When my children first didn’t start school, I saw a hole where school would have been. The absence loomed large. I saw empty years ahead with no Back to School Septembers, and no Sports Day in July. No school plays and no class assemblies. No chatting with other mums at the school gate. No end-of-year parties or school friends. I couldn’t imagine a childhood...
What did you learn at school today? By Naomi Fisher
School isn't the only way to get an education, and the school way isn't the only way to learn. In fact, some of the skills we need at school are quite different to the skills we need in order to direct our own learning.
This table from my new book contrasts some of the skills we need to do school 'well' with the...
Exams are very strange by Naomi Fisher Do we really want our teenagers to spend their adolescence on a conveyor belt of high stakes exams?
What a strange thing we do to our young people in this culture and time.
We make them spend several years learning things that they often have no interest in, that they have not chosen and that they will in many cases never use again. We tell them...
We don’t value the right to say no, when it comes to children.
We pretend that we do. We teach them about consent, and that their body is theirs alone.
We read them books and show them films about saying no to adults who tell them not to tell their mum about a secret or who try to lead them away from their family.
How Do Children Learn When They Don't Go to School? By Naomi Fisher
Most people have no idea what child development and education looks like outside school when young people have autonomy. I've been told that children will endlessly move from whim to whim, or that they'll never learn to set goals or work hard. Here's what actually happens.
