read this article the other day... thought it might be interesting for you here! (its quite opinionated)

The slandering of home education by the BBC

Written by Veronika Robinson, editor of The Mother magazine, and co-author of Life Without School: the quiet revolution

Recently, a young girl died at the hands of her mother ~ she was starved to death. It emerged that the girl had been taken out of school a few months prior to this. The family was known to Social Services, yet nothing was done to support this girl and her family. There’s a MASSIVE difference between being home educated/unschooled and being ‘taken out of school’.

As is typical in this country, people add 2 + 2 and come up with 15.

SHAME on the BBC ~ and its spokesperson, Fern Britton (a presenter known to detest home education) ~ for using this awful, incomprehensible tragedy to condemn home education. This story has NOTHING whatsoever to do with educating your child at home, and if people like Fern are so ignorant and prejudiced that they can’t see that, then they shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near TV cameras or radio microphones. And let’s not forget, this is a woman who categorically LIED about her stomach reducing operations when shed-loads of weight disappeared from her body. Integrity clearly isn’t her strong point. Why should anyone be listening to her in the first place?

How can we ever hope to raise free thinking people if all we ever do in this culture is regurgitate myths, lies and misinformation?

As I wrote in my family’s book, Life Without School, my original reasons for home education were because of bullying. Throughout the years, the reasons for continuing on this path have been many and varied. One reason is so my children can learn to think for themselves and not be hypnotised by the cultural “slave cage” that we’re all born into ~ the vehicle of school carries children there supremely well. I want my daughters to question everything in their life (including their parents!!).

Don’t think you’re a slave? Hmmm. I beg to differ. If you live in the monetary system, you’re a slave. You were born into it, and hypnotised from birth. We all were, including me.

If you require money to buy food, you’re a slave.

If you require money to put a roof over your head, you’re a slave.

If you require money to educate yourself, you’re a slave.

IF YOU EAT PROCESSED FOODS, you’re a slave.

If you pay council tax, you’re a slave.

If you pay taxes, you’re a slave.

If you rely on government hand-outs, you’re a slave.

If you own a mobile phone, you can be tracked anywhere (even when it’s turned off! ~ unless the battery is out), you’re a slave.

Satellites can see into your home ~ that makes you a slave.

The air around you is manipulated with chemicals which can affect you physically and psychologically. That makes you a slave.

If you believe that vaccinations will protect your child, then you’re a slave.

If you have to wear clothes for legal reasons, you’re a slave.

If you’ve going to be a slave, then at least be AWARE that you’re one.


My children aren’t locked in a cupboard and deprived of life ~ they’re LIVING LIFE EVERY DAY because they’re not in school. If we seriously want children to grow up and be prepared for the ‘real world’, then we must let them live in it 24/7, and we must treat them with respect.

The girls are involved in drama group, teenage reading group, orchestra, music lessons, swimming, regularly visit the library and are free to travel with us at a moment’s notice without their ‘education’ being affected. Concerts and other events can be attended at any time because it won’t affect ‘school’ the next day.

Between them they are passionate about history, music, fashion design, plant-based food preparation, fiction writing, screenplay writing, song writing, animal care and more. Eliza’s learning saxophone and ukulele.

As I type, Bethany’s playing the flute beside me. She’s found a teacher in the next village (even organising the lessons herself), and has been putting in a half hour practise each day. She also puts in the same amount of time for violin, piano and guitar. And Bethany’s teaching me how to play violin. At the heart of unschooling, is the knowledge and experience that learning is a family adventure.

How do the children learn? They learn everyday from life. This is how they’ve always learnt. Children who are given freedom in their education discover their passions and pursue them. They don’t need adults sitting over them like dictators.

Some home educators follow a timetable and even follow the national curriculum. As unschoolers, we have a very autonomous approach to how our children learn. They choose what is interesting to them. There’s a novel idea! The more I think about mainstream education, the more I realise that forcing our children to learn subjects which have absolutely NO interest to them is CHILD ABUSE. It’s a force-feeding of someone else’s idea of what’s important. Doesn’t anyone look at children and feel the angst and unbearable pressure they’re under to ‘perform’; to measure up to someone else’s expectations? These should be the best years of their lives, not the most stressful!

