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In this newsletter:
University, The Best choice? 
The main article this month – University, the Best Choice? – the pros and cons of a university education.
Teachers Deserve an Alternative Too 
What can you do if you want to teach but you don't like school? Maria Mackie explains the dilemma from a teacher's point of view.
“…the trainee teachers I work with are a constant reminder of why I left (teaching). Last week one had a heart attack brought on by stress. Another... claims she has never been so unhappy, spends most of her time in tears and says her marriage (barely a year old) is breaking down under the strain. Yet neither wants to give up.”
Who's Happy?  
A rewrite of an article that first appeared in last month’s newsletter, by Greg Gamble.
“Our true mission is to recover and keep the hearts of each of our children entwined closely to their siblings and ours. If we have our children’s hearts, we have the whole child.”
Letters 

University, The Best Choice?

Does going to university really represent the best choice that a young person can make for themselves? The following article considers the arguments for and against.

My parents grew up in South Wales in the 1920s and 1930s at a time when only a small percentage of children went on to further education. Consequently, even though both of them did well at school, neither of them were able to go to university. Having come from a background where they had to fight hard for an education, it is not surprising that they should make every possible effort to ensure that their own children had the opportunities that were denied to them. This desire coincided with a rapid expansion in the number of university places in the UK, and, consequently, when I came to the end of my time at school, in the early 1970s, university was presented to me as an almost automatic choice: and I applied for, and was accepted on, a course to study biochemistry at York University.

I spent three years on my degree and, finding that it did not qualify me to do anything that I wanted to do, spent a further year doing a master of sciences degree in applied plant sciences, which also failed to provide me with a qualification that really matched my interests and inclinations. Putting this down to poor planning on my part, I moved on to other things and did not spend too much time analysing whether or not university had been a worthwhile use of my time.

In recent years, however, I have had to advise my own children about what might or might not be a sensible course for them to follow in life, and I have had cause to look at the whole question of university education through fresh eyes.

The good things about going to university for me were, firstly, the relative intellectual rigour of the course that I was on and, secondly, the chance that it gave me to see the institution for myself, from the inside, so that in later life I would not have to accept other people’s word about what university is or is not really like.

Learning that We Really Know Nothing At All

The 1970s was a time of rapid development in the biological sciences. The course that I was on involved not only studying the current theories about the science of life, but also in examining the ruined reputations of eminent scientists who had staked everything on supporting cherished theories, which were forcibly overturned by the development of new technologies capable of making more accurate observations. I discovered that every scientific theory is based on a tenuous strand of logic, and that none of them should be regarded as established truths. At best, they are simply working hypotheses. Since my time at university  I have never been able to understand why science is not presented in this light to the population at large. In particular, it is difficult to understand why schools should teach science as though it is a set of proven conclusions, while, at university, the basic tenet is that really we know nothing and that everything is open to question.

University as a Social Institution

Young people are presented with a very simplistic view of university: from the age of ten or eleven onwards they are led to believe that their immediate goal ought to be to do whatever is necessary to get them into university – to go to school every day, to do their homework, to revise for tests, to get good marks in exams, and to stay on at school until they are eighteen.

Even though children who do not succeed in getting into university are told that they can train for ‘vocational’ qualifications, it is made pretty clear to them that they have failed, and that they are expected to endure a second-class existence for the rest of their lives. It is a rare individual who is able to retain their self-respect and self-confidence in the face of this conditioning and, as a result, these prophesies often prove to be self-fulfilling – many people who do not go to university do indeed fail to fulfil their true potential, thereby strengthening the myth about the value of a university education.

Any institution that appears to thrive on such elitism deserves to be examined very closely indeed, and yet universities have largely managed to escape critical examination over recent years – there have been plenty of calls to make them more available to more people, but relatively few questions asked about the nature of the education that they provide, and the way in which they provide it. In an attempt to address this lack, here are listed some of the conclusions that I have drawn about the myths and legends that surround university life, based on my own personal experience:

The Social Life: I went to school in the 1960s and it was always pretty clear to me that there were things going on in the outside world much more interesting than what was taking place within the confines of my school classroom. When I went to university I had no desire to restrict my social life to a group of people who were essentially as disorientated and homesick as myself, and a few weeks after the start of my first term, I moved out of university accommodation, and took up residence in a house shared by young people who represented a healthy cross-section of society, and none of whom, except myself, were students. From this privileged standpoint, university social life did not look particularly attractive: it was characterised by excessive drinking, traumatic relationships, and insecurity –  particularly in the first two years when young people were bewildered by being suddenly displaced from their homes and the people who loved them.

