Education otherwise.

Hi, I just stumbled across this while googling so I hope you don't mind me chiming in
Pretty much all the responses here are based on complete myths about home education...

Socialising: Home ed kids get to socialise. Lots. In the real world. The home ed community is so big and so organised these days that there are also loads of things arranged with other kids, plus it's not limited to just kids' groups or kids the same age. My kids socialise with kids from babies to teens, and adults too, and the only limit on how much is themselves - sometimes they want a quiet day in!

The need to be a qualified teacher: Teachers are trained in getting specific information over to dozens of children at once, and in crowd control. Home education isn't like that. It's so much more efficient. You don't need to be a qualified teacher to help your individual children find information in a way suitable for them.

Inspections: The local authority have absolutely *no* duty to monitor home ed on a routine basis. Education is solely a parental responsibility in law, and just as in any other area of law the burden of proof lies with the accuser. Just as I wouldn't expect regular inspections from the police to check I wasn't keeping rocket launchers in my spare room, I don't expect regular inspections to check my children are being educated. If you've heard about inspections, it's clearly from a council who don't know (or respect) the law so I wouldn't set much store by it.

We chose home ed from the start because it gives our kids the freedom to learn from things that interest them. (Some people use a curriculum etc but I'm speaking for ourselves.) Children are hardwired to learn. If the desire to learn isn't squeezed out of them by school, they're learning all the time. In the past few months, by supporting my eldest's interests for example, we've been down a gold mine, visited a blacksmith, played  no end of games, gone to science museums, played music, done street art, science experiments, built robots, watched films and documentaries, done woodwork, talked about all sorts of things, he's worked out the concept of fractions (initiated by himself) to solve a problem on a game he was thinking about, played with *lots* of friends, learnt to solder circuits, gone pond dipping, fed lambs, talked to a geologist about volcanoes and fossils... they're just the things I can think of off the top of my head as I'm typing this. He's busy, happy, engaged, confident, and has a vocabulary better than school kids his age because he converses with people of all ages all the time. 

There are so many different reasons that people home educate, including failure of schools in different ways, bullying, special educational needs, better social opportunities, individual learning styles... methods and philosophies are even more varied, from structured curriculums to topic learning to eclectic mixes to child lead to unschooling. 

In all the time I've known home educators, and all the time we've been doing it, if I've learnt one thing it's that the myths just simply aren't true

If there's anything specific that people would actually like to know, I'm happy to answer any questions. 

Tam, you are more than welcome to chime in

That's really interesting tam, certainly I wish I had read that YEARS ago when the school system was failing my son so badly , things may be very different to they are today. I know the school he is at currently is brilliant... well schools to be exact as he is a dual placement. Doesn't stop me wondering if things might be even better if we had by passed the mainstream school that let him down for 4 years, and reading that I may just have been brave enough to say no more and gone it alone.

My apologies for not replying earlier , I meant to include this link

http://www.educationotherwise.net/

tam21 wrote:Hi, I just stumbled across this while googling so I hope you don't mind me chiming in
Pretty much all the responses here are based on complete myths about home education...

Socialising: Home ed kids get to socialise. Lots. In the real world. The home ed community is so big and so organised these days that there are also loads of things arranged with other kids, plus it's not limited to just kids' groups or kids the same age. My kids socialise with kids from babies to teens, and adults too, and the only limit on how much is themselves - sometimes they want a quiet day in!

The need to be a qualified teacher: Teachers are trained in getting specific information over to dozens of children at once, and in crowd control. Home education isn't like that. It's so much more efficient. You don't need to be a qualified teacher to help your individual children find information in a way suitable for them.

Inspections: The local authority have absolutely *no* duty to monitor home ed on a routine basis. Education is solely a parental responsibility in law, and just as in any other area of law the burden of proof lies with the accuser. Just as I wouldn't expect regular inspections from the police to check I wasn't keeping rocket launchers in my spare room, I don't expect regular inspections to check my children are being educated. If you've heard about inspections, it's clearly from a council who don't know (or respect) the law so I wouldn't set much store by it.

