# Home Education



## Mable (Apr 9, 2005)

Hi,
Anyone doing/planning to do home ed and got experiences to share? Am investigating alternatives to our local primary school, which just seems so oppressively mainstream and school uniformy. Plus the local parents don't seem bright enough to cherish our LGBT offspring.

Am convinced of the benefits of learning in the family by discovery but am wondering about the obvious socialization issues. I am sure there are loads of ways to socialize with other kids, how are you planning to do it?
Mable


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## ♥JJ1♥ (Feb 11, 2006)

Mable - I was saddened when I read that you wrote that the local parents don't cherish Monty- he is so adorable and cute it is such a shame there is such prejudice and it isn't the children it is the parents.  

A friend of mine is exploring sending her child to a Steiner Project school as they have a philosophy of play and exploration until the age of 7 ish, as she doesn't want the traditional constraints of a school- might be worth looking into if home education is a not feasible

L x


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## blueytoo (Oct 5, 2003)

I home ed my DS who is 9 and is very well socialised thanks to home ed group holidays, local home ed groups, visiting friends etc etc He actually went to school for reception then changed schools for year 1 and he also did one term of year 2 but alas school is just not for him at all. If I ever have another child they will never set foot in a school.

The way I and many other HE'ers see socialisation is this - school is a very un-natural environment if you think about it. Do any of us here that work (or not for that matter) spend every weekday in a room with 20-30 other people all the exact same age as us or do we work/meet people of a variety of ages? 

Children learn so much more from being out and about with a parent meeting and chatting to people aged from 0-100!

Feel free to pm/e-mail me with any questions.

Claire


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## Damelottie (Jul 26, 2005)

*Hello

I looked into Home ed quite a bit when I was planning to adopt. ClaireWhat you wrote re: socialisation were exactly my views on it and I also found that the home ed community worked well together - in terms of outings, sharing some of the teaching e.g. if one particular parent had an interest in one particular subject they might 'teach' a few of them that one.

From a personal point of view I was horribly bullied at school and it had a severe detrimental effect on my development - I continually have to work at the long term effects of it so I admit I am quite anti traditional schooling, and my views a biased.

A friend of mine home schooled her daughter. They would spend 6 months here and 6 months in America with her partners family. It worked well for them. At the age of 14 the daughter wanted to do her Drama 'A' level so they enrolled her at the local further ed college and she did it. She was younger than the others as they were all school leaving age but she fitted in and did well.

Good luck with your decision

Emma x*


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## snagglepat (Sep 13, 2004)

Hi Mable,

Rae and I are actively planning to home educate, for several reasons. We're lucky in that in the area we're planning to move to next year there is already a strong HE network, and this helps to combat any socialisation concerns, but I echo what Claire has said about school being an environment alien to any other that a person will come across later.

Rae and I both struggled at school, for very different reasons. She was dyslexic, though this was never picked up, so she grew up thinking she was stupid and being in the remedial classes along with the kids who really didn't want to learn. I was very academically minded and excelled in everything without having to try which got very boring. We were both shy, isolated and bullied as a result. The mainstream school environment just wasn't set up to deal with kids who don't fit the mainstream model. I don't believe it's any better now, and even if we had a kid who was academically 'average' (whatever that means) I still wouldn't want him/her to have to spend such large amounts of time in an institution that was so academically focussed and provided so little one-to-one/one-to-small-group/personalised teaching time.

I do think there are better models out there. Steiner is one - my nephew has thrived in his Steiner school in Australia - he didn't learn to write until he was 10 as he wasn't interested, though at 14 he's now halfway through writing his first novel - it's got me hooked. He could juggle and was inventing amazing board games at age 6 though. Montessori is another I know too little about, but that has caught my interest the few times I've stumbled across a mention of it. There are no schools of these types in the area we plan to live in though, so the question of whether we should home-school or alternatively-school isn't an issue here. That isn't to say it wouldn't be if the choice was there.

The most successful argument I've come across for home educating is one of quality teacher-student time. An average school day lasts around 6 hours. Just under two of those are lunch/break times. Another hour or more can go by factoring in assembly, calling the register, taking on/off of coats etc. This means that only three hours or so is actually lesson time. In this time, one teacher's attention is split between an average of 30 pupils. This equates to six minutes each of personal teacher-student attention per day. Even if you assume that the maybe third of the time that a teacher spends addressing the whole class is appropriate and engaging for every child (which it could never be), you're still looking at just over an hour a day of quality taught time.

