Testing times

I hear that the Welsh government wants to monitor home educators.

Because they want to make home education as good as school education. (huh!)

Wherein lots of people get bullied, hurt, strips torn off them for not being good at P.E. and sneered at because they like classical music because we're all supposed to be 'the same'.

Because we've all got to pass tests because people need to know where we're at even though we're good at something and you only have to give us that something to do to be able to know that we're good at it. And other people who have passed lots and lots of tests may not be good at the somethings that they've passed the tests in.

I passed an exam in Geography years ago. Darned if I can ever find Puerto Rico or Syria or Dornoch on a globe or a map though.

Tests are for companies to make lots of money out of.

Tests are for computers because computers score very highly in tests.

I used to take lots and lots of tests at school. Couldn't tell you what I learned while studying. Maybe I learned the stuff I might have needed to know on the test, but then it all got flushed because I didn't need it for any more tests.

You do something because you're good at it and everyone thinks it's pretty or useful or clever or looks nice, and then you make money out of it. 

Test-makers make money out of tests. Test-makers make money out of people taking tests.

You can tell I don't like tests/exams/monitoring/people trying to assess other people because

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” 

And heaven forfend that we love people, eh?

Quote from Mother Teresa: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/2887-if-you-judge-people-you-have-no-time-to-love

(Uh, darn, now I have a mad desire to go to Dornoch)

Thinking

I've been thinking about school and society again. As you do.

You'll know if you read this blog that I don't like the idea of schools.

It's just because school doesn't cater for individuals. Society used to not only tolerate different people but also encourage them because we don't get inspiration from people who strive to be and do everything that everyone else does.

As George Bernard Shaw said, "All great truths begin as blasphemies."

And home educators begin as blasphemers having the time and ability to search and question and learn and grow and change and think. To think. What damage has been done to people throughout the ages by folks who jump into 'doing' before 'thinking'.?

My dad was very fond of the traditional 'thinking cap'. He would say to me, "Don't go diving in just put your thinking cap on first'.  When I was very young I thought it must hang in his cupboard somewhere. I even had a sneaky look once or twice.

Just think how society would change if everyone thought a bit. Even a little.

"Education would be more successful, and more enjoyable, if less time was spent teaching to the test and more time was spent teaching students to think for themselves. I'm not alone in believing this. In a recent Cambridge Assessment Research Survey, 87% of lecturers said that too much teaching to the test is a major factor contributing to students being under-prepared for degree-level study."

It's not only that students are under-prepared for degree-level study, they are unprepared for life. We're often thoughtless, selfish, impatient, impulsive beings. We dive in when we should think. That's what the old saw "Look before you leap" means.

"As an antidote to teaching to the test, I recommend a philosophical approach. This means teaching students to be critical, reflective enquirers. It is all about putting in their hands the tools they need to find answers for themselves, and stimulating them to begin thinking more deeply and critically about ideas and arguments."

We live in a teen-age society. I don't mean that all teens are bad, far from it. I mean that we are still not quite adults. We give away our power to schools, to banks, to politicians, to doctors, to dentists, to 'experts'. We are not agents in our own lives. Teen age society. Not quite ready to accept responsibility. Young society judges people by numbers in tests. Mature society knows that everyone has something of value to say and that tests don't always measure anything important.

"...Teaching students to think for themselves isn't an alternative to preparing them for tests. It's actually a good way of equipping them to face the demands of their examinations. In most exams, marks are available for the student who can impress an examiner with an answer which shows real depth of understanding. The best way of preparing students to produce answers like this is to teach them to think well."

Obvious, isn't it? Teach 'em to think. Or rather don't teach 'em. Let the ability develop naturally. We think therefore we can manage everything better. We think therefore we are kinder, more sensible, more tolerant.

That's just my thoughts on thinking anyway.

The quotes are from:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/2012/aug/14/philisophical-teaching-students?newsfeed=true

And I found the words from GBS in
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/george_bernard_shaw.html

Thanks to E for drawing my attention to the Guardian piece.

Our Deepest Fear

                                                    Our Deepest Fear

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking

so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,

we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,

our presence automatically liberates others."

 Marianne Williamson - from "A Return To Love" 

Quoted in this blog: http://iamwoman-mxtodis123.blogspot.co.uk/

What is your deepest fear? Is it that your child will fail or that your child will succeed? We do not trust our children in this land of the United Kingdom. We force our young to stay for their early days in boxes learning what someone else tells them to learn. We do not trust them to learn what they need to learn. We do not see them as agents in their own lives, and we do not allow them to be agents in their own lives.

When will we learn to trust our children's birthright of self-determination and mastery?

Excited

Genuinely, I feel totally exhilarated when I find something new. It could be a website, a saying, a book, a television programme. 

And I get excited because I can. No one is watching me as I punch the air and screech a bit. Or shout with sheer Olympian glee (just thought I'd throw in the reference. Aren't the athletes doing well?) or giggle at a well-found witty saying.

Maybe that's the overriding factor in home education. We home educators can be real. We don't need to don our masks, we don't have to pretend to like things or dislike things. We don't have to hide genuine feelings.

What is more exciting than knowledge? Maybe, for you, lots of events, happenings and occurrences.Not for me, though. I'm like one of those dear gold rush miners panning for precious nuggets in amongst the pebbles in the bottom of the stream of information.

A hugely enjoyable time for me comes towards the end of the day when my girls are discussing dinner, and the nature of food, and anything else that their conversation stumbles upon. Better than the best movie or television programme. For me. It's real, it's a measure of how far they've come in the last home educating years, and I joy in their mature debates.

