You hear the occasional comment.
"Those home educators are mad..."
Yes, I am, I admit it.
I'm mad keen.
I am mad keen on educational freedom, I'm mad keen on my young people learning in safe surroundings, I'm mad keen on my family learning whatever they wish to and whenever they want to.
I'm mad keen on home education.
Mad? No, just mad keen.
Wednesday, 19 June 2013
Tuesday, 11 June 2013
Truanting and NUTS
I'd forgotten how much I enjoy other people's blogs. And here is one to enjoy with gusto.
The extremely lovely Grit and her three home educating smashers are here at grit's day:
http://gritsday.blogspot.co.uk/
One of Grit's sidebars features this quotation from the General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers (or, perhaps fittingly, NUT) saying: "If children are not in school they are obviously not being taught and this is of course a problem."
A lot of home educating families wouldn't see it as much of a problem, Christine Blower (nice name). They don't teach because teaching is less efficient than home education. In these days of incredible efficient technology, why do we need the fusty old knowledge of people who graduated - well - in the past. The now, the new and the knowledge (about almost anything) is ready and available at your fingertips.
"The effect of regular absenteeism from school on a pupil’s confidence and ability to understand what is being taught in the classroom is greatly affected."
Sorry, Christine, I don't happen to see your evidence-base for that assertion. In fact, I suspect that a child's confidence will rise when he or she isn't smacked repeatedly about the head with 'what will happen' if he or she does not perform like a trained (or untrained) monkey to produce results. Especially when the results tell you exactly nothing about the child. Ever.
“However, the hard truth is there is no one quick solution to solving this problem. Government needs to recognise that simply churning out yet more rhetoric about parents and schools needing to be more effective in tackling the problem will not work."
I am not particularly concerned about truanting. There are many reasons for it. Boredom on the child's behalf, the youngster being too advanced for the work, the child needing to do other things, the young person getting bullied... Lots of reasons. Has anyone ever asked those who truant why they do it?
Christine, I agree with you. Government tells teachers and parents to sort it out. That isn't going to happen so it's a waste of breath, but government representatives are good at wasting breath.
“There needs to be cross local authority service response and support in place for any real progress to be made in tackling the issue of truancy. At a time when local authority budgets are being cut the assistance that they could previously offer schools is being greatly scaled back. This is yet another example of the short-sightedness of the Government’s cuts agenda."
I am not sure what Christine expects here? What does local authority service response and support mean? More breath-wasting exercises, I fear.
Unbelievably, Christine, I agree with you on another point: Government cuts are not just short-sighted, but downright inhumane and destructive. However, I don't think that lack of money to 'tackle' truancy, like its some sort of player in a football game, is the problem, if problem there is. Kids - lots of kids - don't like school. They find school an uncomfortable fit. Or they can't hack it at all. It doesn't do it for them. It doesn't work. Or it's downright dangerous to their learning capacities or, in some cases, their very lives.
“A relevant and flexible curriculum, free from repetitive tests and targets, would go a long way to ensuring all our pupils remain engaged in the education process and that schools are places of creative, vibrant learning.”
Ah, now, you're speaking my language. Flexible - or no curriculum - relevant learning. Get rid of the boring tests and targets. Encourage creative and vibrant learning.
By George, Christine Blower, congratulations! you are almost describing home education!
From http://www.teachers.org.uk/node/14128
Dated 19 October 2011 but I doubt there has been much change since that date....
The extremely lovely Grit and her three home educating smashers are here at grit's day:
http://gritsday.blogspot.co.uk/
One of Grit's sidebars features this quotation from the General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers (or, perhaps fittingly, NUT) saying: "If children are not in school they are obviously not being taught and this is of course a problem."
A lot of home educating families wouldn't see it as much of a problem, Christine Blower (nice name). They don't teach because teaching is less efficient than home education. In these days of incredible efficient technology, why do we need the fusty old knowledge of people who graduated - well - in the past. The now, the new and the knowledge (about almost anything) is ready and available at your fingertips.
"The effect of regular absenteeism from school on a pupil’s confidence and ability to understand what is being taught in the classroom is greatly affected."
Sorry, Christine, I don't happen to see your evidence-base for that assertion. In fact, I suspect that a child's confidence will rise when he or she isn't smacked repeatedly about the head with 'what will happen' if he or she does not perform like a trained (or untrained) monkey to produce results. Especially when the results tell you exactly nothing about the child. Ever.
“However, the hard truth is there is no one quick solution to solving this problem. Government needs to recognise that simply churning out yet more rhetoric about parents and schools needing to be more effective in tackling the problem will not work."