We chose home ed from the start because it gives our kids the freedom to learn from things that interest them. (Some people use a curriculum etc but I'm speaking for ourselves.) Children are hardwired to learn. If the desire to learn isn't squeezed out of them by school, they're learning all the time. In the past few months, by supporting my eldest's interests for example, we've been down a gold mine, visited a blacksmith, played  no end of games, gone to science museums, played music, done street art, science experiments, built robots, watched films and documentaries, done woodwork, talked about all sorts of things, he's worked out the concept of fractions (initiated by himself) to solve a problem on a game he was thinking about, played with *lots* of friends, learnt to solder circuits, gone pond dipping, fed lambs, talked to a geologist about volcanoes and fossils... they're just the things I can think of off the top of my head as I'm typing this. He's busy, happy, engaged, confident, and has a vocabulary better than school kids his age because he converses with people of all ages all the time. 

There are so many different reasons that people home educate, including failure of schools in different ways, bullying, special educational needs, better social opportunities, individual learning styles... methods and philosophies are even more varied, from structured curriculums to topic learning to eclectic mixes to child lead to unschooling. 

In all the time I've known home educators, and all the time we've been doing it, if I've learnt one thing it's that the myths just simply aren't true

If there's anything specific that people would actually like to know, I'm happy to answer any questions. 

Thank you for you very interesting, informative reply, Tam.

I've been exploring all possibilities, I have a year 9 (often) school refuser who is dyslexic and due to start GCE next year. He has a higher than average verbal IQ but finds writing hard and laborious, school is "boring and repetitive" and the written work is hard for him. I've been looking at online schools which cover IGCE (I think they are called)

However after a long chat yesterday, he has 3 options, change school, home school/online school or try again at his present school. Today he has gone to school so we'll have to wait and see.

Since my last post Ive had an interesting convo with the homeschooling mum, a brief synopsis is:
Schools are people factories which churn out the same product. It is not natural for massive groups of peers to be packed together for many hours a day, year in year out.

Human children learn from within their natural environment from all age groups and also teach within the same group. School stifles this natural process to the point of actually destroying what is basically a main survival instinct.

I have noticed her kids don't automatically seek out their own age group, but gravitate to someone doing something which perks their interest. Her youngest loves to be in the tack room asking about bits and bridles, types of saddles, all the whys and wherefores. She knows more than most people who have been riding for years.. She actually notices subtle differences, such as, why does that bit have three rings on each side?? why have three? what happens if you attach the top ring or the bottom ring?

I have had riders call me from the tack shop and ask me what bit their horse uses..

That's what I found most interesting about tam's post, the focussing on interests to aid learning.

The first three years at primary school E was handed sheet after sheet of work sheets, mostly follow the line with your pencil, well he basically refused to do anything, the worst part of that was that his auxiliary ( had been with him since ante pre school year) pretty much did it all for him. So it wasn't even as if the teacher got handed unfinished work and had to work out why and how they could change things to get a response.

We moved area before it came to light, though that year the teacher actually said she shouldn't be expected to teach 'children like him' she had zero interest, all she wanted was perfect class kids lined up working.

We complained and then they started to look into what was wrong...

He can't sit and focus on writing tasks much even now, if they assess him he's still at nursery learning level officially...but make it hands on learning and he's amazing! We now know he can read, he shops by himself in Asda ( while his teacher looks like a stalker hiding behind aisles) he even helps other kids with things they struggle with! His cookery skills are amazing. He is currently working on time and doing really well.

They had to use his interests in cars and transport to get him to pay attention but once they did that there was no holding him back.

Bella, if you do decide to look into home ed further, there's an amazing network nationally online so feel free to give me a shout to put you in touch with people, there are people with experience of HE after school refusal, dyslexia etc One of the great things about home ed if that if a child struggles with writing (or any other specific), it can be worked with/around in a way that's unique to them.

Mama Kaz "focussing on interests to aid learning".. now I know what I say next is going to sound nitpicky, but it's not supposed to It's more just to give an idea of the nuances in the ways that it can work: Some parents do use the kids' interests to aid learning so for example if the parent is wanting the child to practice their writing, and the child is interested in geology, they might offer a lapbook geology project to write, some fossils and geodes to label, something like that, and like you say that can then engage the child and pique their interest. In contrast, I know that my children are interested in whatever they need to learn at the time, and the learning is a by product of the interest. My seven year old has been interested in Minecraft (among other things) for the past year or so, and through pursuing that and us supporting him down the tangents it's taken him on, he has learnt to read, learnt about mining, about Roman history, about fossils, dinosaurs, gems, programming, computer use, videos, geography, map reading, art, building, marine ecology, pottery, collieries, the total amount of gold ever mined worldwide, different types of explosives, tools, blacksmiths, forges, smelting, states of matter, physics, tree species, conifers, pixel art, sewers and their development, the meat industry, cloud types, various aspects of computer technology, volcanoes, emergency preparedness, mythical beings, fungi, biomes... and loads more but that's what springs to mind.

