Today we visited the final exhibition of work done by young offenders in an art project that I evaluated. The art was stunning - marvellous graphics and animation made during long months of art workshops. But there were some really sad statements in the words that accompanied the images. One young person wished only to see his baby daughter grow up with a better life than he'd had. This is a 17-year-old! It seems so tragic that he's already written off his own contribution to society. Hopefully he will have a wonderful relationship with his girlfriend and child and he'll see things differently in a few years' time. One heartening thing is that this art programme is part of allowing creativity back into the young people's lives, but it'll probably be a long uphill struggle towards any meaningful sense of self-worth.
So we left the gallery and as we were walking back to the car, dd took a call to tell her that she got a distinction in her latest music exam - grade 6 recorder. She was absolutely thrilled, of course, and I'm so pleased she got the result she wanted and worked for. Of course, exams are only markers (heaven help us when they become the actual purpose!), but this was a big step up in technique for her and she knows how much her playing has developed recently.
A day of contrasts, then. Firstly, seeing a bunch of kids who've been in the school system all their lives and who're only just beginning to value their own creativity now that they're doing something where "learning outcomes" matter less than self-expression. Sadly, it takes the kind of emergency situation where they're in danger of becoming long-term criminals before they've had access to this kind of programme. Then the very different situation of seeing my lovely daughter, outside of the school system (which a certain G Badman sees as the best - almost only - route to achievement), sure of her own ability but still thrilled to have played well. You certainly couldn't draw any general theory from these two isolated moments: it was just a weird and slightly ironic juxtaposition.
Tuesday 28 July 2009
Friday 24 July 2009
Learning nothing
Well, today was officially Learn Nothing Day (see link on side panel of this blog). The aim is to go through a day of ordinary life sincerely endeavouring to learn nothing. It shows how much we DO find out just by living.
We thought we'd found the perfect solution: an afternoon at an outlet shopping centre. Hardly the stuff of intellectual enlightenment. Except, except, except... We drove through the Tyne Tunnel and saw a sign relating to travaux publics, so I learned that a French company are part of the construction while dd learned some new vocabulary. We all learned how the construction was progressing and we wondered whether we'd have a northbound and a southbound tunnel or matching 2-directional routes.
When we got there, we had a sandwich and dd learned that a key ingredient in pesto is basil, and she remembered we have this growing at home. I remembered I need to look up how to prune our container of mint which is looking tall and spindly.
While we were caught in traffic on our way home, dd was puzzled why UK vehicle licence plates are white at the front and yellow at the rear. Do you know, I'd never ever thought about that? A quick internet search suggests that the yellow at the rear is to prevent the driver in the following car being dazzled by the reflection of their lights on a white plate. The white at the front is possibly to afford clearer recognition of the registration number (and therefore the speed camera's friend?).
When we got home I learned about a lot of interesting home ed day-trips that are on the horizon. And I learned that my credit card had definitely been hacked. Thankfully, the bank caught it in time. I now know the purpose of those verification panels that seem such an irritation when you're trying to make an online purchase.
That's a lot of learning on a day when we tried to avoid it altogether and it's not that late yet.
We thought we'd found the perfect solution: an afternoon at an outlet shopping centre. Hardly the stuff of intellectual enlightenment. Except, except, except... We drove through the Tyne Tunnel and saw a sign relating to travaux publics, so I learned that a French company are part of the construction while dd learned some new vocabulary. We all learned how the construction was progressing and we wondered whether we'd have a northbound and a southbound tunnel or matching 2-directional routes.
When we got there, we had a sandwich and dd learned that a key ingredient in pesto is basil, and she remembered we have this growing at home. I remembered I need to look up how to prune our container of mint which is looking tall and spindly.
While we were caught in traffic on our way home, dd was puzzled why UK vehicle licence plates are white at the front and yellow at the rear. Do you know, I'd never ever thought about that? A quick internet search suggests that the yellow at the rear is to prevent the driver in the following car being dazzled by the reflection of their lights on a white plate. The white at the front is possibly to afford clearer recognition of the registration number (and therefore the speed camera's friend?).
