A History of Home Education in Scotland?

Is there a history of home education in Scotland? What information is available and to what extent does it serve to tell a full historical story about how home education in Scotland has evolved? This paper seeks to begin ‘historical’ work on Scottish home education as it seems that no academic work on this subject (which specific reference to Scotland) has been attempted before, either historical in nature or otherwise. However, as is made clear in this paper, the history of home-based education in Scotland is recent for a variety of reasons. A consideration of the legislative history is made. Public profile and visibility will be looked at in the context of issues around the possibility of discovery of the possibility in law to not send one’s child to school. Some speculative and initial comments will be made in particular about the autonomous form of home education in Scotland being ‘acceptable’ to Scottish education and society.

The Necessity of Educational Theory

Presented alone, but paper co-authored with Gert Biesta

The necessity of theory in the field of education is in question. A number of publications in recent years have sought to refute the need for theory and theorising in educational research and practice. We show that arguments against educational theory are refutable and that educational studies needs to refute them for the sake of strong development. This paper takes up Gary Thomas’s claims in particular to make a case for the necessity of educational theory. Following criticisms of this work, we move to consider positive uses of theory in education, highlighting its roles and how it serves education as a discipline of activity and debate. In short, an argument is developed that suggests educational theory is needful for education to flourish and be the best that it can be for all those concerned with its uses and development. What Thomas, in particular, identifies as the downfall of educational theory is shown as in fact the downfall of education without theory.

Philosophy of education at the edge of the world: the concept of education revisited..

Published in conference proceedings.

This article examines possible implications for the field of philosophy of education of data from a recent research study (Lees 2010) of the discovery, by adults, of alternative modalities of education distinct from mainstream schooling. The 2010 study showed that discovery of educational alternatives such as elective home education (Thomas and Pattison 2007) or democratic schooling of a Summerhillian (Neill 1968) type appears to exhibit characteristics closely matching natural science discoveries as theorised by T. S. Kuhn involving anomaly, crisis, revelation, gestalt switch and revolution (Kuhn 1962). This would suggest paradigmatic ‘worlds’ operate within education. Using the article ‘The Concept of Education Revisited’ (Wilson 2003), the present ‘visit’ to the concept of education uses the implications of the above study on discovery’s data on educational conceptual revolutions to suggest that conceptual analysis of education requires substantial revision in the light of the idea of education as paradigmatic at the level of modality. The article posits that not taking into account the possibility that education can be a paradigmatic field at the level of modality tacitly and by omission philosophically conflates education as a concept with a singular ‘paradigm’ of education to be mostly found in and modelled by mainstream schooling.

Silent Modalities

At the confluence of silence and alternative educational theory lies a territory of great promise for education. Ways of learning, being, becoming and understanding in alternative education modalities, such as democratic schools and elective home education, are different from the goal driven atmospheres of mainstream schooling. These 'ways' suit silence in the same way that Lao Tzu suggests in the 'Tao Te Ching' that we should not strive and that 'all things work silently in nature'. This seminar presentation looks at the moment of discovery of the possibilities of such education -by adults- as a moment of mystical silence with magnificent effects in the personal self and substantial effects on attitudes to education, lifestyle and the upbringing of children. It also considers the flight to and from silences of different kinds in mainstream schools that presage these moments of wonder as a need to return to the safety and peace of silence as a valid part of one's life. A theory of education as strongly connected to silence will be explored.

The Discovery of Home Education as Revolution

Most people think about education and the first thought that comes to their mind is 'schools' and 'schooling'. With this assumption comes a world view that is dominant and wrong-headed in that it excludes all other possibilities. Home education and educators, simply by having discovered another way to do things, challenge this world view and this dominance on a number of levels. In some regards they benefit from their difference and in other regards they pay a price. I will be talking about how education is split into different worlds according to the type of education followed and how this affects communication between the 'worlds' as well as creates exciting and important new forms of life and living.

