Leaving Unschooling Behind

  Ah, unschooling. You seemed adequate for many years, but then the flaws started to become apparent. Most of the skills that are supposedly picked up automatically just weren’t-and not through lack of resources or exposure. The girls wanted to write stories and letters, but their handwriting and spelling was below their needed level, so they would get frustrated and give up. They were reading many good books, but had no internal filing system to sort out and categorise what they were learning. Oods wanted to learn Latin and violin, but you can’t really unschool either. The clones were becoming feral children, spending all day on the trampoline or in the sandpit playing pretend. Shorty needed more structure, more repetition, to allow him to master his basic skills. And I was looking at all of that time essentially wasted, thinking, ‘They could be learning so much more’. Which apparently is me projecting unfair expectations onto them based on my insecurities, and not at all based on me thinking that my eight year old really should be able to spell ‘because’ and write it without a reversed b. Because she wants to.

  So I did my usual reading blitz, and we’ve now totally shaken up our home education. The kids get a say in what they learn about, but generally they have an insatiable desire to learn about everything. In the last year they have learnt an incredible amount, and they’re incredibly proud of themselves. They’re challenging themselves and meeting the challenges. Their pretend play has always been varied and complex, but now it’s so educated-seeing Frosty, at 4, re-enact the Iliad is very impressive.

  I’ve noticed that they’re much more content. Arguments are rare when they have their minds challenged and hands busy. This goes for me too-I always felt kind of useless wandering around, giving a bit of assistance here and there, but generally feeling like they didn’t need me. And i’m having the most fantastic time. Not many adults get to fill in the gaps in their learning, and i’m finding it all insanely interesting.  I can see how incredibly useful the chronological history, the formal grammar, and the phonics has been to me already. This sort of stuff may not be on most school curriculums, but it’s the sort of thing I find myself using regularly (and feeling cheated that I was never taught it). And the more I give them, the more they want. Two weeks into this year’s work, I was feeling frazzled with our new workload-and they were asking me if I had anything else they could do. Like Chinese, and poetry, and can I please find some more maths puzzle books for them to do? They want more of everything (except dictation, which they believe is evil torture even as they acknowledge how useful it is to them).

  I have come to the conclusion that unschooling just isn’t for us. Looking critically at my experience, I can’t see how it works effectively for anyone over toddler age, if your goal is to have a well-educated child. I have also come to the conclusion that childhood is by far the best time to learn as much as you can, while you’re young and hungry and have no other commitments, and it is my job to make it easier for them. Unschooling seemed a bit like requiring your children to reinvent the wheel-sure, you can saturate them with words, and lots of kids will pick up reading all by themselves. But it seems a cumbersome, difficult process to require them to puzzle it out when you could sit an eager child down and do some phonics instruction, explain how English works, and have them reading in a tenth of the time. (And so that’s why that’s exactly what I did, and i’ve had three five year old readers so far. Frosty is working on it, and Shorty runs to his own timescale, incomprehensible to the rest of us). I never understood why unschooling seems to require your child stumble around in the dark, until they have their lightbulb moment and can finally puzzle out exactly how Latin verb endings work after much frustration-why not explain it and have them memorise them, and that’s that? Or, to paraphrase Ruth Beechick (because I can’t find the quote), why expect them to be creative when they have nothing to be creative with?

  Unschoolers tend to portray any curriculum work as a violation of freedom, but when it’s by choice, it can be wonderful. Seeing the unbridled excitement and pride of my girls when they finished FLL 3 was wonderful-they had worked hard and achieved something because of that. What a valuable lesson. They have in no way lost any freedom. They have hours every day of total freedom, and now they appreciate it because they feel they’ve earnt it. They have a balance between time they’ve scheduled for learning and free time, so they appreciate and value both much more than ever before.

  So, unschooling? Been there, done that-not impressed. We’re too motivated and eager for that. Bring on the bookwork!