Bethany’s 14, in a couple of weeks, and Eliza’s 12. They have discovered what they love, and between them have many options to choose from for a career. As parents, we are not pushing them in any particular area, but celebrating the joys, interests and love of learning that they have. We’re allowing them their birthright: a childhood.
If they were in school, they’d get a half hour career’s guidance session (if lucky). Every day in unschooling they get career guidance: from themselves, their parents and the world they live in.

People like Fern Britton who have no understanding of the day to day nature of home education and unschooling should put their heads back in the sand if they don’t have the energy to research it fully or the expertise of day to day experience. They are of no service to the enlightening of an already dysfunctional culture.

Home education is legal, and a more than valid choice. How is that the BBC ~ funded by you and I ~ is allowed to mock something which is set in law? Could it be that the government is getting rather tired of the freethinking people who are emerging, and would rather get every child back in the box so they can be fully controlled? So, little by little, it ensures that the media feed us with negative home education ‘stories’. If that seems a little far-fetched, then it’s time to question how such presenters on the BBC are able to be so biased.

{gag}

Okay, November Butterfly, this one is a bit much. lol. Some parts of the article sound almost reasonable, like I could really agree with this woman. Then she flips out and gets all weird . . . how bizarre. lol

i think she is a it.. umm far out :)
I don't necesserily agree what shes put here, but i wanted to chuck it in here to see what people said about it

This is the problem RIGHT HERE. Why can you not both be right, whether you home school, send them to public school, cloth diaper, disposable diaper, pick your nose, or dont pick your nose. NOT ALL PEOPLE ARE THE SAME. This is what angers me so much, if more people looked at it and said "hey that might work for you, if so great" rather then say "you are a horrible person for chosing that yadda yadda."

The problem is that we homeschooling parents have endured so much verbal abuse by anti-homeschoolers in the same form that you are seeing in the article above, that some homeschooling parents have simply turned it around on those people. For the most part, we homeschooling parents don't feel that way about parents who send their children to public school. Yes, there are a few who do, but most of the time they're easy to ignore because they stick to themselves.

I'd be willing to guess that the homeschooling mom who wrote the article/letter/whatever that November Butterfly posted isn't really one of those homeschooling parents who really feels that way, she's just a homeschooling parent who is sick and tired of anti-homeschoolers and has gotten tired of enduring the verbal abuse. I could be wrong, though. That's just what I get from that letter.

I think that period there is way too much judgement. I have now decided to homeschool for preschool and see how it goes, and I am appalled at the notes I have gotten. At the same time, there are people who say "you want to send you kids to public schools so they can be ignorant go ahead". More people need to look at it as 'oh thats great it works for you, it wouldnt for me' rather than bashing someone for their choices.

Yes, there is. From both sides. The school system horribly failed my children, which is why I chose to homeschool. But I once knew a homeschooling family of five and the only one who learned anything was the girl, because she was the only one who buckled down. None of the boys ever graduated high school, or even got their GED. And they certainly never went to college. But that happens with traditionally schooled kids, too. Homeschool doesn't work for everyone, traditional schooling doesn't work for everyone.

But those boys parents should have recognised it wasn't working and looked at other options. THEY failed those kids. And that is another reason why homeschooling should have some degree of regulation... so that at least an outside can step in and say "hey, your kids aren't doing so well... why is that, and is there anything we can do about it?". Because SOME parents will be so stubborn and will persist, even if their children are failing.

I don't believe I said otherwise. It was an example of how homeschool doesn't work for everyone, just as traditional education doesn't work for everyone. And how BOTH sides need to stop judging each other. My children have done FAR better in the one year of homeschooling than they did in the two and five years of traditional education they received. Those other boys I mentioned probably would have done better in a traditional schooling environment (though that's not necessarily true) because there would have been more structure for them. Hence, Homeschool doesn't work for everyone, traditional schooling doesn't work for everyone.

I think you missed my point. I agree with you that it depends what works for each individual family. My point was however that if there was more regulation, those parents you mentioned may not have been able to harm their children's education so badly by sticking to what was clearly the wrong choice for THOSE kids.

You are absolutely right RedFraggle! I was a home schooled child; I attended public school from the 4th grade to the 6th grade and because I wasn't "challenged" enough my mother pulled me out and decided to "homeschool" me. That ended up her going over a catalog looking at books I might enjoy, and than having them shipped to me so that I could "learn." I thank God everyday that I have a joy and love of learning, otherwise I would have failed miserably because my mother never actually taught me.