When we got home I learned about a lot of interesting home ed day-trips that are on the horizon. And I learned that my credit card had definitely been hacked. Thankfully, the bank caught it in time. I now know the purpose of those verification panels that seem such an irritation when you're trying to make an online purchase.
That's a lot of learning on a day when we tried to avoid it altogether and it's not that late yet.
Wednesday 22 July 2009
All Growed Up
My little girl is definitely growing up. Her friend invited her to a birthday party and, where it would once have been soft-play, it's now a pampering session at the local beauty salon. She's so excited. I hope the nail artist is ready with suitably doomy colours!
It's funny how, of all the indicators of adolescence, this is the one that's made me realize how close she is to adulthood.
It's funny how, of all the indicators of adolescence, this is the one that's made me realize how close she is to adulthood.
Monday 20 July 2009
More "News from Nowhere"
Aha, I've found the relevant section of William Morris' utopia now. It's on pp23 -25 and it involves the narrator of the tale (who has awoken to mysteriously find himself in a very different England) being shown around by one of this new world's long-time residents:
"School?" he said, "yes, what do you mean by that word? I don't see that it can have anything to do with children. We talk, indeed, of a school of herring, and a school of painting ... but otherwise," said he, laughing, "I must own myself beaten." ...
... I thought I had best say nothing about the boy-farms which I had been used to call schools, as I saw pretty clearly that they had disappeared; and so I said after a little fumbling, "I was using the word in the sense of a system of education."
"Education?" said he, meditatively, "I know enough Latin to know that the word must come from 'educere', to lead out; ... but I have never met anybody who could give me a clear explanation of what it means." ...
... "Well, education means a system of teaching young people." ...
... "I can assure you our children learn, whether they go through a 'system of teaching' or not."
And so it goes on, with the narrator discovering that all children learn according to their aptitudes to swim, to ride, to thatch and carpenter and cook. That learning to read is a matter of waiting until the books that are lying around are interesting enough to encourage the child to decode the symbols. That writing necessarily comes later, when the child is dextrous enough to make the calligraphy 'handsome' [here we have Morris the handicrafts-obsessive at work!] Languages are picked up as necessary, and
"many people study facts about the make of things and the matters of cause and effect ... and some ... will spend time over mathematics. 'Tis no use forcing people's tastes."
This discussion happens just a couple of pages ahead of the tale's narrator discovering that the new use of the Houses of Parliament is as a store for manure. So, not much change there, then!
"School?" he said, "yes, what do you mean by that word? I don't see that it can have anything to do with children. We talk, indeed, of a school of herring, and a school of painting ... but otherwise," said he, laughing, "I must own myself beaten." ...
... I thought I had best say nothing about the boy-farms which I had been used to call schools, as I saw pretty clearly that they had disappeared; and so I said after a little fumbling, "I was using the word in the sense of a system of education."
"Education?" said he, meditatively, "I know enough Latin to know that the word must come from 'educere', to lead out; ... but I have never met anybody who could give me a clear explanation of what it means." ...
... "Well, education means a system of teaching young people." ...
... "I can assure you our children learn, whether they go through a 'system of teaching' or not."
And so it goes on, with the narrator discovering that all children learn according to their aptitudes to swim, to ride, to thatch and carpenter and cook. That learning to read is a matter of waiting until the books that are lying around are interesting enough to encourage the child to decode the symbols. That writing necessarily comes later, when the child is dextrous enough to make the calligraphy 'handsome' [here we have Morris the handicrafts-obsessive at work!] Languages are picked up as necessary, and
"many people study facts about the make of things and the matters of cause and effect ... and some ... will spend time over mathematics. 'Tis no use forcing people's tastes."
This discussion happens just a couple of pages ahead of the tale's narrator discovering that the new use of the Houses of Parliament is as a store for manure. So, not much change there, then!
Sunday 19 July 2009
The REAL Home Education Review
This is AHED's (Action for Home Education) briefing paper in response to the present climate of suspicion about home educators:-
AHED Briefing Paper
Says it all, really.
AHED Briefing Paper
Says it all, really.