I am not particularly concerned about truanting. There are many reasons for it. Boredom on the child's behalf, the youngster being too advanced for the work, the child needing to do other things, the young person getting bullied... Lots of reasons. Has anyone ever asked those who truant why they do it?
Christine, I agree with you. Government tells teachers and parents to sort it out. That isn't going to happen so it's a waste of breath, but government representatives are good at wasting breath.
“There needs to be cross local authority service response and support in place for any real progress to be made in tackling the issue of truancy. At a time when local authority budgets are being cut the assistance that they could previously offer schools is being greatly scaled back. This is yet another example of the short-sightedness of the Government’s cuts agenda."
I am not sure what Christine expects here? What does local authority service response and support mean? More breath-wasting exercises, I fear.
Unbelievably, Christine, I agree with you on another point: Government cuts are not just short-sighted, but downright inhumane and destructive. However, I don't think that lack of money to 'tackle' truancy, like its some sort of player in a football game, is the problem, if problem there is. Kids - lots of kids - don't like school. They find school an uncomfortable fit. Or they can't hack it at all. It doesn't do it for them. It doesn't work. Or it's downright dangerous to their learning capacities or, in some cases, their very lives.
“A relevant and flexible curriculum, free from repetitive tests and targets, would go a long way to ensuring all our pupils remain engaged in the education process and that schools are places of creative, vibrant learning.”
Ah, now, you're speaking my language. Flexible - or no curriculum - relevant learning. Get rid of the boring tests and targets. Encourage creative and vibrant learning.
By George, Christine Blower, congratulations! you are almost describing home education!
From http://www.teachers.org.uk/node/14128
Dated 19 October 2011 but I doubt there has been much change since that date....
Friday, 7 June 2013
Belief in yourself
I'm calling this post 'Belief in yourself' or why you can do what you want without a college degree or university degree or whatever hoops and hogties that the system demands you progress through these days.
You know, I know, we all know that we have days when we can 'knock doors out of windows' (that's a favourite phrase of my mother's which I've never examined for logic, but have just accept much the way you accept the ancient flowered wall-paper in your first bedroom). Today though...
What I think it means is that you can change your circumstances. You can change one thing into another that isn't particularly like the first thing. You can transform a door - an exit or an entrance - into something you can see through, or open for a breath of air. You can do something that is generally seen as impossible.
Did you know that 20% of American millionaires never darkened the door of a college?
I didn't know it either.
In How to Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be,
Jack Canfield tells us:
"Here's another statistic showing that belief in yourself is more important than knowledge, training or schooling: 20% of America's millionaires never set foot in college, and 21 of the 222 Americans never got their college diplomas; 2 never even finished high school! So although education and commitment to lifelong learning are essential to success, a formal degree isn't a requirement."
As someone who has felt more or less at home in an academic environment, I don't advocate it for everyone. We are all different. Some like the freedom of developing their own talents, maybe with a little aid along the way. Others like the step-by-step pathway that gives a definite reward.
But we swallow whole tons of guff about learning. No one really knows what motivates one person to put up with the disagreeable difficulties that they face down to achieve something that they find worth the effort.
"20% of America's millionaires never set foot in college, and 21 of the 222 Americans never got their college diplomas; 2 never even finished high school!"
Jack Canfield might have added that you can have a degree or a college diploma in one subject and make your mark in another area. Learning is flexible and individual. Learning is mysterious and necessary. It has a secretive heart and an infinite mind. Never let it reduce you to the minimum, but allow learning to stretch you and change your narrow world into something large and bountiful.
You know, I know, we all know that we have days when we can 'knock doors out of windows' (that's a favourite phrase of my mother's which I've never examined for logic, but have just accept much the way you accept the ancient flowered wall-paper in your first bedroom). Today though...
What I think it means is that you can change your circumstances. You can change one thing into another that isn't particularly like the first thing. You can transform a door - an exit or an entrance - into something you can see through, or open for a breath of air. You can do something that is generally seen as impossible.
Did you know that 20% of American millionaires never darkened the door of a college?
I didn't know it either.
In How to Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be,
Jack Canfield tells us:
"Here's another statistic showing that belief in yourself is more important than knowledge, training or schooling: 20% of America's millionaires never set foot in college, and 21 of the 222 Americans never got their college diplomas; 2 never even finished high school! So although education and commitment to lifelong learning are essential to success, a formal degree isn't a requirement."
As someone who has felt more or less at home in an academic environment, I don't advocate it for everyone. We are all different. Some like the freedom of developing their own talents, maybe with a little aid along the way. Others like the step-by-step pathway that gives a definite reward.
But we swallow whole tons of guff about learning. No one really knows what motivates one person to put up with the disagreeable difficulties that they face down to achieve something that they find worth the effort.
