What is a parents’ role in education?
Much has been written about how important parents are to a child’s education, but often the advice is not all that helpful. Here are a few thoughts on the what, how, when, where and why of education that parents might consider.
WHAT.
The press and the education establishment go on about GCSEs, grades, exams and so on as the most important areas for parents to assist their children. A recent research report suggested that children doing Saturday jobs could get lower grades at GCSE. What the report did not mention is that if school students want to learn about dealing with real people in real situations that are relevant to the world of work, such experience is extremely valuable. Parents need to support work experience. Employers complain that young people coming out of school and university are not well equipped in areas such as team working and self-discipline - abilities that may be best learned in real world and not in the classroom.
Another factor in what are the supposed priorities for children is the overemphasis on academic subjects in school. Cut backs in the arts and creative subjects mean that many children are denied important opportunities - both for enjoyment and for learning for the future. The greatest expansion in jobs in recent years has not been in traditional large companies but in the creative and digital sector. I attended a meeting recently at which some graduates complained that they could not get jobs even though they had good degrees. The week before I had attended another meeting at which employers in the creative and digital sector complained that they could not fill vacancies. In a report last year on this sector in the Sussex area one feature was that such companies employed more people with backgrounds in art and design than in the sciences. So how can parents plug the gap being left by many schools?
HOW.
Assumptions that children now are all tech savvy and therefore learn best via computer are not born out in practice. Students in our college (aged 9-16) are encouraged to learn in any ways that they want. For example, some love to use the computer to learn maths via the Kahn Academy or languages via Duolingo. Others never use the computer for learning. They may use traditional text books and worksheets or they may want time with a tutor to get one-to-one support. And often they help each other in doing projects. Since they have a free choice of learning modes they can be at their most efficient. So parents need always to check with their children their preferred modes of learning.
This can also lead into how students might want to present their work. A few weeks ago a student had the task of writing an essay for English. Instead of the usual linear handwritten piece, he created a website with the material on it. Why not? Others might use visuals to put their ideas across or create in 3D. Some of our students have even printed out their designs on a 3D printer. So for some students access to resources that free up their creativity can be really valuable - while other students are still happy with more linear written material.
WHEN.
There is an unwarranted assumption that children have to take tests and exams by virtue of the year that they are in. The main deadline is the GCSE taken in the summer of Year 11. However the Government's own research has shown that over 10,000 children every year get worse results at GCSE just because they are summer born. This problem starts earlier. Summer born children ar more likely to be classified as having special needs when they are in primary school. Most frightening is that both teachers and parents often underestimate the capabilities of summer born children.
The reality is that anyone can sit a GCSE any time they like. It is open to parents of summer born children to delay entry to GCSE if they are concerned about grades.
WHERE.
The government tells parents that a child not in a classroom is not learning. Parents are being fined for taking their children out of school to engage in valuable learning such as traveling. We have a 14-year-old girl at our College whose parents went for some months to India and she went with them. It was a great learning experience to live in another culture. She kept up her academic studies whilst out there and was able to Skype in every week to the College to discuss her learning activities with her group and consult with tutors.
Learning can take place anywhere. Indeed in our research we have identified at least 55 different modes and contexts for learning for children. Only one of these is the classroom and over the last 15 years of our College's existence no student has ever asked us to create a classroom environment.
WHY.
The most important question to address is - why undertake specific educational activities? What education is for is a central factor in any parent's decisions about their role with their children. Schooling is promoting a way of life of tests when real learning is to prepare young people for the tests of life. Parents have been shown to be crucial in influencing children's values and beliefs about the world. Fundamentally parents need to support children to be able to lead a good life in the future - and 'goodness' is not created through exam passing.
by Dr. Ian Cunningham
Chair of board of governors at Self Managed Learning College
ian@smlcollege.org.uk
Going to the Big School? Choices in secondary education.
SIZE MATTERS
The transition from a small primary school into secondary education is an issue for many parents. There are serious choices to be made for children at this age. We know that many children feel nervous about going into a large, more impersonal school where they do not feel known by teachers. In a typical secondary school a teacher might see over 250 children in a week and cannot get to know all of them really well. In addition the national data show that schools are getting larger year by year.
This issue of size is serious. The research shows that overall children are happier in smaller schools; that relationships between staff and students are better and that bullying may be less common. These are averages so they do not necessarily translate to any individual school. However research in the USA has come up with the following factors that make the best educational settings:
- Every adult needs to know every child
- Every child needs to know every adult
- Every child needs to know every other child
All this is impossible in large schools. And the implications are serious. For instance while bullying does occur in primary schools it can be much more serious at the secondary level. Recent suicides by teenagers due to bullying have highlighted this continuing problem. The results of serious bullying do not just manifest themselves at school. Studies have shown that such traumatic events in childhood can lead to problems in adulthood. Children who experience bad bullying are three times more likely to suffer psychotic events in adulthood than the general population. So avoiding bullying is not a trivial issue.
