By Suzannah Rowntree
The State did not own men so entirely, even when it could send them to the stake, as it sometimes does now where it can send them to the elementary school.
?G.K. Chesterton
For a growing minority of Australians, it seems only yesterday that they found themselves facing the mortified reactions of friends and family when they heard the news.
You?re going to home educate? Is that legal? How can you give Jack a good education when you?re not a professional? What about socialisation?
But these mothers did it. They guided chubby little hands around their first alphabet. They watched happiness dawn on the face of a child to whom maths was nearly magic. They luxuriated in the reverent silence of a house full of bookworms. They?ve battled through illness, special needs, an unsupportive or suspicious community, and children asking halfway through dinner prep what ?home ec? is and why Sally down the street thinks you need to go to school to learn it.
Now their children are starting businesses, doing apprenticeships, going to university, or even beginning the adventure of home education in their own families. They?ve won recognition, support, and the acknowledgment that home education isn?t just for hippies, anarchists and theocrats. These days, everyone knows someone who home educates.
Including famous politicians. In the United States, preselection for the next presidential election saw Rick Santorum, a Republican candidate, making his bid to install a home educating First Family in the White House. Nor would he have been the first: John Adams?s wife Abigail taught their children and some of their grandchildren. Ron Paul, another Republican candidate, is a vocal home education supporter. According to his website, he ?believes no nation can remain free when the state has greater influence over the knowledge and values transmitted to children than the family does?.
In Australia, home education may still be keeping a low profile. But not for long. According to Australian Christian Home Schooling, there are over 10,000 Australian children currently registered for home education, and there may be as many as 15,000 more being home-educated without registration. And that?s not counting preschool children or the young home educated adults who have now entered university or the workforce.
With the growth of home education in Australia has come an equal and opposite reaction, generally towards greater? government involvement. In 2006, the Victorian Parliament passed the game-changing Education and Training Reform Act. Before, Victorian parents had only to show that their children were receiving ?regular and efficient instruction?. Now they must register and show that their children are receiving instruction in eight key areas including ?studies of society and environment?, all of which must be taught in a manner consistent with six principles that include ?the values of openness and tolerance?. More informal responses to the home education phenomenon include a feature on January 29, 2012, on ABC Radio?s Background Briefing titled ?Thousands of Parents Illegally Homeschooling?.
Home educated opinion on the clash between home educators and government varies as widely as personal views and? pedagogy. Many registered home educators would agree that the government has a role in overseeing education, while others
feel coerced. Glenda Jackson, who did her PhD on home education at Monash University, has highlighted a sense of governmental distrust: ?It?s like they don?t want us to exist.?
I spoke to a number of home educating mothers about their decision not to place their children in a state school?the ultimate in state oversight of education. One mother said the socialism she was taught at school and later rejected was a factor in her decision to home educate her children. Susannah, a mother who underwent both some state schooling and some home education, also had concerns about government control. ?Schools are governed by their curriculum, which is controlled by the state?s agenda.?
Tracey, an ex-teacher, told me about the emphasis
she received in her teacher training on ?the
good of society? and ?building a better nation?: ?It
seems that a lot of time, effort and focus is given
to moulding and influencing the future generation,
leaving the individual child, which may be mine,
uneducated, unnoticed and undervalued.?
Although some may see value in state-funded
education, home educators simply want the option
to say no. They want the privilege of teaching their
children: not because they are the best people, but
because they are the parents.
Here?s what Victorian MP Jacinta Allan, supporter
of the Education and Training Reform Act,
said to home educators in 2006: ?Education is
clearly the Minister?s responsibility. It always has
been.? Always? Is the Minister for Education the
latest in a venerable line of pooh-bahs tracing their
ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic
globule?
More importantly, who is really responsible for
education? Parents or state?
In ancient Greece, education was by the community,
for the community. ?The Greeks,? according
to H.D.F. Kitto, ?thought of the polis as an
active, formative thing, training the minds and
characters of the citizens.? Although philosophers
like Socrates and Plato challenged some aspects
of Greek culture, they emphasised that education
serves the polis; the highest good is the good of the
state. In the Republic, Plato argued that the good of
the state took precedence over trivial little things
like truth: ?To the rulers of the state, then, if to
any, it belongs of right to use falsehood, to deceive
either enemies or their own citizens, for the good
of the state.?
Aristotle agreed in the Politics. The young
citizen must be moulded to suit the government.
Education, a state affair, should be under legal
regulation. ?Neither must we suppose that any
one of the citizens belongs to himself.? Education,
aimed at producing compliant citizens with the
desired civic virtues, was never intended to do the
citizens themselves any good save incidentally as a
by-product of political security.
