“Why do we have to change the clocks twice a year?”

Interesting question. (This was Lyddie’s question last week, when we changed ours.) “The world takes its time from Greenwich,” says the line in Mary Poppins:

– and yet England only runs on Greenwich Mean Time for half of the year.

So, why?

The inveterate conspiracy theorist in me looks first for a political motive – and indeed, it seems from Wikipedia that I might be right to do so:

Reading the English translation of that directive, I see a ruling to harmonise the change to daylight saving time across the member states so that it happens on the same day, but nothing to explain why it happens in the first place.

My suspicion is that forcing populations to adapt their body clocks twice a year is a political tool which reinforces the power of a ruling body over its people, but Lyddie and I did go through the various given reasons together.

She also asked: “Why does the world take its time from Greenwich?” which led us to the International Meridian Conference, held in Washington in 1884 and attended by 25 nations, in which the following resolutions were adopted:

1. That it is the opinion of this Congress that it is desirable to adopt a single prime meridian for all nations, in place of the multiplicity of initial meridians which now exist.
2. That the Conference proposes to the Governments here represented the adoption of the meridian passing through the centre of the transit instrument at the Observatory of Greenwich as the initial meridian for longitude.
3. That from this meridian longitude shall be counted in two directions up to 180 degrees, east longitude being plus and west longitude minus.
4. That the Conference proposes the adoption of a universal day for all purposes for which it may be found convenient, and which shall not interfere with the use of local or standard time where desirable.
5. That this universal day is to be a mean solar day; is to begin for all the world at the moment of mean midnight of the initial meridian, coinciding with the beginning of the civil day and date of that meridian; and is to be counted from zero up to twenty-four hours.
6. That the Conference expresses the hope that as soon as may be practicable the astronomical and nautical days will be arranged everywhere to begin at midnight.
7. That the Conference expresses the hope that the technical studies designed to regulate and extend the application of the decimal system to the division of angular space and of time shall be resumed, so as to permit the extension of this application to all cases in which it presents real advantages.

We found the text of the proceedings and enjoyed spotting the evolution in the 125 year-old language used. We looked through it to try to find the answer to her second question and found this, spoken by the French delegate:

“… the meridian of Greenwich is not a scientific one, and that its adoption implies no progress for astronomy, geodesy, or navigation; that is to say, for all the branches and pursuits of human activity interested in the unification at which we aim.

“Thus, science is absolutely disinterested in the selection which we are now discussing and that fact I wish to emphasize particularly, as we are about to take a vote which we can easily anticipate by the one we had a few minutes ago, in order that the opponents of the resolution may not be accused of obstructing progress and the great aims of science for private interests.

“If, on the contrary, any conclusion is to be drawn from the instructive debate at which we have assisted, it is that the principal, I will say more, the only merit of the Greenwich meridian—and our colleague from Great Britain just now reminded us of it by enumerating with complacency the tonnage of British and American shipping—is that there are grouped around it, interests to be respected, I will acknowledge it willingly, by their magnitude, their energy, and their power of increasing, but entirely devoid of any claim on the impartial solicitude of science………. For the present we decline the honor of immolating ourselves alone for progress of a problematic, and eminently secondary order; and it is with perfect tranquillity of conscience that we declare that we do not concur in the adoption of the meridian of Greenwich, persuaded as we are that France does not incur the reproach of retarding and of obstructing the march of science by abstaining from participating in this decision.”

– from which we inferred that the decision was a purely political one, formed from the alliance and to help with the then trading links between Britain and America.

We then became interested in the political history between England and France, which of course took us to Napolean, before we ran out of time and energy for studying on that day.

“Why does ‘walk’ have an ‘l’ in it?”

That question of Lyddie’s yesterday led first to the dictionary, then to Wiktionary and ended up with Shakespeare and Milton!

Here’s how:

The second question was “What’s Old English and why is it different to the new kind?”

