Gill’s post on Graham Badman’s interpretation of “fulfilling potential” as attendance at university struck a chord with me. I went, but hated it and learnt nothing. G didn't go, but instead spent all of his waking hours (and he sleeps very little) learning and doing and learning some more. This not only gave him a considerable head start in work and life in general, but it also freed him from those chains of dependence on someone else’s validation, both academically and socially.
Admittedly, you can do that at university. And sometimes you need that piece of paper to fulfil your ambition of becoming a doctor, for example, or a lawyer (note – the piece of paper doesn’t make the doctors or the lawyers really competent professionals, though, does it?) But the proliferation of higher education establishments, and the ease with which one can acquire a degree, has certainly had an effect on the perception of graduates, at the very least.
The point is, a university education is not the only – and certainly not always the best – way of fulfilling your potential, whatever your age. I think that young people and their parents should be very suspicious of anyone in a position of authority who claims this to be the case.
And they should also be suspicious of anyone in a position of authority who demonstrates concern that children who don’t attend school are somehow less likely to be adequately socialised. Ed Balls has expressed this opinion, and so (I believe) has Graham Badman.
When people first started asking when we were going to send the Jenklett to nursery, and we told them never, we also mentioned that she probably wouldn’t be going to school either, unless she chose to. And, as all of you more experienced parents will be more than aware, people automatically choke on their own (super-original) socialisation argument.
I think that this is, in part, built upon the widely misconception of home educated children being stuck at home all day with just a pile of textbooks and the kitchen table for company. And possibly the suspicion that anyone who rejects the glories of school education must be some kind of misfit/extremist/child abuser (thanks for that, Vijay!) who will pass their antisocial tendencies onto their children.
But I think about the features that all institutions must share to function efficiently and effectively, I remember my own experiences of school, and I think: how time consuming and frustrating it must be for parents to unteach many of the lessons of “socialisation” that children learn in schools. Yes, you must obey it whilst you're there, but actually it's a load of old rubbish.
Now more than ever, schools are simply not analogous with the real world. They thrive on conformance, compliance, standardisation and arbitrary hierarchy. Children are compelled to attend against their will. They are gathered in vast packs, segregated by age and ability. They are judged by the quantity of their relationships, not the quality. They are treated as a homogenous mass: each one instructed in that which a faceless Whitehall bureaucrat deems important and necessary. They are policed by bouncers and held in isolation units - and, by all accounts - necessarily so. Teachers despair of the children, and their parents. Parents despair of their children, and the teachers. Children hate their parents, and their teachers.
This is socialisation? This is preparation for the real world? This is what my child is missing out on?
Another parent said to me the other day, “Doesn’t it make you feel guilty that you will be depriving your child of lots of friends?”
Well, no. I don’t feel guilty. She can go to school if she chooses. I just want her to know from day one that the real world involves other people of every age, ability and aptitude, and she will find friends amongst all of them if she cares to look. I want her to know that the quality of friendship is always more important than the quantity. I want her to know that choosing one’s own company and enjoying solitude is a sign of strength, not weakness. I want her to know that embracing her individuality and uniqueness will be her key to a happy and successful life. I want her to know that it’s okay to question authority, but it's also okay to trust in it where trust has been earned.
Some people don’t figure this out until after university – and some people never figure it out at all. Whether schooled or otherwise, children best learn about socialisation through interaction with the real world and exploration of themselves, not through what is taught in the classroom and the playground. Until the government realises this, and stops heaping parental, community and individual responsibilities onto schools that cannot possibly deliver, the problems we see today are only going to escalate.
