• If you don’t enjoy your job or you resent the time you spend there
• If you spend your time clock-watching and lingering in the cloakroom
• If you only look forward to the evenings, the weekends, the holidays and retirement
• If you work only for the pay cheque because there is no joy or job satisfaction
• If you feel controlled, powerless and miserable
• If you don’t learn anymore because it’s too much effort, pointless, and you have no time
• If you are resigned to accepting that life is just like this, for everyone

Then of course you’re going to think that I am irresponsible for not automatically sending my child to school. I can see why you seriously question my ability to parent when I tell you that she is going to choose entirely what she learns, when, how, and whether she seeks someone else’s accreditation for her own efforts.

I understand that your experience has taught you that work and a happy life are at opposite ends of the spectrum. For you, work is hard, unpleasant but ultimately necessary. You have been taught that people (yourself included) are inherently lazy and not predisposed to productivity. You view people who choose to work long hours as put upon, obviously stressed, and clearly in need of a long break doing absolutely nothing.

Your view of the world is such that you believe children need school to teach them as soon as possible that life is tough and the daily grind is something they need to knuckle down to. They need to learn to take instruction from authority without question and they need to be shown some discipline.

Of course, you say, education is a necessary chore that all children must undertake if they are to learn anything of any import for the life slog that stretches ahead of them. You can see far more clearly than they that they must undertake the unpleasant (but fortunately finite) business of schooling, so they will achieve the examination results necessary, in order that someone who sees box ticking and hoop jumping as paramount will see fit to give them a job, and so they:

• Will begin to hate and resent the time spent there, so they
• Will spend their time clock-watching and lingering in the stationery cupboard, whilst they
• Look forward to the evenings, the weekends, the holidays and retirement, as they
• Work for the paycheck because there is no joy or job satisfaction, and they
• Feel controlled, powerless and miserable, so they
• Don’t learn anymore, because it’s hard work, pointless, and they have no time, so they
• Become resigned to accepting that life is just like this, for everyone.

Alternatively, you're at the other end of the food chain. You do know that I am being responsible by giving my child this choice - but my responsibility and her autonomy is dangerous - it threatens your authority, status and undeserved privilege - all of which is built upon the paradigm I describe, accepted as reality by most people in this country. And now you seek to harness those you control, those you have taught not to know any better - to join you in seriously questioning my ability to parent. This is precisely why the idiot, unthinking majority are now supporting compulsory national civic slavery service for children, state "groundings" and intrusive surveillance of home educating families in the name of child protection - without thinking for a minute what the implications are for their own civil liberties. Morons.

There has been a stream of interventionist irritation this week. Bishop Hill highlighted this bothersome piece by David Semple in response to a post about home education by Elizabeth Mills featured on Liberal Conspiracy. 

David voices particular concerns regarding the impact of religious indoctrination upon the quality of education a home educated child might receive. In addition to this he is “not an advocate of homeschooling generally” and he appears to be hell bent on making sure that home educators are examined by teachers such as himself.  I’ve commented at length and I don’t want to unnecessarily repeat myself, but my main points follow:

1. I don’t believe that anyone has the authority or ultimate right, let alone the ability, to objectively assess another individual’s religious, political or philosophical beliefs and use this as a basis for deciding whether or not that person is capable of home educating; so moving on from this and separately from it,
2. I don’t believe that anyone has the authority or ultimate right, let alone the ability, to objectively assess another individual’s learning and use this as a basis for deciding whether or not that person should be home-educated.

. David has this to say in relation to point 2:

“Firstly, as a teacher, I’m not willing to be told what I can and can’t empirically examine by a political lobby. Those who provide education in schools are in a position to examine the education provided by home educators. It may be that the home school lobby don’t want to listen to some of the things which have to be said - but that’s a different issue.

My concerns are as follows: a) what does the child want; b) is the child getting the same breadth of education as in a classroom; c) is the child simply being taught to regurgitate the world-view of the parents; d) does the child have access to sufficient resources to support learning to a level equal to that which his or her peers will reach by the same age.

All of these things can be measured.”

Aside from the fact that the choice to home educate has nothing (legally or otherwise) to do with teachers whatsoever, any teacher who believes that learning can be empirically examined and measured is one who understands teaching and the delivery of education, but nothing of real learning. This is not uncommon, which is precisely the reason I am so appalled by the general lack of promise schools offer. Yes, of course, externally determined, quantitative measures can be used to assess how well a teacher has taught his or her subject. They cannot, however, adequately demonstrate the value of what someone has learnt – which can only ever be subjectively measured on the basis of that individual’s happiness, wellbeing, confidence, societal contribution, economic success... you get the idea.

Sure, if you want to measure people who home school their children then it becomes easier to compare parental input with teacher input on the basis of child output. But that still skips over the many likely benefits of home education (such as one to one tuition and significant exposure to the real world) that can’t be quantitatively measured. And whilst home schooling is what most people ignorantly assume home education to be, replicating school at home is actually what many families seek to avoid. Using their schooled peers as a benchmark for autonomously learning children is impossible, because they are utterly incomparable.

