Saturday 27 November 2010

The quibbling pedants of autonomous education

One of the things which one observes about cults is the way in which they appropriate ordinary words and phrases and assign to them special meanings of their own. They then go mad if anybody uses these expressions in their usual, everyday sense. I have noticed this tendency a good deal when dealing with autonomous educators and it can make any debate with them time consuming and frustrating.

Let us consider what people mean by the terms 'informal education' and 'formal education'. Informal education is the sort of learning which takes place outside school. Visits to zoos and museums, after-school clubs and conversation with the parents in the home; all these are examples of informal education. Formal education, on the other hand, is what takes place in schools and colleges, where pupils follow a structured course of study in classrooms, typically culminating in the taking of some qualification. The meanings of these expressions is not some piece of teachers' jargon; it is simply what informal and formal education mean. So the education which I provided for my daughter, relying as it did heavily upon trips to museums and so on and a lot of conversation both inside and outside the home, was informal education. Had she gone to school, that would have been formal education. All this is quite clear to all but a tiny handful of quarrelsome and pedantic cranks!

When I wrote yesterday;

' In the event, I put the case for informal education myself. I still feel that autonomous educators could have stated their views better..'

the meaning could hardly be plainer. I was saying that I had put the case for informal education, home education in this context, but felt that autonomous educators could have put the case for their special type of informal education better had they expressed their own views about it. I simply cannot see any other construction which could be put upon these words. Lo and behold, an autonomous educator jumped in, claiming;

'Given that you are still confusing informal education with autonomous education ..........How can you still get this wrong?'

In other words, this person is denying that autonomous home education is actually a type of informal education. According to her, this is an elementary error!

The problem is that when people become deeply involved in some fringe activity like home education, they sometimes forget how ordinary people use language. This can cause difficulties and, as I said above, make debate hard. The same individual went on to claim that autonomous education is virtually identical to what the Americans call unschooling. This is true, but when I said this a few months ago, another autonomous educator immediately denounced me as an idiot, on the grounds that autonomous education can include schooling if the child requests it.

Just so that there is no confusion in the future, the expression 'autonomous education' was originally coined by an Anglican priest called Jan Fortune-Wood. In anything which I write, I follow her definition.

43 comments:

  1. Actually you're wrong re informal education -it takes place in schools, colleges and universities as well as youth clubs and the like by professional informal educators. I suggest you google infed.

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  2. "mad" and now "cult" ? Are these terms of endearment in your world Simon? You know, to get us onside and to contribute to your book?

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  3. Well done, Simon, you've just proved, yet again, that you do not understand autonomous education.

    Simon wrote,
    "I was saying that I had put the case for informal education, home education in this context, but felt that autonomous educators could have put the case for their special type of informal education better had they expressed their own views about it."

    But informal education is the same whether you do it or autonomous educators do it! Why do you think it would it be different for autonomous educators and need a different description than yours? You say yourself that informal learning has an accepted meaning and suggest that autonomous educators attempt to redefine it, but it's you that's making this suggestion, otherwise why would autonomous educators need to give an explanation of their kind of informal learning? They are the same. You are saying that other people use 'informal learning' differently to you, not autonomous educators.

    Simon wrote,
    "In other words, this person is denying that autonomous home education is actually a type of informal education."

    Of course it's not a type of informal education. As I said, AE includes informal education, this doesn't mean it's a different type of informal education to the type you used. Unless you are suggesting that following a correspondence course and taking exams is also informal education, because this also forms part of autonomous education.

    The definition of autonomous education is that the child controls their own education. As you are so keen on the usually accepted meaning of words, try looking it up in a dictionary - that's what we mean when we say we educate autonomously.

    Autonomous - self-governing; independent; subject to its own laws only.

    Education - the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgement, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.

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  4. I wrote,
    "Simon wrote,
    "In other words, this person is denying that autonomous home education is actually a type of informal education."

    Of course it's not a type of informal education."

    On reading further I think I may have mistaken 'formal' for 'structured' education. Are you using 'informal education' interchangeably with 'home education'?