Researching for change in the Elective Home Education arena

This paper considers the experience of being a researcher in the British ‘arena’ of Elective Home Education (EHE). Due to recent moves by the UK government to attempt to introduce regulation of EHE, the subject of EHE has reached new levels of prominence. The ‘arena’ of EHE has therefore fundamentally changed and in some senses is now a strange and strangled part of the mainstream. The EHE arena is comprised of home educators, their children and families, the government, policy makers, academic researchers, social services, the media and the wider public, as well as globally those interested or engaged with EHE. It is a complex picture of actors. Exacerbating this complexity is the extreme nature of difference that EHE presents to the majority of people who are used to understanding education as schooling. This difference is comprised of many features such as differences in lifestyle, outlook, thinking modes, personal philosophies, family relationships, social behaviour, pedagogic styles and attitudes to governance. Add to this, high levels of emotions resulting from poor consultation, histories of misunderstanding and flagrant prejudice resulting from ignorance and bias and the pressures of society, families, daily life and government interventions. Add also the marginalised nature of EHE within the educational research community. Subsequent to this interesting but potent mix of factors emerging in recent years and the fast pace of change in this arena, researching EHE is a matter for special elucidation in terms of the how, why and wherefore of research. This is especially true if a researcher seeks to create change. This paper attempts to highlight challenges, achievements, obstacles and advantages of researching EHE in the current climate.

Educational Modality as Belief: an exploratory primer for implications and questions connected to educational theorising

This paper considers an emerging thesis that adherence to a particular educational modality such as democratic education, autonomous home education or mainstream authoritarian education has similarities to the nature of belief systems, such as a belief in God. The theoretical thread developed is taken from empirical data collected in a study on the nature of the discovery of the possibility of elective home education. The idea that an understanding, option for and use of a particular pedagogy is linked to a belief in the nature and efficacy of a pedagogy – rather than merely an opinion about these things – sets education within a context of interaction with the self. Belief in a particular form, or modality, of education is seen to be the result of location of the self within a defining paradigm of belief about education which also affects ontology. Thus, the educational paradigm is a determinant of the nature of the self and of the self’s ‘becoming...’ by virtue of the differences of modality (and outcome) to be found in various educational systems such as timetabled, school-based, peer-tiered education or home education of the autonomous kind. This paper explores awareness of how education as modality interacts with the Self as belief and in so doing has the power to take on a significance hitherto unexplored or acknowledged in education.

‘Transformed’: Schooling as one paradigm among many (Elective home education as another)

To think about education as schooling, is a common mistake. There is a sense that this mistake is part of a dominant ‘world-view’ where valid education happens in schools or educational institutions and also often adheres, to varying degrees, to an established educational modality of teacher-led teaching. Home education is one form of education that disproves the myth of education as schooling. It does so in intriguing and surprising ways that involve new approaches to learning and becoming (Sheffer 1995; Thomas and Pattison 2007). In its very difference from schooling, home education offers an alternative world-view of education in a human life that does not need to involve an educational institution. Nevertheless, despite this offering of new educational modalities home education often meets with incomprehension and even hostility. This paper looks at the discovery of home education as a product of a Kuhnian ‘gestalt-switch’ (Kuhn 1962) that takes a person from one world and into another, with subsequent ontological implications for lifestyles and communication between ‘world-views’. It investigates possible reasons for incommensurability of understanding and communication in relation to home education, suggesting that education needs to re-consider schooling as inhabiting a hegemonic position, towards being located instead as one paradigm amongst many in a diverse educational arena.