Why i’m happy to tell my kids that school is a totally inferior way to get an education

  A recent conversation with a friend got me thinking about the justifications for telling home educated children negative things about schooling. I said it was necessary to counter the misguided societal perception (aka propaganda) that school is a wonderfully fun and enriching place where you can gain a wide-ranging and deeply fulfilling education that will serve you well throughout life, as well as providing you with life-long friends. It’s what most people would like to believe, and it’s what they tell us misguided misfits whenever possible. She thought you should keep the negatives about school to a minimum, to not try to influence your kids too much, which is the standard answer. However, thinking about it some more, I started to wonder just why it is that we feel censored from sharing our views of school with our children. Why is it so important to protect schools from criticism that many dedicated home educators feel they cannot speak a bad word against school to their own children, in their own homes?

  In other subjects, such as religion, we can tell our children whatever we like. We can tell them that God created the world, Mohammed was the prophet, we will cycle through rebirth guided by our karma, or that the lot of it is made up by people needing an explanation for things we can’t explain. We have the authority to explain faith in whatever way we choose, consistent with our beliefs.
  So why not with school? I think school is a terrible way to get an education, is more likely to result in abnormal behaviour than well-adjusted socialisation, is a violation of freedom and personal rights, and is all around fairly abysmal. So why can’t I share those (well-founded) views with my children? Why is school seen as somehow sacred, indeed more sacred than religion? Why should I bite my tongue (I don’t) while other people tell them how wonderful school is, how much they’re missing out on, and wouldn’t they love to have a schoolbag?

  What does this say about society as a whole, that we’re so determined to protect an institution that has a rather average track record of doing what it purports to be its aim? Why is it that we can say that the system needs to be overhauled, that we need to do more of this or less of that, that failure is the fault of the students/teachers/method, but we cannot say the the entire system has proven itself a failure? Why don’t people take a long, hard look at their own experience and wonder if school really did contribute to their adult happiness and success, or whether it has left more negative legacies? Why don’t people wonder if their precious time, a whole 13 years of compulsory attendance, or over 1/6 of their projected lifespan, could have been better spent?

  Or, for the million dollar question, why do people accept anything unquestioningly? Keith Farnon has some excellent ideas on why.

  Now I have my justification clear-they’re my children, and I can tell them whatever I like. It doesn’t have to agree with your views, or the majority view of society. As long as I am telling them my honest views with no ulterior motive of manipulation, i’m not doing anything wrong.

  School’s crap. So there. Just ask my children!

NSW Board of Studies destroys educational freedom

  I’ve just finished reading the new ‘Home education info pack’ from the NSW BoS. Those of you in the home ed community will know the furore this has created-I admit, it was a rather entertaining read. They’ve been unequivocal about their intent to force homeschoolers to comply with their will. Let’s look at some salient parts, shall we?

Home schooling, also referred to as home education, requires a parent to deliver the NSW Board of Studies curriculum.

  There it is, right in the introduction. If that isn’t throwing down the gauntlet, I don’t know what is.

As with other forms of education, there is no single approach to home schooling. Regardless of the approach to teaching, the educational philosophy that might be adopted and/or the learning context for each child, the requirements for registration must be met at all times during any period of registration.

  In other words, screw your approach. Bend to ours. There is no room whatsoever for any approach other than school at home in this document.

The visit provides an opportunity for you to demonstrate that the educational program you plan to deliver will comply with the requirements for home
schooling registration.

  It is amusing how often they state this. There is virtually nothing about showing that your child is actually getting educated-I think they believe that is synonymous with their beloved requirements. I’m not sure how forcing parents to take at least ten hours a week to fill out paperwork and records related to their child’s learning will be better than them spending that ten hours choosing and doing activities with them.

Whether the time allocated is comparable to that allocated in schools

  Any home educator knows that you can cover the same material in less that a quarter of the time-one to one teaching, at the child’s speed, compared to classroom teaching. Bah. But you still have to come up with records for 30 hours a week, per child.

