This was about 18months ago and it made very little difference to how his primary school treated Harvey. Never mind, we thought, all will be different at secondary school. It wasn't. The persistent physical and verbal bullying continued, he was never enthused by lessons, and the hard pressed but well meaning staff generally never seemed to have enough time to spend with him to explain social expectations. After a few rather more serious incidents involving stolen spectacles, drawing pins planted in shoes in the changing room and a particularly nasty series of false allegations, we decided to remove Harvey from state education.
This was not a knee-jerk reaction; for the last two years I'd been semi retired from my teaching post and I knew I could make time if Harvey needed to be removed. We treated it as an ejection seat and told Harvey he could choose whether to pull the release or not. He pulled it ten days ago and has not been back to school since.
We've not been idle! Already he's made a series of autonomous and remote controlled LEGO robots, he's learned about rock types ready for our forthcoming trip to do the Snowdon Horseshoe and he's writing his own blog. Above all he seems to have lost all his anxiety symptoms and hasn't needed his usual "comfort blanket" of inane TV. He's genuinely excited in the robotics which he's never shown an interest in before and is already planning his rock collection. The weekend before he ejected, Harvey told me of the mask he feels he has to wear at school to fit in. He said he found it increasingly uncomfortable and wanted to be around people who accepted him as he was. This was at a Sacred Harp singing in Norwich we both belong to, a group of utter individuals if ever there was one! What I personally have found is that we've got the real authentic Harvey back; a young man who is articulate, quirky, an exhilaratingly fast learner, an independent thinker and a thoroughly nice chap. These were traits that school either squashed or his "friends" found irritating.
So armed with books by J.T. Gatto *and Ivan Illich**, both writers I'd come across before in my own journey of increasing dissatisfaction with how the English education system was evolving, we're deschooling Harvey and encouraging him to be himself. We're celebrating his many talents, enjoying his interests and embarking on a wonderful journey as a family. Keep reading!
*The primary goal of real education is not to deliver facts but to guide students to the truths that will allow them to take responsibility for their lives.
*It is time that we squarely face the fact that institutional schoolteaching is destructive to children.
**Everywhere not only education, but society as a whole needs deschooling.
