This year I intend to broaden my blog beyond the School v Education theme.  Both school and education will be recurring themes, but the scope of the blog content will be wider.


In a previous post, I mentioned Homer Lane, the American 'educator', and his tremendous success with young offenders. His book Talks to Parents and Teachers might sound uninspiring, but really it is a masterpiece of sheer insight into human nature and human behaviour.
Lane was an enigmatic person who employed methods that were at complete odds with Victorian and Edwardian thinking on the subject of 'juvenile delinquents'. Methods that were revolutionary then and are still revolutionary, 100 years later.  In the homes he ran for young offenders, the recidivist rate was close to zero, whereas today, 60-70% return to crime, once released. That our authorities have learned nothing from Lane is despicable.
Lane was so engaging and so thought-provoking that he attracted a wide variety of people, including Christopher Isherwood, W.H. Auden, The Bishop of Liverpool, and the Viceroy of India, Lord Lytton.  Lytton's tribute to Homer lane, after Lane's death at 50, is one of the most beautiful, touching, perceptive eulogies I have ever read or heard.


In 1978, it was my pleasure and privilege to meet Lane's biographer, David W. Wills.  At his suggestion, I visited one of the many homes Wills and the Homer Lane Trust had established - homes for seriously abused children, from neglect to violence, all emotionally damaged.  During my 5 day visit I met some deeply scarred kids, but had to keep my distance.  Each child had bonded with a particular adult, and in any case, an attachment between myself and a child was not advisable with such a short stay.  But it was difficult not to respond when a little girl held out her arms to me and cried "Love me!"
The home was a place of genuine healing, since the entire culture was based on patience, tolerance and love, with the total absence of punishment, something they had had too much of already.
Curiously, the most interesting part of the week was when I was driven, by the head's secretary, to Gloucester Station to return to London.  She was a local woman who had worked at the home for 2 years.  She said that when she began work there, she was taken aback by the atmosphere and ethos of the place - not in any moral sense, but because the approach made her revalue the way she was bringing up her own children.  She then added that the home was 'deeply curative' and that she had been won over to Homer Lane and his 'great faith in human nature'.