"20% of America's millionaires never set foot in college, and 21 of the 222 Americans never got their college diplomas; 2 never even finished high school!"
Jack Canfield might have added that you can have a degree or a college diploma in one subject and make your mark in another area. Learning is flexible and individual. Learning is mysterious and necessary. It has a secretive heart and an infinite mind. Never let it reduce you to the minimum, but allow learning to stretch you and change your narrow world into something large and bountiful.
Friday, 10 May 2013
Richard Feynman
Although I'd heard various bits and pieces about this scientist for years I really fell in love with him during the examination of The Challenger disaster. The Challenger was a space shuttle which blew up in 1986. I recall watching the news and seeing the actual event. Those poor people.
Richard Feynman, a theoretical physicist, uncovered the source of trouble aboard the space craft. If you haven't seen a dramatisation or anything about the shocking tragedy, then I won't spoil the fascinating unravelling of the mystery for you. I was riveted.
That began my love affair with Richard. He never knew me. I never wrote, emailed or facebooked. I never exchanged badinage. I never asked him any questions of a quantum nature, but wish I had because I bet he would've answered and made his answer make sense to me.
Here, now, are a few quotes from this man.
“Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”
“You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.”
“Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn't stop you from doing anything at all.”
Quotations taken from
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1429989.Richard_P_Feynman
More about Richard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman
Richard Feynman, a theoretical physicist, uncovered the source of trouble aboard the space craft. If you haven't seen a dramatisation or anything about the shocking tragedy, then I won't spoil the fascinating unravelling of the mystery for you. I was riveted.
That began my love affair with Richard. He never knew me. I never wrote, emailed or facebooked. I never exchanged badinage. I never asked him any questions of a quantum nature, but wish I had because I bet he would've answered and made his answer make sense to me.
Here, now, are a few quotes from this man.
“Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”
“You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.”
“Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn't stop you from doing anything at all.”
Quotations taken from
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1429989.Richard_P_Feynman
More about Richard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman
Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Faith
From the pen of Erich Fromm came this book: The Art of Loving.
From this book comes this quotation:
"Another meaning of having faith in a person refers to the faith we have in the potentialities of others. The most rudimentary form in which this faith exists is the faith which the mother has towards her newborn baby: that it will live, grow, walk and talk. However, the development of the child in this respect occurs with such regularity that the expectation of it does not seem to require faith. It is different with those potentialities which can fail to develop: to love, to be happy, to use his reason, and more specific potentialities like artistic gifts. They are the seeds which grow and become manifest if the proper conditions for their manifestation are given, and they can be stifled if these are absent."
Fromm is saying something important here. Some conditions do not favour the development of that which should grow. I believe that to love, to be happy, to use reason and potentialities that are unique to a person requires that the person land in fertile and well-irrigated soil. It would seem to me that the family or the home educating family in particular is so well suited to providing the enriched soil that I cannot see the reason in removing children from it and taking them into those concrete manifestations of the machine or institutional world called schools.
Home educators have remarked that you have a child in potential and you just add love to allow that child to reach his height and glorious colour in the world.
Fromm continues, "One of the most important of these conditions is that the significant person in a child's life have faith in these potentialities. The presence of this faith makes the difference between education and manipulation. Education is identical with helping the child realise his potentialities. The opposite of education is manipulation, which is based on the absence of faith in the growth of potentialities, and on the conviction that a child will be right only if the adults put into him what is desirable and suppress what is seen to be undesirable. There is no need of faith in the robot, since there is no life in it either."
Thank you, Erich.
I have infinite faith in my children's potentialities, and I have infinite faith that they will achieve their potentialities. I learned to have infinite faith in the arts of home education.
Have faith that your children will become all that they should be.
Just stand back and trust them as they grow.
"Education is identical with helping the child realise his potentialities."
From this book comes this quotation:
"Another meaning of having faith in a person refers to the faith we have in the potentialities of others. The most rudimentary form in which this faith exists is the faith which the mother has towards her newborn baby: that it will live, grow, walk and talk. However, the development of the child in this respect occurs with such regularity that the expectation of it does not seem to require faith. It is different with those potentialities which can fail to develop: to love, to be happy, to use his reason, and more specific potentialities like artistic gifts. They are the seeds which grow and become manifest if the proper conditions for their manifestation are given, and they can be stifled if these are absent."
Fromm is saying something important here. Some conditions do not favour the development of that which should grow. I believe that to love, to be happy, to use reason and potentialities that are unique to a person requires that the person land in fertile and well-irrigated soil. It would seem to me that the family or the home educating family in particular is so well suited to providing the enriched soil that I cannot see the reason in removing children from it and taking them into those concrete manifestations of the machine or institutional world called schools.
