Evening Telegraph (First Edition)

Not back to school for all

SCHOOLS return this week, but not all children will.

For many, including in Dundee, education happens at home. In the height of a prolonged lockdown three years ago, my wife and I withdrew our children from Dundee’s most over-populated school. As we enter our fourth year of homeschool­ing, it ranks among the best decisions we ever made, with dividends far beyond the intellectu­al. For us, it was the right decision, and our children, aged between 18 months and 12 years old, with a fifth due in November, are flourishin­g.

There are many gifted teachers locked into a system buckling under the weight of burgeoning class-sizes and uncontroll­able behaviour, aggravated by a cancerous presence of smartphone­s, while being monitored by educationa­l high heid yins in a manner not always conducive to learning.

During lockdown, we were concerned by a loss of learning we knew would bedevil the adulthoods of our children unless we relinquish­ed control.

My 38-year-old wife, who is a qualified teacher, set about creating a curriculum better suited to them.

She started by guiding our children through mathematic­s from Singapore, the bestaccred­ited global curriculum, as well as world-leading reading and spelling plans. We prioritise classic UK literature, including JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and CS Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia.

Now, we look at three transforme­d children, whose academic aptitude has blossomed, whose characters are thriving, and receiving concerning updates from the parents of state-educated peers that things only appear to be getting more difficult.

Yesterday, The Sunday Post highlighte­d new Scotgov research revealing more than 500,000 young Scots are living with increased levels of anxiety about issues like the cost of living. What was astounding is the research described only the object of concern but not what was fuelling it. In June, New York social psychologi­st, Jonathan Haidt, published his internatio­nal best-seller The Anxious Generation. The book primarily blames smartphone­s for soaring levels of teenage depression and self-harm.

The average age at which a child now receives a smartphone, with access to virtually every aspect of available info, is nine, and 91% of 11-year-olds now have a smartphone.

Haidt says: “No parents want their children to have one other than because everyone else does.” He believes smartphone­s should be banned in schools and there should be a minimum age of 14 for ownership. As a father of one of the 9%, I am delighted by the net effect of a thoroughly emotionall­y welladjust­ed and happy young man.

At the beginning of the 1500s, Scotland was the most literate nation on earth. How far we have fallen as influence is outsourced and we reap the whirlwind. Giving a nine-yearold access to a highway of informatio­n they are neither emotionall­y nor intellectu­ally capable of contending with is like offering them a stick of psychologi­cal dynamite and a passport to lifelong attention deficiency.

The job of a parent is to lead a child towards that which is good and fight off malevolent forces. I genuinely fear for future generation­s while I contend earnestly for my own.