News from Nowhere
I suppose it's because the BBC are promoting a bodice-ripper costume drama about the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood that I've been thinking about William Morris. He of the obsession with handicrafts and the poetry as flowery as his wallpaper. But this was the man who in 1890 created "News from Nowhere", a socialist utopia that's unusual because, more than a century on, it doesn't read like a vision of mechanistic hell. I've always had a soft spot for this book: of course it's naive and idealizes pre-industrial life but, hey, when you compare it to almost every other utopian vision, it's incredibly human.
In Morris's visionary society, children don't go to school - learning's far more organic. I was browsing the web for the relevant section of the book and fell instead on an article from a couple of years earlier. Dated 1888. It made me smile. Sometimes those of us who reject school are written off as casualties of 1960s idealism (I'm sure a certain Mr Badman believes this), yet there were people who could identify the underlying paradoxes of schooling almost as soon as it became universal.
Morris, Thoughts on Education Under Capitalism
Here's a telling excerpt that neatly anticipates the ideas of John Holt and especially John Taylor Gatto:-
"Though even our mechanical school system cannot crush out a natural bent towards literature (with all the pleasures of thought and imagination which that word means) yet certainly its dull round will hardly implant such a taste in anyone's mind; and as for the caput mortuum, the dead mass of mere information which the worker comes away with when his 'education' is over, he will and must soon forget this when he finds out that it is of little use to him and gives him no pleasure.
I must say in passing that on the few occasions that I have been inside a Boardschool, I have been much depressed by the mechanical drill that was too obviously being applied there to all the varying capacities and moods. My heart sank before Mr M'Choakumchild and his method, and I thought how much luckier I was to have been born well enough off to be sent to a school where I was taught - nothing; but learned archaeology and romance on the Wiltshire downs."
Of course, the reference to M'Choakumchild derives from the schoolmaster in Dickens' "Hard Times". Dickens described his hellish fact factory in 1854. These concerns that schooling can squeeze the life out of the imagination go back a long way. Of course, approaches to schooling have come a long way since children were drilled with facts, haven't they? But replace 'facts' with 'targets' and 'drill' with 'literacy/numeracy hour', and I'm not so sure how much has really changed.
In Morris's visionary society, children don't go to school - learning's far more organic. I was browsing the web for the relevant section of the book and fell instead on an article from a couple of years earlier. Dated 1888. It made me smile. Sometimes those of us who reject school are written off as casualties of 1960s idealism (I'm sure a certain Mr Badman believes this), yet there were people who could identify the underlying paradoxes of schooling almost as soon as it became universal.
Morris, Thoughts on Education Under Capitalism
Here's a telling excerpt that neatly anticipates the ideas of John Holt and especially John Taylor Gatto:-
"Though even our mechanical school system cannot crush out a natural bent towards literature (with all the pleasures of thought and imagination which that word means) yet certainly its dull round will hardly implant such a taste in anyone's mind; and as for the caput mortuum, the dead mass of mere information which the worker comes away with when his 'education' is over, he will and must soon forget this when he finds out that it is of little use to him and gives him no pleasure.
I must say in passing that on the few occasions that I have been inside a Boardschool, I have been much depressed by the mechanical drill that was too obviously being applied there to all the varying capacities and moods. My heart sank before Mr M'Choakumchild and his method, and I thought how much luckier I was to have been born well enough off to be sent to a school where I was taught - nothing; but learned archaeology and romance on the Wiltshire downs."
Of course, the reference to M'Choakumchild derives from the schoolmaster in Dickens' "Hard Times". Dickens described his hellish fact factory in 1854. These concerns that schooling can squeeze the life out of the imagination go back a long way. Of course, approaches to schooling have come a long way since children were drilled with facts, haven't they? But replace 'facts' with 'targets' and 'drill' with 'literacy/numeracy hour', and I'm not so sure how much has really changed.
Wednesday 15 July 2009
Solar powered
Just a little video of the solar powered car that we built from a kit. Great fun - but, boy, does it remind me of the old Reliant Robins. It goes backwards because we put the worm gear on the wrong way round! The wheels are CDs which came with the kit. But it could also be a way of recycling any albums you love to hate! DD would quite like to do this to every High School Musical and Cascada recording ever released.
Oh, and check out this talk about creativity. A very serious message delivered with the comic timing of a great stand-up comic.
Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity
I keep hearing that there's a big policy drive towards 'creativity' in education at the moment. There's the 'cultural offer' and 'Find Your Talent', trying to 'deliver' 5 hours of creative activity for every schoolchild each week. I've never yet worked out how 'delivery' of creativity would work. I HOPE it succeeds, but, to be honest, there seem to be a lot of ready-made national-curriculum-style instant solutions being handed out to teachers during Inset days (learn these songs and that'll tick off music, etc). How genuinely creative it'll be I don't know, but, hey, it's got to be better than yet another 'literacy hour'. How nice it'd be if they genuinely gave the kids freedom to explore and freedom to fail. Meanwhile, it's nice to have the space to let our girl find her own way as creatively as she can.
Oh, and check out this talk about creativity. A very serious message delivered with the comic timing of a great stand-up comic.
Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity
I keep hearing that there's a big policy drive towards 'creativity' in education at the moment. There's the 'cultural offer' and 'Find Your Talent', trying to 'deliver' 5 hours of creative activity for every schoolchild each week. I've never yet worked out how 'delivery' of creativity would work. I HOPE it succeeds, but, to be honest, there seem to be a lot of ready-made national-curriculum-style instant solutions being handed out to teachers during Inset days (learn these songs and that'll tick off music, etc). How genuinely creative it'll be I don't know, but, hey, it's got to be better than yet another 'literacy hour'. How nice it'd be if they genuinely gave the kids freedom to explore and freedom to fail. Meanwhile, it's nice to have the space to let our girl find her own way as creatively as she can.
Sunday 12 July 2009
Not exactly Glastonbury
Today, we heard dd playing at a music festival. Not exactly Glastonbury, it was a very civilized indoor affair, with children aged from 7 to 18 performing classical, jazz, folk and rock music. Despite all the inevitable hanging around between rehearsals and performances, it was really thrilling. Dd's choir sang some lovely African tunes, with lots of dynamic changes and lovely harmonies. And her solo piece, a Handel recorder sonata, was gorgeous, in spite of the fact that by that time she was in visible discomfort in the cool new gladiator sandals she'd bought especially for the day (she's a slave to her highly individual sense of fashion!). I often don't give her enough credit for her ability to compartmentalize - it was painful to watch her hobble on stage, but then she started to play and the sore feet were obviously forgotten. Then she walked off again as if on hot coals. Even after this, pride prevented her from putting on the spare shoes I'd brought with us. Oh well ...
We were soon distracted by some stunning music from all sorts of instrumentalists and singers - particular favourites being dd's friend on piano (plays like a brilliant adult, looks like a little kid!), a lovely flute and Northumbrian pipes duet, and a wonderfully powerful violin piece by a girl who we've seen develop dramatically over the years from gawky adolescent to supremely assured young woman. It's incredible to watch how quickly they all mature and it makes me realize how precious is the time while we still have dd at home with us.
But they ARE still kids. Next week, as a thank you from the music centre management, they're all going on a trip to a bowling alley - yay!
We were soon distracted by some stunning music from all sorts of instrumentalists and singers - particular favourites being dd's friend on piano (plays like a brilliant adult, looks like a little kid!), a lovely flute and Northumbrian pipes duet, and a wonderfully powerful violin piece by a girl who we've seen develop dramatically over the years from gawky adolescent to supremely assured young woman. It's incredible to watch how quickly they all mature and it makes me realize how precious is the time while we still have dd at home with us.
But they ARE still kids. Next week, as a thank you from the music centre management, they're all going on a trip to a bowling alley - yay!
Thursday 9 July 2009
Every child has a right to be safe?
The powers that be seem obsessed with conflating home education with child welfare. Their tedious refrain is that only children 'seen' at school can possibly be safe from abuse. That teachers and schools are in the best position to ensure the safety of each and every individual child.
Which makes recent headlines somewhat ironic ...
On being safe:-
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090709/tuk-teacher-held-on-attempted-murder-6323e80.html
On being seen:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1198428/Your-sons-pleasure-teach-I-havent-clue--Dont-believe-word-school-report.html
On being safe AND being seen:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/8141950.stm
It would be a mistake to gloat over these reports. Real children have suffered - certainly in the cases covered in the first and last reports. It's a scandal, a disgrace and it should not be allowed to happen under the cover of the school in loco parentis.
