Beloved, London
2 children: Eli 10, Rue 7
I felt it impressed on my heart two years ago, to take my son, Eli, out of school. He was not doing very well. He was getting very angry and very frustrated, he wasn’t really learning anything. Also, he was never wasnt given any homework. I watched him go from exceeding, excelling and surpassing to barely managing.
I requested for the school to have him properly tested for dyslexia, but they refused. And, if the local borough doesn’t get somebody to do the test, isn’t recognised by the council. Ultimately, I had to pay for a private test, myself and it came back that he was indeed, dyslexic with a processing disorder. Because of this, he struggles in a big classroom. He is extremely intelligent, but he also needs a lot of assistance and one-to-one. Even with schools having teaching assistants, he was not getting that and realistically he was never going to get that in a class of 30 children.
Over this past year, things got worse, and then Covid happened. During this time, I realised how much he wasn’t learning and how unhappy he was. He was struggling to sit down and to focus. These are some factors that went into my decision to homeschool him.
He also shared with me, during all of the BLM protests, (although I am not particularly policatially intune with it all, it has been an instrument in starting some conversations with my sons) some things he noted. One of those was that his teacher had nothing positive to say about any of the black boys in his class, that they were all considered in a negative light, and that really hurt him.
I personally noted that there was some underlying ethnic distain with his last two teachers, both of whom were asian. I sensed a lot of microagressive psychological warfare and snide remarks. I felt that if there were any issues she had with my son, as the teacher, she should have spoken to me. There were even things that were said in my presence that were unacceptable and I had to pull her up on them. I remmeber one of his teachers tried to blame him because he was being bullied. She told him that it was his responsibility to look after the bully and make sure the bully was okay…? Of course, I found that insane and totally unnacceptable, yet again, I let the teacher know we wern’t accepting any of that.
Eventually, I got tired of the denial, the games etc the lack of progression. He is there to be educated and he was not progressing, he was digressing, and rapidly. I couldn’t just sit back and allow my child to be another statistic.
My younger son, Rue, 7, who has autism spectrum disorder is still in school because he goes to a mainstream school with a special unit. However, I am talking to them about Flexi-schooling, with a view to come out of there completely. I feel like this is a must for my children’s safety as well.
Covid and the lockdown really solidified my thoughts into actions, I thought, ‘yes! I definitely need to get my boys out of the system”. It is just not for me, we aren’t allowed to be individuals, it is like we are being forced to be part of a collective and they are doing that more and more in schools these days. In fact, the education system was designed for factory workers and seeing how they are using it now, to impose more rules and regulations that are unlawful… I don’t have to have my children in that. So as much as I can I am stepping back and trying to aid my children, stepping back is for their own safety and mental wellbeing.