IF there were more regulations, which I do agree with in limitations, someone would have recognized that my mother was not home schooling properly and I could have had other options.

I do however, agree, that home schooling works for some and than some times not others. And I truly believe that at the age of accountability children should have a right to say, "Mom, Dad, I'd like to try public school."

I'm all for children learning by experiencing the world, absolutely. But you allow your children to just learn whatever they want? What happens if, for example, they get to 16 and decide they want to be a doctor but can't even apply for med school because they don't have basic maths skills because they decided they just didn't like maths?

Providing a child with a broad range of subjects (not just the ones they like) isn't child abuse... it's providing them with options for the future. It allows them to do what they want, become what they want. By preventing them from having that opportunity you are only restricting their future options. If my parents had done that to me I'm pretty sure I'd have resented them for it once I was old enough to understand the consequences (in career terms) of such a limited education.

And everyone knows that there is a difference between removing a child under the pretence of homeschooling is different from ACTUALLY homeschooling your children... but how are the authorities (the people who can protect children like Kyra) supposed to know the difference? The only way they can prevent abuse of the system is to check up on everyone.

Actually, someone who has studied homeschooling education will know how to incorporate basic math skills, and oftentimes more than basic math skills, into whatever the child wants to learn. It requires research on the part of the parent, but it CAN be done. Mary Jane is interested in music? Teach her math by teaching her musical timing. It's actually quite easy to incorporate such things into ANY sort of topic the child chooses. It just takes research and skills.

Yes, but to get into say med school (just an example, could use any career) you need to pass appropriate exams in sciences and maths. Knowing basic maths, learned through music (which I agree is a good method for the BASICS) is not good enough. You cannot incorporate trigonometry and advanced algebra (or organic chemistry!) into just anything!

In order to apply for medical school, one must have a bachelor's degree. Which means one must attend college. Grades 9-12 are high school, anything after that is college. So at 16 years old, if a child decides they want to be a Dr, they still have about five years left (four of them in post-high school courses) before they can anyway. So the homeschooled 16 year old who only has basic math skills, still have at least one more year of high school left PLUS four years of college left to learn those math and science skills they need in order to GET INTO medical school.

Nope, only in America.

.November.Butterfly if I am correct lives in Europe. And I think in most European countries (and certainly in the UK) you can apply to med school from high school, and in fact most people do. The vast majority of doctors qualify here through a 5 year undergraduate degree. You need to have the appropriate high school exams to apply.

Ok, then I'll just step out of this part of the discussion, since I have no clue how the education system, and much less how the homeschool system, works in European countries. I can only speak for the United States.

Yeah, I can see how it MIGHT be possible within the American system to 'catch up' during university. But how is a child with only basic math skills going to even get accepted onto the science degree they will need to later apply for medicine? However you look at it, children need to reach a certain standard in more than just a couple of subjects, to be able to pass the exams required to get into university for pretty much anything. If a child is allowed to pick and chose what they learn I can't see how they can possibly meet those standards.

I've known quite a few families who chose the unschooling method of homeschool, and it is actually QUITE possible. The children actually excelled far above those of their high schooled peers. Granted it's not a TYPICAL result of this type of homeschooling, it's all about how seriously the parent takes their responsibility. But it IS possible.

I think your point is very truthful and valid; going back to my home schooling, when I entered the community college (at 15! I had graduated out at 14 years old!) I was three years behind on my math studies and two years a head in english. BUT, because I only had "basic" math skills, my counselor said I would need at least a minimum of three extra semesters of college just to obtain my associates degree. :-/

The Europeans really have a great education system from what I have read on here and in some of the news articles online; maybe when my daughter is ready for public school we should move there! :)

I was in high school and my community college also told me I needed three extra semesters because I had only basic math skills, they told me a lot of people do not retain their math knowledge after leaving school.

Well I didn't have enough math skills to do college algebra, which is normally what a 12th grader goes right into after leaving high school. I had to start in Mat 070 or which is like 10th grade math. :(

I started in 030, with basic adding and subtracting, its elementary math. I wouldnt feel bad about it at all. I tested above average in everything but math.

Well that is clearly a failure of your school. No child should be finishing high school with only elementary maths! That problem should have been dealt with much sooner.

Actually I took Algebra in high school, I was out of school for three years when I went back to college, and I did not retain my math knowledge.