I think my 11 year old may be the exception then. At the moment it's like somebody stole his brain and replaced it with a cabbage. Not sure what he expected to happen when he tied a piece of string from sofa to table at ankle height, but evidently me going flying on his death trap was not one of his projected results. I wouldn't mind but I'm still nursing an injured foot cos he felt stairs served a better function as Gormiti staging and display centre. Or maybe making him bilingual has made him smarter and he is cunning genius style trying to kill me in what looks like an accidental manner? :001_huh:

Jenny in GA I had a look for your new thread, but couldn't find it. I have a link that gives a brief review of studies focused on the length of the school day and educational attainment. http://www.onlineuniversities.com/10-telling-studies-done-on-longer-school-days What I don't know is if the studies took into account the "hidden" hours of a school day. I know when I was living and working in Thailand plenty of my students would leave school and go in a variety of directions to crammers. Mates in Korea and Japan reported the same, but with bells on. Allegedly they spent half the lesson peeling sleeping, exhausted children off their desks. Mind you that was more than a decade and a half ago, so perhaps things have changed considerably. Certainly here our middle school day may look short on the surface. My son's lessons started at 7.50 and ended at 1.37 (that is not a typo) with a single 10 minute recess. So yes that looks shorter than for example the British school day where the kids finish far later in the afternoon. However the lack of breaks throughout the day and the sheer volume of work that got sent home creates a different reality in terms of number of hours dedicated to academics. I had less homework during my final GCSE year than my son was being given in first year middle school. Plenty of kids here also have regular after school tutoring in one or more subjects on top of their homework. Unless studies explicitly state that they take into account the cultural/educational norms in terms of after school schoolwork I'm not sure that like is really being compared to like. I do think that systems with better focused objectives reflected in teaching and lesson content, less time wasting, quality staff will produce better results in less time. That most likely will explain those counties with fewer hours dedicated to schoolwork but decent results. But they may be performing with in a cultural and social context that cannot be reflected elsewhere, which makes importing and replicating their educational model, and expecting the same results, an unlikely solution.

Ester, No, love I wasn't reacting to your words, it's me knee jerking into a somewhat prickly defensive explanation of how I got from my start point to here and what that process included. I have a tendency to get prickly because as I'm sure you can imagine I spend a fair bit of time with people who not unnaturally tend to get a bit sniffy when some cheeky foreign type starts criticising their country, even if they were making the same criticism not five minutes earlier. The America thing wasn't aimed at implying your words meant something they didn't, it was an explanation as to why I let an initially private conversation overflow onto a public board, and I needed to explain because I was the one in breech of etiquette. I can't read German, but wouldn't mind hearing the gist of what it had to say. I've read quite a bit about why PISA is allegedly unfair on X country or Y country. The obvious impact of reunification in Germany, the vastness of the States and its volume of immigration, the social issues in the UK that impact learning opportunities and effective teaching, and the outcry here in Italy that "Anglo Saxon" style tests disadvantage Southern European students in terms of format and emphasis on "competencies". IMO almost every country can (and does) claim extenuating circs for not coming out of the rankings smelling of roses. However I find there tends to be a touch of over egging in the issues underlined, quite a lot of special pleading and reworking of the data. In order to "prove" a point rankings tend to be rejigged by enthusiastic amateurs in a way that *over compensates* for the issue of a single country's perceived disadvantage, while failing to apply the same sort of rejig to reflect the *unique* disadvantage of all the countries. Which makes you wonder the degree to which face saving gets priority over a more self critical and internally honest reading of the findings. Have a look at what was done here to "prove" how the PISA test disadvantaged the States and as a result gave a massively skewed result placing the States down low instead of up near the top. I can't be the only on with raised eyebrows as to why the States is given a differing criteria in terms of students whose results are excluded AND why no other country's unique social/cultural issues were also factored in. I'm no statistical expert but the claimed ideal of rendering PISA rankings "fair" seems to have been left at the side of the road as soon as the twiddling with included data resulted in making the States look better. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_-EMpadQx4hM/TRKVzaSdWnI/AAAAAAAAAYs/26q8mk1dT3M/s1600/PISA.jpg The major complaint I've heard here about Italian students being disadvantaged in the test as I said, is said to be down to PISA employing an "Anglo Saxon" style of the exam and the testing reflecting the "Anglo Saxon" focus on competence rather than knowledge. This is what the PISA reading exam looks like. It's a PDF, you have to scroll forward to about page 19 to start seeing the actual questions. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/47/23/41943106.pdf I can see immediately why your average Italian student struggles with it after years of mainly oral interrogations to test their rote learning and the occasional worksheet style test. They'd struggle because they are being asked to engage, think, apply what they know, using competencies assumed to have been acquired. That would be a bit of a shock to them when what they are more used to in terms of testing is being told what to learn by heart, and then regurgitate it on cue, digestion optional. I don't think twiddling with the test will be ever be enough to compensate for the inefficiencies and lack caused by the sort of educational methodology where parrot fashion learning is given priority. I honestly think the people who suggest its in the main the test not the education at fault here in Italy, are wishful thinkers. This author and I don't have interchangeable views. I haven't read her book just skimmed lots of interviews, but I think we part company at the very least where she seems to present teachers as innocent victims of their own inadequacies in the classroom, whereas I see them as more active participants in their slumping standards. If you have a quick read of the books blurb here http://www.amazon.co.uk/LItalia-dellignoranza-declino-società -ebook/dp/B006AZZ1NA I think what she says is a more realistic idea than "the test is unfair" as to why Italy fails to rank or score well.

