I’d set this to post into the future to space my thoughts out a little, but that feature appears to be broken in this version of wordpress. I’d upgrade but hey, I do programming all day and sometimes I’d like to get through an evening without it. Plus, I’ve washing to hang out, washing up to do and tomorrow’s lunch to make.
I do like eating a home cooked lunch at work, on all sorts of levels. I like feeling like I’m eating something where I know what is in it. This particular dish will have two vegetable food sources in it, and given that I’ve got fruit juice at work and will eat another couple tomorrow evening, I know I’m getting towards my target of regularly eating an actual vegetarian diet rather than just a succession of foodstuffs without meat. The whole not having chocolate in the house is helping to make sure I eat meals rather than snacks as well.
Another thing, I have a very important question to ask: who else blubbed through the last episode of Summerhill? Come on, I can’t be the only one.
Summerhill, A.S.Neill, 36 Children
, Teaching as a Subversive Activity 
, John Holt
– all these things combined to make me consider home education long before I had children. I think it was even before I started my pgce, as I remember reading them in Durham, and I started in Nottingham. But I couldn’t cope with the idea of posting potential offspring off to boarding school, and I’ve never understood why parental involvement is discouraged there (has anyone else worked that one out?) so the alternative was always to do it at home. I wouldn’t say that I’d lived up to John Holt’s ideals by any stretch of the imagination, and anyway the kids are in school now, but the education they are getting as far as I can tell is pretty good.
Read to them tonight. Lizzie Dripping 
which Small really didn’t like, and then The Sneetches
which he enjoyed very much. I resisted the urge to get any of it wrong so that he could correct me 
I’ve even managed to read a couple of books myself recently. There was Temeraire 
which is the start of a series, so there are more goodies to come there – I heartily recommend this one. Flowed very nicely, read it in only a few sittings separated by stuff like work, sleep and eating. Also Jinx High
which left me slightly dissatisfied, as if all the loose ends weren’t properly tied up. Given that there hasn’t been a sequel in over a decade, I guess they are supposed to be or they’re never going to be – I don’t mind a happily ever after that leaves you wondering just how they spent their happiness, but I object to looming oversights.
And there you go. I said it was bits and bobs.
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oh yeh, I blubbed through Summerhill! Especially the bit where Maddy’s mum lets her go back to the school, and the bit when they sail the boat, the bit where they take the vote in the courtroom…..
what, not the bit where Ryan’s dad turns up and pays for five years of schooling for him (nice tan he had too
)? It was the bit in the courtroom that really got me.
Oh, I cried at the bit where Maddy’s mum said she was like an inspector in the family.
Maybe Neill was writing at a time when parents would have been more likely to seriously struggle with respecting their children’s choices, without feeling they were neglecting their duty as parents? Maybe he reckoned the kids didn’t stand a chance unless the parents were out of the picture? Was he a product of a boarding school? I sometimes wonder if families where the children have, for generations, been sent away to school just don’t really understand how to do anything else – and maybe don’t understand what is lost.
From their FAQ’s of the Summerhill website:
12) How much are parents involved in the school?
There is no involvement with parents at Summerhill. They are able to visit during term
time on a limited basis and there is a newsletter sent to parents each holidays.
In spite of this many parents become good friends and participate from a distance with
their approval and anything helpful they can offer. We also have a really nice summer
half-term weekend when parents are invited to come and stay for a few days and relax -
but the philosophy of the school is to encourage children to live their own lives, and
make their own decisions. The children value their independence and the vast majority
prefer parents not to be a part of it at school.
i would have absolutely zero interest in a school that split me from my children, however well intentioned they thought it was.