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| Lucy is almost finished writing her children's picture book |
Monday, January 31, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
The Case Against Homeschooling...What ???
I wrote this article for the Australian online homeschool magazine Stepping Stones, and thought I'd share it here as well. Ideas and comments welcome.
It’s alright, I’m just kidding. Sort of. We all know home education has many benefits – flexible and individualised learning, reduced exposure to peer pressure and bullying, academic success, being able to become socialised in the real world, strong family relationships – and that list isn’t exhaustive.
Any yet, like all communities, we too have our problems and our flaws. Not the same old “the children must be socialised” or the “are you qualified ?” or the “is it legal ?” objections that are raised by people ignorant of home education and the many ways it can work.
The problems with homeschooling are things we don’t even discuss amongst ourselves most of the time, things we sometimes struggle with alone, thinking it must be me, I’m not doing this right. Things we may fail to anticipate or observe.
Like socialising. No, I didn’t mean to type socialisation. There’s a difference and we all know what it is. Although we co-op and run classes and groups and excursions and workshops and meet up at the park, the tough fact is that most of our childrens’ potential friends are sitting in a classroom 9 – 3. And while most of our children can find friends to connect with – if not through homeschool activities, then through church or other community groups – a significant minority do not. It’s a complaint you most often hear on online forums, where a degree of anonymity applies. Not that I’m suggesting school would do a better job for the lonelier or more isolated of our children; but if as a community we acknowledged this difficult and emotional aspect of homeschooling experience, surely we would be a step closer to working out ways to support all home educated students with their social needs.
Diversity is another topic not much discussed amongst us. How well does our homeschool community reflect our wider community ? Do we home school alongside those of other cultural backgrounds ? Do people of other religions or of no religion at all feel comfortable in our company ? Do we reflect a range of socio-economic circumstances ? Or are our communities somewhat closed to “others “ ? These are questions worth thinking about by us – we who see the value in home education and might properly wish to extend that value to others in our wider community.
Economic disadvantage is the issue that I personally find most troubling. It falls into two parts. Firstly, our children are disadvantaged in that, whilst being legally home educated, they are the only students in the country who receive no funding. This must directly affect how diverse our homeschool world is, as discussed above, and puts a strain on homeschooling families that other families are not required to bear.
Secondly, the primary homeschooling ‘teacher’ – usually but not always the mother – is at a significant disadvantage financially the longer she continues to homeschool full-time. We’ve all heard about how difficult it is for mothers who take a year or so off while their baby is young and the troubles they may have re-establishing their careers and compensating for lost earnings and superannuation. For homeschooling parents you can magnify that a considerable amount. Sure, right now you may have a plan. You may have a spouse who can increase his or her earnings to cover yours. And almost all of us are experts in making do. My concern is what happens when the plan derails – when health, a job or a partner himself is lost ? When a separation or divorce occurs ? When you try to return to work and find you’re considered too old ?
We spend a lot of time obsessing about curriculum. Maybe we should be spending some of that time planning for us – how we can re-train, combine work and home education, establish life plans that can deal with the unexpected. Or work together to create home education – friendly ways to support ( mostly ) women who are out of the workforce for an extended time. Lobby for student funding, which would help free up the family budget to make adequate provisions for us, or for cancellation of a home educator's higher education debt, which waits for her when she resumes paid work.
Yes, we homeschool because we value the individual and the family; but we live in the world, not apart from it, and perhaps, amongst ourselves and away from the ears of the ignorant, we can start talking and planning and working to support ourselves as a community and as part of that larger world.
It’s alright, I’m just kidding. Sort of. We all know home education has many benefits – flexible and individualised learning, reduced exposure to peer pressure and bullying, academic success, being able to become socialised in the real world, strong family relationships – and that list isn’t exhaustive.
Any yet, like all communities, we too have our problems and our flaws. Not the same old “the children must be socialised” or the “are you qualified ?” or the “is it legal ?” objections that are raised by people ignorant of home education and the many ways it can work.
The problems with homeschooling are things we don’t even discuss amongst ourselves most of the time, things we sometimes struggle with alone, thinking it must be me, I’m not doing this right. Things we may fail to anticipate or observe.
Like socialising. No, I didn’t mean to type socialisation. There’s a difference and we all know what it is. Although we co-op and run classes and groups and excursions and workshops and meet up at the park, the tough fact is that most of our childrens’ potential friends are sitting in a classroom 9 – 3. And while most of our children can find friends to connect with – if not through homeschool activities, then through church or other community groups – a significant minority do not. It’s a complaint you most often hear on online forums, where a degree of anonymity applies. Not that I’m suggesting school would do a better job for the lonelier or more isolated of our children; but if as a community we acknowledged this difficult and emotional aspect of homeschooling experience, surely we would be a step closer to working out ways to support all home educated students with their social needs.
Diversity is another topic not much discussed amongst us. How well does our homeschool community reflect our wider community ? Do we home school alongside those of other cultural backgrounds ? Do people of other religions or of no religion at all feel comfortable in our company ? Do we reflect a range of socio-economic circumstances ? Or are our communities somewhat closed to “others “ ? These are questions worth thinking about by us – we who see the value in home education and might properly wish to extend that value to others in our wider community.
