Happy New Year! I hope you’ve had a good time and are raring to go. Sometimes, when January arrived I could be less than raring to go – more hungover from the indulgences and laziness of the season. So if you’re feeling a little like that here’s a little story.
When my daughter used to teach Drama classes she told me of a warm up activity she did with the students to get them thinking and responding and working beyond the ideas they first thought of. It was called New Choice.
The idea was that she would start them off with a scenario to improvise; like choosing a pet from a pet shop for example and choosing the way they acted it out, what stood in their way, who took what role, etc. After a while, when they were settling into their roles, she would call out ‘new choice’ and they would have to abandon their original plan and think up something completely new. Like, for example, what to do if the pet shop was shut, of if they’d taken the role of the shop keeper, they’d have to switch and play another role, or twist the plot to a different scenario, create a different atmosphere perhaps. It certainly developed a plasticity of thinking – something we could all do with!
Being me, as soon as she told me about it I couldn’t help but relate it to life – and education. For isn’t that just what happens; you just get settled into a routine and the universe ups and shouts ‘New Choice’ at you and you have to think again. Parenting is certainly like that.
I also thought, what a wonderful set of skills for youngsters to build, especially within the current climate of learning, work, economy, politics, society, etc. For this activity, whether in drama classes or in life, pushes you to develop the essential skills of adaptability, flexibility, problem solving, resilience through change and crisis, and the ability to invent strategies that enable you to keep going however up-skittled you are by what’s thrown at you. It forces you to look for the positive possibilities, how to let go of the old and forge new pathways. Just think – if our kids could do that, they’d be set up for life.
Many home educators have, of course, already experienced this. They have had to abandon the school approach to learning because of failing, unhappy or unwell children, have had this ‘new choice’ forced upon them. Most are making good. And in the end it’ll probably reap personal dividends you may not have originally thought about as relevant to education.
Education is obviously all about learning and development. But how to learn and develop is as important as what to learn. Personal skills as vital as academic skills; if you’re going to put your academic skills to good use in an unstable world. Many people fail to recognise this part of educating in their blinkered quest for ‘results’.
The thing is; results are never wholly predictable and life is as unpredictable as the weather. As is progress, employment, budget, climate, all of it, it shifts all the time. What our kids will need in order to manage this instability are the skills required for adjustment, versatility, the ability to create new pathways, to visualise new choices they may not have spotted before, and the courage to take risks associated with thinking beyond what they first thought of.
January is as good a time as any to perhaps reflect on your home educating approaches, whether you’re stuck in a box, whether your children and young people are building those personal skills as a result of your approaches and whether it’s time to shout ‘New Choice’ and be bold enough to go for it.
Happy new choice!
Happy new home educating year!
Ross Mountney's Notebook 
What a way in bringing in the new year Seph. Happy New Year!