cont but these results below don't jibe with millions of Italian parents being *justifiably* happy with their child's school. This is how Italy performs compared to other countries. http://blogs.crikey.com.au/thestump/2010/12/08/australian-education-not-so-bad-at-all-really/ (you need to scroll down to the table and enlarge it) This is the evident contrast between Italian childrens' wellbeing in school versus every other category of their lives in the UNICEF study. http://www.eclectictimes.com/mt-images/misc/child_well_being_table.jpg The longer I live here the harder it is to adequately quantify Italian parenting. It was easy in the beginning. But then you form relationships, get to know individuals, end up in the community rather than skirting on the outskirts. A decade and a half fly by and you're aware of such a huge range of shades of grey that it is impossible to describe the whole because anything you come up with is so superficial and you can think of more people who are exceptions to the rule you just made up, than actually fit it. I'm down to just two cultural differences between Italian mums and myself now that work pretty much for almost all of the people, almost all of the time. Colpa d'aria and "bedtime". They believe in the first and I roll my eyeballs and mutter "poor child, forced into a scarf and hat on a lovely spring day" under my breath. I believe in the second and they mutter "poor child, such rigidity and severity!" under their breath. You didn't suggest this in your post, but I wanted to assure you that I don't come at this from a point of "expaty" nationalistic point scoring and I'd like to explain my motivations for being highly critical of generous host. I left school in 1984. The UK school system looks vastly different now by all accounts. I then went to teach in Thailand when I was 21, which you can't compare to Italy, it's a different world. Then I came here a few years later, and never left. I've been out of England longer than I was ever in it at this point. This might reveal a profound level of self interest, but to be honest I don't care all that much what the results of other countries, including my own, are. I live here not there, will most likely will die here, hopefully will have a grand baby here who will in all likelihood go to school here. I teach school kids (and their parents) most days and given that I like eating, will probably keep doing that until my memory goes. I get unloaded onto by other parents (because they are my clients, friends, acquaintances and colleagues) about their own current school woes. I send far too much time rebuilding childrens' broken academic self confidence so I can get them back to a point of engaging with their learning and have them let go of assumptions that it is a waste of effort because they are domed to fail. And unless I get the hermit bug that will probably carry on. So all I really care about is the state of play here, because only here affects me today and tomorrow and only schools here are capable of giving the people I care about less irritation, hassle, distress and frustration than they currently do. That's why I'm so invested in the what, how, why of what has gone demonstrable, quantifiably wrong with the school system in Italy. It doesn't come from a expat-itus "grass is greener back home" syndrome. Not least because my sister's husband is an ex state school science teacher and he has not exactly spared me the gory details of why he left the profession. You didn't suggest any of the above in your post. But I also know that it's uncomfortable for me when people criticise the UK within my earshot and I wanted to assure you that this was not a case of just having a pop at the host country for the sake of it, or diminishing it for "expat sport". I think you should seek and listen to other views and opinions, cos it's always a good idea. And I can't guarantee that my vision is perfect, or even correct. But I can promise you I have thought about this issue long and hard. Since my son entered 1st year primary school in 2006 I have had cause to profoundly consider the what, how, why of the demonstrable failings of the Italiansystem. Because that is the year it got painful and personal. The considering takes place frequently enough that my husband has been known to yell "Basta! I want to watch football not help you pour over normativi by translating all the legalese for you AGAIN!". My vision will be coloured by my anglo saxonness, but it was also shaped, coloured and refined by literally hundreds of conversations with Italians. Some working in schools, some running them, some with kids in them, sharing years and years of first person experience that confirmed and reflected my own first person experience. Their words, their views, their evidence created the foundation and detail of my conclusions as much as my own did. My conclusion could be summed up in four words. Poor standard of teaching. Which is not a million miles away from the PISA analysis of... Poorly trained staff. Come to think of it I could have saved about six thousand words if I'd stuck to just "poor teaching" in the first place. I blame the "bangs on a bit" stick.:glare:

