So what’s the outcome of Home Education?

Having moved into a new area I’m meeting new people and building new friendships which I’ve enjoyed. It’s also weird as your usual friends know your back story and you know theirs and there’s not much new to learn about each other. So it’s interesting to hear new personal histories, what others are up to and their lives like.

Inevitably the subject of home education comes up. And how much I expand on the subject depends on their initial reaction to it. But people are more aware of it since Lockdown and most have their own Lockdown stories to tell. Mostly the nightmare of doing ‘school-at-home which we know is completely different (blog here and here and here)

Some changed as a result and became home educators longer term having learnt more about it during school closures, and the differing styles and opportunities learning at home can offer. It became more evident to many that home educating isn’t school-at-home, it’s a completely different approach to learning and growing, often changing a lifestyle along with doing it.

At the time of the Lockdowns I really felt for parents having to do what was dictated to them by schools, forcing the kids to do tedious academic exercises that probably seemed totally pointless to the kids and they didn’t even have their friends around them to relieve the boredom. Most kids don’t see the point or purpose of doing much of what they do in school (me neither), for the sake of a future they can have no concept of.

And that’s perhaps the main advantage of home educating; that their learning is meaningful to them, often initiated by them and their interests arising from real everyday experiences and something they engage with and involve themselves in because it probably came about from something they have a personal interest in, not unrelated subject matter thrust upon them for the sake of exams they don’t understand. For example, their learning might start from something as simple as having built a Lego castle and led onto a history lesson about castles and conflicts, from there to simple politics, or broadened out into discussions about historical lifestyles, social history, involving research and skills essential to the progress of any child’s education.

People whose thinking is immersed in the school-at-home method of learning, where the child’s learning is always dictated by an adult will find that example of learning unimaginable or even downright scary. But it works.

There is a plethora of styles and approaches used by parents throughout the home educating community, which range from the completely autonomous, through a mixture of both autonomy and structure, across all subjects, to the more regimented and planned and timetabled approach that we’re more familiar with, always in line with children’s specific needs.

And it is very satisfying to relate to the new people I meet who are interested, now that we’ve moved beyond our home educating days ourselves and with what I’ve witnessed within the home educating community, that the outcome of all these varying and inspiring journeys is the same as those in school; intelligent, well educated, qualified, social and happy people who have moved successfully towards life beyond their school years.

So whether people did school, or home educated, they’ve still all arrived at the same place.

Fascinating, isn’t it!

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Are you a fair weather home educator?

Are you an indoorsy or outdoorsy type of person? I ask because this may impact on your child’s education and actually your whole family’s well being.

I’ve walked pretty much every day this year – whatever the weather and despite this rubbish Spring we’re having. I’m an outdoor obsessive, you see, need the light and definitely a sun junkie, but I’ll go out whatever it’s like. Because if I don’t’ I know there are serious repercussions.

There are serious repercussions for the kids too as studies are beginning to show. But even before I understood all that, I’d get out with the kids because it magically changed our days.

There’s a story in my book ‘A Home Education Notebook’ called The Outdoor Miracle which tells of the day we were all cloistered in the house annoying each other. So ignoring the intense resistance I managed to get the children out for a walk despite the unappealing weather. And the miracle happened; everything changed. Sulks turned to smiles. Aggressive moods turned to co-operation. Grisling turned to singing. And when we got back in the house we brought in with us a renewed and as invigorating an approach as the fresh air in our lungs.

And I’m so glad I did it – and made it a habit. Because research is now coming to light to show the monumental impact being outside, connected to nature, can have. Being connected to nature not only improves physical development, it improves mental, spiritual and emotional development too, the lack of which is bound to impact on learning progress.

I’ve just read a fascinating book called ‘Biophilia’. Biophilia is a term that’s been adopted to describe the innate human need to be connected to nature in one form or another. And that we need this connection not only to survive, but also in order to thrive. The book illustrates how we can make these connections through the way we live, work, arrange our homes, recreation, design communities and attend to our health.

It’s now understood that there is a direct link between nature and well being. Making periods of time to be out in the light directly connected to nature, whether that’s a walk in the park, being around animals, playing in a forest, field, beach or hill, having a pet, gardening. planting, making mud pies, whatever – has an impact. These activities can improve concentration and memory, reduce anxiety and depression, moderate behaviour and emotions and dramatically improve stress levels (all the more reason for you to get out there too).