CHOICE
The first choice for a parent should really be, is it school or an alternative at age 11? The law states that a child should be in education and that this can be at school ‘or otherwise’ (to quote the exact term in law). There are still many parents who do not realise that they have this choice. Education is compulsory; school is not. And it is interesting that the law does not say that school is preferable – both options have equal standing.
What is sometimes assumed is that ‘otherwise’ than at school means home education – and this mode has become more popular. However in law there is no definition of home education. Indeed the term is something of a misnomer as children not in school may attend classes and undertake all sorts of learning opportunities that are not physically locate in the home. These might include time in a library, visits to museums – and for those over 14 attendance for day release at a college of further education.
In parts of the country 'flexi-schooling' is common whereby a child can attend school part time. This is perfectly legal though local authorities in this area tend not to accept this mode. Indeed there are still local authority officers who try to influence parents to believe that so called full-time schooling is the only legitimate mode that should be used. And this is untrue. In law there is no definition of full time education or of full time schooling. Indeed some schools are using this fact to increase the length of the school day or to make changes in the school year.
In our college (which is not a school) we prefer an approach that does not mean keeping to school-like hours. Students (aged 9-16) attend from 09.00 to 1pm Monday to Friday. We form part of the ‘otherwise’ mode, not just because of this but because our students, like many that are deemed to be home educated, are able to choose for themselves what and how they learn – there is no imposed curriculum and no imposed teaching. The difference from home education is that students and staff work together as a democratic learning community.
What we have chosen to do is to work to the best available research evidence on how best to assist young people to learn. For instance every child is different – any parent knows this. Yet classrooms and imposed curricula assume a high level of similarity among children.
We also know that employers bemoan the lack of self-reliance, team working ability and creativity in many young people coming out of school. So it makes sense to address these issues head on. We do this through the way we work. For instance students learn to write their own timetables and manage their own learning. They have to do this in part through working collaboratively with others to negotiate for the use of resources. They become really creative at doing this. And they learn how to learn for themselves - equipping them with the ability to move careers with changing times.
We are just one of a growing number of educational practices that offer something that is different from school and which gives parents more choices. Large secondary schools work for some children; home education works for others. What we do is to add another choice via our small community-based Self Managed Learning College.
By Dr Ian Cunningham, chair of board of governors at Self Managed Learning College.
ian@smlcollege.org.uk
Charley's art workshop
Last Thursday Charley came into SMLC to give an Art workshop on dreams and nightmares. She started by giving us lots of magazines and scissors. Then she told us what ever picture that looked interesting to us to cut them out and put them on a black background. We could make what ever would be in our dreams or nightmares. I made a picture about evolution. It was about how we came from a fish to animals and a picture of every animal I could find. I was quite happy about how it all came together. I think Charley gave us very simple and yet effective guidelines and tips. What it set out to be, it was.
by Sharif, student at SML College.
Libertarian education: marginal experiment or instrument of social change?
by Luca Lapolla.
"Is libertarian education really possible within a neoliberal society? Why have libertarian education experiences always been marginal? What role can libertarian education have in overcoming the present situation? To think about possible answers to these questions, we held our fourth Applied History Network event at MayDay Rooms in London on 19 April 2016.
The idea to organise this event came after a reflection on my personal experiences as a teacher in mainstream schools, and took shape when I noticed that the debates on libertarian education at the last London Anarchist Bookfair (October 2015) had one of the highest attendances. More and more students, parents, and teachers are currently considering alternatives to traditional schools and universities, as these institutions are under a neoliberal siege – from the increase in the university fees to the introduction of academies.
Unlike previous debates on this matter, our objective was not to organise a seminar on the history of libertarian education, nor training course for experts. Rather, we aimed at reflecting on the historical role of libertarian education, and its political transformative power. Thus, in order to tackle the topic from different perspectives, we invited four speakers: Judith Suissa, Ian Cunningham, Jenny Aster, and Alex Brown. Judith is reader in philosophy of education at the Institute of Education – UCL, Ian is chair of governors at the Self Managed Learning College (SMLC) of Brighton, Jenny is a former pupil at the White Lion Street Free School in Islington, and Alex is co-organiser of Antiuniversity Now.
Judith Suissa opened the event with a short introduction on the history of libertarian education, which is inevitably connected to nineteenth-century anarchism. From anarchism, it inherited key elements like aversion to hierarchies and the importance of self-management. Other fundamental principles that characterise libertarian education are no compulsory attendance, no systems of rewards or punishments, no marks or grades. Then, Judith focused on the difference between present and past libertarian schools. While the pedagogy in the early experiments was an integral part in a prefigurative political project towards the construction of new social relations, the attention later shifted on important but less threatening aspects. Aspects that mainstream schools too adopted after the libertarian wave of the Sixties, such as abandoning corporal punishments and involving the pupil in the learning process. Although it is undoubtedly true that nowadays schools are less authoritarian, there is still – according to Judith – the need to challenge the dominant discourse on the ‘efficacy’ of schools. Rather than worrying about the grades of pupils, they should work towards establishing new social values.
