Educationsense Article - Schooling versus Education: "I never allowed schooling to interfere with my education"
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Like Mark Twain, I
have never allowed schooling to interfere with my education.
I worked out before commencing kindergarten, that girls led much more constrained lives than boys in 1960’s Australia. A huge lesson to learn, at a very young age and without the benefit of formal teaching. Another memorable moment was working out the basics of how to use differential calculus, 18 months before anyone at school had intended teaching me the concept. In the first instance I sought explanations for the unjust situation for girls and, finding none, went about rejecting all things typically feminine, in the hope that I could thereby prevent the negative aspects of femaleness from affecting me. (It has been very slow going on this front.)
In the latter case, I was told by my teacher not to use my fabulous, fast (but at that point, to my knowledge, nameless) technique for solving problems because (this is a verbatim quote) “it might not always work”. Undeterred, I asked my father if he knew what it was that I had discovered. Dad did know the answers to all of my questions, but one. He had no idea why the person whose job it was to teach me, was failing me so badly.
My father left school at the age of 15 with what was then called an “intermediate certificate” and took up an apprenticeship. He has engaged in both formal and informal learning all of his life. He taught me much more than calculus. He taught me that however difficult study may be at times, the moment of learning - that instant when the light goes on in your head - is an exquisite pleasure. Now, he is helping me to pass the desire to seek that thrill to my children.
A few weeks ago I saw the thrill in my son’s eyes when that switch flicked to “on” and he understood the idea of base 2 numbers. Than he asked if could e-mail his grandfather to share the moment. When his father came home from work, several hours later, he rushed to explain it all once again. Dad responded “what about base 5?” Having worked that out, there wasn’t just a light in his eyes, it was a fire.
This sometimes happens in schools.
This often happens outside schools.
The best schools are not structured to generate these experiences as routine for he majority of students. I dream that they will, one day, become such places. At the moment, there is only rhetoric about schools being places, and teachers being people, that facilitate and encourage children’s learning. There are encouraging moves in this direction. not least the plans to further reduce class sizes in the early years of primary school education.
I don’t want to bury schooling. I only want to defend un-schooling from being buried by bureaucracy.
The ACT Education Act 1937 requires that children between the ages of 6 and 15 years attend school or be provided with regular and efficient instruction. It is estimated that around 1.2% of ACT children are currently educated by their families, without the input of any school. The draft Education Bill 2002 seeks to impose an extensive regulatory regime on this tiny segment of the ACT community. The proposals are draconian, unnecessary and grossly expensive. And most importantly, they will not enhance the education of a single ACT student, either within or outside a school.
The Bill begins in grand style, asserting the right of every child to education. But section 112 (among others) makes the error of equating education and schooling, by defining not home education, but home-schooling. And the definition? School in the child’s home. For many families, choosing not to use schools is all about learning in ways that are fundamentally different from the methods of schools. It is often not a simple case of replicating school on a much smaller scale. The chief executive has a discretion not register a child for “home-schooling”. I wonder which parents will find that their child is refused registration?
Section 115 details the requirements of registration, which focus on a “satisfactory course of education” and “adequate facilities”. And, of course, the family must agree to fairly unfettered access to their home by an “authorised person” to ensure that the conditions are complied with. Then section 117 provides for re-registration at least every two years. I could continue indefinitely with the explicit breaches of civil liberties and various international human rights conventions contained in these provisions, but I would like to limit myself (for the moment) to the issue that most of the politicians and education bureaucrats should understand. Funding.
I would be very interested to see the budget projections for this regime. At present, the only money spent by the Territory on the education of children outside of school is that involved in the registration of approximately 50 children whose parents have voluntarily advised the Department that are not making use of any school. A regulatory regime will cost a significant amount to implement and maintain and will not add any benefit to the education of any child, inside or outside schools. Surely, this proposal will, inevitably, divert funds from schools and into administration. Entirely unnecessarily. In the United States, where both sheer numbers and percentages of children engaged in home education are far greater than in Australia, the average expenditure, per child, by a home educating family is at least 975% less than that spent by state schools. In the all-pervasive climate of economic irrationalism and ideologically driven down-sizing in both the public and private sectors, we are entitled to know why this legislation is moving in the opposite direction. On cost alone, it would make more sense to implement some incentives to encourage more parents take up this outsourcing opportunity.
Should the ACT community be concerned, or even interested in these developments? After all, home education will never personally affect the vast majority of us. Why worry? Home education may always remain a minority choice. One of many choices that ACT families are at present free to make with regard to the education of their children. Paul Browning (CT 5/8/02) described the array of choices and claimed that one of the reasons for the success of ACT students, on a range of measures, is that wide range of choices. Home education is facing being regulated out of existence. We have already seen the demise of the School Without Walls (SWOW) and the Association for Modern Education (AME) School, limiting the choices of families wanting to provide an autonomous style of education for their children. Will the school you think is the best suited to your child be next? Will Montessori education become the preserve of only those who have proved that every other style is unsuitable for their child? What if a child could only gain entry to a secondary college on payment of a compulsory fee and the passing of a culturally biased entrance examination? Won’t happen? Can’t happen? What if it did?
Carolyn Pope, September 2002
If you want to voice your concern over this Bill, please email the ACT Education Minister, Simon Corbell at corbell
act.gov.au and/or The Canberra Times
at letters.editorcanberratimes.com.au
Your support is very much appreciated.