Not surprisingly, where education is not primarily
designed for the good of the state, the government
takes a back seat to parents. The emergence of
Christendom was a shock to the ancient world,
which literally worshipped its kings and emperors
as gods. In the view of Saint Augustine the state
was the protector of the church and family, thepunisher of wrongs, but no more. It had its own
sphere of sovereignty, and there were bounds past
which it could not pass; it could not trespass upon
the limited authority of the family, the church, or
the individual.
Overwhelmingly, Christians placed primary
responsibility for education with the family.
Education during the heyday of Christendom was
optional but, where available, punishingly rigorous.
Scholarly progress was not tied to age. University
required no Year 12 certificate; boys could and did
enter university at the age of twelve or thirteen, with
no more education than that provided by parents or
a parish school.
In colonial America, influenced as it had been by
settlers who had come to find religious and political
liberty, education was the family?s responsibility,
and the father?s in particular. Colonial literature
on parenting was addressed to fathers, who as the
primary parent were considered responsible for their
children?s religious and intellectual training.
In those pre-Industrial Revolution times, fathers
and children were fully integrated into the life of
the home. The father operated the family business
or calling out of the home, often with his children
as his apprentices and his wife as his helper.
Clergyman Robert Cleaver called the household ?a
little commonwealth??a state with its own sphere
of authority. Under New England law, fathers were
tasked to instruct children in an honest vocation,
while whole congregations covenanted together to
?reform our families ? educating, instructing, and
charging our children and our households to keep
the ways of the Lord?.
Harvard College was established in 1636, not
long after the Puritans arrived in New England.
Schools proliferated, providing a rigorous education
to those whose parents were unable to teach them
personally. Although these schools were community
efforts, they were not state schools as we know
them and attendance was optional: not because
education was unimportant, but because parents,
not the government, were responsible for it. In his
introduction to the 1647 edition of the Westminster
Confession of Faith, Thomas Manton declared:
?It is bad parents and bad masters that make bad
children and bad servants; and we cannot blame so
much their untowardness, as our own negligence in
their education.? Instead of teaching children their
duty to the state, parents were to teach them their
duty to God.
The result? In the late 1700s, a group of fiercely
literate men started what George III called the
?Presbyterian parson?s rebellion?. Historian George
Grant says, ?The American Revolution was drawn
from covenantal concepts that held the king in?check and required action for justice when the king
stepped beyond his bounds.? Colonial parents knew
that religious liberty required educational liberty.
And their children and pupils could tell when the
state overstepped its bounds. Educational liberty
had borne fruit.
But this was not to last. John Taylor Gatto,
1991 New York State Teacher of the Year turned
compulsory-schooling whistleblower, identifies
1806, the year Napoleon beat Prussian soldiers
at the battle of Jena, as the origin of compulsory
schooling. The nationalist vision for a Germany
ruled by Prussia provided an additional incentive
for Prussian monarchs to develop an educational
system which world turn out (in Gatto?s words, from
his essay ?The Public School Nightmare?) ?obedient
soldiers to the army; obedient workers to the mines;
well subordinated civil servants to government;
well subordinated clerks to industry; citizens who
thought alike about major issues?. Accordingly, in
1819, Prussian compulsory schooling began. Gatto
goes on to say:
In Prussia the purpose of the Volksschule,
which educated 92 percent of the children,
was not intellectual development at all, but
socialization in obedience and subordination.
Thinking was left to the Real Schulen, in
which 8 percent of the kids participated. But
for the great mass, intellectual development was
regarded with managerial horror, as something
that caused armies to lose battles.
Liberty and the War for Independence resulted
from an educational model overseen by parents. A
different kind of war resulted from the Prussian
system, which quickly became the model for state
schooling worldwide during the nineteenth century.
Erich Remarque blamed the First World War,
and Dietrich Bonhoeffer the Second, on Prussian
schools??the inevitable product of good schooling?,
Bonhoeffer said of Nazi Germany.
Australia was among the first countries in
the world to adopt a similar system. ?From
the beginning,? Susan Wight argues in her 2003
article ?Australian Schooling: A History of Social
Control?, ?the purpose of schooling was to control
the population.? Since most colonial children were
born to convicts, it became desirable to remove them
?from the destructive connexions and examples of
their dissolute parents?, in the words of Governor
King. As in Prussia and later America, schooling
was designed to remove ambition and the capacity
to think independently, to create a perpetual class
of obedient workers. Political loyalty and socialconformity were the new curriculum. ?How much
cheaper to provide schools than to build gaols,?
said Henry Parkes, Australia?s ?parent of public
education?.
Frank Tate, the first Victorian Director of
Education, began a more concerted effort to
copy Prussian-style schooling in the early 1900s,
pointing to the Prussian educational system as the
key to that state?s meteoric rise in world politics.