Silence in Schools

An analysis of silence in schools is a matter of considerable complexity. This is due to the nature of silence itself but also stems from effects of silence when connected with power; a matter of importance in school settings. This complexity is also compounded by the ideas around silence as a feature of the Human and of human life. When placed within a school setting, these ideas multiply in a variety of expanding directions of philosophical importance. This paper focuses on silence as a circumstance, pre-disposition, atmosphere and awareness in schools. Much previous work has considered negative silence on the one hand and uses of silent meditation on the side of positive effects. However, little work has yet considered positive silence as an educational tool, and an aspect of a school environment for notice. This paper seeks to introduce and highlight the potential of ‘strong’ or positive silence in school settings for better educational outcomes. The arguments consider contexts of work on school violences, meditative practices, various scientific studies on the uses of silence and burgeoning interest in ways of considering calming practices for school improvement. The paper suggests that educational practioners currently have little awareness of silence as a tool, that current use of silence in schools is hegemonically negative and there is presently ignorance about silence in schools which needs addressing. Arguments are presented for the use of ‘strong’ silence as a school improvement measure and a focus on such silence as a tangible and necessary policy focus.

How Wikis, Blogs and the Web spell the End of Education as We Know It

This paper explores how the democratic fora of the internet and associated technologies represent a shift and parallax change in our understanding of how humans will be open to educative technologies of the self. At present an authoritarian modality of educational transmission is dominant. The thesis of this paper is that the reception of such modes of education is changing at a rapid speed and will, in time, signal the end of education as we know it unless schooling can adapt to fit itself in with the ‘people power’ modalities that are emerging. These modalities are emerging from the bottom up, as individuals explore the interactive possibilities of new technologies, but those same individuals are also developing those technologies into the future because of their associated democratically inclined needs for such technologies to be responsive to their self. This is happening - and is seen in this paper to be an unstoppable inevitability - to a point where the technologies that are commercially developed are becoming responsible for a need for democratic educational modes such as that found at Summerhill School or informal home education.
In line with the conference theme, I will also be exploring how the difference of my own thoughts, compared to the thought of others who work towards improving schools, for example, impacts upon the research outcomes and interests that drive such reflections regarding ‘inevitable change’.

Reactions to the possibility of alternative educational modes

This presentation looks at responses interviewed research participants report having experienced when they meet with the possibilities of alternative educational modes.  The study being carried out in this regard forms part of the data collection for a PhD thesis on what happens to the self of parents and others (such as educationists) when discovery of alternatively oriented pedagogic possibilities happens. The discovery is considered in terms of both a sudden ‘awakening’ and also a gradual ‘dawning’.
A validating body of research has now been done on the various methods and manners of alternative education and, considered in particular here, home education (Meighan 1995; Rothermel 2002; Neuman and Avriam 2003; Thomas and Pattison 2007). There is subsequently data to support an emerging philosophy of the ways in which the self of alternative educators and educatees is as different from the mainstream as the pedagogical practices utilised.
The ‘metaphysical’ and practical ways in which this is the case, in light of this new research specifically on the discovery of such modes, are considered.
An emphasis on the language used by research participants as they describe the moment/s of discovery of the possibility of alternative educational modes for themselves, and the children in their care, is offered with a view to highlighting some interesting parallels between the discovery of such modes and spiritual awakenings of the self. A brief philosophical consideration of why and how this might be the case is made through a late Foucauldian lens of an ‘aesthetics of existence’ (Foucault 1986).

Foucault, M. (1986). The Care of the Self - The History of Sexuality Vol 3. London, Penguin.
Meighan, R. (1995). "Home-based Education Effectiveness Research and Some of its Implications." Educational Review 47(3): 275-287.
Neuman, A. and A. Avriam (2003). "Homeschooling as a Fundamental Change in Lifestyle." Evaluation and Research in Education 17(2&3): 132-143.
Rothermel, P. (2002). "Home-Education: Rationales, Practices and Outcomes." from http://www.dur.ac.uk/p.j.rothermel/Research/Researchpaper/BERAworkingpaper.htm.
Thomas, A. and H. Pattison (2007). How Children Learn at Home. London, Continuum.

The discovery of alternative education (especially Home Education) by parents and others

This presentation discussed some of the responses and reactions that have been collected as part of the research data collection for my PhD thesis: a report of some philosophical considerations and concerns emergeing out of this data.