• there is an adequate system of planning, supervising and recording teaching and learning
  experiences.
• there is an adequate system for recording the child’s progress and achievement

  Those two bullet points spell out hours of pointless paperwork every week for the parent. I mean, who are these arrogant parents who believe that they can see progress in real terms, because they spend hours every day with their children? Now, you have to prove it, in every area.

It may also be an important document if enrolment is sought in a school, TAFE college or other educational institution at some future time.

  Veiled threats, anyone? Who’s guessing that your registration form will soon become mandatory to enrol in the above-sorry, but you can’t enrol in this TAFE course which has no prerequisites. Your naughty parents ignored the registration requirements, therefore ruining your life! Bad parents.

You must notify the Home Schooling Unit…….if you intend to deliver an educational program for Years of schooling other than those specified on the
certificate of registration

  Above or below age level in any areas of any subjects? Sorry, but you’ll need permission to deviate from the average. We’re aiming for average children here-and parents, how could you think you’re qualified to assess their abilities? Please don’t touch the next level textbook until you have permission-meanwhile, do what bored schoolkids do, stare at the wall and count the minutes! It’s education.

The registration process may take up to three months from the time an application is made to receipt of a certificate of home schooling registration.

  They repeat this a lot, too, and stress that you cannot remove your child from school until it’s done. Severe bullying? Too bad, suck it up while the application sits on someone’s desk gathering dust. Maybe they’re modelling it on the paperwork system in the refugee detention centres?

If your child’s home address changes from the home address specified on the child’s certificate of registration, you must advise in writing the Home Schooling Unit providing details of the new home address. On receipt of notice that the home address of a registered child has changed, an Authorised Person will contact you to arrange a mutually convenient time to assess the new home for its suitability for home schooling registration. If suitable for home schooling, a certificate of registration specifying the new home address will be issued.

  Ah, their precious learning environment. I’m guessing that doing bookwork on the dining table, reading up a tree, or science in the kitchen won’t be counted as a suitable learning environments. I imagine this one will be used to exclude any number of applications by default-if you don’t have the space or money for a dedicated classroom with all of the accessories, too bad. Because you can’t learn outside a classroom, can you? Or maybe your equipment won’t pass the test, if you don’t have Bunsen burners and lab equipment, full sports supplies, or a cupboard full of art supplies? Even though we all know that the average school child gets very few opportunities, if any, to take full advantage of the school equipment provided-it’s just there to look good and wave around to visitors.

(f) courses of study in a key learning area are to be based on, and taught in accordance with, a syllabus developed or endorsed by the Board and approved by the Minister.

  Individualised curriculums, based on your own family’s conviction of what it is important to learn? Your opinion counts for nothing. You are to follow their syllabus to the letter-if you think anything else is important, jam it in outside your equivalent allocated school hours. Our current chronological world history study would be replaced with ‘personal and local history’ (like you can’t cover a six year old’s personal history in an hour), Auslan doesn’t fit in anywhere (LOTE isn’t mentioned until high school), and can you imagine the conniptions the “Authorised Person” would have on finding that the children don’t use the computer? Because it’s in the requirements in the syllabus for every subject from a young age. No room for a philosophical objection there.

  Well, here’s my gauntlet, BoS-if this goes through (and I have no doubt that it will, with no significant changes), i’m moving interstate. I’m not wasting my time filling out reams of paperwork when I could be doing meaningful activities with my children, and I refuse to be welded to a curriculum and system that churns out thousands of failures (through no fault of their own) every year.

  That is the most offensive part-your system is filled with problems, and you insist on forcing it upon people who are doing a whole lot better, all by themselves. With no educational degrees, not following your system, and not using your resources. Ordinary, unqualified people are producing children that are happier, better educated and more well-rounded than the average school child. I’m not biased either-it’s been measured in a number of studies. But you can’t be having that, can you? Spending billions on education and still not achieving the educational average of parents around their dining table looks terrible-so instead of improving the system, you’ve decided to drag us down with you.

  As always, we’ll take the contrary option. We’ll jump ship. Again and again and again if it means preserving our educational freedom. We will not submit to arbitrary control when the source of that control can’t even demonstrate success. And I don’t imagine we’ll be the only ones-us home educators aren’t generally ones to toe the line. They’re already getting a good demonstration of that.