If we educate our child at home, s/he is getting our/another adults quality attention for many hours each day. Some of this is focused on 'school' work and some not, but I have no doubt that our child will get more out of that time in terms of their own academic development than in a school environment as whatever we do will be specifically tailored to his/her own level, needs and interest. Plus we can guarantee that they'll be valued as individuals for their own unique set of talents and skills rather than finding only those that fit the mainstream mould are nurtured, whilst the ones that don't are discouraged or ignored.

The LGBT family acceptance issue is relatively minor in our list of priorities in why we're making this choice, but it is there.

I may sound as though I'm being overly critical of the mainstream schooling model, and maybe I am, but from my own experiences I know it doesn't work for everyone, as does Rae, and the HE option looks like being a really good fit for us. By the time this child is two we'll be living in an extended family unit of at least four adults, in an area where home-educating is relatively common due its rural nature. These things do help, I have to admit, but even if they weren't the case it'd still be one of our most likely choices.

I've just started reading the book 'Free Range Education - How home education works' edited by Terri Dowty. One of the authors, Caroline Spear happens to be a fellow doula and friend of ours - she's currently trying to convince her partner to become a sperm donor as it happens. You might find this is a useful resource to start off with - it has a chapter specifically on socialisation and it's a topic that is referred to a lot in other parts of the book. Some web resources that it refers to at the back are:

It's own site, that grew from the book: http://www.melvyn.greenyer.eggconnect.net/

The Home Education Web Site: http://www.home-education.org.uk
Linked to this is the UK Home Education Support Email List: http://www.home-education.org.uk/list.htm

And another site that I've stumbled across and like is: Education Otherwise: http://www.education-otherwise.org

I also subscribe to 'The Mother' magazine which covers all kinds of alternative, holistic parenting type things but home-educating/un-schooling is most definitely one of them. I'm going to be the cover girl for issue 27 due out early next year too (or rather my bump and boobs will be).  http://www.themothermagazine.co.uk

And we would be VERY happy to talk to you more about this. I know others who have done this with older children and know I will grow to meet many more but we're currently a bit thin on the ground when it comes to family friendships with others doing the same thing with children of a similar-ish age. (The LGBT connection is a bonus.)

Best wishes,

Gina. x


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## Mable (Apr 9, 2005)

Hi Gina,
Thanks for the book recommendations and links. 

Have contacted my local home ed groups and plan to go and spend some time with them. It's a bit early, but somebody suggested starting going to home ed groups early. There is also a big network in south london advertising loads of free activities and opportunities to join others for tuition (languages, ballet, karate, - right up my street!). Very exciting.

Like you've broken down there, it's the lack of quality basic teaching in primary schools in particular that bothers me. And the herding, group mentality that children have to learn to fit into. I worry that this damages their creativity, their enjoyment and ability to learn. DP Edith is a primary school teacher and so, whilst she is attached to the state education model, can actually see how much time 1 person spends managing 30 children into a calm whole, rather than responding personally to children, tailoring the teaching to their needs, having 1:1 discussions. I wonder how much beneficial socialisation they get from being part of a managed group of 30, and whether this cannot be achieved in other ways.

And I want to continue to guide his learning at home beyond the age of 4. It seems strange to me to teach him to speak, read, play, sing, dance, wee, dress, etc from birth to 4 and then hand this over to 1 teacher on a full-time basis suddenly. I went to state schools and wasn't unhappy or particuarly happy. I didn't experience bullying, although this is a serious issue to consider. I also had the positive experience of my mother teaching me things at home because school was inadequate - German from scratch, music theory - which she knew nothing about prior to our learning together, and I remember how easy it was to learn with her, how clever and able I felt, how confident I feel now to solve problems myself, out of the system as it were.

My worries about it are the commitment, the energy that it will take, will I be up to it? I have heard HE parents saying that they are up late at night making resources for the next day, planning learning activities. If I take this on, it's like having another job, on top of my part-time ones.

Good also to hear your experiences Emma and Claire - thanks for them.
Mable


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