Notes to self from the last two weeks:
a) Avoid freaking out random members of
the public.
b) A cure for “Grumpy As All Hell
Four Year Old at 6am” is a pre-breakfast.
c) Don't facilitate your child learning
to read if you want to continue to spell things out between
yourselves without said child understanding.
One of the reasons I started this blog
was the fact that I'm a lot better at explaining myself in writing
than I am speaking face to face. Seriously – put on the spot and I
have all the verbal finesse of, to quote Blackadder,
a jugged walrus.
Take the following exchange in the
hairdressers. Popped in quickly on the way to taking Elizabeth to
ballet to make myself an appointment to get the mop shorn again, and
ended up accidentally outing myself.
Me (To my hairdresser): “How are
things with you guys? Hope the new term is going well.”
Hairdresser: “Great, thanks!”
Random Woman: “Which school does your
little girl go to?”
Me: “She's not at school.”
Random Woman: “Well which school will
she be going to?”
Me: (Very Brightly): “Well we're
homeschooling at the moment, so she might not end up going to school
at all!”
*General shocked silence*
It usually stops after the first
question; people assume she's at nursery or preschool and I just
smile and nod and change the subject. Random members of the public
are usually just a) making polite conversation or b) being nosey, and
in neither case do I see any point in shattering their world view. I
admit in this case there was a split second where it could have gone
either way. Instead of declaring all I could have quite easily
instead named a local school, listed a whole host of reasons for why
we chose it, and lied my head off. I refer you back to my previous
comment about that walrus. Ah well.
One of the first questions people tend
to ask when they find out we're homeschooling is “Are you allowed
to do that?”
The short answer is Yes!
The education act of 1996 has the
following to say on the subject:
"The parent of every child of
compulsory school age shall cause him to receive efficient full-time
education suitable ;
a) to his age, ability, and aptitude,
and
b) to any special educational needs he
may have,
either by regular attendance at school
or otherwise."
It's that little but all important word
“otherwise” that means we are perfectly within our rights to
educate our children at home. We like that word :)
The majority of people simply don't
know that educating their children outside of a school setting is an
option.
Another one that comes up regularly is
“How will they socialise?”
Firstly, there seems to be a general
confusion between socialisation and socialising. The first can refer
to “the adoption of the behaviour patterns of the surrounding
culture; the socialization of children to the norms of their
culture".
Children have their first lessons in
how to interact with others in a socially acceptable fashion from
their parents. As they grow this extends to the people they meet on a
day to day basis. At Reception age (four to five years old) children
are still in the process of working all of this out. How to talk to
people. How to form friendships. How to express themselves clearly.
How to deal with problems constructively. What to do when someone
upsets them. To me it makes more sense to expose them to people who
have already worked out the answers to these questions (or are at
least a bit further along the path) than it does to place them with
30 or so other children who are all at the “What the heck is this
all about???” stage. Don't get me wrong, children benefit a lot
from mixing with their peers. But throwing them all together and
leaving them to work it out in a law of the jungle kind of way
doesn't make a great deal of sense to me.
It's a bit like learning a new
language. Imagine you are moving to France and want to be able to
communicate with people. You have two options. You can go to a class
to learn French, or you can go into the community you will be a part
of and absorb the language and customs through your everyday life.
There's nothing wrong with the first approach; on the contrary, it
can be very successful. However, it doesn't suit everyone - think for
a start of how many people you know who are adamant that “book
learning” isn't for them, or of your own experiences learning a new
skill or subject. There are many many ways to learn, and, for me,
exposure to and participation in society is the best way to prepare
our children to live in it.
Then you have socialising, or “to
take part in social activities; interact with others”. One of the
great concerns people have where home education is concerned is that
children will end up bored and lonely with no friends to spend their
time with. It's an understandable concern; it was one of my big
worries when we first started looking into home ed as an option. I
remember expressing my concern online to a group of seasoned home
schoolers; they told me not to worry and they were right. We see
other people every day. In fact we're in the position where we have
too many people to see and things to do each week that we end up
turning down invitations because there aren't enough hours to do it
all!
It's not about quantity though. Yes, at
school they would be exposed to a huge number of children each day.
But think back to your own school days. Did you have 30 or so very
close friends, or a smaller handful of close, treasured ones and then
a lot of passing acquaintances? Like any mum, it is important to me
that my children are able to make meaningful, long-lasting
connections. Yes, you can do that in a school setting. But it isn't
the only way.
EB currently has three friends in
particular who mean a lot to her. They are eight, four and three
years old. She also has a close bond with a thirteen year old from
our church and several of the grown ups there. There are several
other children who she gets on well with who we also see on a regular
basis. They bond through shared experiences, days out, interests they
share in common. We arrange meet ups in the park, visits to museums
and places of interest, visits to each others' houses. Some weeks we
see everyone we know and then some, others we have a quieter time and
spend more time at home or by ourselves. We also feel it's important
that EB has a say in what we do and who we see so she is actively
involved in the decision making process as, to a lesser extent, is
AJ. As adults we don't always want to be around people all the time,
and the same is true of children.
Through such a varied friendship group
she's not only exposed to a wide range of ages and personalities, she
also experiences a number of different roles within each group that
she is part of. Sometimes she climbs and runs and gets covered in
mud, at others she sits and giggles and tells stories. Sometimes
she's the responsible one, sometimes she's the baby of the group.
This too reflects “Real” life, and is, for me, one of the big
benefits of educating at home.
The two children AJ likes to spend time
with most (and the first “friends” he's chosen himself) are four
and three years old; he asks in the morning if we are going to see
them, he gets so excited when we meet up, they mean something to him
and are part of his world. Kids his own age, he's not too certain
about. They push, they take things, they are unpredictable. He pushes
and takes things and is unpredictable too. But the older children he
mixes with make allowances for this; they also show him other ways to
deal with his impulses and desires. In turn, the older children learn
how to deal with someone younger than themselves, how to set an
example, responsibility.
Above all, and for me, most
importantly, they have such a great time playing together!