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  5. Simon wrote,
    "Informal education is the sort of learning which takes place outside school. Visits to zoos and museums, after-school clubs and conversation with the parents in the home; all these are examples of informal education."

    So does informal education also include correspondence courses, working through textbooks following GCSE syllabi and taking GCSEs? This was the source of my confusion I think because, even in your description of informal education above you fail to include examples of structured learning. This gives the impression that informal education is different from structured learning. So am I correct in understanding that informal education includes learning informally and in a structured way in your view - effectively any learning that happens outside school? If this is the case then of course AE is a form of informal learning, though correspondence courses and working towards several GCSEs doesn't 'feel' very informal!

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  6. I understand your confusion "anonymous". I was thinking along the lines that you described in your first post on this thread.
    i.e. informal = non-structured as opposed to informal= non classroom based

    Therefore, I don't think anyone has been quibbling. The terms seem to be used interchangeably so some confusion arose.

    I don't particularly like the word *informal* whether applied to HE or autonomous HE, as it gives the impression that only classroom based/structured learning is *proper* and anything that happens outside a classroom/a curriculum is something as an aside.

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  7. Thanks Raquel, glad it's not just me. As I say above, it doesn't sound appropriate to categorise, say, studying for 8 GCSEs using textbooks etc, as informal education, but it sounds as though this is how it's defined by educationalists when it happens at home rather than school. This seems contrary to the idea that these words are used in their usual, everyday sense as I would expect informal education to be casual, relaxed and without rules (so no syllabus!). Every specialist area seems to develop it's own vocabulary though so maybe that's the case here.

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  8. Just to totally confuse you ;) you can have informal education in a formal setting - the example I was given by a professional informal educator was of the classroom teacher who appears to get sidetracked by the class into a conversation, but which actually is purposive conversation -just like many home educators engage so successfully in. It's not generally autonomous though when it happens in a formal setting, fairly obviously.

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  9. maybe we should be called "pondering pedants" rather than "quibbling" ones ;)

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  10. Just to add that informal education can have a syllabus - this is pretty much what happens in many alternative settings ie pupil referral units.

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  11. "maybe we should be called "pondering pedants" rather than "quibbling" ones ;)"

    LOL, and we're learning at the same time so maybe we should be called "autonomously learning pondering pendants".

    Interesting examples of informal learning in formal situations anonymous, thanks.

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  12. Probably best to agree to differ on this point. What is pretty clear to me is that those commenting, seriously underestimate the power of informal education to deliver strong academic results. One person says;

    ' it doesn't sound appropriate to categorise, say, studying for 8 GCSEs using textbooks etc, as informal education,'

    I know other families besides my own where trips to museums and other places of interest, reading library books on the train and informal conversations directed towards a particular end have been the main method of achieving success in the taking of qualifications. Following a syllabus does not mean the parent saying to the child at 9 AM, 'Now open your textbook at page 48 and pay attention as I work through these exercises on the blackboard'!

    I have always been fanatically keen on informal education and found it at least as effective as the sort of education traditionally pursued in schools and colleges. Others, including those who commented here, evidently find it less rigorous and unsuited to the preparation for taking examinations. As I say, we must agree to differ on the efficacy of this type of education.

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  13. 'All this is quite clear to all but a tiny handful of quarrelsome and pedantic cranks!'

    I don't think it's quite as clear as you might wish, Simon. It's complicated by the fact that Informal Education can be done in a formal way and Formal Education can be done in an informal way.

    Are you going for Informal Education as an alternative term to Home Education now?

    I have to say I prefer that description over 'structured', 'coercive' or 'authoritarian' education which have all been names used by autonomous educators to describe non-autonomous ones. I've seen 'parent-led education' recently too. Not very keen on any of those. Informal education seems more apt.
    Margaret

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  14. 'Are you going for Informal Education as an alternative term to Home Education now?'

