Richard Hogan: Home schooling isn't the answer for anxious children

Richard Hogan: The bigger issue is how to make school more appealing to students without compromising on standards and academic learning. Photograph: Moya Nolan

The recent criticism of the Tánaiste, Micheál Martin for his comments on the practice of home-schooling raised some interesting commentary on this modern phenomenon. Of course, the story of Enoch Burke and his family are an easy analogy to draw, and one I will endeavour to stay away from, but his case does illuminate, as far as I can see, the impact a singular lens has on a child’s development. 

Children crave difference and diversity. It is how they learn. The different perspectives that an Irish classroom offers children is so vitally important for their healthy maturation. I see it myself with my own children, they are buzzing with energy when a teacher has said something provocative or has got them to think a different way from how myself and my wife think. 

That is the gift of education. The multitude of perspectives and ideas they are immersed in, helps them to find their own voice, and place in the world. It also builds their resilience, challenging their teacher or debating in the class on a topic they feel passionately about, that is character building, confidence building and develops their ability to think critically.

I have been interviewed many times on this topic and I always feel slow to answer because I know there are plenty of children currently at home being educated by their parents, and so I don’t want to diminish their experience, and I also know that some children are successfully home-schooled, so it’s not a black and white topic. 

Recent data, by the EA, In 2020-21 showed that there were a total of 710 children being taught at home - 339 of primary age and 371 of post-primary age. The most recent data, 2021-22, shows that Home-schooling rose to 796 - with 329 of primary age and 467 of post-primary age. So, it is on the increase, but parents should enter into it with their eyes wide open and all the data to help them make the right decision for their child and their family. 

KEEPING UP

In Enoch’s case his mother was a school teacher, which is one of the arguments I often make when illuminating the downside of home-schooling. Generally, parents are not teachers and do not have sufficient understanding of the curriculum to keep up with school-taught students of comparative age. 

So when the home-schooled child attempts to sit a standardised test they can often really struggle, in my experience, to meet the demands of that exam. They haven’t had the structure of consistent learning and testing like other school students and there can be sizeable gap between them.

I have been working in education for over 20 years, and I have worked with many students who have come back into the educational system after a period of being home-schooled and in nearly every case the child struggled to reassimilate into normal school life after being away from it for a protracted amount of time. That has been the hardest aspect to witness, watching a child struggle to socialise after being isolated at home. 

In my experience, I meet parents who tell me home-schooling was a terrible mistake and only exasperated the issues they were attempting to ameliorate by removing their child from the school environment. One of the biggest issues children struggle with is a process known in psychology as a positive feedback loop. 

That is when the thing you use to make yourself feel better is the thing that makes you feel worse. It sounds good, because of the word ‘positive’ but that relates to rate of growth. So, when a child gets caught in a positive feedback loop it can consume them completely and parents can really be left stuck not knowing what to do with their child. 

KNOCK-ON EFFECTS

For example, a child feels anxious and finds school incredibly dull and anxiety provoking. This can lead parents to consider removing the stressor from their child’s life, a completely understandable and logical conclusion to come to as a parent. However, when the child is removed from the school environment, they often become cut off from their friends and that all-important connection they had with their peer group and wider social group ends. 

This can be the genesis of phobic behaviour. Now, the child starts to believe they do not have the skills to cope with any social engagement so they avoid even further, and the positive feedback loop forms. The thing they did to help their child, is the thing that caused their child terrible suffering.

The bigger issue here, is how to make school more appealing to students without compromising on standards and academic learning. We have to look at how our educational system is set up and start to think about these new students we have in front of us in the classroom and how we can engage them more in the learning process. 

The dumbing down of the Junior Certificate has done the complete opposite of what it was designed to do, students are just arriving into 5th year unprepared for the work ahead of them, that causes huge anxiety. The growth of home-schooling speaks to the growing disillusionment with the current state of our educational system. But I would enter into it very carefully, as a parent.