Home-schooling

I recently read (apparently a bible for 1980's aspirational pedagogues, although you wouldn't have guessed) a book called "How Children Fail" by John Holt. More than any "home-schooling" book I have read - this was set within "good, private schools" in 1950's wealthy America- this has made me realise I am totally doing the right thing by home-educating my daughter.

The main points which emerge from the book as I read it, are that children "play the game of school", are smart, little psychologists, are thoroughly miserable and unnatural for the main part at school, and see learning as a chore.

Learning should not be regarded as a chore! Everything there is to learn is absolutely fascinating. But when there are tests to pass, intelligence to prove, the whole of education becomes dry and pointless. Most people discover their "talents" and their "strengths" by how enlightening and special a teacher is. But every teacher should be enlightening and special and have a relationship with every child. John Holt points out that the main problem in schools is not class sizes, but school sizes. ie that it is less possible for a teacher to understand the individual complexities of each child if the school is enormous.

I do not have a problem with teachers, far from it. They are put under the most enormous pressures, expected to work miracles, expected to help and guide children socially and emotionally - but not get too close, teach them everything that is within inside of them in order to fulfill the task. Of course, this is not possible. The most they can do is to help the children fulfill the task so that they are not exposed as a "failing" teacher, "failing" school, etc. The system is a system of systems and not of individuals. Highly motivated, bright, secure children may emerge seemingly victorious. But what is this victory?

I loved exams when I was at school. Mainly because I only had to listen in lessons and watch everyone else work their socks off and I would still get better grades. It was utterly a self-serving, arrogant, narcisstic feeling. I did well at school without ever trying. But this is a hollow victory. I learnt, therefore, pretty much nothing that I couldn't have learnt from reading a few books or watching documentaries. The idea of the much more coursework based scoring which occurs nowadays throws me into a panic. What? I would have actually had to do some work! And yet, I still retain much of the information I learned in snippets from sometimes attending lessons. Most people in the pub talk about anything but what they have learnt, or else it is very small knowledge and yet I am still fascinated by bigger thoughts.

I never felt that school presented me with a challenge. I attended the best (grammar) school in the area. For the last 4 years of it I developed reading-blindness. I never read a book. I even took this so far that I had to make up a plot/book/author/publisher to write a book review for my GCSE. I think it was related to puberty. But how could I succeed at school with an inability to read if I wasn't being under-challenged? I don't mean to expouse my own intelligence, rather the lack of it. I was just the perfect model for the pedagogical structure that was in place. I know far more intelligent people than me who failed all their exams.

Back to my daughter. She is not "the easiest child", other people say. She has happiness, self-assuredness, buoyancy, confidence, a keeness to express her emotions and - a by-product of all this - extreme bossiness and forth-rightness. If I put her into a school setting, to begin with she would probably "be naughty" all the time. Her happiness would all but disappear. Her confidence would be torn to shreds. She would cease to want to express her emotions as keenly. She would not conform, so she would struggle. Maybe it's my fault, that I have raised her this way, maybe I have made mistakes. Every child is an experiment in parenting, so I will hold my hands up that I have not produced the "perfect specimen". But I can't watch her crumble, reduce herself for so little.

And that before we even start with the anti-intellectualism that is so abundant in the school-system. She is five. We recently started a project on "endangered animals" as a way to start using research techniques, encourage reading, writing, drawing, to express emotions through writing etc. I thought it best to use topics that were close to her interests to enthuse her. And i was correct in thinking that. In 3 days she knows everything there is to know about endangered animals (still a work in progress). The fact that she cares about this subject means that a reticence/under-enthusiastic attitude is completely absent. I looked to the web for resources. Most were pitched far too high for her. Not in terms of intelligence, but understanding of the world, motor skills, reading, concentration: things which progress wth age. It would appear that teaching about endangered species is something that you have to be 9-11 to really have a handle on.

But what if every child was allowed to do school projects on the things that they found most interesting? Would not their world open up, their minds work overtime, their hearts feel happy and content?

NO! There has to be a prescribed order of what it is that we should know. This is bull-shit. I had no interest in physics until I realised (for myself) that it was pretty important. "Life-long learning" as it is sold in policy, is a nonsense. The only life-long learning comes from a desire for knowledge. If school knocks this out of you, what the hell is the point of school?