The right hand of fellowship : home education in Nova Scotia and ideological challenge
Bibliographic record
Abstract
T his th esis p resen ts home education in Nova Scotia as a revitalized, rational social movement.Home education is examined within the "revitalization model" described b y Anthony F.C. Wallace (1958).Wallace's conversion analogy was chosen n o t because of any bias ^th e r fo r or against any religious motivation, b u t, in stead , to delineate th e process of cultural conversion in its e n tirety from the recognition stag e to th a t of regeneration and transform ation.This m od^ proves an ap t m etaphor fo r describing the small "s" spiritual journey taken b y p aren t-ed u cato rs in the formation of th e Nova Scotia Home Education Association as a non-sectarian political group and th e stru c tu re of new Departmental regulations for 1993/94.By employing th is model and utilizing a v ariety of interview techniques, a snapshot emerges of a group who resem bles, in many re s p e c ts, th e larg er public school community.Although th is stu d y provides c u rre n t estim ates of home schooling families, i t is not intended as a census of a dynamic and growing movement in th e province.The stu d y sdso examines Canadian legal precedents, explores the roots of alternative education and identifies the principal curricula proposed by leading home education th in k e rs.The stu d y raises implications for the public school system and concludes with suggested recommendations for the professional educator.References 113 Appendices 123 A. Question Guide.B. Lunenburg L etter.C. NSHEA Suirvey of Membership.D. School Board S urvey.E. Leading Curricula D istributors.F. Home Education Regulations, 1993.G. Sample C urricula.Forew ord Preparation for th is stu d y was initiated by an in terest in alternative education and an enthusiastic belief in school reform.The project took shape with the help of the executive and members of the Nova Scotia Home Education Association, various homeschooling support groups, interested professional ed u cato rs, friendly editors and educator-parents throughout the province.I am indebted to all who participated in the interview process b u t particularly to Jane D ietert, Jennie E rnst and Marion Homer for Uieir positive comments, for th e ir help in locating respondents and for tu rn in g my countless questions into "teachable" moments.In trod uction .The R ight Hand o f Fellowàbip: Home Education In Nova Scotia and Ideological C hallenge.Impetus to Research This thesis is th e re su lt of conversations held in 1993 with home educator families throughout the province of Nova Scotia.We talked of many th in g s, b u t specifically about schools, education and schools, and alternatives to schools.The existence of an alternative school system is neith er recen t, rem arkable, nor rem iss.What is recen t is public, compulsory, age-graded education.What is rem arkable is the lack of attention given to those who have chosen to educate th e ir children a t home.What is rem iss is the lack of research by both p aren t educators and public agencies on what the home school advocates re fe r to as "the proof of the pudding."Home education literatu re is scant on the assessm ent of an y outcome of th e movement's prim ary objective, th at of the b e st education for children.Given th e time constraints of a graduate programme, th is line of in q u iry must be deferred u ntil some fu tu re publication.This thesis will a d d re ss, however, th e emergence of a homeschooling movement in Nova Scotia th a t rep re se n ts a significant challenge to educators.Recent media commentary has suggested th a t th e family upon which this alternative institution flourishes is going the way of th e dinosaur.C ertainly, the information from th e seventy-five complete interview s incorporated within the stru c tu re of this paper appear to replicate the family characteristics described by Garrison Keillor in his Lake Wobegon stories ra th e r than the
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.030 | 0.009 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.008 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.010 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.009 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.014 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".