As Susan Wight goes on to show in her fine
article, Tate invited American pedagogues to the
Australian public school debate in order to more
fully incorporate the Prussian ideal and reinforce
the state?s monopoly of schooling in Australia.
Why did we think this was a good idea? Secular
humanists like John Dewey, who brought Prussian
schooling to America and influenced many
Australian educators, still believe that the best way
to bring about a humanist paradise is to isolate
children in institutions, away from their parents?
neuroses. According to Lawrence Casler, ?It is
supposed that the principles of ethical, productive,
and happy living will be learned more readily when
children are free of the insecurities, engendered
chiefly by parents, that ordinarily obstruct the
internalization of these modes of thought.? This
sounds vaguely benevolent, until you think about
the kind of child-raising the pedagogical supremos
prefer: according to Gatto, John Dewey
advocated that the phonics method of teaching
reading be abandoned and replaced by the
whole word method, not because the latter
was more efficient (he admitted that it was less
efficient) but because independent thinkers were
produced by hard books, thinkers who cannot be
socialized very easily.
Ignorance is therefore bliss, and teachers are the
providers of ignorance for the good of the state.
John J. Dunphy characterises teachers as ?ministers
of another sort? which must ?convey humanist
values in whatever subject they teach?. And Patricia
Hill Collins points out that ?teaching has political
implications that reach far beyond the classroom?.
With this damning evidence, there?s no wonder
so many parents are opting out of state schools in
Australia. The only mystery is why more of them
aren?t doing it.
But is home education the answer? When asking
questions about home education, most people
want to see the statistics?but there can be no
statistics for an educational underground embracing
pedagogical methods ranging from unschooling
to school-at-home packages to rigorous classicaleducation based on the great books of Western
civilisation; for a movement where curriculum
might change not just from family to family, but
also from year to year and child to child; for a
movement embracing children home educated for
a couple of months or years as well as children who
have never set foot inside a school; for a movement
with no accreditation, no certificates, and no
registering body that can hope to catch everyone. A
comprehensive study of home education is as fraught
with impossibilities as a comprehensive study of
Australian amateur gardening or dog training.
But of course, with the same impulse that sends
men to climb Mount Everest,
a number of studies have been
made. Glenda Jackson?s Summary
of Australian Research on Home
Education (2011) arrives at a number
of conclusions based on the available
research: Home-educated students
in Australia do as well academically
or better than their schooled peers;
are able to acquire social skills and
recover from bad social experiences
at school; come from a variety of
backgrounds and income levels,
none of which has an impact on
the quality of their education; and
are generally happy about being
educated at home. Jeff Richardson
of Monash University has said that
home-educated students perform ?extremely well,
above average? in universities, no matter what form
their education took: ?On any measure you like,
socially or academically, they will do better.?
I talked to a number of home educators to find out
what motivated them not just to buck the cultural
norm but also to reject the social conditioning many
of them had received at school. For the men and
women I spoke to, home education fulfilled many
functions: it was a way to escape the socio-political
agenda of secular humanism; it allowed them to
enjoy their children?s precious childhood; it assured
them that a child with special needs would have
the most loving and dedicated teacher possible; it
safeguarded their children?s religious, educational
or political liberty; it provided the best way to give
their children a truly rigorous and comprehensive
education.
I spoke to mothers with chronic illnesses and
children with special needs; to high-school dropouts,
ex-teachers, and second-generation home educators
passing on a vision they?d received from their own
parents: compulsory state schooling is built upon
sand.
Does home education offer hope? Apart fromthe studies mentioned above, the answer must be a
resounding yes.
One of the questions home educators get is how
they can give their children a good education if
they don?t have a teacher?s degree. In some states
of the USA home education is prohibited unless
the mother has an education degree. None of those
I spoke to?from Peirce, working on his master?s
degree in linguistics, to Ellen, who never finished
high school owing to ill-health?agreed that this
was necessary. One mother asked why, if she was
given such a good education by the public school
she attended, she should be considered unfit to
teach her own children. Others
pointed out the advantage that a
mother has over a teacher: a greater
understanding of the child, and a
much higher motivation to see him
do well.
Some even advised me that the
home educating mother should
avoid an education degree. Tracey,
an ex-teacher, says hers was more
of a hindrance than a help, making
her think inside the box rather than
letting her children learn at their
own pace. ?Teaching school and
teaching your own children at home
are quite different tasks. Teaching
school is about crowd control,
behaviour management, and
working towards the good of society.? According to
Tracey, her training focused on these skills above
teaching on the foundational learning skills.
It is telling that the most common question home
educators hear is, ?What about socialisation??
Everyone asks it, old or young?and the home-educated
are tired of hearing it. One mother I spoke
to joked, ?Yes, socialisation is a problem?I have
to have a diary just to keep up with it all!? You
can even get T-shirts with snappy comebacks like,
?Socialisation? Yes, I can spell that!? or ?Oh, no! I
forgot to socialise the kids!?