So we explained how language evolves and that this was why, for example, some of the words and phrases in our current bedtime story Peter Pan, sound a bit strange to her.

And then we got to talking about the different origins and influences in the English language, and some of the political events that made the changes. We experimented with a few words, trying to guess the roots of them then checking to see if we were right.

Lyddie was interested to know what words had appeared or changed since I was a child. I could think of ‘texting’, ‘DVD’, ‘Internet’, ‘email’ and others to do with technological development. I struggled to think of ones that had evolved due to other factors, although I suppose any kind of Leet would be an example of that. Then I realised the term ‘home education’ wasn’t even used when I was a child! At least, not in the way it now is. (Of course the older offspring added a few to the list, like ‘house’, ‘road’ and ‘car’! )

Finally, just before she’d heard enough about the subject, we read some Shakespeare and Milton out loud – just a few lines of each, and she was quite shocked to hear how our language has changed almost beyond recognition in the past few hundred years. I’m thinking of getting this to follow on with. Am wondering if anyone’s seen it?

Autonomous learning, what it means for us

Home ed is different for every family. We have friends who follow a set curriculum all morning, every day during the week throughout term time and do nothing else deliberately educational at all. Others insist on an hour or so of set learning, then do other things with the rest of their time. It’s quite common, too, for families to do most of their ‘home education’ out and about with various groups, engaged in planned and themed activities together. Here in West Yorkshire, for example, there’s at least one such event planned for every day of the week by various people and groups of people – some regular, some not. Usually all home educators are welcome.

Royal Armouries

We’ve done some of that, but tend to be more home and family-centred these days. I’ve found, over the years, that my children learn best when I let them take the lead. So we went to The Royal Armouries yesterday, for example. One of the girls had asked to go, so we went. Once there, we split into two groups: an adult for each child. (This is where adult offspring really come in handy!) And we followed the children around the museum, not the other way around. I was with the four year old and amazingly she didn’t just run through the place and out the other side: she actually wanted to know the answers to questions like where things were from, and what was happening here:

He's shooting the tiger.

Going at her pace took some doing – the temptation is for me to see things that I think might interest her and hold her back to point them out, but she stops asking questions if I do that, and I know that questions are vital to her learning. So:

'Wow, swords. What are they for?'

– has me scrabbling to read the plate to her, before she’s off again. She only wants a word or two: she’s only four. We’ll come back again frequently when she’s older, if she wants to. Maybe when she can read the plates for herself.

At home the method/way of life is similar. There’s lots to do here: we’ve amassed quite a collection of stuff over the years and it’s quite well organised and stored in a visible, accessible kind of way. I’ve always liked the Montessori idea of preparing the environment (although ours is not so rigidly structured) and also, I suppose, what unschoolers call strewing (although ours is not so parent-led – I’m just the one who pays for it, transports it home, finds a box and a shelf for it and then usually tidies it away again when it’s finished with! Our children are quite capable of doing their own strewing.)

Last night, for example, the old comic box had an airing:

It surprised me when she wanted to do the thing on this page properly.

And sometimes they want to just bake a cake:

The icing on the cake, groan

Or make pictures:

Houses are the thing ATM

Or look something up on Wikipedia:

..whilst eating a pizza

Or do workbooks:

... whilst kneeling on the dining table.

Or any amount of other things: see friends, phone friends, build things, make things, read things, take things apart and see how they work, ask endless questions, play in the field:

New swing, for the - ahem! - *children*.

The list of possibilities is endless. The point is, I never ask: “What do you want to do now?” because I don’t need to. They work it out themselves, getting ideas from books, friends, family, TV, the Internet, games, or just the environment and the thoughts in their heads. I don’t ban or limit anything: they could play computer games all day if they wanted to, but they never want to. I try not to suggest things, because when I do, they stop being creative and owning their learning.