Unradical Unschooling

  When we first decided to home educate, about 7 years ago, I did what I usually do upon gaining a new interest-I read. I read my way through every home ed book in the Tasmanian library system (there’s many, the wonderful place) and fell in love with unschooling. With a houseful of toddlers, it worked for us. Then, about 5 years ago I noticed more and more popping up online about radical unschoolers, so I investigated. Basically, it’s about removing all limits, rules and expectations. The child decides everything, and trust is the buzzword-just trust that your child is doing exactly what they need to do, right now, even if you don’t understand why (even if it’s killing related, completely clashes with your beliefs or involves 14 hours a day on the computer). That when you get in touch with yourself, and your true way of being, you would understand, that you would be free! Then the world will be a better place, populated with ‘free’ people.

  Well, call me a reject, abjectly out of touch with my true self, because I really don’t get it. Oh, I thought about trying it, but I never accepted the reasoning behind it. It sounds all lovely and wonderful, but it’s like every other extremist viewpoint-all dressed up in flowery language and sounding suspiciously religious (you just have to believe, to have faith, to let go, then you will be truly free). It doesn’t respect the family’s value systems. And of course, there’s lots of criticism of schools. While I don’t see many positives in the school system, I also tend to distrust beliefs that need to knock their opposites down for them to climb up-if it’s as good as you say it is, it’ll speak for itself.

  I finally realised that I really don’t like the philosophy because we’re technically not child-centred. We’re family-centred. There’s seven of us in this tribe, and we all need to get along, which means we all need to take everyone’s needs and wants into account. I’m happy to cater to every whim of a three month old, but as they get older they learn to compromise too.

  Old fuddy-duddy that I am, I believe in bedtimes, for their and my sanity. My kids eat what they are given. They contribute to the running of the household, the garden and the animals. Screen time for them is non-existent (and nearly non-existent for me, I practice what I preach).And sometimes i’ll make them do something, even if they think they won’t like it. Usually, after the initial push, they enjoy it. (A recent incident with Sparkles and handwriting practice comes to mind. She said she didn’t want to, I said it wasn’t optional. Fifteen minutes of copywork later she was ecstatic to see how much she’d already improved, and now happily does it regularly). Sometimes you need a kick to try something-and when the kick is given by someone who knows you well, it’s usually a kick in the right direction.

  RUers seem to believe that if a child must fit to some of the parent’s needs, that the parent is selfish and enforcing their will upon the child. It seems to me to be a sure recipe for stress, guilt, and the extension of extreme natural parenting philosophy (which also seems to be a sure recipe for stress and guilt). And if I have to honour every decision of my child, what is that saying about my knowledge and experience? I definitely don’t know it all, but surely nearly 30 years of life counts for something? The kids certainly seem to think so-they trust my judgement and respect my recommendations, and are generally happy and eager to see what I suggest. In return, if they have a go at something and hate it, I don’t force them to continue.

  Over the past couple of years, i’ve found myself adding a qualifier when asked which education method we use. ‘Unschooling…………but not radical.’ Unschooling seems to have gained more and more of a radical aura, to the point where most people who once would have called themselves unschoolers seem to be using the term ‘natural learners’ instead. Unfortunately, unschooling now seems to mean the extreme end of the scale-no rules, no schedule, no educational goals.That is completely not us, and to be honest I really wouldn’t like people to think that it was.

  However, after the initial raves, RUing seems to be losing popularity. I’ve started to read accounts of people who have tried it and found that their lives descended into chaos and their kids were unhappy (such as Owlet-there’s also good comments there). Most people seem to adore it when their children are young, then by the time they’re reached about 8 they’re looking to add a bit more structure (usually at the child’s request). I think it’s because toddlers can generally pick up what they need to know in their everyday life. But when they start wanting to learn more complex skills and knowledge, structure really helps. It also helps Shorty, who doesn’t pick up much intuitively, and requires more repetition and graded increase in difficulty to really master a skill.