A page from the book ‘Biophilia: You Nature Home’ by Sally Coulthard.

Conversely, the absence of attending to this need is creating conditions in children, like ADHD for example or behaviours associated with autism, which inhibit their well being, inhibit confidence, develops fear about being outdoors and in nature, and consequently inhibits their potential to learn and progress, both academically and personally.

So despite your resistance – and theirs, especially in challenging weather – it is still vitally important that you find ways to get outside and connect with nature as much as you can – fair weather or foul. Keep doing it until it feels more natural to be out than in. This way you will be bestowing untold benefits on your family and your children’s health and education.

I know it’s not always that appealing and Spring is so fickle, throwing conditions at us better suited to January, but you really cannot afford to be a fair weather educator!

In celebration of Mothers

It’s that Mother’s Day time of year again and I’ll probably be pampered by one or other of my wonderful children, even though they’re living independently now after all those years home educating.

However, as well they know, the commercial, profiteering and pollutive bandwagon that Mother’s Day has become quite revolts me (imported cellophane-wrapped, hothouse flowers and plastic flower pots being up there with other environmentally damaging stuff, for one)

Add to this the fact that all this buying of single-use tat for mums, can also mask the whole point of Mother’s Day; to celebrate the enormous importance of mothers.

Okay, we know mothers are important, but it often lies buried under the buying, and is seldom ever spelt out in words. When there are written words to describe that importance, you can repeat it, and learn and teach others why mums everywhere need our respect. (Dads too). Which is why I wanted to reiterate here something I’ve said before: the most valuable thing that you will ever do is parent your children.

So how come?

Because it’s not just your children who are affected by your parenting, or your own family life. It’s about something much bigger than that. And in order to understand that you have to step back and look at the bigger picture.

Think about ripples. When you chuck a stone in water the stone doesn’t only affect the place where it hits the surface, its impact sends ripples out through the whole pool. Right to the edges even, right to places it was nowhere near and never touched.

Your parenting is like that. Because your children are affected by your parenting more than they are affected by anything else in their lives. And that parenting, and the way your children are, will be sending ripples out through society just like the pool.

Your children affect the children they meet, the communities they join, the work they do as they grow, the families of their own that they may one day create. And it will not only be their own little communities they affect, for as those communities interact they affect others beyond their own ripples in their own pool and affect societies to come. And your children do not only affect this planet as it is now, their actions affect the future of the planet too.

These small babies of yours, toddlers, children, and so on, and the way in which you are bringing them up actually affects everybody. That’s how the bigger picture looks. And that’s why the most valuable thing that you ever do is to parent your children. Even more astounding is the fact that your baby may become the next Einstein, Prime Minister, David Attenborough, or the person who discovers the cure for cancer, or develops solutions to our changing world and the challenges it faces. Equally important are the less heralded jobs that all need doing like caring or teaching or nursing or entertaining or emptying our bins. The way you raise your baby affects all this.

And that’s why mums are, why parenting is (dads too), so, SO important.

It’s also why it is so important that we value it and celebrate it. That we value it enough to give it our time, thought and attention, we value it enough to prioritise our parenting duties, value it enough to make sure we do it well.

Of course, the next big question is; how do we do it well?

To do anything well, whatever it is, requires; focus, energy, being engaged, commitment, putting ourselves out, thought.

It also involves; research, consideration, decision making, sometimes sacrifice of other things we were formerly engaged in.

And changes to; ourselves, the way we behave, the way we think, our way of living.

The biggest requirement is respect:

Respecting our parenting enough to devote energy and commitment to it, be responsible about it.

Respecting ourselves enough to do this job to the best of our abilities, smarten up our act a bit, think through our morals, practices, behaviours, habits and language.

Respecting our children enough to value time spent with them, listening to them, being involved with their doings, guiding, educating them (and that happens as much through our interaction with them as anything else), cherishing them and nurturing them. Caring.

Now this may all sound too much of a demand on our time and energy and too much for us to aspire to or achieve. But it isn’t. For it is so, so simple.

