Recovering skills: Autonomous Home Education

Beth has started the Open University openings course Making Sense of the Arts.  She wants to write and now she is set up with Dragon Naturally Speaking and a decent headset and mike and a voice that she cannot hear two voices in, her writing is flourishing.

These however were hand written (a rare occurrence) and transcribed by me.  This is the work of a few minutes here and there over the last couple of days.  I must say I am a bit awed, it is not something I can do with any ease or even at all.  

But slowly we both remembered that she used to make up songs and poems and stories all the time, she would be constantly telling herself them under her breath when she was little, she was almost born doing it.  



Of course this was pre school, school destroyed her confidence because as she is dyslexic she could not write her ideas down and was pressured to produce work far beneath her abilities rather than provided with the support to work at the level of her ability.  So all that was almost lost in the mists of time, but not lost forever as you can see.

                          I love you

                          I Iove you 

                          You are perfect in every way

                          You are inspiring every day

                          You are bright enough to light the way

                          You are brilliant to this day

                          I love you

                          Sullen Angel

                          One day when I’m a grown

                          I will act all angelic

                          You’ll never see me nor

                          Any angel acting in a sullen way

                          But till that day 

                          I’ll just be me in every way!

                          .........................

                          Dogs dogs 

                          sleep all day

                          unless you have some 

                          time to play

                          Love

                          I love you so so much 

                          that if I tried to measure it

                          I’d have to give up

                          ...............................

                         The cold grips at me

                          In the chilly breeze

                          It seeps in through to the

                          Deepest core and even when the

                          Sun and heat come out it lingers

                          Dancing through me

                          Just that bit longer

                          .......................................

                         Rose’s aren’t always red

                         But violet’s are blue

                         You may be sweet

                         I’ve never tasted you

                          English Working Man

                          I would climb a mountain

                          But I haven’t got the time

                          I would swim the channel 

                          But I haven’t got the time

                          I would run a marathon

                          But I haven’t got the time

                          I would go for a bike ride 

                          But I haven’t got the time

                          I would come and see you 

                          But I haven’t got the time

                          See I’m an english working man

                          Fish fish how do you have your baths

                          Fish fish

                          How do you have your baths

                          I have to admit I’m wondering

                          See while you’re in water I’m on land

                          So correct me if I am wrong

                          While I’m in water you are on land

                          Fish fish

                          How do you have your baths

                          I’ve been pondering and pondering

                          the cleanliness of you

                          I find it quite concerning 

                          Howling Howls

                          The humans howl all the time

                          Day and night

                          But when I discuss the latest news

                          With fellow canines

                          They make an awful fuss

                          Running round the garden

                          Excited creature they are

                          Interrupting my discussions

                          With their awful howling howls

                          ............................................

                          You’re there for me always

                          Forever by my side

                          I never need to explain to you what exactly’s on my mind

                          But if I choose to anyway you never mind

                          So don’t forget that

                          When I say I love you

                          It’s as true as

                          The fact that

                          You are you

                          Silent Snores

                          Sitting in his usual spot upon the sofa

                          Sleeping silently with jaws parted

                          Ready for the snores to come

                          Though it is silent now 

                          As he sleeps on.

Sunflowers and other poems: pre school creativity

Sadly not everything is dated but the bottom three are age four, I think the first one is a little younger.

Beth says the image is of food, she vaguely remembers that which I think is pretty cool at 14.

Four years and two months here.

Learning Without Teaching

This post has been inspired by Jax

The Other Side of the Story

A Silent Assassin

My name is John.  I'm not your typical story hero.  I'm not a hero.  I kill the heroes.  Why do good guys always win the stories?  Cause it's not like that in real life.  But you better be glad about that if you're anyone like me. I'm not against people.  I don't care about people, its just I'd do anything to get paid.  I'd say anything.  I'd probably even kill my own family. Well depends, though it would have to be a lot of money.  Anyway, there's this one case that got me .... seriously ... in trouble.  And this, this is the story, I was creeping down the alleyway, I'd just finished my last task, don't really wanna talk about it; it wasn't a nice one.  I had to up the price a lot on the person, it was hard, I wouldn't do it otherwise.  But there was this van, I swear it was following me.  I crept round the alleyway, I hated people following me, plus they could want business or they could want to kill me, or they could be doing business I suppose, if you put it that way.  I quickly went into the alleyway, [bit i can't hear here]... but then two people got out, big build, nothing like me.  I'm the silent assassin with the gun, they're the silent assassins with hands.  Them guns, couldn't do nothing without em but hands they could strangle me, that's what I was worried about.  They were getting closer and the alleyway was a dead end.

This is the beginning of a story my 11 year old is making up.  I do not say writing, she is recording it with her digital voice recorder and I have just typed it up.  This is straight off the recorder, we would usually go through it and discuss punctuation, sentence structure and sense.  She cannot read fluently without a lot of effort and cannot write anything of any complexity.   I have not asked her to do this and I do not ask her to edit any of her work.  She insists.  I say insists because shamefully I am a little reluctant, she is my third severely dyslexic child and I have scribed myself out.  I do it though, that is my job and despite my reluctance I am impressed.  Her grasp of how to vary sentences in order to retain the readers interest comes entirely from her own observation of the books that have been read to her and the tapes she has listened to.

At her age I could not have done this, say we were given an essay to write for weekend homework, something like 'A day in the life of a penny' or some such thing, Sunday evening would find me behind the sofa in floods of terrified tears.  Make the assignment open ended and it got worse.   For me the pressure totally destroyed any creativity I might have had.  Lessons on grammar and sentence structure, participles adjectives etc, totally confused me, some of the instruction was at too simple a level and undermined my understanding, some was confusing, to the unready dyslexic brain adverb and adjective are too similar to be distinguished from  memory.

This may never be finished but it is a better proof of her understanding of the power and use of the written language than any number of work sheets or exercises.  And the desire to do this is fragile, make it in any way compulsory and I think the desire to do  it would disappear.   Before she did this she had done no creative writing for at least six months, I do not think this has held her back.

Introduce into this situation a 12 month plan and an order to exhibit the learning therefrom and the fragile joy of self directed exploration of the world around her, of which literature, in books, cds, tv and other media composes a not insignificant part would be severely damaged.

I know for certain that Beth would not be doing this if she were still in school.  By shining a bright harsh light on what she could not do the local authority school would have further undermined her confidence and disabled her strengths.

This same local authority wants to inspect my provision!  And if Graham Badman and Ed Balls have their way they will be able to force themselves into my home and make Beth answer their questions on her own.  They may get more than they bargained for, but what if they take offence and take it out on us.  Can we trust a system that supports a head teacher and board of governors concealing the tying up and whipping of a six year old girl by the governors children and sacks the conscientious adult who tells the parent and this is upheld by tribunal?  If it had been your child what would you have wanted?

And as far as we can tell we will have no right of appeal.