  Anyhow, I don’t even know if we could call ourselves unschoolers anymore-I have a houseful of academics now! But i’ll save writing about those changes for another day.

Unschooling horseriding

  Pony Club would freak if they saw our method of learning to ride. It goes like this.

  -Acquire pony and gear. Ignore saddles, but wear helmet.

  -Catch pony (can be tricky), bridle up, have sibling hoist you up with assistance from milk crate.

If you try to catch me, I will run.

-Hold on while wily pony goes straight into a canter. Extra points if you don’t fall off when she deliberately goes under a low tree branch.    

-After a week or so, and a few bruises, you will be able to stay on without holding the mane for dear life. Congratulations! Now you can learn how to steer. And maybe even stop!

  This is basically where they’re up to now. The girls can steer, and sometimes they can stop. Mareea has a hard mouth, so they have to haul pretty hard. Sometimes they’re still holding on for dear life, but they’re improving at an exponential rate. I learnt to ride ‘properly’ when I was a child, learning proper posture, rising to the trot, and all of the excruciating details. I don’t remember ever just going out and riding independently, for fun. Not surprisingly, that love was killed fairly comprehensively, and i’m still not a very confident rider. My kids may never win any awards at the show, but they’ll be able to ride well, and ride hard. And they will continue to love it-which is the most important thing in any endeavour.

  I don’t imagine we’ll stay at one horse for long either. We regretfully had to turn down a gorgeous buckskin brumby colt foal last week, as we didn’t have a yard to keep him in to tame him. But we were all keen to have a shot at taming and training him-when we want to learn anything we’ve found it’s best to throw ourselves into the deep end. We haven’t drowned yet.

Home ed-as it is now

  I wrote this post a few months back, and it got way out of hand very quickly, to the point where I just had far too much to add to it, and gave up. So i’m just going to publish it as it is. So think of it as ‘home ed-as it was four months ago’!

  How do I sum up the natural education of five children in one blog post? Just cataloguing one day would be a mammoth read. We still unschool, and most likely always will-it’s so perfectly suited to our life (and my hatred of and inability to keep to schedules and regimentation), and the sheer amount they learn about a huge range of subjects is mind-boggling. I have finally gotten rid of all school-mind, relaxed and accepted that yes, unschooling really DOES work for young children. Meanwhile, the kids happily got on with it, as they always have. After our travelling we’re sticking close to home and enjoying our comforts while we can.

  Our most useful thing lately has been this whiteboard, picked up from a closing-down sale. The many things that are read, commented on, then lost in the million other same things can now be recorded in the lounge room and re-read until they’re stuck in those little heads. They choose what they’d like to put up there, like the poem, Auslan and Word Spy stuff below, and we change it every week or two. Yes, they enjoy rote learning when they decide what to learn.

   Before it’s taken off the whiteboard I copy it into the Family Fact Book-so anything they know was on the board, but just can’t remember, can be looked up.

  Narnia has also been the obsession for the last three months or so. First the audiobooks, then the BBC miniseries, all accompanied by Narnia guidebooks (and of course, a set of the actual books). There have been discussions and investigations on religion, cinematography and special effects, and the contrast between movies and books and why they have to differ. There has been endless roleplay-my kids will never miss a chance to live in pretend-land. Frosty with his very enthusiastic stick-swords does try my patience though, especially when he’s Peter and his unsuspecting brother is the wolf.

  History is another big theme, which is extremely interesting to me as I know virtually nothing about it. It just wasn’t covered at school. It started with a lift-the-flaps Roman town book and has snowballed from there into ancient Egypt and the Vikings, with the girls planning their future travels to ancient ruins all over the world, and Oods learning some Latin. Everyday life is the interest here-not so much the rise and fall of empires as how they built their houses, what they ate and what they believed in.