Ester, since you deleted your message I've gone through and stripped quotes, But I do want to respond. I considered sending this privately in light of your deleted post, but on reflection I don't want to do it in private becuase to a certain extent that feels like I'm trying to "not wash dirty linen in public". We Europeans make free with our criticisms of American systems and culture publicly. Americans often publicly reference perceived European-wide "betterness" when being self critical. I think perhaps a certain level of Euro smuggyknickers and "glossing over" has evolved thanks to this dynamic, which allows us to have something of a not very accurate assessment of what goes well here compared to the States, and what does not. We may be critical of our own systems to some degree, but it does tend to be done in the context of "but at least we're not America". I think we Euro-peeps lean towards a tendency for closed door discussions of the nuts and bolts of specific European systems that are demonstrably unable to produce even average results, that trail behind America in the rankings, and IMO that only adds to our inability to face head on what needs to be done to give OUR kids a better chance of average or above average educational attainment. ----- The function of the newsworthy cases is not try and demonstrate that teachers who get physical are ubiquitous here. As stated, no member of staff has ever laid a finger on my child, he is 11 years old and started Nido at 2. He's had lots of teachers, if getting clumped was an unavoidable feature of Italian schools I wouldn't be able to say that. The underlining specific notable cases is to demonstrate the difficulty the system has in dealing even with the extreme cases of misconduct in terms of pastoral standards and how the mechanisms that stifle action in the extreme cases leave the system virtually incapable of raising professional standards in schools. Not least because compared to children being forced to wear "Ass Ears" a teacher confusing lip service with teaching is pretty small potatoes when organising your school director's desk into high priority for parental placation and "the round filing cabinet". The impotency to take on even the black and white cases has a knock on effect as the people charged with running the show view and describe themselves as "handcuffed" and unable to act in a proactive manner when the first symptoms of less serious, but still unlawful, behaviour appear. In turn this sensation of powerlessness to take action renders TPTB utterly ineffective when faced with low professional standards in terms of actual teaching. There is nothing like having to shuffle (rather than fire) a slap happy teacher to make a director rather disinclined to do much more than shrug when faced with a teacher who simply doesn't do much teaching. Laws are in place that underline a long standing rejection of certain behaviours towards small people. Corporal punishment in schools was first outlawed here in 1928. In '96 a law was passed that aimed to prioritise the rights of the child not to be hit over the parents right to discipline. That is not the hallmark of a backwards country considering how others created their similar laws far later(UK), if at all (USA). Far from it. The specific issue with our school system that has reasonable student/teacher ratios, relatively high per child investment (if you exclude university funding per student from the equation) but below OCED average outcomes in terms educational attainment has not a lot to do with The Italian Character, or Italian patenting practices IMO and everything to do with politics. The Italian state created, nurtured, enshrined with quasi inalienable rights, a system whereby a worker with a state contract has long been able to expect their employment rights be placed over and above almost any other consideration. In all sectors. Not just education. Given that state schools evolved with that priority automatically included in the package (due to the staff being state employees), it is not that surprising that contractual rights connected to employment override systems and the capacity to raise standards. Be those standards pastoral or academic. The cases I referred to weren't random. What I felt was notable about those cases were how they highlight the issue the system has with managing even the most extreme end of professional misconduct to underline how hard it is to effect change when the issue is professional incompetence. For example.. The toungue/scissor case, the nasty director, the evil bidella illustrate how even with a conviction in place that clearly demonstrates the capacity to place children at risk in a unlawful manner, a member of staff is not automatically disbarred from working in a school. Their right to employment trumped other considerations. The two cases the day before yesterday and the case last month were notable because of a positive change, the use of hidden cameras as an early step taken. The 2 day before yesterday ones were notable also because they coincided with a clearly preprepared statement from the director of the "Observer of minors" stating that the principle of not putting cameras in all classrooms was correct, but unfortunately that principle had to take a back seat in view of the sheer number of cases they were having to deal with where members of staff in schools were behaving in an unacceptable manner towards children. I doubt that the additional call for regular physiological testing for teachers is because the entity is convinced that manics appear to be given priority when handing out teaching contracts. IMO it is recognition of the "rotten apple" syndrome I described and a desired intent to weed out the minority who contribute to a downward spiral by "pulling down" other member of staff's perception of what is normal and acceptable. The "strip and have class beat up kid" case was notable in that the teacher resigned, instead of being suspended on full pay until the court case was concluded in a few years time, possibly then returning to the classroom. Lots of Italian adults have fond memories of their schooldays. My husband does, my friends do. They often reference said happy school days to demonstrate contrast with what their own children are experiencing in school. I know lots of people who are happy with their child's teachers. I was happy during my son's 2nd year elementary. Had my son begun his school days with those teachers and one not died and the other retired, but instead seen him through primary school, in all likelihood we would not have had this conversation in the first place due to my being somewhat oblivious to the issues because I had never had to face them on a personal level. cont in next post

