No place like home for going to school

(by Simon Midgley)

Jean Bendell chooses to teach her children at home rather than leave their education in the hands of a school.

She is one of a growing number of British parents – perhaps as many as 10,000 who are opting to educate their offspring outside the formal education system.

Mrs Bendell is a sometime art student with a "reasonable number of O-levels ... more than five," an A-level in English and a passionate interest in poetry. A born romantic, she left her Islington grammar school at 16 to elope with the man who was later to become her husband.

"Our major reason for not sending our children to school," she says in her book, was "what we call poetic awareness in life rather than specifically in literature. We felt this sense of wonder at the world would be lost very quickly with constant exposure to the routine of the classroom. We did not want our children to be engulfed by a mediocre, mass culture."

She recalls unhappy experiences with nursery schools and playgroups. "What really struck me was that I was forever having to take Hosanna away from things that were interesting and meaningful... a book, a snail trail gleaming in the sunlight, moss growing on a wall... and put her into an environment where things were set out in a structured way," she says.

When Hosanna was four, Mrs Bendell met another mum who belonged to a pressure group called Education Otherwise, which advises parents of their rights under the 1944 Education Acttohave their children educated "either by regular attendance at school or otherwise."

Mrs Bendell chose otherwise. Today, after initial hostility from the local education authority, she "facilitates" her daughters' education at home by way of informal conversations and more formal "school work" sessions in the kitchen and bedroom. These tend to take place in the mornings after the dog and rabbits have been fed and watered.

She feels that the family can cope with primary education – reading, writing and mathematics – and that secondary schooling will be challenging. The Bendells consider that their reasonably broad spread of interests should be sufficientto prepare the children for up to 10 GCSE* subjects and the children can always use correspondence courses, take part-time classes at local colleges and draw on the skills and expertise of their friends. Every now and then, the children are visited by the education authority's primary school adviser who, says Mrs Bendell, has become increasingly complimentary about their achievements.

"Educating children," she says "is not filling them up with facts and figures. I see it very much as drawing out their interests and abilities. I think that the absolute strength of home education is that it gives the child an education that is very rich in ideas, and enables them to grasp concepts very easily."

"When it gets to a certain point the children will have to take on the responsibility for learning themselves. Obviously I could not coach a child through GCSEs and do it all for her and another child and another child. They have to be self-propelling to a great extent.

"We felt: 'why was there a magic age when you needed experts to educate the children?'. Although the teachers may be better qualified to teach individual subjects than I am, what if the children in those classes are spending the time doodling and looking out of the window? What real use are those history or geography degrees? It is the learning the child does for himself that actually makes the difference."

"Educational qualifications will be picked up I hope somewhere along the way," she says. "They might be useful to the children. Happiness is the important thing. You can be a successful nursery nurse without doing lots ofA-levels, you can be a successful window cleaner. I would be disappointed if I had failed to equip the children to do what they wanted to do."

At the moment Fiorin wants to be a vet, Hosanna a doctor.

Assignments:

1. Give Russian equivalents to:

to opt to educate smb outside the formal education system, poetic awareness in life, a sense of wonder at the world, the routine of a classroom, a mediocre, mass culture, unhappy experience with nursery schools and playgrounds, to put smb into environment, to set out smth irt a structured way, a pressure group, regular attendance at school, to choose otherwise, initial hostility, "to facilitate" one's education at home, informal conversations, to cope with smth, broad spread of interests, to prepare smb for GCSE subjects, correspondence courses, part-time courses, to draw on the skills, every now and then, to become complementary about one's achievements, to draw out smb's interests and abilities, the strength of home education, to be rich in ideas, to grasp a concept, to coach a child through GCSEs, to be self-propelling, to pick up educational qualifications.

____________________

* GCSE– the General Certificate of Secondary Education

2. Give the derivatives from:

reason, passion, aware, expose, meaning, attend, correspond, advise, achieve, able, responsible, differ, qualified, use, happy, success.

3. Arrange A and В in pairs of antonyms:

A. part-time, formal education, to loose, quickly, meaningful, initial, hostility, sessions, broad, to cope with, sufficient, strength, rich, individual.

B. poor, final, friendliness, to fail, full-time, weakness, to find, slowly, insufficient, classes, narrow, senseless, group, home education.

4. Answer the following questions:

1) Are there many parents in Britain who are opting to educate their children at home?

2) What is Mrs Bendell's main reason for not sending her children to school?

3) She had unhappy experiences with nursery schools and playgrounds, didn't she? What really struck her about them?

4) What does a pressure group called "Education Otherwise" advise parents?

5) In what way does Mrs Bendell teach her children? Is she successful?

6) How will her children be prepared for their GCSE examinations?

7) What are her ideas on home education?

5. Speak on your attitude to home education touching upon the following problems:

a) parents' reasons for choosing to teach their children at home;

b) advantages and disadvantages of home education;