By Dr Alan Thomas, 1998
Reviewed by Susan Wight
Alan Thomas’ interest in individualised learning led him to examine home education in Australia and the U.K. He points out that although ‘catering for individual needs’ is touted as the ultimate pedagogy, it is actually impossible to achieve in a classroom. “In fact, in spite of nearly a century of interest in individualised teaching, practically nothing is actually known about it in practice, certainly not with regard to children of school age, simply because it cannot be studied to any significant extent in school. The only way to find out more is to turn to children who are educated at home.”
He quoted the research of Tizard and Hughes (1994) on how kindergarten aged children learn in the context of naturally occurring social conversation. They found that the home conversations of the children were of a much higher quality than those at preschool. “At home children discussed topics like work, the family, birth, growing up and death?about things they had done together in the past, and plans for the future; they puzzled over such diverse topics as the shape of roofs and chairs, the nature of Father Christmas and whether the queen wears curlers in bed?[but at pre-school] ?the richness, depth and variety which characterised the home conversations were sadly missing. So too was the sense of intellectual struggle, and of the real attempts to communicate being made on both sides. The questioning, puzzling child we were so taken with at home was gone?conversations with adults were mainly restricted to answering questions rather than asking them, or taking part in minimal exchanges about the whereabouts of other children and play material.”
Thomas wondered what would happen if, instead of starting school, childrencontinued to learn at home and he turned to home education for the answer. He found that parents generally began with a fairly formal ’school-at-home’ approach and responded to their children’s feedback by moving towards less formal teaching and learning. He was struck by the number and complexity of topics covered in family conversation and suggested that conversational learning contributed to the general success of home educated children.
He used the example of literacy to illustrate the individualisation of teaching and learning at home and found that many home-educated children did not learn to read until between the ages of 8 and 10 and yet experienced no adverse effects. In fact, many came to be voracious readers. “One is left wondering just how much current educational policy, with its urgent emphasis on teaching children basic literacy by the age of 7, might actually put some children off reading, inadvertently contributing to inadequate levels of functional literacy later, or at least dampen any interest in reading for pleasure, something which home educated children certainly have, irrespective of the age they learned to read.”
This book is an inspiring home ed resource, especially for those looking for reassurance on natural learning.