Tuesday, 11 June 2013
GCSE Reforms
"From 2015, GCSEs will move from coursework to exams at the end of two years and will be graded from 8 to 1, rather than A* to G." Ah, Mr Gove ... Is this the best plan you can come up with? Some people say I oughtn't to 'experiment' with my children. Is it a safer bet to let the Government 'experiment' with them instead?
Monday, 10 June 2013
The correct answer?
The correct answer or creative thinking? Click to watch ... Makes the point, and only 2 minutes long!
Thursday, 6 June 2013
Learn Free
Last month I had the privilege of attending the second annual Learn Free conference for Christian Home Educators, and I was particularly inspired by the talks on Unschooling by Cathy Koetsier.
Cathy has a website (www.christian-unschooling.com) which I find so refreshing and encouraging.
Some of the key thoughts from Cathy's conference address ....
UNSCHOOLING IS ....
learning
- what you want
- when you want
- in the way that you want
- for as long as you want
- for your own reasons
"Learning is to people what swimming is to fish" (John Holt)
IDEAS are food for the mind > Read, read read!
We can be fearful. Fear can lead us to TRUST ... God, ourselves, our children or to try to CONTROL ... through testing, rules, regulations, external measures.
Perfect love casts out fear.
Freedom and Responsibility ... Cathy talks about the lambs enjoying their life in a delightful pasture with a strong boundary fence around. She expounds this image on her website (Click on Limits on Freedom) where you will also find some revelationary insight on Shepherding Hearts.
The basis of good unschooling is connection, relationships. Give your children SPACE & TIME to learn according to who they are. The uniqueness of ME. Discovering WHO I AM & WHY I AM HERE.
It was lovely to hear from two home educated young adults (One of whom was Cathy's second daughter) talking about their experience. Although they were very different personalities, and had had very different educational experiences at home, they both came across as being self-assured with a good understanding of who they were and how they worked. Incidently, in their early twenties, they both had their own businesses and were continuing in their journeys of lifelong learning.
Cathy has a website (www.christian-unschooling.com) which I find so refreshing and encouraging.
Some of the key thoughts from Cathy's conference address ....
UNSCHOOLING IS ....
learning
- what you want
- when you want
- in the way that you want
- for as long as you want
- for your own reasons
"Learning is to people what swimming is to fish" (John Holt)
IDEAS are food for the mind > Read, read read!
We can be fearful. Fear can lead us to TRUST ... God, ourselves, our children or to try to CONTROL ... through testing, rules, regulations, external measures.
Perfect love casts out fear.
Freedom and Responsibility ... Cathy talks about the lambs enjoying their life in a delightful pasture with a strong boundary fence around. She expounds this image on her website (Click on Limits on Freedom) where you will also find some revelationary insight on Shepherding Hearts.
The basis of good unschooling is connection, relationships. Give your children SPACE & TIME to learn according to who they are. The uniqueness of ME. Discovering WHO I AM & WHY I AM HERE.
It was lovely to hear from two home educated young adults (One of whom was Cathy's second daughter) talking about their experience. Although they were very different personalities, and had had very different educational experiences at home, they both came across as being self-assured with a good understanding of who they were and how they worked. Incidently, in their early twenties, they both had their own businesses and were continuing in their journeys of lifelong learning.
My unschooled child
In recent weeks, I have been fascinated watching my 7 year old unschooled child. He seems to spend hours in focussed, self-initiated, independent activity - moving seamlessly from one challenge to the next, setting his own goals and just getting on, quietly, with intent. In particular, he has been doing a lot of drawing. He is interested in perspective, and has been practising this technique repeatedly.
The other morning, he announced he wanted to do a self-portrait and asked for a mirror, which I provided.
Whilst we were away recently, he kept trying to make his own bow and arrows and was looking for suitable sticks, string and rubber bands etc. In the end, we bought him an archery set from a castle we visited, so he has been dressing up as a piratey Robin Hood and practising his archery skills. The interest in pirates has also resulted in many drawings of pirates and ships, model boats made from junk, stitching his own pirate 'puppet' with his Grandma, making a map of his imaginary world and recording his own stories using his brother's old MP3 device.
I have seen a number of articles recently about parents filling their children's lives with many after-school activities and clubs. There seems to be a focus on the often unacknowledged importance of time and space for children to imagine and create. I know that during school holidays, many parents worry that their children will be bored, and therefore work heard to entertain them. However, my boys seldom complain of boredom, and my unschooled boy is showing me that he is a capable master of his own learning.
"Why Alone Time is So Important to Boys and Girls" by Dr Peggy Drexler
The other morning, he announced he wanted to do a self-portrait and asked for a mirror, which I provided.
