into the societal bedrock. What crap it is! So much so that, if someone brings up all the terrible, soul-destroying happenings in his school, he finishes by wiping a tear from his filling eye and blowing his filling nose at the very thought of the old alma mater.
It's like the most insidious of abuse cycles.
So, we have those worthies of the Select Committee, all with their various Party lines, and their multitudinous prejudices listening variously to the rapidly sinking and almost incomprehensible muttering Badman (an upstanding representative of their kind of man) and the bright, inquisitive, alive responses from home educating children and their families.
What is a man constrained by the likes of Ed. Balls to do?
How are they to look their leader in his dark eyeballs if they deploy the nukes on the pathetic heap of prejudiced garbage that is dignified by the name of the Elective Home Education Review.
One of my first thoughts on sighting the Committee report was that they still have not realised that parents are the best ones to parent and are best placed to decide which form of education suits their own children and that local authorities underlying remit is to destroy home education and get those children into school.
So we have home educators – totally committed parents – and we have local authorities, some with fine representatives but others, a lot of others, with no darn clue about any kind of an education at all and a serious blind-spot which makes them avoid the facts looming up to crash into them. The facts are that the school system does not work. I would say it does not work for everyone but the longer I live the more I believe (there's that word again) that school DOES NOT WORK because it is predicated upon force.
And, however men like to spin it, force does not conquer all.
Overall, it's a 50.3% from me for the Select Committee Report. They criticise Badman, yes, they'd have to be blind, deaf, dumb and living inside the mountains not to know that Badman's so-called report is fit only to line our budgies' cages. Yet they haven't caught on that it is the parents' duty to choose the mode of education for their children. The parents' duty. Not the government's, not Balls', not Badman's, not Barry Sheerman's, not the MPs', not the paranoid LAs'.
You know it's practically impossible for a child to avoid getting an education. They're born to it. They question as soon as they wake up and talk. They do it because it is an instinct. You cannot deny a child an education, but you can choose which education – in accordance with their wishes – that they will get, even if that's one that they select for themselves (this is called the autonomous way).
That's the kind of Select Committee I approve of.
Another trouble with Select Committees is that they have to read a tremendous amount of information in a fairly short time. How can they sort out the chaff from the wheat? It would take me a couple of years to properly digest what some interesting and erudite characters have had to say in support of home education and some fascinating points they have raised too. I'm proud to call myself a home edder.
Of course, I've had a tremendous advantage. I belong to some lively and thoughtful lists with some incredibly dedicated folk adorning them so I've been able to sharpen my little Shrek pencil as I've watched their amazing contributions to the outstanding learning opportunity afforded by home education to even the parental contingent of the home educating family. Me, in fact.
Yet another concern of mine about Select Committee is that they employ discreet language. I want to shout Balls is a moron and Badman is a (er, I cannot think of a suitable thing to shout. Perhaps the DCSF would like to consult on that. Suitable names for Badman. It would probably be as meaningful as consulting on a suitable education).
Then, again, there's the fact that people sitting on a Committee are not exactly unbiased. They are biased in many different ways, but one specific way is that they will be biased towards state schooling. If you skin the average person you will find state schooling writ large upon his or her heart. It's a strange thing how something so potentially damn dreadful, and no matter what atrocities of either the educational or bullying kind were perpetrated upon you, you STILL insist that 'they were the best days of mah life.' What PR school has enjoyed. How deep it has sunk into the societal bedrock. What crap it is! So much so that, if someone brings up all the terrible, soul-destroying happenings in his school, he finishes by wiping a tear from his filling eye and blowing his filling nose at the very thought of the old alma mater.
It's like the most insidious of abuse cycles.
So, we have those worthies of the Select Committee, all with their various Party lines, and their multitudinous prejudices listening variously to the rapidly sinking and almost incomprehensible muttering Badman (an upstanding representative of their kind of man) and the bright, inquisitive, alive responses from home educating children and their families.
What is a man constrained by the likes of Ed. Balls to do?
How are they to look their leader in his dark eyeballs if they deploy the nukes on the pathetic heap of prejudiced garbage that is dignified by the name of the Elective Home Education Review.
One of my first thoughts on sighting the Committee report was that they still have not realised that parents are the best ones to parent and are best placed to decide which form of education suits their own children and that local authorities underlying remit is to destroy home education and get those children into school.
So we have home educators – totally committed parents – and we have local authorities, some with fine representatives but others, a lot of others, with no darn clue about any kind of an education at all and a serious blind-spot which makes them avoid the facts looming up to crash into them. The facts are that the school system does not work. I would say it does not work for everyone but the longer I live the more I believe (there's that word again) that school DOES NOT WORK because it is predicated upon force.
And, however men like to spin it, force does not conquer all.
Overall, it's a 50.3% from me for the Select Committee Report. They criticise Badman, yes, they'd have to be blind, deaf, dumb and living inside the mountains not to know that Badman's so-called report is fit only to line our budgies' cages. Yet they haven't caught on that it is the parents' duty to choose the mode of education for their children. The parents' duty. Not the government's, not Balls', not Badman's, not Barry Sheerman's, not the MPs', not the paranoid LAs'.
You know it's practically impossible for a child to avoid getting an education. They're born to it. They question as soon as they wake up and talk. They do it because it is an instinct. You cannot deny a child an education, but you can choose which education – in accordance with their wishes – that they will get, even if that's one that they select for themselves (this is called the autonomous way).
That's the kind of Select Committee I approve of.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