But I don’t do nothing. I facilitate everything they want to do, never saying ‘no’ to anything if I can help it. I keep the place relatively clean and tidy so that they can be safe and have the clear space they need. I organise my time and money so that they can get what they want, go where they want, do what they want when they want to get, go and do it. I answer every question asked, or help them to find the answer (and the questions never stop, thank goodness!) I read to them a lot. I help them to learn. I will even teach them if they ask me to, though sparingly.

Today’s “maths lesson”

Sudoku on the DS: oldest daughter teaches middle daughter, youngest watches and listens. My input: none whatsoever required!

Home ed in bed

Plus work. And now blog.

How many boxes have I ticked there?

(Four. Five if you include: feet on hot water bottle )

On GCSEs

My sons (aged 20 and 21) have no GCSEs: they decided several years ago not to take them, because they wanted to carry on with their self-directed learning and the GCSE curriculum didn’t encompass the skills they has chosen to develop. I supported them in this, because I had a theory that I’d been developing since I was a teenager myself:

That there are saleable skills in all of us, which – left to our own devices and without coercion – we want to work on developing.

My sons always knew that they’d have to pay their way as adults. I trusted them to develop the skills to enable themselves to do so, and they didn’t let me down. They’re both still working from home, doing the same kind of activities they’ve always done according to their own schedule – and making enough money to pay for their share of the bills, the mortgage and the food. And they’re debt free.

Their absence of official qualifications has never been a problem, because they don’t need full-time jobs, and they don’t need full-time jobs because I’m not asking them to move out. Why would I? They pay their way now, so I’m not out of pocket, and it’s nice to have them around. I give them lifts in the car: they do bits of babysitting their younger sisters for me. They cook their own food, and even fill and empty the dishwasher (I must admit, life was a bit less easy going here before we got the dishwasher.)

The thing about autonomous learning is that unless the child is self-motivated at some point to do GCSEs, then if they’re going to be done there has to be some coercion on the part of the parents. So at some point the parent has to say: “That’s enough of doing exclusively your own thing now. It’s time to do some GCSE work, because I’ve decided you should,” or if not explicitly that, there is some element of persuasion on the part of the parents.

So in making the decision to home educate a child – and in how to home educate the child – I think these things need to be taken into account: Autonomous home education doesn’t always naturally, automatically lead to the procuring of official qualifications. In fact, from what I can gather if carried on indefinitely in its purest form, it rarely does.

If a parent has assumptions about people needing at least five GCSEs, grades A* – C to earn money, they’re probably in for a few years of stress and conflict when their child is a teenager. Young people probably do need either five GCSEs, grades A* – C or the equivalent to get most jobs and to get on most post-GCSE college courses and I think it’s folly to try to pretend otherwise – I’m just pointing out that being employed by somebody else on a full-time contracted basis isn’t necessarily the only, or even the best way to live and earn money.

Yes, it provides a sure and relatively safe regular income, but sometimes the cost of that is happiness, contentment and/or freedom.

Yes, if the young person wants or needs [or their parent wants or needs them] to move out of the family home and start paying rent or a mortgage in their own right, then obtaining a safe and regular income is probably necessary despite the cost in human terms. But if staying in the family home as adults is also an option, then self-employment becomes more feasible, and autonomous home education is great training for that.

I like the idea – and now the experience – of extended family living. It has a lot of benefits in terms of work sharing and co-operation, and not many disadvantages for all concerned. People yearn for communities, for more company and shared support and there’s no reason why the natural bond between parents, children and siblings shouldn’t supply some of that. At least, in most cases, it’s a bond that can be trusted.

I certainly like the idea of people being free of the tyranny of public examinations and jobs that they don’t want to do. Obviously a life on benefits isn’t feasible – my sons have never claimed a penny from the state and intend to never do so – but using one’s teenage years to develop a skill of choice, then marketing it on a self-employed basis as and when you want to work or need the income, is.

Just living/learning

I know there are child labour laws an’ all, but I can’t hang wet clothes to dry these days, without my 4 year-old wanting (yep, that’s wanting. Insisting!) to help.