The second speaker, Ian Cunningham, started by talking about his own experiences within the world of education, since he was an active member of the student union in the Seventies. When he later founded the Self Managed College, he aimed at turning his interest in the rights of students into a daily practice. In addition, he worked towards incorporating elements of the anarchist tradition, such as mutual aid. Ian said he is proud to tell his students that it was a visit to the Brighton aquarium that inspired Kropotkin to develop the theory of mutual aid. There, the Russian anarchist observed a group of crabs working together to help a crab immobilised under an iron bar. Faithful to the principle of mutual aid, Ian’s college adopts practices such as the student-managed tutoring, which teaches students to prefer cooperation over competitiveness. Because, Ian maintains, education should not aim at ‘better results’ but at happiness and an alternative to neoliberal competitiveness.
Jenny Aster focused her talk on the Islington school she attended in the Seventies. There, just like today in Brighton’s SMLC, it was the students who decided if and what to study, and there were no distinctions of gender or role, but a great attention to cooperation and self-realisation. Jenny, currently coordinator of the City university’s student counselling service, affirmed that it was thanks to the White Lion school if she became a confident person, emotionally ready to face the challenges of life.
Finally, Alex Brown spoke of Antiuniversity Now, and how this is aiming to relaunch the experience of the 1968 Antiuniversity, which experimented with alternative forms of further education. A nine-month experience of diverse courses in a derelict building, from experimental music to sociology of world revolution, from anti-psychiatry to dragons and UFOs. Even though for a short period of time, the antiuniversity became a commune of students and teachers, in which roles were fluid and the border between lessons and parties unclear. According to Alex, today there is still a need of an antiuniversity that opposes student debt, commercialisation of higher education, and the following importance given to professional qualifications. Thus, last year, the organisers of the Hackney Museum and of the Open School East decided to relaunch that experience by creating Antiuniversity Now. Like almost 50 years ago, their objective is to become a platform for ideas that have no space in the formalism of the traditional university system. However, unlike the antiuniversity of 1968, all courses are free. In November, their first festival counted more than 60 events across Great Britain with over 1100 people.
To conclude, we opened the floor to questions and contributions, which triggered a lively debate. For instance, a person asked if individualism and collectivism were in opposition within libertarian education, and Judith answered that this is true only if one thinks that people can exist without the social. Another question raised the issue of the real challenge that such experiences pose to the status quo, as the state tolerates them. Ian replied that such experiments have the fundamental role of embodying the alternative, and of preparing people to the change. Finally, the last reflections focused on the necessity to extend libertarian education to adults and beyond schools, possibly following on and improving the Occupy model.
So, are we to resign ourselves to libertarian education as a set of isolated experiments for few, or shall we try to create/support an easily accessible network of (anti)schools and (anti)universities? A libertarian education that enable the achievement (and preservation!) of a libertarian society by working on a cultural level, connected with the traditional radical commitment within labour and social sectors. Otherwise, when neoliberalism finally collapses – in one or one hundred years, due to inner or outer pushes – humanity will reproduce the only system they know: the current one."
Governors opportunity at SML College
Due to growing popularity of the College both nationally and internationally, we are will be expanding our governing body which is made up of a diverse group of academics, professionals and members of the College community. This is an opportunity to be part of a unique and expanding educational venture. If you'd like to proactively support our work and play a part in our progress please contact Ian Cunningham for more info. ian@smlcollege.org.uk
Visit to eco-architects ARCH angels
One of our students, Jack, is interested in considering architecture as a career so along with tutor Gillian, a visit to local eco-architects ARCH angels, was arranged to find out more about their work. They chose ARCH Angels because they have an emphasis on Green Architecture and are working on some interesting projects. They are also extremely local being just around the corner from the College and we are keen to make connections with the local community.
Here's what Jack had to say about the visit.
"Archangels are a Brighton-based architecture firm. Their main ethical focus is being environmentally aware. All their designs are passed through a team of people to make sure that they are environmentally friendly. In June six students from SML College went to their firm just off Edward Street. The firm was small - a main room and a meeting room. We were whisked into the meeting room, where we were talked to by a one of the architects, Alex. Alex was really interesting and confident, I thought he handled the talk really well - it was fun but factual. He asked us all general questions to do with architecture - What is architecture? If you could design a building anywhere, where would it be and what would it be? Everyone’s creative juices were flowing. At the end he answered our questions professionally. It was a really interesting and informative hour well spent."
As our students don't follow a curriculum they are free to mange their own timetables and pursue any interests they wish to. We actively encourage them meeting professionals in the real world of work, as well as gaining first hand experience with work placements. If you're a local business or professional who would like to connect with us and our students we'd love to hear from you.