  Language in all it’s forms is another obsession-but not so much the Auslan, which i’ve been rather slack with. The Word Spy books have sparked much language play and interest, contributing to the interest in Latin and therefore Rome (it’s all connected somehow!) Secret languages and codes abound, and little symbolised signs and notes are appearing everywhere. I’ve no idea what they’re doing, and they like it that way. Because it wouldn’t be a secret language if I knew it.

  Lols and Sparkles are now fluent readers. They seemed to do this secretly, they didn’t want all the instruction that Oods did. Just the basics, then they were happy to decode the rest themselves. I’m still not exactly sure how well they’re reading, but they seem to be able to read books around the calibre of Aussie Nibbles just fine. Oods is reading Harry Potter at warp speed, she’s definitely following in my reading footsteps-she hasn’t hit my speed yet, but at the rate she’s going she may actually overtake me one day.

  Craft for the girls has progressed to making real stuff, with much less mess-I knew it would all finally be worth it one day! I still have two little confetti making boofheads who make an insane amount of mess, but at least I know that light at the end of the tunnel is not a train. The girls took it upon themselves to learn to knit and can all do so, and the clones have just learnt how to form stitches in crochet. Oods, meanwhile, crocheted me a pair of slippers completely from her head that fit me perfectly-meanwhile, the one I made her is too big. Yes, I have been outperformed by an eight year old, and yes, I am proud (and only a tiny bit miffed, promise). I really, really need another sewing machine, because I often have to wait to use mine. Bags, skirts, shoes, doll clothes, gauntlets-you name it, they’ll hack up some fabric and have a bash at making it completely from their heads-and it usually works. 

   They take it in turns to cook independently, with most recipes coming from their heads. There’s been some interesting food made, but they seem to have the basics of cooking nailed down now, and can turn out cakes, biscuits and breads of acceptable quality. I really like this one, because them cooking saves me some cooking. And what is a more important skill than cooking? Except maybe gardening, which has been mostly abandoned to the husband now the cold weather has hit, although Lols (his mini-him) still gets out there with him.

  The boys are about equal ability at the moment, and I think Frosty may have overtaken Shorty in the academic stakes in the last month or so. I treat them both as three, and forget that Shorty is actually six and ‘should’ be reading. Ha! Good luck with that! They do lots of drawing, tracing and colouring, as well as many hours of wrestling and whacking stuff with sticks. Whoever said boys and girls are the same had never actually exposed themselves to children.

  Finally, the natural world remains a constant interest, with more Attenborough documentaries, some snake handling and a wildlife show complete with wombat fondling recently. Jackie French’s kangaroo and wombat books are on the library shelf right now.

The kids still don’t use the computer, we still don’t have a television, so we’re still Amish sympathisers-but looking at all the above, who has time for that junk? I stand firm on my low-tech stance, figuring there’s far more worthy and interesting (and real) things to do, and they’ll pick it up easily and quickly when it’s time-just like we did. And yes, I apply the same rules to myself too! Internet once a week works just fine for me-I prioritise the most useful parts and ignore the rest.

Homeschool snapshot-embroidery

Thanks to a lovely friend dropping off a stitch book and a whole container of threads!

Tie-dyeing for little ones

While I let my kids tie-dye with real dyes occasionally, it’s a bit of a nightmare. This is much easier, and a good activity for a group of young kids.

Needed-food dyes and paper towel. You can get recycled, biodegradable paper towel now, which can be composted when you’re done with it.

Mix up the food dyes with water in bowls. Make the colours fairly strong, you want them to pop.

Give the kids a sheet of towel and explain that how you fold the paper affects the pattern of the dye. Suggest they try squares, triangles, crumpled balls and any other origami they can think of. When they’re happy with their fold get them to dip one corner/edge in their chosen colour-it will wick up the paper towel reasonably fast, so emphasise that they’ll only need to hold it there for a few seconds. Then remove, shake, and put another corner/edge in a different colour, as many times as you can-usually only three.

Unfold and see what pattern has appeared! Repeat until you run out of towel, most likely. Once dry use for other crafts and play-wrapping small presents, cutting and pasting shapes, mosaics, over-drawing pictures based on dye shapes etc etc.

