Thursday, February 11, 2010

Take Back Your Education by J. T. Gatto

Nobody gives you an education. If you want one, you have to take it. Only you can educate you—and you can’t do it by memorizing. You have to find out who you are by experience and by risk-­taking, then pursue your own nature intensely. School routines are set up to discourage you from self-discovery. People who know who they are make trouble for schools.

To know yourself, you have to keep track of your random choices, figure out your patterns, and use this knowledge to dominate your own mind. It’s the only way that free will can grow. If you avoid this, other minds will manipulate and control you lifelong.

Read more...

Sunday, February 7, 2010

This week's compulsory miseducation news

here...

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

EO questions assurances about EHE funding

"the guidance notes specifically instruct local authorities not to include home educated children in any funding applications."

Read it here.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Consultation Results

Home Education - registration and monitoring proposals
can be found here.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Homeschooling couple arrested for not registering



In a move designed to send a message to parents, a New York couple were arrested and ticketed for homeschooling their children and failing to register their them with the school district. Read more here.

Watch more on the same story here.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Unschooling for Social Change

The Freechild Project defines unschooling as the process of learning through life, without formalized or institutionalized classrooms or schoolwork. Unschooling relies on interpersonal relationships and natural learning progression to have effect on learners, instead of textbooks and classroom teachers. Self-education is the liberating practice of teaching yourself.

Freechild believes that deschooling is also anti-formalized and anti-institutionalized education of any sorts. However, this process deliberately emphasizes the absence of the systemic approach to learning, and negates the need for schools. Some homeschoolers use a "deschooling" process to get ready for learning at home.

Check it out here.

"Your life, time, and brain should belong to you, not to an institution."
Grace Lwellyn in The Teenage Liberation Handbook

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

What's on the news

If home-schooling is good for our children it is for us to say
How much more evidence does the Government need before the penny drops: that excessive interference from the centre is causing irreparable damage to our society?

And in one of the many comments:

"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."

Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler; the Ralph Manheim translation published by Houghton- Mifflin, 1943. pg 403.

St Albans couple's worry over changes to home education
The couple worry the intrusion and shift of power from them to the local authority would have a massive impact on their children and family life.

New Jamaican book on home-schooling
"PEOPLE said I was crazy when I started home-schooling my son," says author and home-schooling pioneer Barbara Blake Hannah. They changed their opinion when her son was appointed youth technology consultant to the Jamaican government in 1998 at age 13, and was labelled a 'genius' without having experienced a traditional education.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Right to Reply

A Response to Graham Badman‟s Report to the Secretary of State on the Review of Elective Home Education in England and reaction to the CSF Select Committee hearing on Monday 12 October 2009

Open PDF File here.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Uncorrected Transcript of Oral Evidence

on EHE given by Graham Badman, Ms Diana Johnson and Penny Jones to the CSF Committee on Mon 12/10/09 available here.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

AHEd's response to the EHE Review Report

AHEd's link to the Briefing Paper can be found here. It could be a useful guide for MPs and others who are being approached.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Big Sky Thinking

Why home schooling must be saved from the bureaucrats

"Home education could be at risk in some areas."

Read more...

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Disadvantages of homeschooling

If you came across the article on the disadvantages of homeschooling, make sure you read Carlotta's reply.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Ensino em casa no Brasil

Ensino em casa no Brasil
Educação de casa
Escola em casa
Ensino em casa - fórum
A escolha de pais em educar os filhos em casa
Ensino doméstico ou domiciliar

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

The spirituality of education

Parker Palmer: "A spirituality of ends wants to dictate the desirable outcomes of education in the life of the student. It uses the spiritual tradition as a template against which the ideas, beliefs, and behaviours of the student are to be measured. The goal is to shape the student to the template by the time his of her formal education concludes.

But that sort of education never gets started; it is no education at all. Authentic spirituality wants to open us to truth - whatever truth may be, wherever truth may take us. Such a spirituality does not dictate where we must go, but trusts that any path walked with integrity will take us to a place of knowledge. Such a spirituality encourages us to welcome diversity and conflict, to tolerate ambiguity, and to embrace paradox. By this understanding, the spirituality of education is not about dictating ends. It is about examining and clarifying the inner sources of teaching and learning, ridding us of the toxins that poison our hearts and minds."

Listen online: Parker Palmer Podcasts

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Home Education - News

Bid to tighten up on home education: "Children being educated at home will continue “falling through the net” if the Scottish Government does not tighten up its legislation, a councillor has warned." - Read more... [Find out more about the new consultation here and here.]

Teach at home, by example: "My kids are home educated. Four have graduated; two have completed traditional college programs, and two are taking classes. Five, including our daughter with special needs, continue to study with me. The truth is, you could do it. You can learn how to effectively teach your children the required subject matter. But beyond that, you teach them by example every day. Parents are their children's best teachers." - Read more...

Home school or not? "Home schooling is not a new phenomenon, the practice dates back centuries but started to fade after the mid-19th century, when the first wave of compulsory school attendance laws emerged. In the 1960s, the social climate led to a resurgence of home schooling among progressive, young parents. Evangelical Christians and fundamentalists latched on to home schooling in the 1980s. The spectrum has since broadened to include parents who are dissatisfied with schools' ability to educate their children, parents who fear for their children's safety, and parents who simply want to be closer to their kids." Read more...

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Mozart Documentaries

Mozart, Miracle of Nature
The Greatest Mozart Documentary Ever [part 2 - part 3]
In Search of Mozart [part 2 here]

Friday, August 8, 2008

Jerry Mintz and Nellie Dick

Jerry Mintz has been described as an alternative education expert and Nellie Dick as a pioneer in the alternative education movement. Here's two short videos uploaded by Education Revolution - to watch them, click on the titles:

Jerry Mintz Interview
Nellie Dick and the Modern School

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Vaccine Nation

Watch it here...

Cognitive Theories & Autism

How Cognitive Theories Can Help Us Explain Autism
"Uta Frith, Professor in Cognitive Development at the University of London, looks at a whole causal chain of step-by-step explanations for autism."

Monday, August 4, 2008

Wise Up Home Education

Home educating parents in South Wales received £5,000 from Awards for All.

Read more...