The New Education

‘What does education do?
It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.’
Henry David Thoreau

At a time when the function and
role of schools is under the cosh like never before, it is somewhat sobering to
reflect upon those that avoided school, in part or in whole, those self-taught,
creative and unfettered thinkers who lacked the benefit of a formal education,
and still came good. A list of such autodidacts may include Benjamin Franklin,
Mark Twain, George Bernard Shaw, Albert Einstein,
Charles Darwin, Stanley Kubrick, Thomas Edison and Margaret Mead – all highly
talented and successful in their respective fields who had the opportunity to work
creatively and imaginatively without the shackles of a formal education. And of
course, to this list we can add a vast array of women who were both denied a
formal education and a credible platform, and who still triumphed, women such
as the Bronte sisters, Mary Wollstonecraft and Flora Tristan. And they knew how
lucky they were, speaking up against the limitations of formal education, with
Bertrand Russell arguing that “men
are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education” and author and autodidact Helen
Beatrix Potter being even more explicit in her criticism noting, ‘Thank goodness I was never sent to school;
it would have rubbed off some of my originality.’

It
is possible to see similar disdain for traditional education today amongst some
parents although usually for quite different reasons. As schools move further
to the left, and become narrower in their breadth of curriculum and assessment
in an effort to standardize educational outcomes, we see more and more parents
who have the means to do so, voting with their feet, to draw on the best
resources in themselves, in their communities and off the web, to go it alone.

There
are many reasons for choosing to do so. These include concerns about behavior
(bullying, disruptive classmates); how technology is being used (or not being
used); and the shrinking of the curriculum through the EBacc, in particular, reducing
time for the creative subjects. Families also have more personal reasons,
founded in religion or culture, (or exclusions), or from a growing number of
parents who just want to protect their children from the world and all its
horrors, however naïve this may sound. More recently, parental concern has
reacted to the changes in the function of education from the pursuit of academic and
social outcomes to societal ends, pushing a liberal social agenda which many
parents do not want foisted on their children. Nor may they agree with government
moves to ‘educate the whole child’ even in matters that deeply concern them
such as teaching children about relationships, especially sex and gender, at a
young age. While not all reasons are logical or even excusable, they are
symptomatic of a growing disillusionment with the current school system and a
belief that there are other, better ways of educating children.

The effects of this loss of confidence
can be seen in the growth of home
schooling. While not the same as being ‘self-taught’, there is no doubt that
the freedom home schooling affords, allows children to follow passions and
interests. It can cater for the increasing numbers of families taking gap years
and wanting education for their children in-transit. While we might question the premises, the
reality is that the trend is accelerating and that in the last school year, some
30,000 were home schooled in England and Wales, double the number of six years
before.

Undoubtedly,
it has also got easier to opt out of formal schooling with the advent of the
internet. Technology is a driving force with so many courses and resources available
on-line that parents can access almost all they need anywhere in the world. By
opting out, they find the extra time to devote to the development of special
talents in music, drama, sport, or specialist interests from coding to chess.
With whole university courses available on-line and blended education becoming
a reality in many countries, the means are there for children to gain a first
class academic education without ever attending school. What is not so clear is how the social and
cultural education, which is compromised from not being part of a community of
peers, is managed and compensated for. Nor is it easy for government to monitor the children
who are flying under the radar, largely unmonitored and unchecked, and in
danger of becoming isolated from their peers and communities or worse,
radicalised.

Allied with the growth in
home-schooling is the increase in tutoring. The
proportion of pupils who have had a private tutor at some stage in their
education went up from 18% in 2005 to 25% in 2016 (42% in London). While there
are many firms offering bespoke tutoring services, to the dismay of many head
teachers, a survey of more than 1,600 state school teachers found that 43% of them
have earned money as private tutors outside school, which considering the
pressures currently on teachers, is a substantial ‘extra’ workload, probably
indicative of their relatively low pay and the satisfaction derived from one to
one tutoring.

Tutors were
once seen as anathema by many schools and you do not have to dig deep to find
criticism of the industry with schools suggesting that agencies ‘trade on
insecurity’ or worse, that after-school tutoring is a ‘form of child abuse,’ as
Gail Larkin, President of the National Association of
Head Teachers said in 2014 – an interesting comment when schools still demand
entrance tests for children as young as three and who eject students who might damage
their performances in league tables. The truth is the world is changing and
tutoring for exams is only one part of an industry that is moving into the
mainstream of education, where tutors support parents who want a different form
of education by working in a more holistic way, assisting learning, by helping
developing good study habits, pointing the child in the right direction and
engendering the confidence that comes from 1:1 support.

Home schooling is not an ideal alternative to state education
in any country, despite its suitability for the few. What we need is a system that caters for a
wider range of abilities using a wider range of providers. New Zealand has begun
to allow students to construct their own curriculum, which often involves
accessing some subjects from home. As blended education proliferates in
different forms and guises and the role of the teacher changes from classroom
teacher to mentor and facilitator, it is likely we are seeing the future, in
which the responsibility of education is shared, when education without walls
becomes a reality. We are entering a time when, to paraphrase Yeats, things are
falling apart because the centre cannot hold and that is not altogether a bad
thing. We should not be frightened of the prospect, but instead prepare for it
and embrace it.