Peter Hitchen – The coming war against Home Schoolers

PEN Comment: Daily Mail journalist Peter Hitchen writes about the ‘The coming war against Home Schoolers’ in his blog http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2009/01/the-coming-war-again

I  knew this was coming. The inflamed, all-seeing red eye of political correctness, glaring this way and that from its dark tower, has finally discovered that home schooling is a threat to the Marxoid project, and has launched its first open attack on it.

Before long, those who wish to declare independence from the state system (and cannot afford monstrous private school fees) will face endless interference, monitoring and regulation.
How do we know this? On the 19th January, an obscure person called Delyth Morgan levelled what I regard as an astonishing smear against people who educate their children at home. She suggested that such parents might be abusers, saying (I have taken these words directly from the Education department’s own website):  ‘Making sure children are safe, well and receive a good education is our most serious responsibility.

Read the full blog article
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2009/01/the-coming-war-again

PEN Comment: We might not all support Peter Hitchen’s political analysis but his libertarian perspective is valid here.  Hitchen is right to flag up this continued harassment of those exercising their rightful choice to home-educate. When our current learning systems prop up bullying, physical and mental abuse, insane educational age-stage compulsion, age segregation, endless testing etc the government ought to be paying more attention to what we do know of and not of wild, unsupported speculation of child abuse and dark motives in home-based education. Have they really lost the plot?  We now have campaigns to teach ‘happiness’, ‘resilience’, eating and exercise. The Children’s Society Report on UK Childhood.( http://tiny.cc/tGBNG)  presents a shocking  indictment of  how we nurture our youngsters – they call for lessons in ‘love’. Its a desperate situation when the models of behaviour from the state, its officers and the adults in general lead to such a deficit culture for children and and young people.

Those of us who take the time to listen to  home-based educators understand that our learning systems should be learning from and with them. Home-based educators have the well-being of youngsters at the heart of everything they do and it shows. Our families and society would be a good deal more caring and cohesive if we took the time to see how its really done instead of pursuing witch hunts and creating ever more half-baked curricula. Whatever next!?