    I have a strong suspicion that almost all home education is a type of informal education. It is hard to imagine a formal education of the sort routinely delivered in classrooms being conducted in a private home by the parents. Indeed, part of the very formality in schools is that those delivering the education are not friends or relatives of the child. At the same time, I am quite prepared to concede that informal aeducation does take place in schools, particularly before secondary age. Informal education may take place on school premises after that age in the form of chess clubs, book groups, drama and so on.

    So yes, I would say that home education is, almost by definition, informal education. This is the case even when examinations are being studied for. The process of studying for GCSEs in a domestic setting is quite different from school-based, formal education. It would be interesting though to hear from anybody who has witnessed formal education at home. I for one would like to hear a bit more about this, as it seems that some of those commenting yesterday are aware of such cases.

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  15. Simon wrote,
    "So yes, I would say that home education is, almost by definition, informal education. This is the case even when examinations are being studied for. The process of studying for GCSEs in a domestic setting is quite different from school-based, formal education. It would be interesting though to hear from anybody who has witnessed formal education at home. I for one would like to hear a bit more about this, as it seems that some of those commenting yesterday are aware of such cases."

    Not really. Only in the sense that studying for GCSE must require writing and study of textbooks to some degree which suggests greater structure than the phrase 'informal education' conjures up.

    If informal education is everything that happens outside school - in other words you are using it interchangeably with home education - then I would describe the different styles within it as parent-led (maybe your style, Simon?) or child-led (autonomous education) or a mix of parent-led and child-led (the majority and probably your style, Simon?). They may look identical to an outside observer, the only necessary difference is who controls and directs the education that takes place.

    Some people might call last option (parent and child-led) AE but, given that a proportion of the child's education is parent-led, I would have to disagree. The theories behind AE have much to do with the theory that taking control of a child's education from them damages their intrinsic motivation to learn. Saying that you autonomously education and also use parent-led education is a bit like saying that you are a vegetarian and eat meat.

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  16. blogger is deleting posts at random again so the order of messages will probably skew the meaning, but still...

    Simon wrote,
    "Probably best to agree to differ on this point."

    Not necessarily. I think we are still taking at cross purposes.

    Simon wrote,
    "One person says;
    [quoting me] 'it doesn't sound appropriate to categorise, say, studying for 8 GCSEs using textbooks etc, as informal education,'...
    following a syllabus does not mean the parent saying to the child at 9 AM, 'Now open your textbook at page 48 and pay attention as I work through these exercises on the blackboard'!"

    I didn't think that following a syllabus and studying for GCSEs would equate to just working at home at a desk, why would you think this? However, having to ensure you cover a syllabus and then go on to take the exams seems much more structured (less casual or informal) than just trips to the museum and conversations which is what many people seem to think 'informal education' means. Even if those are methods used to gain some of the required knowledge for GCSEs, certainly maths would involve quite a bit of sitting at desks working through textbooks and essays are difficult to write in museums!

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  17. It's a pity that my daughter is so occupied with other things these days, or I would get her to write a bit about this. She recognises very clearly the difference between the formal education at college and the informal education she received at home. Even when studying towards some subject at home, say World War I, there was always plenty of time to wander down irrelevant byways, take time off, read a few novels which might have some slight bearing on the matter. Not at all the case at college. There, everything is tightly controlled to assessment objectives, not a minute can be wasted upon anything unless it is directly helpful towards the ultimate aim of passing an examination. Awful! Believe me, this is nothing at all like home education, at least as I know it. I am still interested though in hearing about this sort of formal education delivered in a home setting.

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  18. "Believe me, this is nothing at all like home education, at least as I know it. I am still interested though in hearing about this sort of formal education delivered in a home setting."

    Simon, you're preaching to the converted, we've been there and done that too. The formal education delivered in a home setting was a misunderstanding over use of language as mentioned above. I should have used structured education to distinguish between following a syllabus or working through a textbook (which intrinsically have structure), from the more relaxed informal learning that happens when this approach is not being used at all and also, as you describe, as byways and distractions from that structured course.

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