Educational Opportunity: I went to university at the age of 18, after 14 consecutive years of compulsory schooling. At that point in my life, I doubt that there was anything that I was less interested in than education. I was not alone in this position and the ethos of the university was one of the staff ushering the students through prescribed courses, rather than students being engaged in the unrestricted pursuit of knowledge.

Educational Excellence: For the first two and a half years that I spent at university, I did the minimum required to ensure that I would not be asked to leave; I then realised that it was my own time that would have been wasted if I left without a degree and I therefore moved back into university accommodation so that I could engage in some serious study. I covered three years’ work in one term, and walked away from the university with a good degree. This taught me that universities have not really achieved educational excellence at all – I was able to cover three years’ work in three months because the motivation came from myself. At present, students are only fulfilling a fraction of their true potential because university courses are not designed to cater for self-motivated people.

Expert Tuition: Now that I have had thirty years to reflect on my university education, I am amazed that anything could really be described as a course of higher education when it was restricted to such a narrow field as biochemistry. My course included no study of foreign languages, no music, no art, no drawing, no study of literature, no real philosophy, no serious study of mathematics, no history, no politics, no practical skills, no crafts, no cooking, no gardening, no building, and no reflection about what would be a good way of using knowledge and skills gained through education. All these lacks are justified on the grounds that modern subjects are so complex that specialisation is now necessary, but my experiences over the past few years have taught me that this is not true. Since starting to teach my own children at home, I have done all the things that I never did at university – from studying ancient history to learning foreign languages – and I have realised that the notion of specialisation is nothing more than a smokescreen designed to obscure a lack of learning. I do not regret having studied science at university, but scientific knowledge on its own is unbalanced and potentially dangerous. Presumably the same is true of other courses which focus on such things as English or history, without allowing students to get to grips with the complexity of modern science – and of course the fact that many students leave university without learning how to fix their cars, change a tap-washer, or bake a cake, has always been a source of annoyance for the less well-paid sections of society who are expected to do these jobs for them.

Educational Resources: The most significant educational resource possessed by a university is a well-stocked library. The cause of education would be furthered much more effectively if money was spent on establishing huge libraries, open to everyone, instead of on developing universities, which are necessarily restricted to a few.

It must be noted that books are much more affordable now than in the past, and it is possible that students would get better value for money by spending their limited resources on books rather than on expensive university tuition fees.

Qualifications: Historically, universities were purely  educational institutions and were not involved in the business of providing qualifications. This has changed over the past hundred years, and now many people go to university specifically to get a qualification that will enable them to move on to well-paid employment. Both the ethics and efficiency of this arrangement are open to question, but perhaps what should concern the individual student is how it effects them personally.

Now that I have had time to reflect upon the choices that I have made in my own life, I would have to admit that when I was seventeen years old and applying for university courses, I really had no idea of what I was letting myself in for: if, by chance, I had plumped for a course, such as medicine, which is essentially a training course, instead of biochemistry, which at that time still aspired to simple academic excellence, then my freedom of choice from that point on would have been dramatically curtailed. I believe that much the same can be said for most young people who go to university: fourteen years of school attendance does not allow a young person to get to know themselves, and going straight from school to an intense training programme for a particular job, inevitably leads to many university graduates being shunted into work that they do not truly love and in which they are never really happy.

Examinations and Degrees: Perhaps examinations are necessary for courses that lead on to specific employment, such as medicine or engineering, but they effectively kill universities as educational institutions. Freedom and education are inextricably linked – everyone who reads a book has the right to have their own opinion about that book; once one person dictates what another person should think about it, then the process ceases to be education and starts to become brain-washing. This is precisely what happens when examinations and assessment are introduced into university life – students are rightly worried that if their work fails to reflect the views and the methods of their teachers, they will not do well in their examinations. This does not foster original thought and, consequently, even though universities have managed to monopolise further education they have failed to become the driving force behind innovation, entrepreneurialism, or wealth creation in our society.

