Writer Esther Jones home educates her three children through an unschooling approach. She writes about their life and about home education and unschooling more widely at blog A Place On the Hill
Esther shares her concerns about how the proposed monitoring of home education cannot possibly be compatible with self-directed learning.
“I have three children, 14, 13 and 8. The oldest is on the autistic spectrum with PDA profile. He found school extremely difficult, and we dealt with frequent violent meltdowns due to the anxiety it caused. Since embarking on self-directed education four years ago, all our children have all flourished.
They are all fluent and keen readers with myriad interests that they explore freely and passionately. Among these are language learning, geography, history, poetry, economics, business, drama, and animals. My middle son has begun to study for History GCSE of his own accord, and my oldest son is becoming a confident young person, now able to attend many groups and clubs independently. His main passion is geo-economics. Among other things, my daughter likes to watch David Attenborough documentaries and learn about animals. All three are highly motivated people with a strong desire to play their part in society.
It would be extremely difficult for anyone to monitor this style of learning, because it is driven by the children themselves and consequently it is not linear or easy to define. How can we measure all that a child learns in a week when that will encompass thousands of small details of life? I fear that if traditional methods of understanding are applied it will do the children themselves a huge injustice.”
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