She goes straight from that to the alphabet though, so that’s all right – isn’t it?

At least she’ll be a literate laundry woman!

I don’t do strewing, *but..*

Strewing: “leaving material of interest around for our children to discover”.

I wrote a bit about my views on it four years ago here and I don’t think they’ve changed much. In our house we kind of strew by accident (no sniggering at the back there!) rather than on purpose – which works more effectively anyway, because there aren’t the invisible waves of **contrived learning opportunity** emanating from it, to which my children are so, so ultra sensitive. (Is it only my children?)

BUT.

I did stick a huge world map next to Lyddie’s bed a couple of weeks ago

(Here come the excuses..) But I only bought it because it was cheap! (£3 in a sale at the local garden centre. Garden centres aren’t really about gardens any more, are they? I mean, seriously, we spend more than £3 on dinner! Sometimes.. It was too cheap not to buy.) And I only stuck it next to her bed because there wasn’t another spare piece of wall that was big enough for it.

BUT as an accidentally strewed **non-contrived learning opportunity** it’s been great!

Much bouncing takes place on that bed – it’s our trampoline substitute – and bouncing seems to somehow equate to curiosity. So we somehow get: *Bounce bounce bounce* “What’s that huge yellow country up there?” *Bounce bounce bounce* “Oh wow, that flag’s got a picture on it!” *Bounce bounce bounce* “The world’s pretty big really, isn’t it? HUGE in fact, when you think the coast is miles away and yet it’s like – one pixel on there…”

Everything relates to computers, to this generation of children. Real life games are “paused” while someone goes to the loo; statements are “restarted”, not repeated, and millimetres on a map become “pixels”. I find it quite endearing, if a bit startling on occasion.

And it gives rise to a whole other bunch of connections about physical movements stimulating cognitive function.

If I was one of life’s natural strewers (really, no sniggering at the back!) I might make even more use of that wall. There are a whole load of other things I could put there instead of, as they are, scattered randomly around the rest of the house (is that strewing? )

But I won’t.

“Doing Egypt.”

It all started with this book

- which attracted Lyddie’s attention in a shop.

This led to:

Gods on our walls..

Pharoah hat (sorry, *headdress*) on our table...

A trip to the (very good) 'Egypt' section of a local museum...

Finding Egypt on the globe..

Small timelines...

Getting out the old, *big* timeline again (we really must make one of our own)...

More books...

Hieroglyphs...

More 'Egypt' stuff...

And watching old 'Egypt' films.

Finally I’m told: “We’ve done enough Egypt for now.”

So it’s all gone in a box until it’s needed again:

Next up? China, apparently. I’d better get another box, then.

(Most of the pics above should be clickable. Some lead to other sites which explain our sources.)

Since my last post here, we’ve been..

(amongst other things)

Tracing snowflakes

Making puppet shows

Climbing

Puzzling

Writing fridge poetry

Welcoming new family members

Practising our handwriting

Ogling the fireplaces in a local stately home

Cycling with skeletons

Doing activity books. 'Pre-school workbooks', they call them. 'Pre-home ed fun books', *I* call them.

And gratefully receiving gifts of books. A whole boxful! Bliss.

We’ve also, this week, been creating maps of our local area – first from memory, then from walking around with a clipboard, then from sloooow driving, and stopping, and reversing, and driving again, then from Google Maps and Street View. Next, we’re comparing the current ones to some we have from 60 years ago, before the M62 was built, to see what’s changed and how. We’re also thinking we’ll do some treasure hunts. An easter egg hunt, with treasure maps!

This all came about because I thought Lyddie’s mind would suit cartography, so I suggested she try to draw a map. She’s always been interested in where she was, and where things were in relation to one another – ever since she could sit up and look around and talk. She has a practical mind which likes to organise things into their proper place and structure.

One of the joys of home education: having the time and the freedom to really get to know one’s own children, work out what they’ll like and – after a bit of trial and error – hit on the right thing and watch them run with it.