Taking a Lead in Society: Universities are supposed to train people to become good citizens, able to take a lead in government and important institutions. One of my biggest personal complaints against universities is the degree to which they fail to do this. My second degree was in applied plant sciences, and even though I was only twenty-two years old at the time, it was clear to me even then that an agriculture based upon mechanisation, and the escalating use of fertilisers, herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides was simply not a good idea. However, whenever I and my fellow students raised concerns about pollution, deterioration of the soil, crop quality, etc. our teachers responded by reiterating the scientific justifications for modern agricultural methods, and gave us to understand that none of us had any choice but to accept the system as it was.

Since then, I have witnessed the growth of the organic food movement, which has been led, on the one hand, by organic farmers and gardeners who were not prepared to submit to the current agricultural dogma, and on the other by customers who did not accept assurances about conventionally-produced foods. Initially, organic products were submitted to ridicule from every side – not least from university professors – but when supermarkets realised that there was money to be made, a rapid change of heart took place. Perhaps it is commendable that universities now have courses in organic agriculture, but the fact is that on this important issue they followed where others led, and in doing so lost any claim to moral authority. I have seen no evidence to suggest that they have fared any better on the other important issues of our times.

The lessons that I learnt by going to university were not, perhaps, the lessons which my teachers intended to teach me, but nevertheless they were important, and have served me well in later life. However, just as my parents aspired to a better education for their children than they were able to have themselves, I believe that it is appropriate for me, and for people of my generation, to aspire to a better education for our children than we were able to have ourselves.

Today’s parents can do much better than telling their children that their main aim in life should be to go to university. In today’s world, educational opportunities come in all shapes and forms: following the trend of going to university may appear to be the easiest option, but in the long run it is unlikely to prove to be the best.

Gareth Lewis

Letters

Child Protection

I love the FIE newsletter. Its always wonderful to read. Thanks.
I wonder if you can hep me out with a question.
We are home-educating our son and we come across people everyday with worries and objections.....all the usual stuff like socialisation and qualifications etc, but recently a new one came to me and I would like to know if there has been any research that you know of in this field.
The question raised was “I am concerned that it is less likely for a child who is being abused at home, or by someone out of the family, to be noticed if they are being home educated”
I was a bit shocked by this and my reaction was that I felt it would be more likely to be noticed and acted upon because of the nature of home-educators. Parents who love their children too much to allow them to be abused by schools and the numerous strangers they will encounter while there. I hope I answered this persons question well, as by the end they did see my point of view but I want to know if there is any research, official or not, on the likelihood of abuse in home-educated families as opposed to school educated children and their families.
Any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated.
Sally Gibbons

Feedback on Protecting Children

I have just read D. Cartlidge's letter in the March Newsletter and I thought I would share the experiences I, and other home educators local to me, have suffered.

Our LEA has taken to using headmasters, seconded to the LEA, to phone home educating families out of the blue to arrange appointments to come and hear our children read. In many instances, there has been no more than a couple of days notice, and no letter of confrmation, let alone a letter asking permission for this intrusion. During a visit I recieved from the LEA earlier in the year, I was told that part of their remit is to ensure the children are not, and I quote, "buried under the patio." Another family were told "if you have nothing to hide, you've nothing to worry about."

As D Cartlidge points out, there are numerous reported incidents of children either being killed at school, or taking their own lives as a result of the system. Those of us who have removed our children from school have done so with good reason - we care very much about them and their futures, and as such it seems incredible that we should be targeted in this latest government policing exercise. 

Lastly, in common with D Cartlidge, I like to be left alone to get on with the job of educating my children and I do not usually lift my head above the parapet, but this nonsense has infuriated me to such an extent that I have publicly attacked the LEA in the local paper, and am still, after more than two weeks, awaiting a response from our local director of education asking for a written explanation of his department's actions. I will keep you posted! 

Deborah Stocker

If Everyone Respected Each Other…

   I have 4 children all home-educated and my eldest has left home and is starting her first job next week. My 2 eldest have never been to school and my 2 youngest have been to school for 2 years and 1 year. I have now reached the age where I seem to command a  certain amount of respect, whether I deserve it or not. Over the years, we have had mostly good response to home-education, and most people are impressed at the number of children I have at home.

