Friday 27 January 2012

I have what you're looking for

I have been round the Document of Accusation again, aka the Statcounter. This is an activity I engage in once a week to see how less popular I am than last week. (Plenty, so all is healthy.)

However, these features I note.

First, grit's day now enjoys a truly global audience. People flung apart - from USA, India, Brazil, Canada, Scotland, the UAE, Australia and Milton Keynes - join here daily, at this insignificant blog, in the hope of satisfaction.

Mostly for brains sucked out, text to write on a tombstone, hot aunties naked, bali men naked, hot bali men with sexy aunty naked, and outdoor survival in rural fenland.

Pigeon grit
is no longer a search term. I think the 12 people who needed that information have now excluded me from their visits. Thank you.

For all the rest of you dear earth-wide readers who up my global count, I am pleased to accommodate you. You probably arrive in expectation and depart in disappointment.

The second feature I note is how grit's day remains a continuous source of inspiration, encouragement, discouragement and DO NOT DO IT advice, particularly for home education.

When someone is inquiring about home education from England, they mine this blog. Really, really explore it from all angles. They leave me blinking in the flashbulbs with my hands covering my doodah.

Quick guide to answer your three latest inquiries.

No, home educators do not have to mark a child's work.
Not unless you are high on worksheetery, or your child is enthused by red ink. If you choose to home educate, you do not have to show any inspector, LEA official, or any jobsworth that you mark work. No-one is required to ask you to keep a mark book of your child's work. They shouldn't be asking for test scores, grades, results, or evidence mark books, unless you are on some local provision or flexischool scheme where you have already agreed to supply this. In which case you'll know about it. For all normal home ed days, no marking of anything is required of you.

No, home educators do not have to be teachers, nor show any type of certification.
You do not have to have a degree in education, nor a PGCE, nor any certificate in child wrangling. Nor household management, food hygiene, or keeping yourself clean. It is sort of expected that if you choose to home ed you have thought about it, considered your own capabilities, tolerances, and interest levels. There are no grades you need to demonstrate of yourself to lead your children into life and the community. You do not need certificates to prove you can parent, either.

Yes, we socialise.
Home educators do not lock up their children in airless rooms. We do not avoid social contact with other people. We do not pump our kids foie gras style full of Evangelist Bible Studies. (Okay then, maybe one or two families do that, among 200,000, so probably below the indoctrination levels of your normal school-going population. Anyway, you can bet the situation will correct itself come aged 13 when the kids rebel and cross over the forbidden line into normality or Satan worship.)

I hope that is helpful. I should start a surgery, where I am open to home ed questions you have. (Only probably don't ask me anything that is actually useful to have answered.)

PS. Today, for the ongoing visitor delight of Hong Kong, was the dreaded Coastal Defences Museum. For myself, I managed to throw in the Law Uk Folk Museum and a tram trip. No marking was done, and no certificates required. Being out and about in society while Squirrel tries to extract a packet of biscuits from a Cantonese-speaking cafe owner you can count as social contact.

5 comments:

Sugarplum Kawaii said...

Haven't dropped by to read for a while. Darn entertaing and smile inducing as usual (-;

Clare said...

Hi Grit, love your blog and think you're brilliant, but have to disagree with you today :-( What do socialisation and studying the Bible with our children have to do with each other? We manage to do plenty of both, as I'm sure do the (nearly 1000) members of one of the UK Christian Home Ed yahoo groups I'm on. One of the amazing things about HE is the freedom, and would be nice if there was freedom from stereotypes as well.

(I do love you, just feel the need to stick up for us today!)

Big mamma frog said...

I just come here for a laugh.

And to steal any good bits for my blog (only kidding).

Gotta go. Need to unlock the cupboard under the stairs and get the kids out to weave carpets and solder the fiddly bits inside Nokia phones.

Katie Pybus said...

1,000 members? I wonder how many home edders there really are in the UK. I know Fiona is working hard to find out! Even the biggest facebook groups only have 1,000 ir so members.

Re blog stats - my blog has a regular reader in Vietnam and is just about to experience the firefox internet explorer crossover!

Grit said...

hi sugarplum, you're always welcome. i'll hang around in blogworld while we home ed; pop by any time!

hi notatschool! yes, i agree; i tapped out hasty words and traded on stereotypes. i could have constructed that response about socialisation better.

i'm sometimes surprised i get away unchallenged with what i throw out; i think it's because a) my audience is small and b) can't be bothered to reply. thank you for being bothered.

big mamma frog, i think your working conditions sound reasonable. when i made our 3 sit by the roadside flogging notebooks, i considered telling them to remove their shoes and grubbying up, to see if i could sell another few books by rousing pity in the passers by.

kp nuts, i like the idea of counting us all. i bet there would be a bit of resistance from the 'i am not a number' group.