Liddle Britain
Who is right about home schooling?
23 September 2006
Rod Liddle says that we should leave teaching to the professionals, however much they annoy us, and stop pretending that children benefit from learning obscure languages or how to paint like Cézanne at home
Are they right? The obvious answer is a resounding ‘no’ — and simply because a thing is obvious does not mean that it should be treated with suspicion. It is a colossal arrogance — and a self-indulgence — on the part of those 180,000 parents that a) their knowledge of such diverse disciplines as, say, fine art and pure maths should exceed that possessed by the specialists; and b) that even were they to possess such encyclopaedic knowledge, they may not have the necessary skills to impart the ground rules of those disciplines to children. Up Mont Sainte-Victoire indeed. The point, surely, is to entice, to cajole the child with the most primitive tools of artistic technique before charging them with the task of vaulting 10,000 years to a state of exquisite post-Impressionism; the job of the art teacher is to bring out any latent ability within the child, to develop it — and make it truly compelling: i.e., ‘fun’.
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Mrs H Mulholland
May 10th, 2008 10:12pm Report this commentWhilst, as a teacher in a state secondary school, I appreciate Ron Liddle's support for state education, as a home educator I find many of his comments insulting. I do not home educate my children in some pretentious manner, nor do I allow them to watch TV all day. I teach them myself because I believe that the curriculum has been dumbed-down and I want to teach them to think for themselves and be self-motivated.
Arabella
May 1st, 2009 12:22am Report this commentIt is unfortunate that such home schooling is associated with vegans and evangelicals. It is even more unfortunate that your children will have no friends and learn little outside the textbooks.
Dan C
June 30th, 2009 11:57pm Report this commentIt is indeed unfortunate that Arabella believes that a home-educated child "will have no friends and learn little outside the textbooks" - though to an extent the definition is a little misleading, and thus it is a common misconception. Home schooling can be a more rounded form of education than the 'status quo' of school as as much time is spent outside the home as in. In the ten years we have been educating our daughter and her younger brother we have developed a network of friends in National and local organisations in people who have made the same choice (for a variety of reasons: most often because their children have been bullied and the schools did not have the time or motivation to sort it out). These kids' ages range from 2 to 18, and when together they mix far better than you see in school, as their instincts for helping and encouraging each other are not subdued by the competitiveness that is often encouraged there by the suspicions that come from the unnatural dividing of different age groups. We go on many different trips and outings and have regular meets for social and sporting activities. These children have at least as many friends as they would have in a school; they may see less every day, but how many of those you would see at school were really your friends, and the others just those that you chose to ignore?
As for subjects covered and understood the range is at least as great, as we are not restricted to what is in the National Curriculum or the syllabus. We can study whatever we like - using books, newspapers, magazines, current affairs and special TV programmes, the internet, PC-ROMs - and spend as long on it as we choose, not having to break off "just when things are getting interesting" at the end of a single or double lesson, and join the jostling throng on the way to the next lesson or the playground.
Some home-educators no doubt have niche religious or dietary convictions, but no more than the general population. We are no different from all other parents, except that we see that the state is markedly failing the young people in its care - both academically (one in six leave secondary school unable to read and write effectively) and morally (they are abandoning them on the altar of iniquitous correct socialist educational ideals). And we have taken into our hands the responsibility that is ours in law: to decide on the education of our children "either by regular attendance at school or otherwise" [Education Act 1996, Section 7].
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