Hopefully this sentence still means something to Graham Badman:
"Mr Badman continues: "One of the things I most resented as a parent was being talked to as if I knew nothing about education. There's a thin line between engaging them and talking at them and we have to make sure we don't cross that line.""
I am off to put it into my consultation response, hopefully to remind him that he said it!
very interesting comments in that article! 'how to get parents turned onto education?' well, home educating parents are one group that certainly don't need targetting....
ReplyDeleteI reckon he is going to bend with the wind. He didn't get where he is today by standing firm on anything I bet.
ReplyDeleteStill, we live in hope.
This is good to read from a politico. I was also interested in ..."But parents must not abdicate their responsibilities by saying it's all down to schools.
ReplyDeleteAND
"I don't merely want youngsters who can follow guidelines set out in a report about how they should be achieving. I want them to be interested in the world around them."
Our daughter goes to a great primary in gloucestershire but I see her education as our responsibility. She seems to be an autonomous learner who resists most forms of instruction. For her, school is social at best. How can school, or indeed, anxious parents, foster autonomy and allow children to remain interested in the word around them? Any advice on maintaining autonomy - and interest in the word - or would you say this is countered by any school?
Hope it does work out for your DD Julie. Trying to manage autonomous education within the schooling system is an interesting experiment, and something that not many parents are doing. I only really know of one other example.
ReplyDeleteShe does tell me that it isn't easy. Many schools are not geared up for it at all...an institution such as a school is not geared to take the autonomy of individuals seriously.
When a problem arises, she sets out to seek the relevant solution with the school..eg: she negotiated with the school so that child didn't have to do huge swathes of home work. (Child was already top or near top of almost everything though, so this may have made the argument a bit easier) but if a solution cannot be found with the school, I would seek alt ed. placements...other schools, home ed.
Of course, there have been plenty of schools where they have experimented with respecting the autonomy of pupils...Summerhill being the first example to spring to mind (though I think they managed it badly in some regards) and there were quite a number of John Holt inspired primaries in the 70s. A friend of mine attended this and she loved it. Some of these experiments worked for some children some of the time.
And of course even a very rigid, apparently authoritarian school can offer an autonomous education if the child willingly chooses it.
As long as a child is interested and goes happily and freely to school, I do think a parent has done their job and an autonomous education is being delivered.
He should change his name first.
ReplyDeleteJulie's query inspired me to order 'Damage Limitation: Trying to Reduce the Harm Schools Do to Children' by Roland Meighan. I heard him speak about it at hesfes years ago. His own son chose to go to school, so making the assumption that he's now a happy young man Roland would be in that experimental group of autonomous school parents. That's a good article of his linked on this blog too. If you haven't read roland's articles on the Educational Heretics Press site they are a good but not necessarily comfortable read!
ReplyDeleteBracing myself for the logistical headache of some in school some h.e. again if one of our children chooses h.e. for secondary as you know!
S