What half-decent parents do

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: News; schooling on 9 May 2009.

Brit journalist Rod Liddle who writes for The Spectator thinks homeschooling is a farce and that we should leave teaching to the professionals. Titled, Who is right about homeschooling? you can read it here. Hmm. But I found a reply by one Amanda Craig to Liddle’s rather cynical take on homeschool (or ‘truancy’ as he prefers to call it). I’m reproducing her response here:

From Amanda Craig

Sir: I was interested in Rod Liddle’s article ‘Who is right about home schooling?’ (23 September) because I too have children at top private schools and have noticed large gaps in their general knowledge thanks to the detestable National Curriculum.

However, the solution is quite simple and does not necessitate removing them from their friends.

Stick a map of the world and a map of Britain up where they have meals, and they will learn geography. Make a time-line with them, and they will learn history. Listen to Radio Three in the car if you do a school run, and they will learn more about classical music than in a hundred music lessons.

Teach them, formally, how to draw. Watch familiar DVDs in foreign languages. Walk with them for at least half an hour every day, and talk to them about anything under the sun, including politics. Above all, keep reading to them every night, until they can read Jane Austen. It will only take an hour out of each day at most, is a total pleasure, and makes a huge difference to a child’s knowledge and self-confidence.

I went to a progressive boarding school where, as an academic pupil, I learnt almost nothing worth knowing. However, I got into Cambridge because I had a mother who followed these principles. All half-decent parents home-educate their children, in effect, until children learn to educate themselves.

Amanda Craig London NW1

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