What NAA said about not automatically seeking out their own age group is something I see a lot, both from my kids and their home educated friends. If just being friends with people within one year of your own age has never been presented as the norm, it doesn't occur to kids at all. My seven year old goes to our local Hackspace, for example, where the youngest other person is his own age and there are adults of a range of ages, and he'll talk to them all with no age preferences; if someone looks like they're doing something interesting on a laptop there, or building something interesting, he'll go and talk to them about it, or go and tell them about what he's doing. When we met some friends at a park last week he spent a good hour or so in the middle of the day, between playing with the other kids, chatting to one of the other parents about gaming

HAHAH now you mention minecraft, one of her boys is a fan, and like you it lead to an interest in Paleontology, he informed me not long ago of the existence of feathered Dinosaurs... I had noooo idea. I left him discussing fossil finds in China with a 50 yr old man...

NAA wrote:HAHAH now you mention minecraft, one of her boys is a fan, and like you it lead to an interest in Paleontology, he informed me not long ago of the existence of feathered Dinosaurs... I had noooo idea. I left him discussing fossil finds in China with a 50 yr old man...

We do Minecraft big time here too. Those bleating sheep! My lad seems to use all these different servers he and his mates game on, I don't understand it really.

tam21 wrote:Bella, if you do decide to look into home ed further, there's an amazing network nationally online so feel free to give me a shout to put you in touch with people, there are people with experience of HE after school refusal, dyslexia etc One of the great things about home ed if that if a child struggles with writing (or any other specific), it can be worked with/around in a way that's unique to them.

Mama Kaz "focussing on interests to aid learning".. now I know what I say next is going to sound nitpicky, but it's not supposed to It's more just to give an idea of the nuances in the ways that it can work: Some parents do use the kids' interests to aid learning so for example if the parent is wanting the child to practice their writing, and the child is interested in geology, they might offer a lapbook geology project to write, some fossils and geodes to label, something like that, and like you say that can then engage the child and pique their interest. In contrast, I know that my children are interested in whatever they need to learn at the time, and the learning is a by product of the interest. My seven year old has been interested in Minecraft (among other things) for the past year or so, and through pursuing that and us supporting him down the tangents it's taken him on, he has learnt to read, learnt about mining, about Roman history, about fossils, dinosaurs, gems, programming, computer use, videos, geography, map reading, art, building, marine ecology, pottery, collieries, the total amount of gold ever mined worldwide, different types of explosives, tools, blacksmiths, forges, smelting, states of matter, physics, tree species, conifers, pixel art, sewers and their development, the meat industry, cloud types, various aspects of computer technology, volcanoes, emergency preparedness, mythical beings, fungi, biomes... and loads more but that's what springs to mind.

What NAA said about not automatically seeking out their own age group is something I see a lot, both from my kids and their home educated friends. If just being friends with people within one year of your own age has never been presented as the norm, it doesn't occur to kids at all. My seven year old goes to our local Hackspace, for example, where the youngest other person is his own age and there are adults of a range of ages, and he'll talk to them all with no age preferences; if someone looks like they're doing something interesting on a laptop there, or building something interesting, he'll go and talk to them about it, or go and tell them about what he's doing. When we met some friends at a park last week he spent a good hour or so in the middle of the day, between playing with the other kids, chatting to one of the other parents about gaming

Thankyou Tam, I'm particularly interested in hearing from Homeschoolers who have secondary school age children.

Are you on Facebook? There's a new Teens and Tweens HE group here https://www.facebook.com/groups/442643735807175/?fref=ts There are lots of local groups on Facebook too (and often Yahoo) so depending on where you are you should be able to find similar aged children locally to you

tam21 wrote:Are you on Facebook? There's a new Teens and Tweens HE group here https://www.facebook.com/groups/442643735807175/?fref=ts There are lots of local groups on Facebook too (and often Yahoo) so depending on where you are you should be able to find similar aged children locally to you

Thank you very much, I'll have a look.

I have tried to join "Education otherwise" but they don't seem to have activated me yet.

Their yahoo group? This one http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HE-UK/ is probably better if that's any help

tam21 wrote:Their yahoo group? This one http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HE-UK/ is probably better if that's any help

Thank's that looks better, I better go and research now. I'll be back with more questions.