6/20/2009 3:52:46 PM #

Thanks for linking to my blog, Renegade. Balls and Badman have many qualities that define a bully. It's all particularly galling when you consider this post from Blogdial:
http://irdial.com/blogdial/?p=721
Posted on May 9th, 2007, it trumpets that home educators won. Parents do not have to register their (naughty home educating) children and children do not have to be inspected (for bruises or educational prowess). Councils would be only to intervene only if they have good reason to believe that parents were not providing a 'suitable' education. What happened? How did it come to this?

Within just over two years we seem to have developed a maniacal procession of interfering laws, dropped the legal safeguards of many centuries that protected ordinary men and women from the abuse extended to them by powerful men (and the occasional woman).

How did it come to this?

http://www.threedegreesoffreedom.blogstop.com

Danae

6/21/2009 11:38:39 AM #

The following quote is from another website (Sometimes it's peaceful):

"To allow 'designated officers' the right of access to people's homes without good reason is to set a dangerous precedent, with implications for all families, home educating or not.
Allowing 'designated officers' the right to speak with each .... child alone is another high risk manoeuvre......... What if the 'designated officer' in question has secret motives, other than the ones stated? What if he upsets, or frightens the child, asks leading questions or misinterprets the child's answers? There are no guarantees that this will never happen, and for the government to allow such a right is a clearer statement than ever before that it has more trust in local authority officers - essentially strangers to a child - than it does in children's own parents."

This actually happened to our family. During an unannounced home visit* a 'designated person' did attempt to peddle their early years education stuff to me. The person then asked whether she could have a “private” word with my then 3-year-old daughter. I agreed only because, unknown to the 'designated person', a relative was sitting at the dining table just round the corner so could hear what was being said and I knew my relative would step in if necessary. Did the person really think I would leave my daughter all alone with her to have a “private word”?! According to my relative, the topics covered were:
-General questions around the “how are you?” theme. That is fine in my opinion.
-“Tell mummy you want to go to nursery. I would be very happy if you would join me at nursery. That would make me very happy.” This person then went on to tell my 3-year-old daughter all the "advantages" of nursery, how much fun she would have, making new friends, playing with new toys etc. In my opinion, the latter is emotional blackmail and very inappropriate way to speak to a 3 year old. Needless to say, my daughter did not take up the offer.

*This designated officer also had the cheek to ask where we had been all morning and whinge about the several attempts she had made that morning to come into our house, but we were not in. I pointed out to her that, had she made an appointment in advance for a home visit, she would not have wasted her morning waiting for my daughter and I to return home. What if we had been out for the whole day?

Anyway, I came across this "designated person" in the streets back in March this year. With my daughter at school, she inquired as to which school she was attending. She had the nerve to ask me whether my daughter was struggling due to her lack of early years experience. I laughed and walked off. I would not be at all surprised if she had made "enquiries" as to whether my daughter was really attending the said school ;)

For the record, my daughter is in the "top percentile" ability-wise of her class. She's maybe not "outstanding", but I'm informed that she is way above average and doing very well. My daughter's lack of attendance in any 'free' early years schooling programe has not had a negative effect on my daughter's social, congnitive or any other "ability".

Laura

6/21/2009 9:48:44 PM #

The Liberal Conspiracy debate has been educational.

Amazing how these self described liberals can justify an authoritarian approach to childhood.

The following comment was a hell of an education for me.

"Interesting to see some commenters introducing the consideration of child’s consent. From a liberal point of view, I think there are real dangers in treating children’s consent as a decisive factor. One of the reasonable worries about HE, from a liberal point of view, is that children are being raised in a way that ties them too closely to their parents’ values and world view. Since children are not the spiritual property of their parents, they have a right to an education that exposes them to a range of world views, in addition to that of their parents. Since children’s preferences will be strongly shaped by their parents, appealing to children’s consent risks reinforcing the power claims that parents wish to make over their children. It is the job of the liberal state to restrict these power claims, and this can conceivably involve placing limits on HE in ways that overrule children’s consent. Of course, there are pragmatic issues here about how well motivated children might be if they are required to undergo an education they don’t want. But as a matter of basic principle, it is, in fact, highly illiberal to treat children’s views as the determining factor."

What can be said to that?
Still had a nice chat to our Tory MP Gerald Howarth who balked at the thought of Autonomous Education but respected our right to make the choice in so let's see what they commit to.

Elizabeth

6/23/2009 4:36:38 PM #

@Danae and Laura - Just glad you're both along for the ride!

@Laura - I've just commented on a different post that recording and using these instances of "supportive intervention"is a really good idea - I think that often real life stories make more sense to people than logical argument alone.

@Elizabeth - reading that was a strenuous exercise in doublethink; I am not sure what to say either. It might appear that we are involved in an ideological tug of war with children caught in the middle, although of course in the vast majority of circumstances parents aren't fighting for *their* rights, or the opportunity to produce clone children, but for what they consider to be the best interests of their children. And who is better placed to know what those are? The state can never put individual needs first in the same way.

Hypothetically speaking, even if one assumes that all parents indoctrinate their children and that they should be free to so do, there would *still* be more diversity in the world than if the state took responsibility for what would amount to a one-size-fits-all approach to education.

Chilling stuff.

Renegade Parent