The very ubiquity of the socialisation question is
no coincidence, but a natural result of compulsory
state education. After all, nobody worries that
the home educated may be missing out on a basic
education. They worry about socialisation because
the main point of compulsory schooling throughout
the ages has not necessarily been the transmission of
truth and facts, but the manufacturing of compliant
citizens: not education at all, but socialisation. The
purpose behind state schooling has always been the
good of the state; the desired effect has always been
socialisation at the expense of education, like Plato?scitizens who were to be denied the truth at the
state?s convenience, or Germany?s obedient soldiery.
The same thing is occurring at state schools today,
and the population has internalised this standard to
the point where if a parent withdraws his child from
school, that child?s socialisation suddenly becomes a
national concern.
Home educators, however, do take this question
seriously. In their own school days, many of them
experienced peer pressure, bullying, ridicule for
being ?different?, daily exposure to bad language,
or being labelled as a certain kind of learner. They
want to ensure that their children are protected
from these things, but do realise that an adult that
cannot interact socially is greatly disadvantaged,
and want to ensure that their children have the best
socialisation available. For home educators, this does
not mean closeting their children in a room with
twenty children of the same age for most of their
waking hours. Instead, it means living an active life
in the family and in the community, surrounded by
responsible and well-socialised people of every age
and walk in life.
One mother I spoke to pointed out that the
purpose of socialisation at schools is not to help
the individual child to become kind, respectful and
helpful in real-life situations. Instead, it is to turn
out children who are just like everyone else: children
who fit in. For many home educators, this is a result
to be avoided. They hope their children will be more
confident, less peer-dependent, more comfortable
with a wide range of different friends, and better at
thinking critically about what they?re told.
Home educators stress the importance of a close
family life conducted within the larger community.
They organise play groups, music lessons, sports
days and volunteer work. One home-educating
mother, Katie, attended a prestigious private school
in Melbourne. Like many others, she stresses the
artificiality of the school social environment:
I believe it is vastly more important that children
learn to interact widely across many different
age groups, cultures, and life circumstances,
than that they know how to act in order to be
accepted by their state/private-schooled peers.
These same peers often struggle outside their
own age group and culture.
Tracey told me how impressed she has been with
home educated children: ?They seem mature beyond
their years, yet retain their childish innocence.?
They are happy to play with any child, regardless
of gender, age, ability or nationality. By contrast,
Tracey says, children only recently withdrawn from
school seem shy in home educating play groups,more likely to form cliques or engage in bullying.
Meanwhile, the biggest social challenge for home
educators is managing their options! ?I would
guess that homeschoolers have more opportunities
to socialise than school children, who are stuck
with the same children, whether they enjoy their
company or not, day in and out for several years.?
If home educators are to be believed, the movement
is the answer to our educational problems. They
point to the history of social control that still inspires
compulsory state schooling. They point out that
they have far more of an interest in their children?s
success than anyone else, even teachers. They cite
the damaging social environment of schools, rife
with peer pressure, bullying and obscenity. But
they aren?t just naysayers: they will tell you that
home education is a vision far bigger than ?regular
and efficient instruction?. When I asked what the
most rewarding aspect of home education is, the
answers were unanimous: the biggest reward of
home education is the strong family relationships it
builds. Every hour of the day is quality time when
the whole family is learning, exploring, building
and adventuring together. Siblings learn to put
aside their differences, operate as part of a team, and
accomplish great things together.
Aren?t there any drawbacks? Of course, said
those I spoke to. No parent and no child is perfect;
everyone has to learn and we?re just as likely to make
mistakes as any other parent. You have to be creative
to circumvent the unexpected in a society where
everyone assumes your children attend school. You
must get by on one income. You must keep going
in the face of cultural disapproval and government
regulation.
But is it worth it? Second-generation home
educators told me how much they valued the
memories and the closeness their family enjoyed;
the laughter over failed science experiments, the
family relationships that they carried into their
adult lives. ?I can?t express enough gratitude to my
parents for training and educating me themselves,?
says Charmagne, who plans to home educate her
own children. ?It?s worth working through every
struggle, fear and doubt.?
The critics are right: the Australian home
education movement is alive and growing. But that
should only worry the sort of people, who, in H.L.
Mencken?s words, lie awake at night haunted by the
fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
???????????????????-
Suzannah Rowntree, who was classically home
educated, is a writer, proofreader, and student of
literature, law and history. She writes a book review
blog, inwhichireadvintagenovels.blogspot.com.
This article first appeared in June 2012 issue of Quadrant
?
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Source: http://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling%EF%BB%BF-education-outside-the-box/
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