Self-Directed Education
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Winston Churchill wrote that schools had little to do with education since they were mainly instruments of control. Joy Baker was of the same mind and sought to have her children educated rather than schooled.

Later writers agreed with her – Paul Goodman in Compulsory Miseducation, John Holt in Instead of Education, and Everett Reimer in School is Dead, to mention but three. So had earlier writers such as Chief Inspector of Schools Edmond Holmes in The Tragedy of Education.

Chris Shute tells the story of Joy Baker’s bitter encounters with the Authorities over a period of ten years or so in 1950s Britain. In the end the rigid policies of the Authorities were exposed and overruled. But she had to endure court hearing after court hearing, and at one stage, experience her children being taken away from her by force, before she eventually achieved success.

Joy Baker believed that she could do a better job of educating her children than the State could, in spite of its good intentions. She did not want them to become mere rule-followers.