Can I just touch on the John Holt V Sandra Dodd thingy? I know "Teach your own" didn't describe anything like radical unschooling, but did he not go on to write a couple more books that got progressively nearer and nearer the concept of "thou shalt not coerce" as the heart of the philosophy ? in the how children fail book did he not go as far as to suggest children should have the freedom to have sex with adults as is suggested here ? http://homeeducationheretic.blogspot.it/2011/07/ultimate-autonomy.html Is there really such a huge gap between the Doddites and Holts later work if it evolved beyond the premise of the first book and went on to explore and place far more emphasis on children being free from coercion ? These are not rhetorical questions, cos I haven't read any of his books. But I see people drawing lines between Doddites and Holtites, and then see the Doddites quote Holt to make their case. Is it more a case of there is a division between Early Holt and Dodd, than Holt and Dodd per se ?

LOL, this is pretty much the way is was for us. DH still doesn't speak much English and I arrived here with about three words of Italian. Not sure it is completely untrue even today. We can have huge rows only to discover three days later that I misunderstood him (or him me) and the whole row was based on somebody having the hump with something the other didn't actually say. Presumably some of the worst rows never happen at all cos one of us didn't register a trigger for a bust up due to it being in the "wrong" language.

I dragged my future husband back to my place after meeting him in an Irish pub in Milan. He was the one night stand who wouldn't leave and insisted on spending the next two months wooing me into submission over the issue of actually having a relationship with him, in the vertical sense of the word, during my beer-free hours. That was 17 years ago. And all I can say is he is lucky he won me over BEFORE I met his mother. (trails in last in the "most romantic story" stakes)

Shuffling happens when there is enough opposition from parents to make life really uncomfortable for either the protagonist or the director. Or when all hell breaks loose and the police get involved. Since 2006 anybody being investigated for a serious crime is not supposed to be allowed to work in a school while the investigation is ongoing. . However in the "dive pants" case the woman had actually been convicted of extortion with threats of violence towards minors as an aggravating factor while working in a school, and BEFORE being shuffled to the school where she got arrested for the "dive pants" incident. So either the law only covers being investigated, rather than found guilty, or somebody screwed up and shuffled her instead pushing forward for dismissal. Possibly the discrepancy is because she is not a teacher, but a bidella (sort of cleaner, door answerer, photocopier). In the Milan "tongue plus scissors" case the support teacher declared her intension to return to the classroom post conviction. Again, maybe this is possible because she was convicted as a support teacher, not an actual teacher. (In English) http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/01/09/us-italy-tongue-idUSB21371720080109 And again in this case (see extract below) that ended with a conviction, a return to the school and then a shuffle, the protagonist was the school director, NOT a teacher, who first returned to his job post conviction and then got shuffled to an admin position (being a director IS an admin position, so perhaps what they mean is he was moved to the local education authority rather than working in an admin capacity in a school?) ----- extract from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4627232.stm In Italy there is no national register of sex offenders but criminal record checks are carried out on teachers applying for new posts. Every applicant must supply a sworn affidavit that they have a clean record. The Ministry of Public Instruction says that since 2001, 160,000 teachers have been employed in Italy and every application checked against police records. They point out that almost all teachers in junior schools here in Italy are women, which might explain why there is a low incidence of abuse in schools. The ministry said it was not aware of any case where a known sex offender had been employed. But Alberto Gianinni from the Catholic Teachers Association (ADC) questions whether the checks are rigorous enough. "I don't think abuse in schools is widespread," he said, "But it most definitely exists. "And I am not entirely convinced," he adds, "that every application is checked as thoroughly as it could be." Mr Giannini has called for tighter guidelines in Italy on the employment of people working with young children. He points to his own experience as proof that things can and do go wrong. "At my son's school in Milan," he said "The director was accused of abusing 13 children. He was suspended on full pay and later found guilty. "But despite his conviction he was allowed to stay at the school - and was later put into an administrative position." -------- Teachers get shuffled by and large because it is either move them, or keep them in the same place if they have a permanent contract. Dismissal is very very very hard to achieve. Some directors are more "persuasive" than others. A case in Ferrara that happened soon after the "dive the underwear" one, was an ele. teacher who ordered a six year old to strip and then had his class mates beat him up as a group. In Italian http://www.corriere.it/cronache/10_marzo_26/violenze-asilo-ferrara_ae9fd736-38c6-11df-97c8-00144f02aabe.shtml She resigned immediately, which was a highly unusual feature of the case. I remember reading the statement from her director and it was fairly evident that he was behind her resignation, cos he came across as rather...determined. These are the all the extreme newsworthy cases of course. The vast majority of people shuffled are just rubbish teachers. Some get shuffled from small village schools to the main local school so they can be kept an eye on by the director. Some move up the next locality so one director doesn't get lumbered with them for their entire teaching career. And there is a sense that it is only fair to shunt them around a lot so one set of kids doesn't get lumbered with them long term. It's enough of an issue that if a parent is unloading about their "new teacher woes" I tend to advise them to ask around and find out where the teacher was before, and before that, and find out if there were any known shadows looming if it looks like they have gone through quite a few schools. Teething problems happen with new teachers and patience while everybody gets used to each other helps, but it isn't a bad idea to get a sense of what might be behind their sudden appearance, so you are forewarned and forearmed. I don't think home ed will ever be hugely popular here. The two "growth areas" are the highly religious, who are well catered for in the main school wise. The unshcoolers, who are hidebound by the annual testing regulations so are often better off in alternative schools where they have more freedom programme wise. Both parents tend to work full time here, the concept of SAHM is not really the big deal it is elsewhere. Daycare and after school care is often provided by grandparents...it's just not really a set up that lends itself well to home ed unless, like me, you work from home. But few do. I think it will grow a bit by being the last resort for some parents who happen to hear of the concept and turn to it to flee the school system in a similar way that it was for me. However as soon as it reaches any kind of significant numbers I wouldn't be surprised if the regulations were drastically tightened in order to stamp down uptake to just the original few "odd balls".

