Caroline Hind thinks not. She is one of a growing number of parents who have chose to educate their children at home, and explains why for YorkMix
Every few years, and sometimes more frequently, someone will declare in the media that standards are slipping in our schools and examinations system. The answer to an increasingly fast-moving and competitive world is widely presumed to be more rigorous testing, a return to “basics” and “higher standards”.
Yet more than a decade of frequent – some would say frantic – testing and many more years of a prescriptive national curriculum finds the UK still languishing far from the top of international education league tables.
It is hard to see how more of the same could possibly be a solution. The more pertinent question would be: is a prescriptive, competitive, results-driven education really the best way to prepare our children for the world today and in the future?
A small but growing minority of us think not. Looking for ways in which our children can develop at their own pace, their natural curiosity nurtured and their confidence protected from coercion and tests, we have broken free from the confines of the National Curriculum. We are home-educators.
We believe that the process of learning and the experience of childhood is just as important, if not more important, than what children learn. The breadth and depth of knowledge needed in the world today is so vast and changes so quickly that no one knows exactly which series of facts children should be learning.
To be truly equipped for the future, it is more important that our children learn to question, research and evaluate.
To this end, home-educating families overwhelmingly choose informal ways of learning. This might include a project-based approach, leading to a variety of activities such as art, experiments, games, visits (to museums, historical sites, theatre, woodland), internet and other research, finding specialists to talk to, and so on.
Many families, like ours, combine elements of this approach with an “autonomous learning” philosophy. This allows children to follow their own interests, learning what they want, when they want and however suits them.
Crucially, there is no distinction between life and learning. Just as during the pre-school years, children play, ask endless questions, listen to stories, meet friends, go on outings, paint, make things, etc. There can be time for sport, music, gardening, cooking, board games, reading – whatever the family enjoys – and also time just to “be”.
The parent’s role is as facilitator rather than teacher. Parent and child might sometimes learn something new together but children are free to submerge themselves in whatever subject or skill they wish to learn.
This kind of learning is the deeper kind we recognise in ourselves when we are really interested in a subject. Much of formal instruction, with its emphasis on tests and memory, asks children to engage in what some educationalists call “shallow learning”, a type of learning that involves “pattern-receiving” rather than making use of our inherent “pattern-making” abilities.
There is nothing to stop children who have engaged in deeper, pattern-making learning from engaging in the shallow kind of learning required for exams. No one knows, however, to what extent a constant pattern-receiving education risks rewiring the developing brain and impairing pattern-making abilities.
What we do know is that both employers and universities complain that children are not being taught to think; that an overly-academic curriculum leaves little space for creativity; and that Britain’s most successful exports have been in the past – and are predicted to be in the future – in the creative industries.
The growth of the internet and the large numbers of children learning out of school mean that resources, support and social connections have never been easier for home-educators. We are particularly fortunate in York in having a wealth of leisure and learning opportunities that are available to everyone.
In addition, York District Home Education Support Group offers social gatherings, group activities and general family-to-family support. While education is compulsory, school is not!
For further information, see: www.education-otherwise.net
York District Home Education Support Group: telephone Katie 01653 648465 or Lis 01904 705149. Email: [email protected]
I’m a teacher and my children attend school. However, I am fascinated by home education and feel there is much to learn from home educators. The key thing I have learnt is that children are individuals who learn in different ways and at different rates. I’ve also learnt that children often don’t need “teaching”. Strangely, developing the approach of supporting learning is much harder than conventional teaching. The other thing I have learnt is to encourage parents to be as involved as possible in their children’s learning. Great article Caroline.
There seems to be assumptions in David Hind’s reply that raise a number of issues. Firstly, that there are few home educated entrepeneurs (whatever the truth of this statement), seems to fall into the trap of assuming that what constitutes success is material gain and wealth. I would argue that the majority of home educators do not seek to instill these values in their children. How do you measure the value of a ‘business leader'(Bob Diamond anyone?) against an inner city community youth worker, or a mother who stays at home to raise thoughtful, compassionate and happy members of society; I know what I want for my children.
Furthermore, what constitutes a ‘decent’standard of living? A house and car? A foreign holiday every year? A new X-Box game every month? The latest smart phone? A loving and stable family is a far more ‘decent’ way to live without the ‘trappings’ of much of modern life.
Socialisation was a major concern for me when we made the decision to home educate our children. As a teacher I am in a position to echo Reverand Kidd’s observations that my children are at least as communicative and personable as their peers in school; they are more shy than some but less shy than others.