     I have always aimed to have a learning environment rather than a teaching one. When people from the LEA visit I always say it is an informal visit to discuss the sort of areas we cover. I never show them any evidence of what we have done. I do ask the children if they want to show anything. I think this makes it obvious to the officials, that if they get on well with us the children will want to show them stuff. If they are unpleasant we will not cooperate. I am very open with them, and like to mention that they are in a difficult position because we don't have any responsibility to them other than showing we do provide a full-time education.

      Most problems these days seem to arise from one set of people having control over another set of people. This arises from fear and distrust. If everyone respected one another and could be confident that no one would use freedom to take advantage of others; we could all relax and get on with enjoying life.    

                  Fiona Chaff.

Balancing a Curriculum with Spontaneity

Just read your March newsletter on my email (thanks for printing my moan from last month).

My kids have been homeschooled for 2 1/2 years and until November last year we weren't doing any really formal work, except a few English/Maths National Curriculum workbooks when the mood took us and, at my insistence, reading two library books a week of their own choice, as they were unable to read for pleasure (they now love reading but it was hard work getting them to that stage).

I began to feel guilt as the elder had reached 12 yrs and I felt I might jeopardise her future.  We signed up to ACE Christian Curriculum and I have to say I am quite satisfied with this programme. The curriculum provides a framework which stops me having to worry about their learning, maybe others might like to consider using a framework like this if they are really concerned. There are other curricula out there if you look for them, I am not seeking to endorse the one we use, only recommending the security a programme can give to parents who worry about the provision they are making for their child/ren..

However, we do not stick strictly to the timing, doing our own thing when we like. This morning, for instance, the girls watched an hour of schools TV while practicing a little sewing (I did not tell them to do either) and we are now in the library. They are playing games on the computers while I check and reply to emails.  This afternoon - who knows what we'll do!!

Dorren Cartlidge

Where Parents Lead, Children Follow

I thought the April article was very good, more insight to Home education.
I read something today which l thought was so true, .....

Where parents lead children follow.

How true that is with teaching our children at home.
Grass roots education.
Yours truly,
Angie Homes

Learning Technology

I've just read your article about learning technology and I have to agree. I learned on a spectrum (computer) in my bedroom after work .I would rush home and spend all evening programming. When my son was about 3, he used to be very interested in the spectrum. We got an amiga later when he was about 5 and I gave him the spectrum for himself. When he was about 7 he started learning about programming on the Amiga. He was at school in those days and the teachers were rather intimidated by his knowledge of computers. Especially the IT 'expert' who was a man. My son was incredulous that the teacher had to ask someone else how to format a floppy disk! We started HE'ing my 9 and 7 1/2 y olds and my son is now able to build computers, program them and wishes to be a 3D graphics artist. My daughter was terrified of computers until we took her out of school! She was so afraid of breaking something or getting something wrong. Now she has her own pc built by my son and has her own website. She taught herself everything she knows about IT as did my son.

Lovely site by the way. I have just signed up for the newsletter via email

Chris Green

Views from a 'Grown-up, Home Educated Person'

Firstly I would like to say how much I enjoy your newsletter, your points are always interesting and are made in a concise and rational way and they really help me to understand and argue my own points of view... I’m Madeleine (29) and was very happily home educated in Suffolk until I chose to go to school at 13, this turned out to be a pretty horrible experience but I wasn’t really happy at home at the time; our house was very isolated and my parents were not getting on so I stayed at school for 3 years (only just!) but I am happy at least to have experienced what it is really like.

I went to the education otherwise 25 year gathering a couple of years ago and just as we were leaving I saw, on the very field we had been smiling and laughing on, a group of young people being 'educated'; they were being forced to race in groups of 5, stood one behind the other, on giant plastic skis with 5 evenly placed ropes held tight so as steps could be made if everyone pulled and walked at the same time. They all looked totally miserable but one group of girls just couldn't get the hang of it and collapsed in a heap. The teacher saw them and started shouting in an incredibly loud and patronizing way that "You can't always do what we want in life and this is going to teach you to learn to work together!... Now get up. Nobody is going anywhere until you lot have walked to that line!" I guess that they were going to have different lessons later to teach them about respect and rationality!

