I was brought-up in a particularly usual working class mixed race multi-cultured family of immigrants, with voting aspirations of the middle-classes and educated in an ordinary state secondary school.

Despite this ordinary up-bringing and schooling, I believe, I managed to mature into an extraordinarily unconventional individual with an appetite for knowledge and self-growth.

In a recent conversation with a friend about home educating our son I was, as usual, forced to justify my position for not 'following the crowd'... I gave all the reasons that I have mentioned in the past about the restricted curriculum, the appalling teaching standards, the class sizes and pupil attention, the lack of parental input and so on... After lambasting a whole generation of children my friend, rather upset, said; "Well, my children didn't turn out so bad."

I hadn't the heart to tell him, that, his children, in fact, lacked all the basic skills and knowledge that I would have expected from an educational programme and that their reaction and interaction with the world was very much un-individual and 'programmed'. They may not have 'turned-out out so bad' but they had, in fact, turned out exactly how we would have expected.

I do feel, that, I have got to where I am now despite, not because of my schooling and family. I do not feel, that, it is an intelligent way to proceed in the hope that my son will get through schooling scarred, but not broken. It seems far better to learn from the mistakes and move on and forward. Hence, our decision to home educate.

My desire and drive to pursue this and the re-education of as many people as possible in the basic knowledge that seems evidently lacking in so many children and adults is ever stronger despite the wall of ignorance growing taller.

Fortunately, home education in our area is very high. But, if every home educated child and parent shouted from the roof tops about how much happier and brighter and content they are, maybe we can re-address the problems in our society of growing illiteracy, of the increase in a limited vocabulary, of a growing need for aggressive behaviour, of the lack of knowledge and awareness of other cultures...

If any one is to blame, it must be my parents' generation. The hippie people. The leftie, socialist pacifists with a conscience. They had the energy and the opportunity to make massive changes to our society and the infra-structure of schooling, business and government, but, they blew it! They threw it all away to become either conservatives with a small 'c' or conservatives with a capital 'C'.

Today, I cringe at the stupidity of peoples' inability to converse. Children and adults use phrases like: 'fully grown adults' (as opposed to what other type of adult?); 'very very this or that'; or 'tiny little this or that'. The lack of understanding and depth of the English language used by people of all ages now, appalls me. Not because I am some Luddite, and expects us all to speak the Queen's English... But, because I always believed, that, to evolve as a species one had to evolve as an individual and to do this one had to seek and absorb as much information as possible. The one good teacher I had at school was an English teacher who taught me that to fully express myself, and in so doing allowing me to relieve myself of any frustrations and aggression through an inability to be comprehensively understood, I would also open-up a vault of hidden words waiting to be used.

People often cite the evolution of language as an excuse for incorrect usage. Yes, there is evidence of Byron writing 'text' format letters and colloquial pronunciations and idioms. But, Byron, didn't allow himself to write his poetry in 'text' format. Just as he never held everyday conversations in his poetry format. The point about evolution of a language, colloquialisms and 'Queen's English' is, that, they all have their place. Today, my (and many others') argument is, that, the boundaries are being eroded. Text language is now entering everyday speach. E-mail language is entering legal language.

The English language is a vast, complex and intriguing language and to allow idiots to limit its usage is a crying shame. There are a wealth of words, phrases and grammatics in English, that, should excite and challenge and invite people to explore, not dumb-down.

English is not my only gripe. I am astounded at the lack of basic knowledge in biology as well. People (a lot from university education) who use phrases like: 'the animals and the humans'; or 'animals and insects,' or 'look at the spider, it's a big insect isn't it?' No! Humans are animals. Insects are animals and spiders are arthropod arachnids, not insects!

I hope, that, all home educators will take time between all the clever intellectual educational skills developments, that, they pursue with their children, and go through some basics with them too. If we are going to evolve and for our language to evolve we must first understand where we are starting from.

Jonathon Tuttle
GAIA's Ethical Consultant