‘Don’t confuse ‘school’with ‘community’. 1) The public/private school split in English education splits communities along class lines. 2)Schools often gate themselves off from communities (physically and psychologically). 3) Schooling is not always positive socialisation (smoking, bullying, peer pressure etc). 4)Single age cohorts are unhealthy. 5) Lots of other forms of community – sports, drama, music etc outside of school (my kids benefitted hugely from these). Think of home schooling as private education where the parents pay themselves in kind.’ Donald Clark 2012 (Government advisor on Higher Education).
Thank you for an interesting article Caroline.
As a grandparent of home, state and privately educated grandchildren I have been privileged to be able to observe all 3 systems at work. What I have seen has been, in the case of the home educated children, is a natural learning process at work. It appears to me that this is a mixture of discovery for oneself and the seeking after knowledge from those able and willing to provide it. It also involves one’s peer group of both home and state educated amongst whom there does, from this observer, not seem to be the prejudiced attitude adopted by some adults including it seems David Hind. There is absolutely no doubt that this country punches way above its weight in creativity and inventiveness. In fundamental scientific research, the fashion and music industries for example we have some of the brightest minds who include those who have been home-educated as well as some who have dropped out of state education. In the case of 2 of my grandchildren they left state education as the result of the sort of systematic bullying that schools seem unable or unwilling to stop and this bullying is undertaken by those unable or unwilling to learn. Bullies are children who later in life often emerge as bullying or criminal adults and are almost invariably the product of families where the parent(s) are absent due to work or because they are not equipped to nurture their offspring satisfactorily. It is now medically proven that children who do not receive adequate parental input in the first 3 years of life have great difficulty in developing learning skills in later years. Schools cannot compensate for this deficit nor should they be expected to do so at the expense of those who do want to learn.
What we have here, it seems to me, is summed up in the last sentence of David Hind’s comments. In this he seems to praise the desire to provide “a decent” standard of living but insists that this precludes the sort of nurture, care and education that those who decide to home educate wish to provide. He begs the question why not “both” rather than “either or”?!
Finally on the subject of social skills my home-educated grandchildren demonstrate a social ease across the age range at least equal to their peers. Indeed it is superior to those teenagers recently by a prospective employer who told me that if he selected any of this batch of school leavers he would have to send them to classes on social conduct and conversational skills!
Mixing with people is not the same people as learning social skills especially if “peer group interaction” merely involves texting and learning to duck!
Just wanted to say what a brilliant article. I am moving to York soon and hope there are more people like you around. We went along to York college the other week and were told that they love home ed kids because they are some of their best students. They tend to be self motivated and enthusiastic learner. Their admission criteria is therefore totally different for home educators.
I have never had trouble with my kids having social interaction, so not sure where the first ill-informed critic is coming from. Really looking forward to coming to York as the home ed community seems to be really active and thriving.
Yes, love Ken Robinson too Viv !!!!
Please tell me he is not related to you, cos that is just scary.
http://tinyurl.com/83jmxa8 here is a list of 100 Entrepreneurs who dropped out of college or never went to school. I simply googled home educated entrepreneurs and got that one – there are loads of pages that show you how well people do without a conventional education. If you want any more info I reckon you should watch any of Ken Robinson’s talks on TED or the RSA animated one about why schools were set up and how out-of-date they are. That one is here in case you have trouble finding it http://youtu.be/zDZFcDGpL4U. He stipulates that educating our children is problematic because we do not know what the 21st century is going to demand of our children and then goes onto say how our education system is floored. I am hoping that you are not actually related to the author in any way as that would be really upsetting for her and her children who I can assure you socialise with my children and many others on a regular basis. I find your response uninformed and therefore unnecessarily negative. I found the article interesting and thought-provoking. In case you wanted to know I also know of a couple who home educate on an annual salary of less than 20k p/a. It is just a matter of budgeting and priorities – valuable skills indeed that will be passed onto their children I should imagine.
What about social skills,ie peer interaction.
Past successful exports have been Railway locomotives and rolling stock, Steel, Automobiles,and Bridges.Not to mention Textiles,and of course Military equipment.Hardly creative industries.The most successful creative industries appear to be
American television serials at this time, with the UK lagging far behind in Creativity!
The phrase”easier for home educators”, gives the lie to the above article.I would point out that universal education was a hard won battle and that home education was the norm not too long ago. I feel that a list of home educated entrepreneurs and business leaders would be very short. I would be happy to be proved wrong on the last point. Finally,Where do modern day parents find the time to, “Home Educate”,When both,”Work”,to provide a decent standard of living for their family.