No-one who is following the home education review can fail to have noticed that a member of the panel, Stephen Heppell, has been engaging in the comments sections of Gill and Carlotta’s blogs.
Notschool, an online learning environment for young people who are not in mainstream education, is the brainchild of Stephen. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I am certain that, when Graham Badman has been attempting to flesh out the kind of “support” to which home educators would acquiesce in order to “stop the battle”, he suggested that perhaps "something like Notschool" might be an option. I can’t find where I read this, however, so I am happy to stand corrected.
My own view is that, as with any other education resource, Notschool might well be acceptable to some home educating families. For many, however, it simply wouldn’t be a resource of choice; certainly for most families who follow autonomous learning pedagogies (unless their child specifically requested it), but also for many other families too. The key word here is choice. No rational home educating family would have any problem with the existence of voluntarily accessed support, whatever it consisted of. What does cause concern is the emergent fashion of “non-negotiable support”: the government's coercive intervention agenda in newspeak.
Carlotta sparked lively debate in a post entitled “Could we accept some form of support?” by inviting commenters to discuss models of support that operate elsewhere, and assess how acceptable such models would be as possible outcomes of the review. On Sometimes It’s Peaceful, Gill explored Notschool in further detail, but withdrew her comments at the request of Stephen Heppell, who claimed to have been misrepresented and bullied by her. Ali's critique of it is well worth reading here.
Stephen then proceeded to engage with commenters, predominantly those on Carlotta’s blog. As I read what he had to say, I became increasingly uneasy with what was unfolding, through what I perceived to be Stephen playing one blog off against the other. I decided that I would take some time to think things through, but came across Mieke’s post the following day. Her analysis went deeper than mine, but I realised that, for me too, it was Stephen’s virtual kissing (particularly after the unpleasant exchanges with Gill) from his position of power (“would you have preferred I left it to the Ofsted members etc? and walked away?”) and supposed professionalism that had really unnerved me.
Put quite simply, I am horrified that someone I have never met, someone who has behaved in such an unpredictable, contrary (and arguably manipulative) manner, has been granted the power to affect the life of my child - and yours, in such a fundamental way.
There’s the other stuff, too.
On what basis is Stephen engaging with us? Are his colleagues aware of this dialogue? Does he have a mandate?
If not, then none of us can expect our comments, no matter how lengthy, passionate or eloquently put, to be formally presented to the rest of the panel.
If so, then we need to be asking – what might that mandate have been? And why was there no prior disclosure?
Stephen might well be an advocate of personalised learning, and he might even “get” autonomous learning – although from some of his comments about “negotiation”, “seduction”, and “degrees of autonomy”, I’m not so sure. But that does not make automatically make him an ally of home educators! His very business is personalised learning, so why would he ever seek to criticise it, to us or anyone else?
No, this man has the same agenda as the rest of the panel, but he is presenting it to us in its original, emotive packaging: child welfare. And these were his many straw men:
- The crack-using mother
- The child prostitute
- “You only get one chance at being a child”
- “We need to care about all children”
- “all EHE children, not just the fortunate ones”
- Our using vulnerable children as "sacrificial lambs"
- Our NIMBYism
- Our lack of proactivism
No. I am sorry, but no. At best this propaganda is deluded; at worst it has been carefully orchestrated to manipulate us into agreement.
We repeatedly explained the relevant legislation, the logical rationale underpinning it, the vital importance of maintaining clarity between the concepts of education and welfare, the repeated failings of statutory services, the overwhelming evidence that supports our position – and, so far... there has been no reply of substance.
Just a rallying of his new subjects:
“All – I’m finding this helpful”
“By the way, I do agree with so much that is said here”
“I’m really pleased to see – with the odd exception – a constructive debate”
An intimate disclosure:
“I probably shouldn’t be part of the conversation, but will be watching."
Discouraging resistance:
“We are where we are and I don’t think anyone will change the remit of the group.”
And finally, the illusion of empowerment, but under the same old agenda:
“What might YOUR action be to move [these two things] forward?"
“All – So more ideas please – a generic solution for the many textures of HE is a big ask, but that is what we are being asked for, so all thoughts still welcome...”
So we are essentially back to where we started. Having to justify a personal decision that requires no such justification. Having to explain, to supposedly intelligent people, that applying any "generic solution" to the "many textures of home education" (or any other diverse and individualistic human practice) is impossible without permanently damaging the integrity of those many textures, which exist (and are currently protected in law) for very good reason indeed.
As Barbara Stark points out – requesting a solution implies that there is a problem. And there is no such problem, apart from that of the government’s own creation. Statist creep, indeed.