Economic disadvantage is the issue that I personally find most troubling. It falls into two parts. Firstly, our children are disadvantaged in that, whilst being legally home educated, they are the only students in the country who receive no funding. This must directly affect how diverse our homeschool world is, as discussed above, and puts a strain on homeschooling families that other families are not required to bear.
Secondly, the primary homeschooling ‘teacher’ – usually but not always the mother – is at a significant disadvantage financially the longer she continues to homeschool full-time. We’ve all heard about how difficult it is for mothers who take a year or so off while their baby is young and the troubles they may have re-establishing their careers and compensating for lost earnings and superannuation. For homeschooling parents you can magnify that a considerable amount. Sure, right now you may have a plan. You may have a spouse who can increase his or her earnings to cover yours. And almost all of us are experts in making do. My concern is what happens when the plan derails – when health, a job or a partner himself is lost ? When a separation or divorce occurs ? When you try to return to work and find you’re considered too old ?
We spend a lot of time obsessing about curriculum. Maybe we should be spending some of that time planning for us – how we can re-train, combine work and home education, establish life plans that can deal with the unexpected. Or work together to create home education – friendly ways to support ( mostly ) women who are out of the workforce for an extended time. Lobby for student funding, which would help free up the family budget to make adequate provisions for us, or for cancellation of a home educator's higher education debt, which waits for her when she resumes paid work.
Yes, we homeschool because we value the individual and the family; but we live in the world, not apart from it, and perhaps, amongst ourselves and away from the ears of the ignorant, we can start talking and planning and working to support ourselves as a community and as part of that larger world.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Taking a Break
To follow this piece of advice, excerpted from Wendell Berry's poem How To Be A Poet (to remind myself)
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens (....)
Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens (....)
Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Perdida
Perdida
I accumulate loss like pebbles at the beach,
Inconsequential at first; heavier as time passes.
The absence of light but also of birdsong,
Of rain’s insistent voice.
Only the heart’s pulse, magnified in darkness,
To pull me down to a humid sleep,
To be my mother, to hold me to
The marriage-bed of rock.
And all the while he crouches, insubstantial
Except for breath, which is the metre of his being.
Measured and unhurried. Like water,
He has aeons to wear down all living things;
And my own lifetime to wear down me.
Underground, the minutes thicken. The air is clotted
With time, the hours explode like a galaxy in the brain.
Grain and mother, season and tide, gone. He has a sweating
Bride of earth, amnesiac. There is a tapping,
A falling of seeds, a sweet blackness held to my mouth
And refused. A thirst for melody instead, for threshing songs,
For harvest and all bounty, for night’s cessation.
I accumulate loss like pebbles at the beach,
Inconsequential at first; heavier as time passes.
The absence of light but also of birdsong,
Of rain’s insistent voice.
Only the heart’s pulse, magnified in darkness,
To pull me down to a humid sleep,
To be my mother, to hold me to
The marriage-bed of rock.
And all the while he crouches, insubstantial
Except for breath, which is the metre of his being.
Measured and unhurried. Like water,
He has aeons to wear down all living things;
And my own lifetime to wear down me.
Underground, the minutes thicken. The air is clotted
With time, the hours explode like a galaxy in the brain.
Grain and mother, season and tide, gone. He has a sweating
Bride of earth, amnesiac. There is a tapping,
A falling of seeds, a sweet blackness held to my mouth
And refused. A thirst for melody instead, for threshing songs,
For harvest and all bounty, for night’s cessation.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Poetry Friday
It concerns a young bat - an 'outsider' bat - who likes to think and listen and keep his eyes open past dawn. When he hears the mockingbird sing, he begins to make songs of his own, finally realising that "If you get the words right you don't need a tune."
He composes poems about the world and the creatures around him and, at last, about his own kind. Maurice Sendak illustrates the tale with delicate, involved black and white pictures. Yes, the story introduces rhyme, metre, metaphor and rhyme scheme. If you wanted to turn this book into a lesson, you could.
Its real value lies elsewhere; in Jarrell's evocation of the poetic process and of how observation and memory, emotion and love of language create a poet and a poet's work.
Seele Im Raum - go read it!
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Family Volunteering Ideas
I stumbled across a website lately that had some great ideas for volunteer projects the whole family can take part in.
Check it out here.
I'm hoping to do the Bookshare Box Library with our book club this year.
Check it out here.
I'm hoping to do the Bookshare Box Library with our book club this year.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Read Alouds for 7 Year Olds
Here's the list of books I plan on reading to Snowy this year.
Little Pear by Eleanor Frances Lattimore
The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
Half Magic by Edward Eager
The Borrowers by Mary Norton
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks
Homer Price by Robert McCloskey
The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame
Mr William Shakespeare's Plays by Marcia Williams
21 Balloons by William Pene du Bois
The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M Boston
Some of these books I've read aloud before, when Snowy was little and I'm looking forward to revisiting those, but some of them are new to us both. I'm hoping something fabulous and just-published will come along this year to amuse and entertain as well. This should be a Charlotte's Web year; Snowy refuses to hear of it. His sisters have warned him in advance: Wilbur dies.
If you have a great book lined up to read aloud this year to your under 10's, please share!
Our Words For 2011
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| Snowy's year will be happy! |
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| Arwen's will be colourful! |
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| Lucy plans to do her best! |
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And my year will be full of opportunity! |
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