 

You can also try ‘dyeing’ paper. This is blank newsprint our neighbour gave us, and the result of using straws to add then blow the dye around. It was used as wrapping paper for birthday presents.

  

Best of all? It all washes off straightaway. No blue cheek like my Frosty has at present.

Native Bees and other ramblings.

Native bees were always something we wanted to get, and luckily for us when we bought this place there was already a hive here-I think they're trigonia carbonaria. You don't get any honey from these little guys (well, you can, but it's in very small amounts and quite difficult to get, but apparently the taste is fantastic) but they are absolutely fantastic pollinators. And they don't sting, but do bite, as the husband discovered when he went to have a poke around in their hive, and got a headful of them in his very thick, very black hair.

They spend much of their time on the perennial basil, but as you can see above they're also partial to the kids portaluca. For those who know the plant yes the bees are tiny compared to honeybees, and miniscule compared to bumblebees-about 4mm long.

AussieBee are a great resource and also sell hives.

AND..........i've just stumbled across what looks to be an good homeschooling blog, Camp Creek Blog.  I've been mostly devouring Montessori resources lately so this is refreshing, and still my style.

It also seems i'm not the only one having a busyness hissy fit, it's a common theme-check out here and here. I'm feeling much better already, and think I understand deschooling perfectly now. I'm deworking myself. I've found myself slobbing around reading chicklit and lots of otherwise aimless stuff, but my mojo is beginning to show signs of reappearing. I have strictly shut myself up whenever i've started to berate myself for not jumping straight into all the personal projects I wanted to do, and just done whatever i've felt like. It's working!

But I did make this

A crocheted headband to celebrate getting my old 'do back again.

And I really need to stop rambling now-this was only supposed to be about the bees!

Ha! Dream on lady!

One of R’s therapies is provided by a visiting person at the school instead of home because we live out of town. At his last appointment a few weeks ago the principal came to say hello, assuming that Master R would become a student in her special ed class in two years. The rest of the kids were out playing with dad in the playground, and of course she wondered when they would be coming to school. Homeschooling, said I. Oh, said she, and it was pretty plain that she sees homeschooling as a funny little indulgence, and one that i’d get over pretty quickly when I saw how fantastic the school was. As if walls full of cookie-cutter art could somehow convince me. I declined her invitation for a tour and she went back to work. That’s about the last I thought of it.

I received an interesting thing in my postbox last week-three sets of enrolment forms and an information pack from my local primary school, assumedly for the three school age girls. Interesting because I didn’t actually request it. Interesting because I made it rather clear that I wasn’t interested in sending them to school. And so all up it was rather bloody offensive. The husband was spitting chips, it took a while for the steam to stop coming out of his ears.

So I did the only sensible thing-took all the forms in and informed them politely but firmly that I had not filled them out and was returning them because I didn’t require them now, or anytime in the future. The secretary knew who I was from the names on the envelope, so there’s obviously been some gossip about the poor misguided homeschoolers.

Hopefully that is the last I hear from them, but I suspect not. However, if they think they’re going to have an easy time of getting my kids into their school they’re going to get a nasty shock-they’re not having them. Unfortunately for them I am one of the most stubborn, contrary people they’re likely to come across!

Desk, schmesk

Who needs a desk and a uniform when you have the great outdoors, your bikini and gumboots?

Homeschool snapshot

Building cities according to the number in the square-they took this idea and ran with it, drawing their own complex little places with flowerbeds and fairies!

Homeschool Snapshot

Making volcanoes and blowing up balloons with bicarb and vinegar.

Science mania

We went to a Questacon 'do here at the library the other day, and science is the new obsession of the house. The kids all had a ball, it's well worth going to one if you get the chance. Am not happy I didn't know about it when we were in Canberra last year!