Well I'm not sure how well this suggestion will go down with the unions. Actually I am. I predict people swelling like enraged toads and spluttering wildly. It won't happen, but I can't remember ever having seen it suggest quite so seriously before now. Osservatorio minori: «Telecamere in classe e test psicologici per gli insegnanti» "Cameras in the classroom and physcological tests for teachers" http://brescia.corriere.it/brescia/notizie/cronaca/12_marzo_20/telecamere-2003758357948.shtml You know how I said last night that I don't have much hope of real change. Am I allowed to change my mind in light of the (slightly freaky coincidence) of all that has cropped up media wise today ?

I've heard the "and mum would give me two" on numerous occasions even today. Tends to be from people my age or older though. But I think the pendulum is swinging hard away from the old school of thought amoung the mums in their thirties or younger. AP has been popularised, so many of us have just the one kid and so the PFB phenomnon is getting more of a foothold. Slapping your kid in public is far less common than it used to be etc. Communications have changed so much since broadband became affordable. SKY Italia becoming so common and its lifestyle programmes dubbed into Italian or redone in Italy (SOS Tata for example, is Italian flavoured Nanny 911) so all in all there has been such a massive change leading to exposure to a huge range of opinions that challenge, if not drown out, the perspective of the villiage (or quarter) and that probably plays a significant role is some the recent sea changes. Another case just came on the news, (vile pedophile music teacher this time) re a school just outside Milan. Hidden camera again. Something is afoot. Three hidden cameras in almost as many weeks. And I think I just a comment peice from one of the broadsheets calling for cameras in all classrooms. That I have to read, especially the comments. Just as soon as I have had a nap.

still working for me, might be becuase I'm taking the link on my ipad I'll try it again... if that doesn't work try this google search results page, brings up loads of copies http://www.google.it/search?q=meastra+arrestata+Vibo+Valentia+youtube&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari#hl=en&client=safari&tbo=d&sa=X&ei=CY1oT4W1HqH64QSSjv2fCQ&ved=0CAgQvwUoAQ&q=maestra+arrestata+Vibo+Valentia+youtube&spell=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=5109779cccad455e&biw=1024&bih=672 that is HUGE! maybe try "maestra arrestata Vibo Valentia youtube" in google if all my links fail?