Home educators have remarked that you have a child in potential and you just add love to allow that child to reach his height and glorious colour in the world.
Fromm continues, "One of the most important of these conditions is that the significant person in a child's life have faith in these potentialities. The presence of this faith makes the difference between education and manipulation. Education is identical with helping the child realise his potentialities. The opposite of education is manipulation, which is based on the absence of faith in the growth of potentialities, and on the conviction that a child will be right only if the adults put into him what is desirable and suppress what is seen to be undesirable. There is no need of faith in the robot, since there is no life in it either."
Thank you, Erich.
I have infinite faith in my children's potentialities, and I have infinite faith that they will achieve their potentialities. I learned to have infinite faith in the arts of home education.
Have faith that your children will become all that they should be.
Just stand back and trust them as they grow.
"Education is identical with helping the child realise his potentialities."
Sunday, 24 March 2013
Kettlebells and me
"Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out." Robert Collier. Quoted in 'Instant Confidence' by Paul McKenna.
When you have time to repeat small efforts, and when your time is free to accommodate small efforts then you are bound to progress in whatever you choose to progress in.
Often, home education seems to me to be a series of small efforts day in and day out: you can pace yourself with the efforts. You can make a big effort once a week or a small effort more regularly. Or any combination of small efforts at different times.
I've just started to use kettlebells. Last year, I did for a few weeks, and then I let them slip (not literally, of course). I was going to try, but I relapsed to being my naturally indolent self. But now I've begun again, and I'm determined this time. And this time I am determined to do little and often.
Since I now see it's possible to be successful in increasing my muscle strength by practicing my exercises with the kettlebells.
If I don't focus on the success, I might trot along doing my every day or three or four times a week exercises.
I anticipate that I will keep going. I don't like carrying shopping bags and finding them heavy so I have some motivation to stop feeling like the equivalent of the guy who gets sand kicked in his face.
And d'you know? I'm enjoying it.
When you have time to repeat small efforts, and when your time is free to accommodate small efforts then you are bound to progress in whatever you choose to progress in.
Often, home education seems to me to be a series of small efforts day in and day out: you can pace yourself with the efforts. You can make a big effort once a week or a small effort more regularly. Or any combination of small efforts at different times.
I've just started to use kettlebells. Last year, I did for a few weeks, and then I let them slip (not literally, of course). I was going to try, but I relapsed to being my naturally indolent self. But now I've begun again, and I'm determined this time. And this time I am determined to do little and often.
Since I now see it's possible to be successful in increasing my muscle strength by practicing my exercises with the kettlebells.
If I don't focus on the success, I might trot along doing my every day or three or four times a week exercises.
I anticipate that I will keep going. I don't like carrying shopping bags and finding them heavy so I have some motivation to stop feeling like the equivalent of the guy who gets sand kicked in his face.
And d'you know? I'm enjoying it.
Monday, 4 March 2013
The power in me
"Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behaviour, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organisation or entity. But this means we then give away our power to that entity, be it 'fate' or 'society' or the government or the corporation or our boss..... In attempting to avoid the pain of responsibility, millions and even billions daily attempt to escape from freedom."
From The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck
Every day we allow a teacher to savage the self-hood of our child, we give away responsibility. Every day we blame 'the system' for things that we allow to happen to us, we give away our responsibility. Then we hurt because someone or something has done damage to us. Yet we are the ones who let them. We are the ones who choose.
Home educators take responsibility for their children, their children's welfare, their children's education, their children's safety, their children's mental health and their children's lives. They do that until their children are mature enough to take responsibility for their own.
With responsibility comes pain, the blame game and being the one in charge, but, I believe, more hurt comes from being let down by the schools, the local councils, the officials, the teachers, the politicians. In short, everyone to whom you delegate your responsibilities.
Home education - painful, effective, helpful, hurtful, exhilarating, joyous, disappointing, wondrous, interesting... and so much more.
Freedom. And all under your control.
From The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck
Every day we allow a teacher to savage the self-hood of our child, we give away responsibility. Every day we blame 'the system' for things that we allow to happen to us, we give away our responsibility. Then we hurt because someone or something has done damage to us. Yet we are the ones who let them. We are the ones who choose.
Home educators take responsibility for their children, their children's welfare, their children's education, their children's safety, their children's mental health and their children's lives. They do that until their children are mature enough to take responsibility for their own.
With responsibility comes pain, the blame game and being the one in charge, but, I believe, more hurt comes from being let down by the schools, the local councils, the officials, the teachers, the politicians. In short, everyone to whom you delegate your responsibilities.
Home education - painful, effective, helpful, hurtful, exhilarating, joyous, disappointing, wondrous, interesting... and so much more.
Freedom. And all under your control.
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