In other words, I am feeling thrilled and exhilarated! And so glad to have the freedom to enjoy life.

(Thanks to Deb of 

http://notinadequate.com/ for liking my blog and saying so on her blog. Deb, I will try to write more often!)

Unreasonable

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw.

I thought that was true, when I read it in Change Your Life in 7 Days' by Paul McKenna. And I think that home educators are anything but reasonable. What is reasonable about making your child's life so important that you give up a large chunk of your own life? But what is more important than your child's life, health and happiness? In my book, nothing is. 

A lot of people don't think it's reasonable to give up the 'everyone does it' mentality of schooling to offer your children a super-special amazing tailored-to-them and up-close-and-personal-education. However, I think it's reasonable for your children to demand the best from you. They deserve the best: the best I can produce.


It's unreasonable in society's eyes to so value the health, welfare and education of your children above anything else (usually money). Again, I don't go along with societal values because, to me, people are more important than obscene amounts of money and other people patting me on the back or thinking I'm a fine sort of woman because I take the easy way and send my child to school.


It's free so it's not reasonable to keep your child away from school, is it? Actually, it's not free. We all pay for schools from our taxes but we don't dictate the moral tone nor the method of teaching nor the selection of the teaching staff nor the curriculum. We pay for it all but choose none of it. As pipers - or, in fact, payers - we certainly do not command the tune.


It's better for your child to go to school, everyone says. Is it? Do you know my child? Do you know what situation my child flourishes in? No, you don't. I have the advantage of always knowing my children and being able to predict which situations that those young people will find conducive to learning and, more importantly, to health and happiness. I always maintain that no person who feels unsafe and unappreciated will learn anything other than he or she should avoid the unsafe situation.


And I've been told that 'You need to live in a box in order to think outside a box'. If you live forever in the dark how will you be able to see? You need to cope with non-school in order to cope with life which is - in the main - full of not-school happenings.


All in all, I think I'm unreasonable. I want the best for my children. I need to think outside any box. I need them to feel safe, happy and healthy. I wish them to develop coping skills for the real world not the fake world of school.


I think home education fills the bill nicely. Even if I have to pay for all the tunes.

 

Consulting

Oh, there are a few around. Consultations, I mean. There always seem to be a few around. Asking us what should we do about...' They have to ask us. Or they have to seem to ask us. However, have they already decided what we should say? You can slant questionnaires and questions in certain ways to produce certain answers. I used to think about questionnaires for hours. I worked for my local police department and, even amongst our small number of people in the office, I found that people defined words differently.

I'll give you an example. I think a porch is part of the building. M. who worked with me thought a porch was outside the building. So an outside light could've been inside a porch, but outside the building because a porch was, in her view, on the outside of a building. However, I thought that a light inside a porch was a light inside a building.

It was something very simple, even something quite silly, and we laughed about it. But it made me think. It made me wonder which words we use can mean other things to other people.

I learned somewhat to be careful what I thought about words, and the way that I used them.

That's part of the reason that I believe writers are underrated, and that words can be minefields.

There was a saying going around some years back. People would ask 'Have you stopped beating your wife (or husband or partner) yet?

It's a simple sentence, yet to answer the question involved is difficult. If you say yes, you admit that you've been beating up your partner. If you say no you plead guilty to continuing to beat up your partner.

If you answer yes or no, you can't win.

Sometimes you just cannot answer a question because of the way it's stated.

I don't like consultations. I really question whether the answers Mr and Ms Public turn in are ever read or, if they are read, whether they are understood. I wonder whether the wealth of knowledge that the 'experts' (like home educators) are listened to or can change anything if they are listened to. I wonder whether the people who compile the questionnaires or the questions see the porch light as part of the indoor lighting system or outside lighting.

What difference does it make? Well, the questionnaire that I was charged with designing was to ask householders about their houses. Those householders had been burgled. The burglars didn't like outside lighting because it showed up their activities, but they didn't care about inside lighting. That was just one question on one questionnaire. But that questionnaire was quite important in the 'war against crime' that the local police were carrying out. Those questions were helpful in knowing what to do with people's houses to make the houses unattractive to burglars. They helped to target police funds too. They gave householders some clues about why the burglars chose their properties to burgle.

So consultations, when you are really interested in the answers, can be illuminating. If you are just going through the motions because the system says you should consult then it's all a bit dark, isn't it?

Consultations. We, home educators, know a lot about them. More, I would wager, than the average citizen. And we've filled in (or filled out) a few of them in our time.

Consultations. They can be illuminating. Or not.


https://www.education.gov.uk/aboutdfe/departmentalinformation/consultations
(Apparently, the e-consultations tool has been taken offline due to technical problems)

Seeking the university

E and I have been going to University.

I went, some time ago. I suppose my stories have encouraged and interested E. They've got her 'into' the idea of higher education. Just in time for the increase in fees and everything for University.

Oh, well. Timing was never my strong point.

The Open Days are amazing. They're good for lots of poking my nose into places I don't normally get to see. Marvellous. And they're good for meeting people who answer my questions.

I've enjoyed the days. There are more Open Days coming up in different places, and I guess we'll be there, after having prayed for a sunny day.

I'm looking forward to it. I guess the days after my children left school I never really thought about where they might go when their home educating journey finished. Being a university graduate, I had a sneaking hope that at least one of those amazing young people would choose to study at a university. Or was the sheer immense scale of 'home educating' too big to admit those mini-dreams. It's been a while since the journey began. Is it nearly over? Probably not. In some way it'll never be over because we're still changing and growing, and if E goes to University then University will be just another venue for home education.

Now where's that new prospectus?