Yes. And terrifying. Especially in light of the news this morning.(google translate will give you the gist) http://milano.repubblica.it/cronaca/2012/03/20/news/schiaffeggia_alunni_di_terza_elementare_arrestata_maestra_nel_bresciano-31868939/ (headline - teacher arrested for slapping about third grade elementary kids) This case comes right after after a very similar case at the other of the counrty just a few weeks ago ...... nb This is the actual hidden camera that produced footage used to make the case. It contains images of children being slapped, having their ears and hair yanked. So don't watch if you think it is going to upset you. http://www.youtube.com/watchv=nYVk3qnC5HQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player I am actually cheered by both cases. Not cos I am evil and cold hearted, but the fact that two cases so close together both feature hard evidence seems to suggest that the police are being more pro active about gaining evidence via hidden cameras. That willingness is going to make a tremendous difference to an awful lot of smallies. There must have been some curbing of the unions' powers via new laws to have managed to procure the right to secretly film a classroom without strikes breaking put all over the place. With any luck the worst offenders will be starting to become more leery about getting physical at least, for fear of hidden eyes. Then we can tackle the degree of verbal violence. And when that is sorted we can finally address teaching standards. Hopefully before I die of old age.:)

It would have to a lot wouldn't it ? It is hard to get to the point of labelling yourself as a distinct sub set, of a sub set without knowing what you are doing, why you are doing it and how you are doing and going through a process of understanding to what extent that does (or doesn't) mesh with philosophy you've discovered. I haven't got a label. Yet. I occasionally borrow "principled eclectic" from my own field (when suffering from label envy, don't like being just a "bog standard, boring, not very special sort of home educator"). But my lack of label is really my own fault. I can't be bothered to put my back into working out what precise(ish) flavour I am. I know what I'm *not* label wise. But that isn't the same as knowing what I am. Although confused and tired should cover it nicely most days.:D

The rational side of things is one thing. But I totally understand "longing for home", "dashed hopes when home seems in my grasp" and "don't want to be funny forign type any more" I think you have to sperate the "more sensible thing to do" apsect from the "but oh my heart". Their solutions are very different and mixing them can make a marriage quite a resentful place. Does he understand the sense of loss regardless of what make more sense on paper ? To what extend is the sensible option a useful and timely way of avioding a change to him being the funny foreign type for a change, and is there resentment on your part due to that? Would you like a genuine big fat hug? :grouphug:

Waves to "family". Although I think I need somebody to hit gently with the antidote rock to the bangs on a bit stick because 3000 (misspelled and oft grammar free) words blurting out as the introduction to Why It Has All Gone Horribly Wrong In the Italian School System....is a bit .... yakky. I am putting it down to years of deeply buried trauma finally making it to the surface. Well that is my excuse and I am sticking to it

I regard anybody equally battered by the "tends to bang on" stick to be a relative in spirit if not blood :D

Ester Maria did the first message come through? Cos number two is ready, but I don't want to clog your inbox if you aren't ready for it yet.

*ETA: Ah yes, I mean Italy-specific... the more personal the better - albeit anecdotal - because you seem to be a LOT around these things if you also teach and work on teacher training* You're on. Be prepared to hand me a virtually paper bag to aid the hyperventilation when I get overwrought :D I'm off to town first and then teach, I'll PM you this evening. Are you OK with separate PMs for separate points, cos otherwise it'll turn into a overwhelming screed. Plus if done piecemeal it will give a chance to say "Ok Sarah! Enough already!". I may have been hit with the "bangs on a bit" stick at birth.

Sure, do you want Italian specific or Southern EuroLandias in general? I only have bits and bobs of PISA data and memories of fellow expats getting aerated about Spain, Greece and Portugal. I have data from PISA, their analysis of The Italian Paradox (small class sizes, good investment per head, with not brill results) plus my experiences as a mum of a miniature Italian in the system, my experiences as a teacher within the system and my experiences as a teacher trainer of Italian state school teachers. I also have links to news reports that highlight the essence of one of the major issues here, the inability to do anything other than "shuffle" school personnel who step well outside of educational and pastoral boundaries of acceptable behaviour to another school. I can put the links and the PISA stuff together quickly, I keep it on hand so I can waggle it at the school director when he annoys me. The more personal insight will take longer, because I will need breaks to try and force my blood pressure down to acceptable levels.:D

*Either way I do not think it matters what method we use* Agreed. Good fit/good practice tends to work, whichever overarching philosophy is selected. As long as good fit/good practice is in place most anything will work for a significant proportion of the people, for a significant proportion of the time. I do however think there is a benefit in labels clearly communicating something essential about a concept. If somebody is talking about elephants and I view "elephant" as being large, greyish, be-trunked, flappy eared creatures, whereas they are using it as a codeword for "animals quite partial to bananas" the risk is we are probably going to end up with some degree of miscommunication and end up at cross purposes. Unschooling, like any other word is not immune to changing its meaning over time. It may well come to be a non contested shorthand for "prone to more learner centred, learner dictated education". But does it mean that right now? I think not, given the debate among unschoolers as to what core principles must be contained in order to qualify. It may well be that in the longer term those who view the principle of non coercion as the ultimate priority will have to create themselves a new label in order to be able to describe themselves accurately, to their satisfaction and leave the unschooler label to those who use it with a looser interpretation that speaks more of style of practice than a universal core belief. Such is life, meanings bend, change and can even end up oppositional to the original essence of the word. But all things considered, I would much prefer to know what person X actually means when they call themselves a Y kind of home educator. That preference applies to any parent, or educator that actively self labels with the intent to distinguish themselves as a distinct sub category within the general label (parent, home educator, teacher) that describes us both. If it is important enough to them to distinguish themselves via the self application of a label that marks them as "distinct sub set" , I'd at least like a fighting chance of being able to understand why making that distinction has value to them and generally that means I need to know what the distinction actually is.