It is simply achievable by just being a good, caring person. A good caring person who is there.

Being a good caring person you will pass that goodness and care onto your child. They will then understand what goodness and care is all about. And they will in turn send ripples of goodness and care out into the world, helping make it a good place to be. And that’s simply because of your parenting.

That’s the effect your parenting has. It has an effect far beyond you and your children. It has an effect throughout the world. That’s why it’s so important.

It is the most valuable thing that you could ever do. Mum or dad, that’s the value of you. Worth celebrating I’d say!

Try and celebrate your day without harm to the planet and you’ll be teaching your little ones to do the same.

Courage, vulnerability and the challenge of home educating

Home educating is wonderful; inspirational, exciting, fun. Like being let out of a prison you never knew you were in, freed up to make your world your educational oyster with pearls of learning to discover. It’s unimaginably liberating.

But it is not easy. Apart from all the usual considerations like, how will they learn? How will I manage being together all the time? How will they socialise? Will they be failures? Etc. there’s also the need to summon up the courage to do something different from the crowd.

Maybe that’s one of the biggest challenges: Finding courage; finding the courage to be vulnerable. Whenever we start something new or different to the norm we feel vulnerable – and home educating is certainly new to most. Vulnerability is not a nice feeling.

But don’t let that stop you. Feeling vulnerable about home educating is not necessarily a bad thing. This is because it puts you in the same shoes as your learner consequently helps you remember what it’s like. Any sort of learner is vulnerable, but most of us forget that, being so far removed from our school days (if we went of course).

In order to learn you have to accept there’s stuff you don’t know and that’s disempowering. Kids are always put in that position, we expect them to accept it, yet equally forget how uncomfortable that can make us feel, especially in the hands of an insensitive teacher. Not knowing stuff can make you feel awkward, inferior, even stupid as some are made to feel in school. None of this is helpful.

With home educating you have the opportunity to make it different for your kids. You can be vulnerable together! You can be intuitive and sensitive and encouraging – that’s the climate in which everyone, kids and adults, learn best.

As you learn and find your way into home educating you may feel scared and anxious and doubtful and hesitant. You may fear what everyone is going to say, fearful of ‘doing the right thing’. Everyone always does. But those who didn’t let that horrible feeling of vulnerability stop them have gone on to raise intelligent, educated, social and hard working young people who contribute to society as much as any child educated in school.

So blessings for the courage to be vulnerable. When you take the step and make the switch you are truly courageous.

Be proud, and if you don’t feel confident, hold judgement and bluff! That way you’ll help yourself (it really works) and you’ll help others to find the courage too.

Good luck!

(There are many pieces in my books, especially the latest; A Home Education Notebook, that will help you with the above concerns so it might be reassuring to have one to hand to help you over those tricky moments. Also see the book below; although not about home education it’s still an interesting read).

There’s a fabulous book by Brene Brown that’s worth a read which talks about the courage to be vulnerable… https://brenebrown.com/book/daring-greatly/

Will we ruin the children’s lives?

I missed it! The advent of the one thousandth blog posted here.

I was busy moving house, settling into new routines of living and trying to find that network of support you’ve built up over the years of living in the same place, which you tend to take for granted until it disappears that is. Support like folks to fix your laptop, mend the car, sort out a leak in the roof and most important, install some decent heating.

So I completely missed the fact that since I started here, over twenty years ago, I have written over one thousand blogs about the life and times of a home educating family, now all grown up of course, and about education in general.

One from the archives – before the Internet dominated our learning.

Home education has dramatically changed since then, the biggest of those changes being the growth of the facility of the internet which has increased its accessibility; to others, to information, to a whole home educating community you were never aware of, consequently making home education so much less daunting, more doable and more connected.

When we first started out none of that was available.

And that connectivity has more importantly changed something else as well. It has changed the way many parents see education and schooling.

Most parents accepted that schools, the education system and the politics behind it, was bound to be the best education their child was likely to receive, the best and only way for their children to become educated adults.

No one is quite so accepting now. Flaws in the system, what it provides in the form of ‘processing’ the young in contrast to educating them, and the impact this has not only on their achievement but on mental health too, are much more visible as people talk and share and discuss it, through a whole range of public platforms that were not available before. It’s removed some of the elitism attached to those in the know about education (supposedly) who dictated what happened to our kids, which we never had the opportunity to challenge or question in the way we do now.