Whilst we were away recently, he kept trying to make his own bow and arrows and was looking for suitable sticks, string and rubber bands etc. In the end, we bought him an archery set from a castle we visited, so he has been dressing up as a piratey Robin Hood and practising his archery skills. The interest in pirates has also resulted in many drawings of pirates and ships, model boats made from junk, stitching his own pirate 'puppet' with his Grandma, making a map of his imaginary world and recording his own stories using his brother's old MP3 device.
I have seen a number of articles recently about parents filling their children's lives with many after-school activities and clubs. There seems to be a focus on the often unacknowledged importance of time and space for children to imagine and create. I know that during school holidays, many parents worry that their children will be bored, and therefore work heard to entertain them. However, my boys seldom complain of boredom, and my unschooled boy is showing me that he is a capable master of his own learning.
"Why Alone Time is So Important to Boys and Girls" by Dr Peggy Drexler
Friday, 24 May 2013
A freedom we do not take for granted
We had some interesting evening discussion with our French visitors this week about the decision to home educate and our relationships with our respctive authorities. Home education is a legal alternative to schooling both in England and France, and the freedom we enjoy is not something we take for granted. I blogged here about the appalling story of a boy removed from his parents by the Swedish state because he was home schooled, and I recently heard of a home educating family refused asylum in the US who fear being sent to jail if they return home to Germany. Surprised by such affronts to parental liberties in Europe, I decided to find out where home education is illegal and found this interesting chart on Wikipedia. I think it is interesting to cite here the information pertaining to home education in the UK, France and Germany respectively ....
United Kingdom
Status: Officially Legal (England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own education laws each with slight variations regarding education otherwise than at school.)
Education provided outside a formal school system is primarily known as Home Education within the United Kingdom, the term Homeschooling is occasionally used for those following a formal, structured style of education – literally schooling at home. To distinguish between those who are educated outside of school from necessity (e.g. from ill health, or a working child actor) and those who actively reject schooling as a suitable means of education the term Elective Home Education is used.
The Badman Review in 2009 stated that "approximately 20,000 home educated children and young people are known to local authorities, estimates vary as to the real number which could be in excess of 80,000."
France
Status: Legal
Home education is legal in France and requires the child to be registered with two authorities, the 'Inspection Académique' and the local town hall (Mairie). Children between the ages of 6 and 16 are subject to annual inspection.
Every other two years, the social welfare, mandated by the mayor, verifies the reasons the family home educates and controls that the training provided is consistent with the health of the child. Parents will also be subject to annual inspections if they are teaching children between the ages of 6 and 16. Two consecutive unsatisfactory outcomes of these inspections can mean the parents will have to send their children to a mainstream school.
While homeschooling parents are free to teach their children in any way they like, the children must master the seven key competencies of the common foundation of competence at the end of the legal obligation (age 16). The key competencies are:
Written and spoken French
Maths/basic sciences and technology
At least one foreign language
French, European and World history and geography & Art
Computer science
Social and civic competences
Initiative and autonomy
Homeschooled children must also demonstrate that they can:
Ask questions
Make deductions from their own observations and documents
Be able to reason
Generate ideas, be creative and produce finished work
Use computers
Use resources sensibly
Evaluate risks
French organisations involved in homeschooling include Les Enfants D'Abord, LAIA (Libre d'Apprendre et d'Instruire Autrement), CISE (Choisir d'Instruire Son Enfant) and Hors Des Murs.
Germany
Status: Illegal
Homeschooling is still illegal in Germany with rare exceptions. The requirement to attend school has been upheld, on challenge from parents, by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. Parents violating the laws have primarily or most prominently been Christians seeking a more religious education than that offered by the schools. Sanctions against these parents have included fines of thousands of euros, successful legal actions to remove children from the parents' custody, and prison sentences. It has been estimated that 600 to 1,000 German children are homeschooled, despite its illegality.
In a legal case commenced in 2003 at the European Court of Human Rights, a homeschooling parent couple argued on behalf of their children that Germany's compulsory school attendance endangered their children's religious upbringing, promoted teaching inconsistent with their Christian faith–-especially the German State's mandates relating to sex education in the schools—and contravened the declaration in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union that "the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure education and teaching is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions".
In September 2006, the European Court of Human Rights upheld the German ban on homeschooling, stating "parents may not refuse... [compulsory schooling] on the basis of their convictions", and adding that the right to education "calls for regulation by the State". The European Court took the position that the plaintiffs were the children, not their parents, and declared "children are unable to foresee the consequences of their parents' decision for home education because of their young age.... Schools represent society, and it is in the children's interest to become part of that society. The parents' right to educate does not go as far as to deprive their children of that experience."