*and, if you ask me, in Europe it is typically academically superior* Except for perhaps the more Southern Euro clan. Italy lags on the PISA tables, at one point it looked like Spain, Greece, Portugal and Italy were in an eternal dance to see who could claim the bottom step. In the 2009 review Italy scored below OCED average for....everything. I loved Italian nido (nursery, under 3) and materna (3-6). Fabulous. But elementary, despite delaying the academics which was more than fine by me, and middle school. Those I wasn't so keen on. (understatement of the millenium)

*Does that make sense?* Yes. Ultimately I think it depends on where you draw your lines in the sand and NOT effectively avoiding all and forms of coercion. Because as you said, unless you more or less withdraw in thought, word and deed from childrens' lives, like some kind of lurking, passive ghost, you are going to coerce by default. My lines will not be in the same place as another's, because I ascribe a darkness to the word coercion that I do not associate with jollying along, chivvying, encouragement/cheer leading during tough bits, covert attempts to teach something via dressing up learning opportunities as games, modelling etc. ....and plain old saying "you have to get to grips with fractions, lets try and do it with as little pain as possible and before both of us die of old age. How about if we try and eat this elephant just one bite at a time?". I think he will survive the above fully intact. There are times when he has the hump with me, or me with him. But I don't see having the hump with somebody as an insurmountable harm. As you say wounds heal, and I view having the hump with your mum as the equivalent a minor scratch on the knee. What I won't do is coerce in the sense of the darkness I associate with it. I don't want to intimidate my child. I prefer bringing him around to at least the point of co-operation and aim to enthuse him, with explanations of the why (we are doing stuff) and making the how attractive to him. I know what emotional blackmail feels like when you are small and powerless, so it is something I am motivated to avoid. I don't lay my hands on him unless it is the least harm, by which I mean the time I yanked him out of the road he ran into, or when I force fed him liquid charcoal in A&E after accidentally giving him my medicine instead of his. (double dose of guilt by the bucketful) I haven't got it in me to view educational aims worthy of slapping him about a bit or even causing floods of tears. Am I coercive parent? In the TCS sense of the world, oh yes, with knobs on. In my sense of what the word actually tries to convey in the general use of English. Not particularly. But I will resort to (gen.eng.meaning) coercion, even physical, if I feel it is the greater good in something of a "crisis" or "non negotiable" situation. However, I take into account that I am the parent I am and able to draw the lines in the sand where I think they should be, because I gave birth to a sunny, mostly co-operative, biddable, "good sport even in the face of fractions", "not prone to holding grudges" little boy. I think I might have found myself a bit stuck, with more wobbly lines in the sand if I had given birth to a more challenging child. Basically I gave birth to a carbon copy of my sister. She is now refusing to have children in case she gives birth to a miniature version of me. :glare: After that extended waffle I think I have actually remembered my point! A- Somebody who has little or no interest in what coercion means because all means to an end will do and learning fractions is more important, full stop, no argument, than their child's feelings and/or happiness. The priority is that the child learns and does, as instructed. B. somebody like me, a more narrowly defined vision of what coercion is. Prepared to prioritise learning fraction over avoiding any form of obliging a child to do something they'd rather not. Leans towards jollying alone and making unloved things more attractive because it feels like the smoothest, least conflictual, most positive way of getting stuff done. Will lay down the law if they have to. C. Somebody who describes coercion as a far wider range than that which is viewed as overtly sinister and dark even to the gen.pub. Places a high priority on avoiding coercion and uses strategies to minimise its use, while still having a sense that some things need to be learned. When push comes to shove *might* make fractions the priority, but only within the confines of very "light" coercion if they feel it is something the child can recover from intact. D. Somebody who views coercion as a whole slew of activities, up to and including the potential for children to read their parent's mind and fall back in damaged horror because there is a vague expectation lurking in the parental head. Prioritises a lack of all and any coercion (however remote) over fractions, due to their very real belief that coercion causes irreparable harm to their child's ability to learn/develop as they should. Label wise A and B are clearly not unschoolers, while C and D probably would identify as unschoolers. But I actually see more similarities between B and C than the other pairings because there is a similarity in their taking a more nuanced and flexible view of... 1- what coercion is 2- what the outcomes of coercion automatically are 3- how it is possible to make a case by case judgement when choosing your ultimate priority between skill/knowledge V the use of coercion, rather than having a universal, unmovable default for almost all and any contexts (educational for unschoolers, educational AND parental for radical unschoolers?) So based on the oft referred to "thou shalt not coerce" core belief I've heard and read from so many unschoolers, I tend to view B and C as being points on the same spectrum, because their division (in terms of a lack of applying absolutes) from A and D is so overt IMO. Although obviously I'm not suggesting people should be stripped of the right to call themselves unschoolers if they choose to do so. I just think it makes it harder to understand what people mean when they label themselves, if a label doesn't have at least one core attribute that unifies the whole with real clarity. A core attruibute can't be a learning method or stratagy that is *not exclusive* to to the label, becuase otherwise it includes people with only the vauguest, passing similarity. Add to which I think it is understandable that those who identify as unschoolers get sniffy when people say they unschool their kids (who were packed off to military boarding school in tears) during the holidays. Because that use tries to hijack and redefine unschooling as the occasional use of child centred learning opportunities and obscures the beliefs that underpin the selection of parental/educational strategies and methods like modelling and strewing. I think I am having a "clear as mud" day, possibly due to a current struggle with Italian irregular verbs (which seem to breed when you turn your back), I hope you are able to tease out at least something of what I was trying to say in the above hodge podge. If not I'll try again later after I have thrown the verb book out of the window in a fit of pique and taken some paracetamol. :D