I worked out before commencing kindergarten, that girls led much more constrained lives than boys in 1960’s Australia. A huge lesson to learn, at a very young age and without the benefit of formal teaching. Another memorable moment was working out the basics of how to use differential calculus, 18 months before anyone at school had intended teaching me the concept. In the first instance I sought explanations for the unjust situation for girls and, finding none, went about rejecting all things typically feminine, in the hope that I could thereby prevent the negative aspects of femaleness from affecting me. (It has been very slow going on this front.)
In the latter case, I was told by my teacher not to use my fabulous, fast (but at that point, to my knowledge, nameless) technique for solving problems because (this is a verbatim quote) “it might not always work”. Undeterred, I asked my father if he knew what it was that I had discovered. Dad did know the answers to all of my questions, but one. He had no idea why the person whose job it was to teach me, was failing me so badly.
My father left school at the age of 15 with what was then called an “intermediate certificate” and took up an apprenticeship. He has engaged in both formal and informal learning all of his life. He taught me much more than calculus. He taught me that however difficult study may be at times, the moment of learning - that instant when the light goes on in your head - is an exquisite pleasure. Now, he is helping me to pass the desire to seek that thrill to my children.
A few weeks ago I saw the thrill in my son’s eyes when that switch flicked to “on” and he understood the idea of base 2 numbers. Than he asked if could e-mail his grandfather to share the moment. When his father came home from work, several hours later, he rushed to explain it all once again. Dad responded “what about base 5?” Having worked that out, there wasn’t just a light in his eyes, it was a fire.
This sometimes happens in schools.
This often happens outside schools.
The best schools are not structured to generate these experiences as routine for he majority of students. I dream that they will, one day, become such places. At the moment, there is only rhetoric about schools being places, and teachers being people, that facilitate and encourage children’s learning. There are encouraging moves in this direction. not least the plans to further reduce class sizes in the early years of primary school education.
I don’t want to bury schooling. I only want to defend un-schooling from being buried by bureaucracy.
The ACT Education Act 1937 requires that children between the ages of 6 and 15 years attend school or be provided with regular and efficient instruction. It is estimated that around 1.2% of ACT children are currently educated by their families, without the input of any school. The draft Education Bill 2002 seeks to impose an extensive regulatory regime on this tiny segment of the ACT community. The proposals are draconian, unnecessary and grossly expensive. And most importantly, they will not enhance the education of a single ACT student, either within or outside a school.
The Bill begins in grand style, asserting the right of every child to education. But section 112 (among others) makes the error of equating education and schooling, by defining not home education, but home-schooling. And the definition? School in the child’s home. For many families, choosing not to use schools is all about learning in ways that are fundamentally different from the methods of schools. It is often not a simple case of replicating school on a much smaller scale. The chief executive has a discretion not register a child for “home-schooling”. I wonder which parents will find that their child is refused registration?
Section 115 details the requirements of registration, which focus on a “satisfactory course of education” and “adequate facilities”. And, of course, the family must agree to fairly unfettered access to their home by an “authorised person” to ensure that the conditions are complied with. Then section 117 provides for re-registration at least every two years. I could continue indefinitely with the explicit breaches of civil liberties and various international human rights conventions contained in these provisions, but I would like to limit myself (for the moment) to the issue that most of the politicians and education bureaucrats should understand. Funding.
I would be very interested to see the budget projections for this regime. At present, the only money spent by the Territory on the education of children outside of school is that involved in the registration of approximately 50 children whose parents have voluntarily advised the Department that are not making use of any school. A regulatory regime will cost a significant amount to implement and maintain and will not add any benefit to the education of any child, inside or outside schools. Surely, this proposal will, inevitably, divert funds from schools and into administration. Entirely unnecessarily. In the United States, where both sheer numbers and percentages of children engaged in home education are far greater than in Australia, the average expenditure, per child, by a home educating family is at least 975% less than that spent by state schools. In the all-pervasive climate of economic irrationalism and ideologically driven down-sizing in both the public and private sectors, we are entitled to know why this legislation is moving in the opposite direction. On cost alone, it would make more sense to implement some incentives to encourage more parents take up this outsourcing opportunity.
Should the ACT community be concerned, or even interested in these developments? After all, home education will never personally affect the vast majority of us. Why worry? Home education may always remain a minority choice. One of many choices that ACT families are at present free to make with regard to the education of their children. Paul Browning (CT 5/8/02) described the array of choices and claimed that one of the reasons for the success of ACT students, on a range of measures, is that wide range of choices. Home education is facing being regulated out of existence. We have already seen the demise of the School Without Walls (SWOW) and the Association for Modern Education (AME) School, limiting the choices of families wanting to provide an autonomous style of education for their children. Will the school you think is the best suited to your child be next? Will Montessori education become the preserve of only those who have proved that every other style is unsuitable for their child? What if a child could only gain entry to a secondary college on payment of a compulsory fee and the passing of a culturally biased entrance examination? Won’t happen? Can’t happen? What if it did?
Carolyn Pope, September 2002
If you want to voice your concern over this Bill, please email the ACT Education Minister, Simon Corbell at corbell
act.gov.au and/or The Canberra Times
at letters.editorcanberratimes.com.auYour support is very much appreciated.