Now we do. Parents are raising questions, discussing problems, are much more able to shout their opinions widely and publicly express their distaste in an outdated system no longer suited to contemporary society. Consequently, finding courage through this connectivity, the number of home educating families seeking alternatives increases daily.

Anyway, back to this post-one-thousandth blog and the reason I mention it. It was to share with you what those little children of six and nine when we started, who are around their thirties now (can hardly believe it) are up to in case you worried that home educating would ruin them, as I know this can be a very large and imposing worry for many considering home educating: Will we ruin the children’s lives? (Odd how no one questions whether school will ever ruin their children’s lives – even with tangible truth of it now)

I’m happy to say that neither of them have been ruined, not from my point of view or theirs! And we all still have that lovely relationship developed through home educating. Furthermore, they are both educated, intelligent, working, independent young people, busy about their lives, like pretty well all of the others they grew up home educating with.

Our eldest has just completed a Masters Degree (Distinction), whilst working and running her own business (all through Lockdowns), after having a complete career change because of Covid. Our youngest also changing track, now working in a garden centre after deciding that being Manager of a shop in a renowned retail chain was not for her. She could not reconcile her distaste for selling polluting mountains of tat wrapped in plastic, and is looking towards a greener career.

Both have developed the skills of flexibility and adaptability needed in today’s working world and continue to grow and extend themselves. And their PR skills are exemplary – they are not social misfits as some fear that home educators will become. There have of course been many ups and downs on their journeys – as in all life journeys wherever you are educated. But I think home educating; by achieving what they needed through diverse approaches helped develop an attitude to life that showed them that; whatever isn’t working in life you can probably change even though that might not be easy, but you can find the courage to do it anyway.

And that’s what I would say to any new home educating parent reading this, or anyone considering doing it; that home educating is not always easy (school’s not always easy either) but if you can screw up the courage to do it anyway the rewards are immense. And no, you won’t ruin the children.

A Home Education Notebook is now back on Kindle

It’s taken a while but finally I’ve sorted it; ‘A Home Education Notebook’ is available again on Kindle after a short absence.

The reason for the delay was because my focus got stolen by moving house, which is all consuming as anyone who’s ever done it knows.

Moving house means establishing new routines (like where the nearest food is), getting to know new people (builders, plumbers, tech gurus and fixers) and of course new friends and communities.

Meeting new people, who always ask about your life so far, means more explanations of home educating and I receive a variety of responses, mostly in the form of a barrage of questions; do you do lessons, do they have teachers at home, do you have a timetable, what about friends, tests, curriculum, GCSEs etc?

Whilst the Lockdowns made the concept of ‘Home Schooling’ more familiar, the more seasoned home educators among us knew it was nothing like home educating, it was just doing school stuff within the four walls of home. Completely different. (Expanded in a post here)

However I still find it difficult to explain those differences even now, how education is not necessarily about lessons, or tests, or teaching, or exams. To explain how children learn without lessons, or teachers, or tests and timetables, they can actually learn for themselves (Shock! Horror!) That learning can actually happen in an organic, holistic, autonomous, interest-led way from the things children are naturally curious about, by being out, observing, engaging in, analysing and involving themselves in finding out about the world and building the skills needed to do so, even without age-related structures usually imposed upon education. Along with all that how home educated children also have friends, develop social skills, and mix happily in company (see this post about socialisation).

The stories in ‘A Home Education Notebook’ written as it happened, demonstrate that the best. Along with ‘A Funny Kind of Education’. The articles themselves are an illustration of how the everyday experiences we had encouraged and developed children’s knowledge, skills and understanding of learning quite naturally. And how – even more surprising to some – this happens because children want to learn.

Children don’t necessarily want to be schooled. But they mostly want to learn, if they’re allowed to in their own way, in their own time, through subjects that matter to them in their worlds. The success of this has been shown time and time again by all the home educated youngsters who’ve grown up and out into the world, making their own decisions, incorporating any structure and traditional approaches and outcomes as and when (and if) needed to get them there. And so proving that home education really does work and adequately prepares young people for the ‘real’ world. The real world being the one outside that bizarre world of school!