Which makes recent headlines somewhat ironic ...
On being safe:-
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090709/tuk-teacher-held-on-attempted-murder-6323e80.html
On being seen:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1198428/Your-sons-pleasure-teach-I-havent-clue--Dont-believe-word-school-report.html
On being safe AND being seen:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/8141950.stm
It would be a mistake to gloat over these reports. Real children have suffered - certainly in the cases covered in the first and last reports. It's a scandal, a disgrace and it should not be allowed to happen under the cover of the school in loco parentis.
Tuesday 7 July 2009
Another day, another petition
This one's international. Let's get as many signatures as possible worldwide:-
www.gopetition.com/petitions/support-homeschoolers-in-england.html
www.gopetition.com/petitions/support-homeschoolers-in-england.html
Monday 6 July 2009
Aerosol Art
Today, we donned goggles and respirators and made our first proper attempt at aerosol art. What a blast!
I'd been shown how to do these canvasses by the graphic (and participatory) artist, Tommy Anderson ( www.baselineshift.co.uk ). And they're great fun to make.
First, you use masking tape to mark up a design on your canvas.
Then, put on your gas mask ...
And (preferably outdoors, and using a drop-cloth!) spray your first layer of colour:
Then remove your first layer of tape, mask up the canvasses again with a different design and spray on another colour. We found it fun to experiment with getting close to the canvas and then further away, thus changing the intensity of the paint. We also made thinner stripes with spaghetti and, another time we might try to add squares and circles to the mix.
We got as far as 3 layers and then the rain got us! Which, in itself was interesting because the raindrops added a nice extra texture to some of the finished pictures - I suppose it was a bit Jackson Pollock to let the elements make their own impact. So here are some of the finished items:-
Ooh, at the end of all that it felt a bit like we should have a Blue Peter Badge!
Sunday 5 July 2009
Saturday 4 July 2009
Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics
Well, we might once have believed that there were lies, damned lies and statistics.
Now, the Badman Report gave us misrepresentations of the truth ("the number of children known to children’s social care in some local authorities is disproportionately high relative to the size of their home educating population"). And now we have the statistics to demolish these weasle words. Check these out:-
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rbrk5-GEdrUdcmfi670Mihg&gid=2
No wonder the report made claims only with regard to numbers 'known' to social services (of course, a lot of home educated children have SEN - and are automatically 'known'!). No wonder the report didn't cite the figures relating to abuse. Quite simply, the incidence is LESS THAN HALF of that within the general population!
What is so depressing is that the media have picked up the slurs pretty much wholesale. Who knows if they'll be so quick to disseminate the truth?
Now, the Badman Report gave us misrepresentations of the truth ("the number of children known to children’s social care in some local authorities is disproportionately high relative to the size of their home educating population"). And now we have the statistics to demolish these weasle words. Check these out:-
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rbrk5-GEdrUdcmfi670Mihg&gid=2
No wonder the report made claims only with regard to numbers 'known' to social services (of course, a lot of home educated children have SEN - and are automatically 'known'!). No wonder the report didn't cite the figures relating to abuse. Quite simply, the incidence is LESS THAN HALF of that within the general population!
What is so depressing is that the media have picked up the slurs pretty much wholesale. Who knows if they'll be so quick to disseminate the truth?
Friday 3 July 2009
Paranoia and being a bit goth
This morning, dear daughter was padding down the stairs in shiny tights, when she slipped and fell halfway down them. It was a horrible fright, but thankfully there was no harm done. She was really shaken by the scare, though.
Do you know what saddened me beyond belief? Having checked that dd hadn't hurt her spine (she landed on her back) and calmed her down, my first thoughts weren't sheer gratitude for how lucky we'd been that she hadn't broken something or had a head injury. No: my immediate worry was that any neighbours who overheard a thud and a scream from a child during mainstream school hours would, in the light of the current negative publicity around home education, think of calling social services. Other home edders I've talked to are suffering from the same bouts of paranoia.
Yet what could I have done to prevent the fall? Installed a stairgate for a 12 year old? Banned shiny tights? In reality, absolutely nothing. It's truly sickening because, if anything's going to turn us into overprotective helicopter parents, it's this kind of fear. And that doesn't make for a happy engagement with the world.
