As the government continue to
slowly squeeze ‘non essential’ subjects out of the curriculum in the mistaken
belief than grades will be improved I breath a sigh of relief that for me
realisation of what is going on in the education system did not come too late
for my children.
As I left school, more than thirty
years ago now, the government introduced the national curriculum in a bid to
improve standards. My reintroduction back into the education system did not
happen again for another twenty years by which time it was a totally different
animal. I watched as my sixteen year old played guinea pig to the constant
‘improvements’ brought in by changing governments.
Fortunately for me I had one child
who didn’t ‘fit in’- he didn’t sit comfortably in the round hole that the
government had created for him. The teachers tried to accommodate him but the
education system was already not flexible enough and after four years of
meetings, assessments, and a diagnosis of Aspergers we as a family came to the
conclusion that the system was damaging both him and our family and we removed
him from school.
That was my ‘Damascus’ moment- from
that point on we were on our own and whilst it was scary it was exciting too. I
started by buying age appropriate text books- they were all the same. I hadn’t
appreciated that every child in every school was supposed to learn the SAME
thing. It crossed my mind that we were breeding an exceedingly boring
generation? But were we? In actual fact ,for those children who were unable or
unwilling to learn those subjects. there grew a lack of interest and motivation,
a decline of behaviour in the classrooms and lower grades. As a home educating
mother of a special needs child, I began to read up on education to establish
what suited him best. Hardly surprisingly it soon became clear that if children
were happy and the curriculum was tailored to their individual needs then they
were likely to do better than their schooled contemporaries.
Over the years I began to step
further and further away from the national curriculum as it became clear that
my son was school years ahead of his contemporaries in history, IT and
geography (as these were his specialist interests). Literature held little
interest to him but his command of the English language and his spelling were
excellent (without the need for spelling tests or comprehension assessments).
Maths was more difficult as four years of being taught that he was ‘dumb’ at
maths had shattered his self esteem so much he refused to attempt it.
I backed off and left him to figure
things out for himself when he needed to. I reckoned that he didn’t need to be
able to do things at the same time as his peers and that he would do it when he
was ready. My gut instinct paid off. Whilst he would still not see the purpose
of doing some types of calculations and certainly would refuse to sit down to a
GCSE exam today unless he felt there was a purpose to it, he can now see how
maths is relevant to every day life. He has a logical brain and has been
teaching himself computer programming, is designing a virtual aeroplane
cockpit, he can work out the costs of items he wants to buy and the change he
should get, he can design symmetrical buildings on Mine craft and bridges on
his physics games which stay up and hold weight.
Everything I learned from watching
my Autistic son affected the way I view my other two children’s ‘education’ at
school. They enjoyed the social aspects of sport and music and school trips but
the government was gradually eroding these away too so we looked at ways my
children could follow their interests outside school. My son learned the drums,
my daughter flute. Explorer scouts and scouts enabled them to do the outdoor
pursuits there was little time for at school because the government didn’t
place enough importance on them. They canoed, took climbing courses, did
expeditions, made rafts, swam, took part in triathlons and they did all these
things in the rain, hail and snow at times. They learned to cook, to read
timetables, to dance and read books and when my eldest left school last year he
secured an apprenticeship at his first interview on the basis of these
interests, not on any grades.
As I watch him go off to work each
day, one month into his apprenticeship, I see a spring in his step, an
eagerness to learn and grow and a maturity to speak him mind when things aren’t
right and get them sorted.
This year my daughter has to choose
her options for GCSE. We have told her to choose what she enjoys doing-
education should be fun; it’s a lifelong thing and won’t stop when she is
sixteen. She did mention car mechanics ( I think she was joking) although it
would come in handy!
