Lets talk about Home Schooling
Posted on 25. Jan, 2010 by Sally in General, Uncategorized
Home Schooling
Laura had an idea to get some discussion going around schooling and the choices we all make. She wanted me to write on why I decided to home school and she would do her reasons for sending her kids to school and we would let the debate ensue from there. I was rather reluctant at that stage as I have had so many parenting arguments about choice that I just did not feel as though I had the energy to get all hot under the collar again about a personal decision .But the more I thought about it the more I thought that it is a lot like when I wrote about birth choices and people having the right to choose whatever birth they like without the need to defend it. I think the same is true for schooling.
What finally motivated me was not to prove I am right or even to defend why I do what I do but rather that it was through reading other people’s experiences and the idea resonating with me that lead to this path on my parenting journey. So if something I say strikes a cord with someone as something they would like to explore more then I have achieved all that I wanted to. It is about people knowing more about the options available rather than that we all have to choose the same option.
I would actually say that for the majority of people I don’t think Home schooling would be the best choice for them and actually I really hope that the majority still send their kids to school so that we can still get cheaper out of season holidays.
So here are my reasons and some of them are fairly tongue in cheek, most point could also be the topic of a whole books so this is really very brief:
1) I want to nurture the natural instinctive love of learning that all children are born with. To preserve desire to explore and learn about the world around them with no need to external force or pressure. – I know that as soon as something is for marks or graded at school it often remove the love to learn because learning ceases to be fun.
2) I am a bit of an anarchist at heart and I don’t do well being told what to do and when to do it. I will not cope with the school system. I know my kids will cope as it will be all they know, but I won’t cope. I will constantly be butting my head against the system. I complied at school I was quiet and kept my head down and got on with it, but it did nothing to nurture my free spirit or individuality. And now that I am a rather eccentric adult I don’t want to see my kids squeezed into the same mould.
3) I suck at being on time, my kids would be in constant trouble for being late, getting ready in the morning would be a nightmare and I would get an ulcer trying to be organized and get them there on time. It would be bad for my health and their ears – I would try to be calm but it would last 5 minutes and the shouting would start. ‘Get your shoe,’ ‘do you have your books’, ‘what do you mean we were supposed to read that last night!’
4) I want to take my kids and to the see stuff first hand that they are learning about. If we are learning about architecture in Europe lets go and see it rather than look in a book. Lets go see great art, buildings, castles, mountains, etc up and close and personal. I am planning to do 6 month trips with them and a camper van around Europe, America, Asia and hopefully also Australia. How will I do it as a single mom, I have no idea but watch me I will!
5) With reference to the point above we can do trips out of school holiday and so score much cheaper holidays and flights around the world
6) I know I am as good as any teacher they will have. Gosh that sounds very presumptuous. I know them better than anyone else and I have their best interests at heart. I have a university degree and a postgrad teaching qualification, not that they matter one bit, as it is not content I think kids need to know, it is how to discover information and how to critically analyze it that is the key to learning. Content changes all the time and whether we study the butterfly and others do the locus at school makes not one bit of difference. I don’t for one minute believe I know everything but I know enough and what I don’t know we will Google or we will find someone that does know.
7) Home schooling makes use of the greater community, teachers are not experts on all areas of knowledge either, but there are people out there that know their own given field. I want to use them, for example if we learn about farming I want to go to a farm and show them how it really works. I want to find interesting people that can add value to my kid’s lives by teaching them what they know and in return my kids can add to their lives by being the delight that they so naturally are.
8 ) I want to teach them and watch them grow.
9) I like the flexibility that home schooling allows us, we can come and go as we like and wonder through life at our own pace
10) I hate indoctrination, schools choose and prescribe what kids must know. If I think back to what we were taught at school and how for many of us the history of our own country was very much distorted to suit the government. Was what we were taught part of the underpinning of an oppressive government? – well that is another whole can of worms and I do not want to make this political at all. It is not my point. The point is that when some content is deemed more worthy of knowing than others it can be shaped by a certain philosophy and value system. I want my kids to have freedom over what they learn.
Someone who says it a lot more eloquently than me is John Taylor Gatto a school teacher who points out the problems of school in his speech about the 7 lessons that school teach our kids. Click here
Scroll about half way down to the part that starts : “In his speech, “The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher,” Gatto describes the seven lessons that are taught in all public schools by all teachers in America, whether they know it or not.”
I still firmly believe that home schooling is not for everyone and I will never try to convince anyone that it is the right choice for them and I would hope that others have the same respect for my choices. I know the biggest argument is socialization and that is a whole topic on its own – but believe me when I say I have this one covered.
Tara
Jan 25th, 2010
I don’t agree with some of your reasons (says the non parent
), but the indoctrination was always a big thing for me when I was at school. I was constantly getting in trouble for having a big mouth and going against the system…oh and for actually thinking in class and not swallowing everything I was told.
I like it. I like it a lot.
Julia
Jan 25th, 2010
I have considered home schooling my son in the past. He has ADHD and learning difficulties and struggles in the normal school environment because they do have a habit of wanting to put all kids in the same “box”. He needs quite specialized schooling which I am unfortunately not in a position to afford at this moment. I did my homework on homeschooling and actually found quite a bit of support online. However, he is very, very social and I felt that even considering it would be an injustice to him. I also fear that I won’t have the patience and, we are not in the position to live off only one income. I don’t like traditional schooling for various reasons (I didn’t exactly thrive there and my eccentric self did not do too well with being “boxed” like that) and have always considered alternatives like Waldorf and Montessori. My son was at a Montessori pre-school and we all just loved it.
I have to agree with you when you say it is not for everybody. Well done on making it work so well for you. I wish you all the best with on this fabulous journey with your kids..xx
Damaria Senne
Jan 25th, 2010
I did consider home-schooling Baby when she finished pre-school. But I decided not to do it because:
a) It requires a huge investment of time from the parent, and as a single parent, I already needed to work long hours to earn a living. Homeschooling her would have been just another big responsbility.
P.S. How do you manage to set aside the time required for the home-schooling + the time to do your work + social life + quality time with your kids?
b) I was not confident that I was the right teacher for my child. Education was one of my majors at varsity, and as a journalist/writer I’m good research. But I was still not willing to gamble my child’s future on the idea that I was the right teacher for my child. What if I was wrong? Academically speaking, I couldn’t do much damage, I think, because she’s a gifted child. But that brain still needs to be challenged and taught how to find information and proccess it.
c) She needed to learn socialisation skills. I’m not an extrovert who knows lots of people to socialise with, and I work from home, so we needed a school outlet for Baby to meet new people, make friends.
d) Learning about how other people live/think etc – school exposes Baby to young people fromthe neighbourhood, and they are different races and cultures and mindsets. As a result, Baby knows when Jewish, Muslim, Hindu etc holidays are celebrated, why they are celebrated and has a very healthy respect for the different cultures that make up South Africa. We could have learnt that from books, but interacting with the people who practice these traditions and religions was more eye-opening, I think.
Anyhoo, I still had some reservations about the public school system, so I opted for private school, which was more than I could afford but I decided to make the sacrifice. But that’s an argument for another post, I guess.