I don't have a problem with delayed academics per se. My own son initially came through the Italian school system where formal instruction, including learning to read and write, does not commence until 6/7. Which is shocking to many of my British counterparts. Most of us learned to read at 4. I personally could not get my knickers in a twist about it. My issue lies with 1) assertions for which there is no solid evidence to support what is being stated as FACT! TROOF! 2) people swallowing such assertions whole, despite lack of good evidence, and labelling it "research". 3) the wholesale dismissal of learner autonomy. Learner autonomy appears to have taken on a somewhat limited slant in the home ed field. It seems focused tightly on the choice to do, or not do something. (Very similar in some ways to the over embracement that leads to new teachers failing because they over focus on the students' responsibility for their own education and never get around to actually teaching them anything). Whereas in a wider educational context it relates to giving students both the tools and opportunities to detach from of teacher dependance. An older child or young adult that cannot read is faced with dependance on another person (in home ed circles, usually the parent) to "translate" the written word into the spoken word in order for it to accessible to them. Or deal with the time consuming task of finding what they wanted to access in a different format (DVD, CD). Thus being forced to seek any specifics they were looking for in a perhaps less efficient, more frustrating manner. Try fast forwarding and rewinding a DVD to find the snippet of info you wanted, and then compare that to flipping through an index and going to the relevant pages. Until a person can read independently they cannot even effectively evaluate (via skimming) if a book might be of interest to them, because images can communicate only so much regarding content and style of the text. They have to rely on another to make that value judgement for them and to do so honestly, without filters. In essence, focusing on learner autonomy is about making your own role in the learner's journey ever more redundant as they take over the reins thanks to having developed and honed the skills, tools and capabilities required in order to do so. Avoiding teaching a fundamental skill like reading for a significantly extended period of time smacks to some degree of "job protection" and control, thanks to a state of on-going learner dependance. I doubt very much it is a conscious decision to maintain control and preserve dependance, but married with other priorities in *some* of those who practice long term delayed academics, yes I certainly think it *might* be utilised by some individuals on a sub conscious level to delay "separation". By making themselves indispensable in certain spheres of a learner's life for as long as feasible.

Like? No. Love to the point of getting shaky if somebody wanders off with the iPad when I want to teach? Oh yes. Romeo and Juliet have nothing on me and iPaddy. I have no experience of other tablets except I find myself constantly frustrated trying to find apps that will run on some of students alternative products so they can have the same experience as my iPadded students. (I teach EFL as well as home educate). However that may well be down to my lack of experience with non Apple products rather than any real issue with alternative tablets. If you will have a number of kiddies who want to see what is going on do check to see if a tablet can be hooked up to your telly to create a home made interactive whiteboard (ish). Things can get a bit shovey when more than two learners and a teacher are all trying to look at one small screen. /strokes iPad/ /iPad purrs/ /admittedly that last bit may be my immagination/ /or is it?/ :tongue_smilie: