Home Education Unites People Around the World

There are two homeschooling events of particular interest to those who speak or are Spanish. One is a scholarly conference to be held in Navarro, Spain on November 25–26, 2011. There is an English version of the site available, too; look for the link on the menu on the left side of your screen.

The National and International Conference on Family Education Homeschooling

The fact that Spain is hosting such a conference while at the same the country is debating whether homeschooling should be permitted is very interesting to me. I look forward to hearing how this event turns out.

The other event is a continuation of the International Home Education conference I addressed in Bogotá, Colombia in 2009. Educación sin Escuela features families as well as academics who reflect on their learning without schooling, as well as learning with flexischooling.

Educación Sin Escuela

Flexischooling is a word invented by Roland Meighan, whose work on behalf of autodidacts everywhere deserves wider recognition. Roland has for many years published The Journal of Personalised Education Now and the latest issue, No. 14, is fascinating. It is a special edition about Edmond Holmes, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools, who wrote several books after he retired, including What Is And What Might Be (London: Constable, 1911). Holmes is a deep critic of standardized curriculum, testing, and emphasizing the role of the teacher over the role of student in the educational process. This is from the article by Michael Foot that opens the issue:

According to Holmes, teachers need to realize that it is not they but the children who “play the leading part in the drama of learning.” Teachers need “to help them to develop all their expansive instincts, so that their growth may be many-sided and therefore as healthy and harmonious as possible.” And that healthy and harmonious growth will be its own reward, thus rendering unnecessary “the false and demoralizing stimulus of external rewards and punishment.”

Not only does Holmes sound like a precursor to John Holt, in this quote, also from What Is And What Might Be, he almost sounds exactly like Holt:

In nine schools out of ten, on nine days out of ten, in nine lessons out of ten, the teacher is engaged in laying thin films of information on the surface of the child’s mind, and then, after a brief interval, he is skimming these off in order to satisfy himself that they have been duly laid.

It is always refreshing to me to find like-minded people from other cultures, times, and societies who not only question conventional education but who also do something about it. Though homeschooling does not have well-paid lobbyists, consultants, research programs, and business interests to support it as conventional education does, we do have people-power. Right now, in the United States, there are more children being taught at home (2 million plus) than there are in publicly funded charter schools (1.4 million), which have had far more money, publicity, and institutional support than homeschooling has over the years. Homeschooling is gaining adherents around the world, primarily through word-of-mouth and example; compulsory schooling needs laws, officers, special buildings, television shows, advertisements, and all sorts of social enticements to gain and keep adherents. Somewhere between the words of Edmond Holmes (and others like him) and the actions of home educators around the world, a new form of education is being created around the entrenched institution of conventional schooling.

Correction on Spain and a Conference About Ivan Illich's Work

I have learned that though my first post about the situation in Spain was correct, my second, where I claimed homeschooling was officially illegal in Spain, is not correct. This is due to my misreading of the information I received and I apologize for any distress this may have caused anyone. The situation in Spain is that the courts did not find a constitutional basis for homeschooling to be a right that families can exercise, but the courts noted this right could be added to the constitution. Obviously this is a big task for the small number of Spanish homeschoolers to accomplish, but one that is possible. In the meantime, Spanish homeschoolers are in the gray zone of homeschooling versus government authority, a situation familiar to homeschooling veterans in the US in the 1970s and 1980s: the Spanish families I know are still homeschooling but no one knows if they will be prosecuted for doing so. Time will tell, and I hope that during that time Spanish homeschoolers are able to rally public opinion, as well as polticial and educational support, to make homeschooling a constitutionally-protected practice.

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Ivan Illich is certainly one of the most controversial philosophers and social critics of the twentieth century. His influential canon of work includes penetrating analyses of schooling (Deschooling Society), medicine, (Medical Nemesis), public policy (Energy and Equity), literacy (In the Vineyard of the Text), and so on. His influence on John Holt's thinking about school is well-documented, but like Holt, Ivan often worked, in his own words, "on the fringes of academia." I often feel that Illich's work is more appreciated in other parts of the world  than in the United States, so I was very pleasantly surprised to learn about this upcoming conference, sponsored by the Western New England College School of Law, on April 1, 2011 (I hope this is not an April Fool's joke!):

Radical Nemesis: Re-envisioning Ivan Illich's Theories on Social Institutions

I look forward to being a member of the audience for this all-day event.

Homeschooling is Officially Illegal in Spain

Homeschooling was declared illegal in Spain in December 2010, mainly because there is no language in the Spanish constitution that permits it. Madalen Goiria, a Spanish citizen and a law professor, notified me that this case “comes after an appeal to the Constitutional Court numbered 7509/2005 against a previous decision by the Audiencia de Malaga, put forward by two families: Antonio Gómez, Maria Socorro Sanchez, Florian Macarró and Anabelle Gosselint. The Constitutional Court decision has come five years later and it is dated 2nd December 2010.” The essence of the constitutional court decision is that homeschooling is not a right under Spanish law and therefore all children must attend formal school. The court notes that laws can be made that allow for more flexibility and choices for families, but until then homeschooling is illegal in Spain.

Spanish homeschoolers will likely appreciate any sign of solidarity they can get as they are now an oppressed minority in their own country. Creating new laws and amending a constitution are tall tasks for any group to take on, but that seems to be the order of business for Spanish homeschoolers. Homeschoolers in Spain will probably need to create alliances with politicians, family rights groups, and educators who will support new homeschooling legislation, as well as create public support for alternatives to school for children. This is no small task, as we know from our own efforts in the United States, but it is possible.

Further, civil disobedience, such as refusing to send one’s children to school, can be a spark that can bring support from non-homeschooling parties who support educational freedom, but I don’t think it is called for at this time. Videos and photos of children being forcibly separated from their parents to attend compulsory schooling can stir powerful emotions in the public, but it is not clear to me at all that there are enough homeschoolers in Spain, nor enough support for homeschooling there, to suggest that parents risk losing custody of their children over homeschooling. After all, in Sweden and Germany public opinion appeared to be against homeschoolers and media appeals in those countries didn’t do much to move public opinion in favor of homeschooling. For now, I think Spanish homeschoolers should build a larger base of support and advocacy, then, if necessary, move towards more dramatic measures. For instance, I read how “the regional government of Catalonia announced in 2009 that parents would be allowed to homeschool their children up to 16 years.” So there might be some legal precedents and lawmakers for Spanish homeschoolers to work with in this regard. Also, the creation of alternative schools that enlist parents as teachers in their program (“umbrella schools” is the phrase used here in the U.S.), enrolling their children in distance learning programs that are recognized by the government, and just plain old “underground homeschooling,” as some did, and still do, in the U.S., could be options Spanish families can use. I’m not sure if any of these ideas can work given the legal framework of Spain, but I want to mention them for those who seek to continue helping their children learn in Spain without sending them to school.

We should not dismiss this development as “Well, that’s too bad for the Spanish. They’re not lucky enough to live in a country like the U.S. that has constitutional protections for families to raise and educate their children without undue government regulation.” There is truth to that statement, but there is also myopia.

Though this situation does not directly affect our ability to homeschool in the United States, it is important for us to realize that the underlying issues that cause governments to force children by law to receive professional formal education and make alternative forms of learning illegal are universal. Universal compulsory education is a commodity that is useful for all sorts of political purposes. Compulsory schooling occurs in democracies and in dictatorships; the school bell rings and we must attend to it regardless of our country’s political structures. We need to be alert to what’s happening to homeschooling in other countries; laws and public attitudes towards people who do things differently than the majority can often change suddenly.

NOTE: If you can read Spanish, here are two resources for you. You can download this transcription of the Spanish Court’s decision here.

You can also read about the development of a new group that wants to make homeschooling legal in Spain: Educacion libre.