Children’s rights: Part 2

In response to the piece on children's rights which I posted the day before yesterday, somebody commented as follows:

‘ How do you feel about the right my children have to choose what and when to learn? Do you think it should be removed?’

This is an excellent point, although not at all straightforward. My answer is that I do not believe that it should be removed, but enhanced. There are two main points to consider in responding to this. The first of these, the extent to which young children are capable of making informed decisions about the education and medical treatment which they wish to receive, I have covered many times in the past. I wish today to look instead at the question of how we are to know what home educated children are actually choosing. We know of course that in some extreme cases, home educating parents do not respect the choices that their children make. One can hardly believe that Theresa Riggi’s children would choose to be hacked to death. What though of the run-of the-mill home educating family? How may we be sure that the children in such families are choosing what happens to them? Of course, we cannot really conduct a survey and so must be restricted to speculating and examining anecdotal evidence.

When my daughter was little, many people tried to persuade her that she should go to school. For instance, her grandparents told her that it was against the law for her not to go to school, a boy at Sunday School said that she would never get a job when she grew up unless she went to school and one teenager claimed that I would be sent to prison if I did not send her to school! I was always happy for people to express such views and allowed my daughter to deal with the matter as she felt best. There were two reasons for this. First, these opinions made her think about the whole not going to school thing, which was good. Secondly, it gave her a chance to deal with ill informed individuals who were saying things which might upset her; something she is bound to encounter in later life! For the same reason, I always left her alone with the local authority officer who visited each year and I arranged for her to give her views to Graham Badman when he was investigating home education. She had far more to say to Graham Badman than I did.

So far, so good. My daughter was exposed to many people who opposed home education in principle and in most cases, I was not present. This is good. It means that from an early age she was forced to confront the choices she made and ask herself if they really were her choices. At any stage, she could have been swayed by others and have chosen to go to school. I mentioned Graham Badman above. I want to consider how some other home educating parents reacted when their children wished to give their views to him. As part of his review, Badman visited a number of groups running for home educated children. One of these was in Kent and it was connected with Ann Newstead, who at the time was a trustee of Education Otherwise and was there during the scene I describe below.

Graham Badman arrived at the group with his minder from the DfCSF and spoke to the parents, many of whom expressed strong opinions about what their children wanted. At one point, he wandered off while his sidekick was harangued by the parents. It was then noticed that he was asking the views of the children themselves. Horrors, there was no telling what the kids would say to him! In fact he was asking them about how they viewed home education. One child said that she wanted to be a vet and Badman asked whether she had any idea about what qualifications she would need to fulfil this ambition. Everything was very amicable and the children were enjoying being given the chance to express their own views. This ended as soon as some parents saw what was happening. They charged up and ’rescued’ their children. The kids were given the impression that they had narrowly escaped being grabbed by the child-catcher and the overall feeling generated was that this was some sort of stranger danger. So agitated were the parents, that a couple of the children became upset. They did not know what was happening or what they had done wrong. That was the end of Badman actually being able to listen to the views of any home educated children that day; it was made clear to him that the children’s views should be transmitted by the parents and not taken directly from the kids themselves.

This was not an isolated example and whether or not it led to the recommendation in Badman’s report that local authority officers should be allowed to speak alone to children, I don’t know. Does anybody see the nature of the problem here? The person who commented a few days ago asked whether I thought her children should be free to choose how they learn. The difficulty is that she is the one who is telling us about her children’s choices; not her children themselves. Quite a few parents are determined not to allow any local authority officer to visit their homes. Those who do seem reluctant to allow their children to speak alone to such people. I cannot for the life of me see why. I dare say that some of these EHE advisors are opposed to home education and perhaps one or two would try to argue with a child and advise them against home education. So what? Why would any parent object to that? I simply don’t get this. When my daughter told me that her grandmother, the woman in the library, person at church, boy at Woodcraft Folk and so on had criticised home education, I would ask her what she thought about their opinions. What did I know; perhaps she secretly wanted to go to school?

And so in answer to the comment with which I began this piece, I think that up to a point children should be able to choose the content and style of their education. Establishing that they, rather than their parents, have chosen this is likely to prove tricky. As long as so many home educating parents are anxious to prevent their children speaking unguardedly to others about home education, one cannot but have the sneaking suspicion that the education being provided has more to do with an adult’s ideological beliefs, rather than her child’s informed choice.