Let me illustrate. Is David so sure that his teacher status enables him to examine how suitably educated for society I am? I passed last year’s MBA exams with merit, which should tell him I am pretty able academically; I am good at taking information in, using and applying it in a number of ways, and presenting it in a way that pleases examiners.  Of what real value is that? Surely the best demonstration of my learning and ability is that I am jointly responsible for running a successful business (an epiphany that led me to concentrate on real world business learning and jack the MBA in). And how, exactly, would David measure this empirically?

Is it that we turn a profit? Is it that we are expanding? Is it that we have a sound recruitment policy and treat our employees well? Is it that we operate ethically? Is it that we create beautiful things that our customers love? Is it that we build relationships with people and give things away for free because we’re nice? Is it that our accounts are in order and our internal processes are compliant with legislation? Is it that we are committed to continuous learning and improvement? Is it that we are small, nimble, flexible, responsive, not intimidated by traditional models - and fit for the 21st century?

Is David still so sure he is fit to assess the quality of my learning experiences?  Teacher status means so very, very little in comparison with the power of self-driven learning. Does his assertion now seem a little unrealistic… and maybe old fashioned? Would I really trust him to give me advice on what I need to learn next? (The answer, based on what I have read, is emphatically no). I am absolutely no different from an autonomously educated child – who can learn what they want, how they want, and when they want, unhampered by the control mechanisms that schools necessarily implement (testing, standardisation, key stages etc) in order to function and mass educate several hundred students at a time.

• If children want to learn about something, they will find the ways and means of doing it, even if it’s a specialist or technical area. The power of motivation and initiative is awesome.
  
• Home educated children don’t need to keep pace with their peers because external definitions of attainment, used as a management tool by schools, are arbitrary and irrelevant. Learning out of school becomes framed as an endless, lifelong pursuit of the individual.
  
• The imperative of breadth in education is an outdated cultural construct. The quality and relevance of each chosen learning experience is far more important to the learner.
  
• Children are impacted by adults’ worldviews whether they attend school or otherwise. Schools indoctrinate children in relation to power, control, conformity and dependence. As part of this, a teacher is no more authoritatively placed to assess the impact of any given worldview than anyone else.
  

The paradigm of school and teacher authority in the sphere of learning is fast becoming defunct for the 21st century. Sadly, it won’t be the schools and teachers themselves in the main who realise this (although there are some bright lights, see www.education.change.org). The “objective” empirical evidence these dinosaurs seek to measure performance is only ever a reflection of their own subjective and predetermined definition of educational value. “Look,” it says. “Teaching teaches people things.”

To finish with the words of Max Planck,widely considererd to be the founder of that crazy notion, quantum physics: “a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” 

I heard an interview on Radio 4 this afternoon with Lord Janner, discussing the return to this country of Richard Williamson. I do not know the ins and outs of this particular “holocaust denial” fracas (or any other for that matter) but from what I can gather, Williamson’s current position is that he does not believe that gas chambers existed and therefore that people (specifically Jews) were killed in them. Maybe I am missing something, but that doesn’t sound like an out and out denial of the Holocaust to me.

Lord Janner went on to describe Richard’s Williamson’s belief in the non-existence of gas chambers as offensive and anti-Semitic, touching on the possibility of using religious hate crime legislation against him. Again, I am confused – I do not think that his view of history as it was stated in the interview is in itself anti-Semitic. I can see how his view is obnoxious and offensive to many people, as well as likely uninformed - I assume that, because of the outrage it has caused, the evidence he uses to back up his claim is either non-existent or nonsensical. If this is the case, can we not just write him off as undeserving of our time and attention and move on?

Here’s the deal. I was never taught about the Holocaust at school and aside from the media coverage I have seen, I have never engaged in any real learning about the subject as an adult (although it’s definitely on my list for this year). Apart from television programmes and newspaper articles, the only other vaguely empirical evidence I personally have that gas chambers existed is second- or third-hand hearsay – and all of this would be trashed by any self-respecting positivist. However, I nevertheless believe without question that the Holocaust happened and that gas chambers were used to murder many people.

If we were talking about the existence of any other historical claim and such evidence, I would rightly be called upon to examine more critically the sources upon which I base my beliefs. Before the squawking begins, I am sure that when I begin to dig a little deeper myself this year, I will find more compelling evidence that supports the view held by the majority (including my hitherto uncritical self) which is that:

a.) The Holocaust happened, and
b.) People, including many Jews, were murdered in gas chambers.

But as of yet, entirely because of my own ignorance, I have very little compelling evidence upon which to base or make these assertions myself. Accepting any claim without due consideration – even in a very sensitive and emotive area - simply because many other people say it is so, or because one has seen something on television or read about it in a newspaper, is absolutely not sufficient and would be scorned in any other context. My concern with this whole affair is that this normally encouraged rigorous approach to evidence, analysis and debate is completely forbidden in relation to the Holocaust – for no other reason than it offends some people’s sensibilities.

The freedom that allows us to express our opinions and be heard requires that we allow others to be heard, regardless of how abhorrent or ignorant we find their opinions. It is also a freedom that goes a long way towards the prevention of genocide, and as such it should not be stifled for the sake of hurt feelings.