Oh well, we had a lovely afternoon. DD met up with her oldest friend and they yomped through a very rainy and thundery Durham. We walked through the cathedral cloisters, looking for signs of the pipistrelle bats who've taken up residence in the rafters. And, because it was graduation day today, entry to the Treasury was free, so we got to see St Cuthbert's coffin, plus a portrait of an incredibly severe former bishop from the time of the Restoration (ironically not the kind of bloke you'd imagine having much to do with Charles II), and lots and lots of glittery chalices and candlesticks. All very gothic really, which suited the gloomy skies - and dd's lethal fashion sense - rather well.
Do you know what saddened me beyond belief? Having checked that dd hadn't hurt her spine (she landed on her back) and calmed her down, my first thoughts weren't sheer gratitude for how lucky we'd been that she hadn't broken something or had a head injury. No: my immediate worry was that any neighbours who overheard a thud and a scream from a child during mainstream school hours would, in the light of the current negative publicity around home education, think of calling social services. Other home edders I've talked to are suffering from the same bouts of paranoia.
Yet what could I have done to prevent the fall? Installed a stairgate for a 12 year old? Banned shiny tights? In reality, absolutely nothing. It's truly sickening because, if anything's going to turn us into overprotective helicopter parents, it's this kind of fear. And that doesn't make for a happy engagement with the world.
Oh well, we had a lovely afternoon. DD met up with her oldest friend and they yomped through a very rainy and thundery Durham. We walked through the cathedral cloisters, looking for signs of the pipistrelle bats who've taken up residence in the rafters. And, because it was graduation day today, entry to the Treasury was free, so we got to see St Cuthbert's coffin, plus a portrait of an incredibly severe former bishop from the time of the Restoration (ironically not the kind of bloke you'd imagine having much to do with Charles II), and lots and lots of glittery chalices and candlesticks. All very gothic really, which suited the gloomy skies - and dd's lethal fashion sense - rather well.
Thursday 2 July 2009
MOTs for Teachers?
Don't you just love it? The whole education system is collapsing under the weight of endless tickboxes and a target-driven culture and what do the government come up with? More tickboxes and more targets. More worrying still is that it could be a mechanism for ensuring teachers' performance is judged against the yardstick of how they communicate the national curriculum. I'm certain it's there to weed out heretics.
I was one of the lucky ones. I had several truly inspirational teachers when I was a kid. Each and every one of them would nowadays be considered a heretic. For example, if something interesting was in the news, our wonderful English teacher would let us debate it over the course of a week or more. Macbeth could wait - after all, he'd been on the stage and on the page for more than 400 years . I strongly suspect that these days such a diversion from the thought-police schedule would represent poor performance and gross irresponsibility. Yet it was immensely creative - a gentle meander through real issues and a chance for us to rehearse our own personal philosophies. And, funnily enough, we all got great Eng Lit grades, despite (because of?) the lack of cramming.
If the system has lost such fantastically effective diversionary routes to learning, then it's hardly surprising so many of us are risking the wrath of Balls, and opting out. At least we're getting close to the 5-year MOT of this government. Let's scrap the clapped out old banger. The trick will be to avoid putting what's effectively just a different heap of rusty old rubbish on the road.
I was one of the lucky ones. I had several truly inspirational teachers when I was a kid. Each and every one of them would nowadays be considered a heretic. For example, if something interesting was in the news, our wonderful English teacher would let us debate it over the course of a week or more. Macbeth could wait - after all, he'd been on the stage and on the page for more than 400 years . I strongly suspect that these days such a diversion from the thought-police schedule would represent poor performance and gross irresponsibility. Yet it was immensely creative - a gentle meander through real issues and a chance for us to rehearse our own personal philosophies. And, funnily enough, we all got great Eng Lit grades, despite (because of?) the lack of cramming.
If the system has lost such fantastically effective diversionary routes to learning, then it's hardly surprising so many of us are risking the wrath of Balls, and opting out. At least we're getting close to the 5-year MOT of this government. Let's scrap the clapped out old banger. The trick will be to avoid putting what's effectively just a different heap of rusty old rubbish on the road.
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