What could be better than art as a medium for our children to share their feelings? It’s expressive, limitless, and non-confrontational. Those were the thoughts of home educating parent Chloe White when she came up with the idea of He-art, an opportunity for home educated children across the UK to submit artworks with the theme of what home education means to them.
The children have produced the art, some of which can be previewed at www.he-art.org.uk, in response to the controversial Badman review, which would see their right to freedom in learning compromised. The review, published on June 11th 2009, and followed by a public consultation which will run till October 19th 2009, contains proposals which would require a fundamental change to the law concerning parental responsibility for a child's education. Should the proposals be implemented, the law would also need to be changed to give local authority officials entry to a private home on demand. In addition there would have to be changes to primary legislation and related statutory guidance in order to permit children to be questioned without a parent being present.
Two other parents joined Chloe to organise the project: Tam Palmer hopes to help stop the proposed changes that threaten the home education she has planned for her two toddler boys before they have even started it, while Monika Dutta, a practicing artist and community facilitator, felt that her previous experience in coordinating similar projects could now be put to use enabling her to contribute in a tangible way to the efforts home educators are making to resist proposed threats to their lifestyles.
Eshe Graham, 13, one of the featured artists, who has been home educated for almost three years, said, "I wanted to do a group piece so I decided to invite some of my friends from my art group. We based our artwork on Freedom of Thought, using thought bubbles to express our feelings, with separate bubbles for each person so we could each show our own feelings and thoughts about home-education. Each bubble was different and the finished piece looked great."
Katie Tordoff, 12, from Nottingham, who has been home educated for seven years and also contributed to the group work with Eshe, added, "I contributed to He-art because it sounded really good fun! A fun way for people to understand all about home education. I have now found out I am dyslexic, so one to one learning is much easier for me, I have someone to explain things to me when I don't understand. If I get confused about something, my Mum can explain it to me again and again. I think He-art is a good way to communicate with the general public, about a subject they do not understand. For me it's great to do it in a creative way. I really enjoy art, I'm very lucky that I have the time and chance to visit lots of art exhibitions and take part in fun art workshops. I work with some very talented artists, ask them lots of questions and do things that I just wouldn't be able to do at school."
The Source, working in conjunction with Sheffield City Council to improve the look of the area around the Sevenstone development site, is helping to develop local talent by not only giving Visual Merchandising students a platform to hone and show off their skills, but also by giving local people and businesses an opportunity to contribute to the city's improvement.
The hope is that He-art will be able to run annually as another exciting part of the HE calendar.
Links:
www he-art.org.uk
http://www.thesource.meadowhall.co.uk/news/137/sheffield-dresses-up-to-showcase-creative-talent
www.freedomforchildrentogr
Then Uk - www.thenuk.com
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