Tag Archives: parenting

HOME EDUCATION (OR THE RIGHT OF PARENTS TO CHOOSE FAMILY-BASED LEARNING, AND THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN TO A PLAYFUL CHULDHOOD)

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You, dear reader, may be engrossed in the personal struggle to pay bills, stay a comfortable temperature, with sourcing shelter and food for those people and creatures in your care.

You may be upset about who gets to kick a ball against which opponent under which conditions, of scrutiny, protest or adulation.

You may be busy with trying to improve your life, that of your family and community.. or working towards a more just world, where every human wakes, knowing they can have clean water and sufficient nourishment.

These daily concerns possibly mean you have not had time to see the forces which are seeking to control and divide us.

Many countries are tightening the reins and limiting the time-honoured option, for mothers and fathers to set the environment for the childhoods of the young in their care.

France, in recent years, has moved so far from LIBERTE in this topic that the 220+ year old idealists must be spinning in their resting places.

England, Scotland, Wales and northern Ireland have a shiny new Children’s Wellbeing in Schools Act, which seeks to tightly control where, when, how and by whom communities pass on the knowledge and wisdom they deem necessary, for independent adulthood.

EIRE, the 26 counties of the Irish Republic, has moved from relatively complete freedom, between the 1937 Bunreacht na hEireann (Constitution of Ireland) and the enactment of The Education (Welfare) Act 2000, in late 2002, to a point where regular, annual inspections of families in home education are envisaged.

Many Irish based parents would like to follow their children’s interests in the acquisition of literacy and numeracy, at each child’s unique pace.

We have watched our precious babies learn (WITHOUT INSTRUCTION) to smile, sit, crawl, eat, walk and speak their mother tongue.

We have read

Joy Baker “Children in Chancery”

John Holt, (who summed up his many writings in the phrase: “trust children”),

Harriet Pattison “Rethinking learning to read”,

John Taylor Gatto “Dumbing us down”,

Agnes Leistico “I learn better by teaching myself”,

Dr Alan Thomas and Jane Lowe ” Educating your child at home” ,

Heidi Steel “School isn’t for everyone”,

listened to Stark Raving Dad and similar podcasts, and we have concluded that our lovely small people will flourish, if we can ONLY move from FEAR to TRUST.

Yet, authorised persons from the AERS section of Tusla (Child and Family Agency), will often mandate six monthly “progress inspections” with “conditions” imposed on children’s learning, all the while paying lip-service to the much stated but rarely realised notion of: “IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD.”

(Meanwhile, fewer families who home educate do so from a primary choice. It is often an option of last resort, after learning venues and teaching methods have left young people traumatised and hating the idea of being taught.)

New Zealand, appears to differ from other places, by PAYING FAMILIES $199-398 per child, aged 6-16, in home education, and NOT to inspect, and DOES facilitate paths to further education and training.

Many states in the USA honour the freedom to home educate, with little regulation (or none), no/minimal testing, and zero demanding that parents have minimum academic certification.

When I feel heart broken, lonely, friendless and misunderstood, I am deeply grateful for the blessing of being able to walk out on the grass and scratch a friendly cow and calf, stroke our dog, listen to the crows, mourn the swallows gathering to leave, salute Mr. Robin, who talks to me from the alder tree, (behind the hen house), come back inside, make a cup of tea, tell the rescue kittens to please give me space on the keyboard and try to pour out some words of consolation that soothe my sad soul.

We can curse darkness, (Oh, I do!) AND we can light candles (Oh, I DO!).

We can shake our fragile fists against the steel of those who want control.

We, dear readers, can sing and laugh, breathe deeply and give thanks for our blessings.

How are the children?

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When I knew nothing about home education – the first 19 years of my life – I was inspired by a family I met, in 1987, (English/ South African, as it happens) who lived in rural county Kilkenny. They educated me as to the right (which I believe to be universal) and which the far-seeing drafters of the Irish Constitution – Bunreacht na hEireann – made explicit in Article 42:

THE STATE ACKNOWLEDGES THAT THE PRIMARY AND NATURAL EDUCATOR OF THE CHILD IS THE FAMILY AND GUARANTEES TO RESPECT THE INALIENABLE RIGHT AND DUTY OF PARENTS …

So well expressed, so clear!

What we see now, 38 years later, is a country where many families, who would like to have a parent at home in the younger years of their child’s life, school-attending or not, find that not only can a family NOT be sustained on the earned or social welfare income of one parent, but that even with 2 earning, keeping a roof over their heads is an ever more challenging balancing act.

Yet everything we have studied and learned about psychology, child development and the group care for children, suggests that the crucial early years (minimum 3) are best served with the sustained, consistent and dependable attention of 1 loving human. Instead of our public policy making this lifestyle accessible for those who might choose it, the government decides to use our tax money for more subsidised group care of children.

If parent’s desire to spend more time with their babies and young children continue to be dismissed as financially unattainable, what sort of a future are we creating?

One where the needs of the “economy” rule the care of the young and vulnerable?

We ignore the obvious needs of babies, for maternal and paternal care, at the very cost of what it means to be human, what a caring society might look like..

The families I meet, who manage the balance between having a parent available, and still paying the bills, could teach the department of finance important lessons in priority setting. Those who direct and enact public policy, who claim to care about what sort of a culture we are raising our young in, could take note, and prioritise the health (in the broadest definition of that word) and wellbeing of all our citizens.

As Bunreacht says :

Article 42: Education. Section 1. The State acknowledges that the primary and natural educator of the child is the Family and guarantees to respect the inalienable right and duty of parents to provide, according to their means, for the religious and moral, intellectual, physical and social education of their children.

If only the words in this document and the careful thought behind them, were given more weight than mere words on a page!