I would also like to say that if you think anyone who writes to you would like to contact a grown up home educated person then I would be happy to chat to them.... I think I've ended up alright(!) and I know I've come out happy and confident and very grateful to my parents and for all the other wonderful people I met through home education.

Keep up the good work and all the best to you and your family

Madeleine             (madalien@mail.com)

Sir Peter Ustinov

Just saw this quote attributed to the recently departed Sir Peter Ustinov.....

'People who reach the top of the tree are those who haven't got the qualifications to detain them at the bottom'.

Hope this makes you smile, best wishes, Juliet Adams

Teachers Deserve an Alternative Too

What can you do if you want to teach but don't like school? Maria Mackie explains the dilemma from a teacher's point of view.

Discussions about alternative education tend to focus on how to improve the well-being of children, and this, of course, is the most important factor. However, very little is said about the ways in which teachers could benefit from alternative educational environments. At a time when teachers are increasingly stressed, over-worked and demoralised, it would seem the prefect time to be encouraging teachers to find other, more meaningful ways of fulfilling their vocation. Getting teachers interested in joining the crusade for the establishment of different learning environments could be the quickest way of spreading alternative education, and could lead to teachers setting up their own small schools. But the fact is that most teachers do not realise there are alternatives, let alone that they could be doing something to promote them. And for those teachers who are interested in becoming involved in alternative education, there does not seem to be enough guidance or advice about how they might go about it. This is a huge waste of resource for the alternative education movement.

After graduating from university, I thought about going into teaching for two years before finally taking the plunge. I was not particularly interested in teaching in mainstream schools and spent some time looking into the alternatives. I had attended a comprehensive myself and always believed there had to be a better way of educating children. Although I was ‘academically successful’ in that I achieved good examination results, I felt that school had actually damaged my self-confidence and sense of individuality. I attended the Alternatives in Education fair, read books about the subject and contacted societies set up for the promotion of alternative schooling. However, I constantly met with brick walls, and was told that there were so few alternative schools that it would be difficult to teach in this domain, and that the best way was to study for a post-graduate certificate in education, go into mainstream teaching and then wait for an opportunity to come up. So this is what I did.

My experiences teaching in both independent and comprehensive schools only served to confirm my belief that the present system is not only letting down the children, but the whole of society. I could not give the students individual attention when I had thirty students per class and six different classes per week. In fact it was a struggle to learn their names. I battled constantly to maintain a sense of order because the children were vying for attention, and because their education had failed to develop a sense of respect towards other people. I felt like I was wasting time trying to cover National Curriculum objectives that seemed to have no relevance, and endlessly marking work in line with various levels and standards that even I didn’t understand, let alone the students. All the emphasis was on improving examination grades and it was impossible not to get caught up in this cycle. Any notions I had about bringing my own teaching values into the classroom got buried under the mountain of paperwork and struggle for discipline.

I decided the only way I wanted to stay in teaching was if I could find an educational environment where I felt like I was helping children develop into thoughtful and respectful members of society, not just training them to pass exams, and where I could teach happily, not constantly bogged down by bureaucracy and battling for order.  I again started looking into alternative modes of education but again hit a brick wall. I found that organisations dealing with the promotion of alternative education were there to provide information for parents, but were not equipped to help teachers hoping to work in this area. Speaking to other professionals I found the vast majority of teachers were not even aware that alternative forms of schooling existed. Even the mention of more renowned schools such as Steiner drew blank looks. They had simply never heard of small schools, democratic schools, flexible learning or anything else outside the mainstream.

I left teaching and now work as a administrator for a teacher training course, which, although not ideal, has at least kept me involved in the field of education to some extent. I am avoiding the disillusion and stress of teaching in mainstream schools while I look into other possibilities, and the trainee teachers I work with are a constant reminder of why I left. Last week one had a heart attack brought on by stress. Another, who left a good job in the city in search of a more meaningful vocation, claims she has never been so unhappy, spends most of her time in tears and says her marriage (barely a year old) is breaking down under the strain. Yet neither wants to give up. These are individuals devoted to helping children develop, and yet they will no doubt be driven out of teaching altogether by the dire circumstances they have to work in.