Science of course, means experiments. This was a nice easy one to do with young kids.
The bottom is treacle, middle is coloured water and the top is vegetable oil. If you put it in in the order treacle-oil-water you get a better result as you can see the layers seperate. We then dropped in some Lego (which you can see), a marble, a frozen pea, and numerous pieces of pasta (numerous because Shorty kept dropping the ones he wanted to eat in there, forgetting he couldn't retrieve them.) They sat on different levels so we could have a good chat about weight and density, which has carried over to then talking about floating/sinking in the bath and sink.

My little genius

Tonight, the kids wanted a mint leaf each-the horrible things were still hanging around in the fridge from my birthday cake. So D pulled the bag out and there were three left. 'OK' he said to the kids, sitting them on the bench. 'There's two of us parents and four of you kids-how will we share three mint leaves?' With barely a second's hesitation Gabrielle replied 'Chop them in half and then there'll be six!' I am so impressed-she's two months shy of five years and this is about the fifth example she's given us of being able to work out fractions. She can do basic addition and subtraction, and even added up 8+4 the other day-in her head, no fingers or manipulatives required.

The bit that impresses me the most is that no-one has ever sat down with her and attempted to teach her maths. Never. We do a lot of cooking with all its half and quarter cups, and we talk about maths we encounter (like adding up all the bits of fruit we have, or dividing up items so everyone in the family gets some), but that's about it. But they just seem to absorb everything intuitively, process it all then apply it properly-they don't need to be 'taught' in the conventional way, simply exposing them to lots of different things really does do the trick.

I was so dismissive of unschooling to begin with. How on earth could simply being give you an education? Don't you need textbooks and tests, rote learning and spelling lists, and experts to tell you what you 'should' be learning at each stage? But since deciding to try unschooling (after all, they're so young that if it all fell apart it wasn't going to put them behind-they're still not supposed to be at school) i've gained a lot of confidence in it. Kids really do just learn massive amounts from being given quality items and experiences and some basic guidance and explanation-and what's better, it's all retained. They want to learn it so they do, and because they're applying the knowledge in a practical way it sticks with them. It's given me lots to think about in relation to my own education, but i'll save that one for another day. For now i'll just continue to wallow in pride at what my kids can do :D

My Homeschooling Epiphany

Like most people, when first faced with homeschooling I thought eek! Why would you want to do that!? But after a few more years parenting and a lot of reading i'm sold on the idea.

The biggest thing so far has been the mindshift needed-and I think even a lot of homeschoolers don't make that mindshift. Namely, homeschool doesn't have to be anything like school, and that's the beauty of it. I like to be prepared, so even when my eldest was three I was looking around, trying to work out what people were doing with their kids, what curriculum to use, what they 'had' to learn by each age by going to the state education websites.

And one day it clicked-I want to homeschool to provide my children with a different education. I think most schools fall far short of what they could achieve in terms of depth and breadth of education, simply because they are limited by how they are set up. We don't have those limits, so why impose them on ourselves? Why give ourselves the same goals of say, Australian history in Grade 4? Homeschooling allows us the total freedom to introduce whatever concepts and areas we and the kids want at the time we want in the way we want. We don't have to work to a strict schedule, we can take advantage of times of interest and teachable moments and build on it. I can introduce things that schools just don't really-good quality literature is the best example.

We're not restricted to skimming over piles of subjects to give children a 'taste' of everything, with no time to stop and explore more-if they like it, they can immerse themselves in it. If they're loving something, they don't have to stop just because the bell rings, and if they're really hating something, we can put it aside for another day when the mood is better. On a larger scale, they're not limited to a few weeks of one area, the same as they're not forced to do anything they're not ready for. I do think this will avoid the typical 'hates'-'I hate maths' usually translates to 'I had a lot of trouble/needed more help/was behind so i've learnt maths is nothing but a chore'. And education isn't something that you just do at school-it's lifelong and fun.

It's working beautifully so far-we don't push anything but they have such a thirst for knowledge that we don't have to. They want to learn about everything, even at their young ages. Even after only about a year of making a conscious effort to provide a rich environment for them and put lots of educational things in their path for them to take up if they like, ignore if they like, they have learnt so much.

I'm convinced!