Including the Self in our thinking about care: late Foucault and the inclusion of difference

How late Foucauldian thought can serve to restructure 'everyday' perceptions of differences amongst people such as disability, appearance, class, abilities etc. in a way which allows for the Self of individuals to be the primary means of connection, rather than 'placed' judgements based on social superficialities. It would be suggested that this is a way forward into a different way of understanding the human being and that it fits perfectly in practice into education that is democratic.

What happens to the Self when people discover alternative educational possibilities?

This presentation is an overview of work being done on the effect on the Self when people discover the ideas and philosophies of alternative educational practices, with a special emphasis on home education and the parents of home educated children.
It will give an insight into the alternative education scene in the UK at the moment, especially the home education scene. Included in the presentation will be a variety of topics that have arisen during the planning of my thesis, arranged to show the complexity of the issue. These may include a discussion of gypsy ontology and elective home education, the media’s portrayal of home education and the rise in home education, why the later work of Michel Foucault is relevant, the technology of the democratic with the personal, what ‘discovery’ is in the context of alternative education, what the Self can be in this context, what is ‘School Exit’?, why is there a discrepancy between policy and practice when it comes to informing about home education?, and possibly other ideas such as the difficulty of combining a philosophically orientated study with empirical field research.

The Democratic School Meeting and Foucault's Care of the Self: technologies of Self in practice for purpose

This presentation offers a theoretical and philosophical look at an intriguing aspect of democratic education. The argument is put forward that democratic educational modes are a particular species of post-modern philosophy, creating peaceful freedoms of thought, action and interaction, suited to children in the early stages of the formation of the Self, by using pedagogic processes that fracture in order to build.

The foucauldian project, as well as the post-modern directions of authors such as Lyotard, are analysed as a philosophical mirror image –suitable only to sophisticated, highly educated adults - of the use of democratic modes for an ‘alternative’ Self that children find in democratic education and utilise in self-regulated Self formation.

It is suggested that an appreciation of the similarities between these two projects; one philosophical and one educational, may highlight a practical positivity for life lived, that Foucault himself considered missing ‘at least from the humanistic period of the Rennaissance til now...’

Questions are also asked about the philosophical identity and roots of democratic education and their relevance to questions about hermeneutics of the self and the notion of using education to facilitate the ‘true’ inner being of individuals, with a view to changing societies for greater levels of co-operation and cohesion.

Human Flourishing and Foucauldian Ethics of Freedom

In attempting to delineate some complementarities between the Capability Approach of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum and the later work of Michel Foucault, it will be suggested that attending to the philosophical proximities highlighted is of use to a practical, developmental application of the Capability Approach: to its operationalization.
Ways in which these two worlds of thought meet will be considered and an epistemological  ‘bridge’ will be utilized as necessary for a sufficient linkage towards use and value in operationalization: namely the ‘developmental power’ of C.B. Macpherson. It is considered that this third idea aids in conceptually uniting the two useful approaches of Foucault’s ethics and aesthetics of existence and Sen and Nussbaum’s flourishing of functionings for practical realization of ethical democratic modes of existence. It is suggested that one or the other falls short of application in the real world, without a necessary conceptual combination.
Some mention of a possible unrecognised genealogy of the thought of Amartya Sen is also made, with reference to ways in which Hindu and Greek philosophy interact and the possible meanings of this for the Capability Approach.

A Perspective on Established Debates within Educational Research. Is an Alternative Ontological Foundation Available?

This presentation is offered from the perspective of a brand new entrant to the arena of educational research and examines some first impressions of the domain, from a personal viewpoint. It argues that whilst educational research is a vibrant arena of dissent and that this is a sign of health, there is much about educational research as presently conceptualized that is ontologically misguided. This belief is shown to be the product of an emphasis on a poststructuralist/postmodern openness that sees education as a progressive practice of democratic self-determination. The particular characterization of progressive education discussed is one that privileges 'inner' understandings of Self as significant for child-centered educational practice, refuting the present hegemony of positivist/quantitative educational models and the concomitant educational research that this creates and requires, which it is suggested serves adults and not children.