It is not only children who deserve a less stressful and more person-focused form of education, but also teachers. The present system appears to be failing all who are part of it. I am sure that if more teaching professionals were aware that alternative methods of teaching and learning existed, many would be glad to get involved, in turn leading to an expansion of the alternative education sector. Firstly, teachers need to be encouraged to think about educational ideals, rather than simply being ushered blindly into a system which is presented as the only option. Secondly, they need to be made aware of the alternative options that are already out there. And thirdly, they need to be informed about how to get involved. While it is important to focus on the needs of children we must not neglect to focus on those who want to teach the children. After all, these are the people who have the power to drive the alternative education movement forward. 

Maria Mackie

Who's Happy?

I couldn't agree with you more about the children's happiness being a key indicator of a successful life journey. But 'happy' is an organic and ethereal state, manufactured and nourished by adults who are happy themselves. Many parents (including home educators), for many reasons, seem happy instead to relinquish the time consuming and strenuous grunt work involved in creating and maintaining a happy atmosphere, and a challenging and interesting physical environment, to other well endowed or well meaning adults. This is precisely how our grandparents lost the affection and allegiance of many of our parent’s generation. Governments, and myriads of NGO's stepped increasingly into the vacuum, and today, we institutionally trained home educators have to not only unlearn how to look to others for happiness, but to learn how to be happy with ourselves, and then to model this for our children. I suggest that this is so monumental a recovery task that it requires nothing less than the same determination and focus necessary to start a political revolution. Some even think that home learning, if done with excellence, might be the nucleus of a transforming social revolution.

If our children and we live as noble, sovereign individuals, unselfishly within our communities, we might yet reverse the agonizing slide into anarchy that seems to be the only recourse left to many as they resist autocracy.

In Canada, many home schooling families have some aspects of a prison mentality, evidence of a resistance to being moulded by social engineering. However, if we are to raise children to even remotely achieve the calibre of our forefather’s statesmanlike characters and abilities, this must metamorphose into a forward-looking vision of what a happy, unprejudiced and educated person is.

I submit that that this will only occur en-mass, as a consensus community, when we will have finally been properly disillusioned about whose responsibility it is to train the young to take responsibility. Teaching alone will not bring this about. Our true mission is recovering and keeping the hearts of each of our children entwined closely to their siblings and ours. 

If we have our children’s hearts, we have the whole child.

Many parents still cling fearfully to myth-education; that the water of organic living and learning can blend with the oil of institutional, assembly line techniques. It can for a while, until the oil rises to the surface, suffocating the oxygen beneath.

Considering that our all our forbearers lived in comparative daily monotony, without knowing for weeks what was happening in the village twenty miles away, nevertheless they appear to have been more visionary than we moderns, with our unending supply of diversionary placebos. Slowly, with great care, they built the foundations for our modern western society, but we have not been diligent to ensure their unseen stones and timbers remain sound and in order. Modern governments; self proclaimed gate keepers of the general good, along with culpable parents, have not taught several generations of children how to maintain the foundations. This was originally the reason that governments took control of education, but along the way, we became sidetracked, and today, too few even know what the foundations are.

We have become adept at window dressing bankrupt economies and shifting the furniture in our fractionalized social arenas, but to do institutionally what we are doing individually as families, would require a re-adjusted vision and self discipline not seen since before the two wars and big governments. 

There has been a frantic attempt to shore up the crumbling walls of our national houses, without repairing the foundations of our own individual families, and thus our good intentions continue to pave the way to our own hell.

I'm reminded, as a Canadian, of your Winston Churchill, who prophetically warned your complacent nation, and a propagandized world, against the impulse to wait for some miracle to remove the impending threat of evil. The miracle came when we all finally took responsibility to save ourselves, a choice that we nearly lost by being too slow.

I believe we face the same choice again as a community of educational heretics, surrounded by a majority who are not aware that the oil is indeed pooling on the waters' surface of our civilizations' glass.

Your website is Churchillian in its location in the educational spectrum and I'm very pleased to see your efforts headed in the same direction as other visionaries. 

May your skill as educators and orators be equally so.

Thanks

Greg Gamble

  Please send letters and comments to:
gareth.lewis@freedom-in-education.co.uk

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