The European Court endorsed a "carefully reasoned" decision of the German court concerning "the general interest of society to avoid the emergence of parallel societies based on separate philosophical convictions and the importance of integrating minorities into society."
In January 2010, a United States immigration judge granted asylum to a German homeschooling family, apparently based on this ban on homeschooling.
United Kingdom
Status: Officially Legal (England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own education laws each with slight variations regarding education otherwise than at school.)
Education provided outside a formal school system is primarily known as Home Education within the United Kingdom, the term Homeschooling is occasionally used for those following a formal, structured style of education – literally schooling at home. To distinguish between those who are educated outside of school from necessity (e.g. from ill health, or a working child actor) and those who actively reject schooling as a suitable means of education the term Elective Home Education is used.
The Badman Review in 2009 stated that "approximately 20,000 home educated children and young people are known to local authorities, estimates vary as to the real number which could be in excess of 80,000."
France
Status: Legal
Home education is legal in France and requires the child to be registered with two authorities, the 'Inspection Académique' and the local town hall (Mairie). Children between the ages of 6 and 16 are subject to annual inspection.
Every other two years, the social welfare, mandated by the mayor, verifies the reasons the family home educates and controls that the training provided is consistent with the health of the child. Parents will also be subject to annual inspections if they are teaching children between the ages of 6 and 16. Two consecutive unsatisfactory outcomes of these inspections can mean the parents will have to send their children to a mainstream school.
While homeschooling parents are free to teach their children in any way they like, the children must master the seven key competencies of the common foundation of competence at the end of the legal obligation (age 16). The key competencies are:
Written and spoken French
Maths/basic sciences and technology
At least one foreign language
French, European and World history and geography & Art
Computer science
Social and civic competences
Initiative and autonomy
Homeschooled children must also demonstrate that they can:
Ask questions
Make deductions from their own observations and documents
Be able to reason
Generate ideas, be creative and produce finished work
Use computers
Use resources sensibly
Evaluate risks
French organisations involved in homeschooling include Les Enfants D'Abord, LAIA (Libre d'Apprendre et d'Instruire Autrement), CISE (Choisir d'Instruire Son Enfant) and Hors Des Murs.
Germany
Status: Illegal
Homeschooling is still illegal in Germany with rare exceptions. The requirement to attend school has been upheld, on challenge from parents, by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. Parents violating the laws have primarily or most prominently been Christians seeking a more religious education than that offered by the schools. Sanctions against these parents have included fines of thousands of euros, successful legal actions to remove children from the parents' custody, and prison sentences. It has been estimated that 600 to 1,000 German children are homeschooled, despite its illegality.
In a legal case commenced in 2003 at the European Court of Human Rights, a homeschooling parent couple argued on behalf of their children that Germany's compulsory school attendance endangered their children's religious upbringing, promoted teaching inconsistent with their Christian faith–-especially the German State's mandates relating to sex education in the schools—and contravened the declaration in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union that "the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure education and teaching is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions".
In September 2006, the European Court of Human Rights upheld the German ban on homeschooling, stating "parents may not refuse... [compulsory schooling] on the basis of their convictions", and adding that the right to education "calls for regulation by the State". The European Court took the position that the plaintiffs were the children, not their parents, and declared "children are unable to foresee the consequences of their parents' decision for home education because of their young age.... Schools represent society, and it is in the children's interest to become part of that society. The parents' right to educate does not go as far as to deprive their children of that experience."
The European Court endorsed a "carefully reasoned" decision of the German court concerning "the general interest of society to avoid the emergence of parallel societies based on separate philosophical convictions and the importance of integrating minorities into society."
In January 2010, a United States immigration judge granted asylum to a German homeschooling family, apparently based on this ban on homeschooling.
Cette semaine, nous parlons en francais ....
I have sometimes imagined how great it would be for home educating families to be able to swap homes or stay with one another to enhance their children's education, enabling them to explore a different area of the country or the world, possibly exposing them to another language in a real life context. So it was with delight that I received an email from a home educator in France asking if anyone would be willing to host her family on a visit to our region of England. Her daughter (aged 4) had expressed an interest in learning English, so they were keen to visit and meet other home educators. I admired this woman for being bold enough to ask, and I was pleased to hear she had received several positive responses which enabled her visit this month. Her family have just spent a few days with us, and it was wonderful to see our boys interact with them and attempt to communicate. We have tried to introduce French to them before, and they have not been very interested. But faced with real people, and a real need to communicate and make themselves understood, the boys asked, "How do I say _____?" and were willing to have a go. The French children, also, had a great opportunity to stay in English families and to hear and speak English in a real life context. Maybe we will be able to take a similar "tour de France" someday ....
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