This new edition of ‘A Home Education Notebook’ concludes with a chapter about all those home educated young people we grew up with and what they’re doing now post-twenty, who are proof indeed!

So if you’ve been waiting for the Kindle version of this new edition, it’s back again. It’s the book readers have told me that reassures and inspires them the most. Hope you enjoy it.

Kindle edition available now

Only the curious can learn

Christmas and birthdays were tricky in our house. The children were always there so keeping secrets was a challenge. Especially since they were so incredibly curious and had eyes that didn’t miss a thing.

“What’s in that bag?”

I’d scurry upstairs furtively with some secret shopping and call out, “nothing.”

“What’s the postman brought?”

I’d stuff the parcel under my desk quickly and respond. “Nothing. Only some bills.”

“What’s in that box?”

Sometimes there was no getting away with it and I’d just have to say; “Your present, but you mustn’t look.”

I knew this would have the same effect as requesting a thousand word essay on the law of gravity and get the same result; the opposite.

So I’d search for a hiding place that would be big enough to conceal it and that they wouldn’t think of looking. I’d settle on their dad’s drawers, they wouldn’t dare look in there for fear of coming across his boxers.

That’s just the trouble with bright children, isn’t it? They’re more curious than the proverbial cat. But it’s our fault really; we’ve encouraged it because that’s exactly what we want; curious and questioning children.

Have you ever thought what curiosity is? It’s basically children wanting to know things. And wanting to know things also interprets as wanting to learn things. Children want to learn about the world around them – your secrets included. But curiosity, when it’s not focussed on your secrets, is as valuable an asset to motivation, to education, as you can get and wants encouraging.

Curious and questioning children cannot help becoming educated. It doesn’t even have to be curiosity about the subject in hand. Or about any specific subject come to that. Because having a generally curious attitude to life is the same as having a general eagerness to learn. Curiosity has the effect of inspiring children to learn for learning’s sake, without even realising it. And it makes the children not only interested in learning but also come to understand, again without realising, that learning itself is interesting. And this attitude is a precursor to becoming educated.

Children are born naturally curious. They’re born reaching, grasping, tasting. Put any infant in any room and they’re into cupboards, opening drawers, fiddling with switches and particularly fascinated with the contents of the dustbin. They are desperate to do these things because they are curious and want to find out.

In other words; they want to learn about their world.

They plague their parents with questions, get themselves bruised, grazed, and into trouble for their curiosity. In fact they are pure, unashamed, curiosity-led learning machines. Even as they get older. Unless of course they get their curiosity killed.

Unfortunately that happens a lot.

It’s easy to do. Most adults are driven to distraction by their child’s curiosity and most particularly by their questions. And the children more often than not get told off for it.

‘Don’t touch’. ‘Put that down’. ‘Leave that alone’. ‘Mind your own business’. We’ve all used those statements at some point I would guess.

But most particularly, I feel, children tend to get their curiosity killed when they go to school. Unfortunately the approach in most schools, the way in which they implement the National Curriculum, and the inevitable peer pressure, leaves no room for curiosity. In school it is not cool to ask questions, or to want to know more, or to be interested, or keen. And teachers don’t have time to answer thirty questions a lesson – and that’s only one per child – of course they don’t.

No one does curiosity. There’s no time. It’s more likely to get you ridiculed or snubbed. And there’s nothing worse than humiliation for killing curiosity dead.

This is one of the sad things about the way the schools educate children. The teachers don’t have any time to make use of one of the best opportunities available for learning; answering and encouraging the questions. Through your child’s curiosity and their questions you have the perfect opportunity to extend their knowledge and understanding, encourage conversation and thus language development, provoke thinking skills and mental development.

I looked at our insatiably curious toddlers hell-bent on learning about everything, then I looked at some of the uncurious switched off adolescents that I saw and I’d think; what happened to your curiosity and interest in the world?

It probably got snubbed somewhere down the line. It probably got well and truly switched off. How sad is that?

For just think; wouldn’t it have been a loss if Isaac Newton had his curiosity snubbed before he wondered about the apple falling down? Wouldn’t it have been a loss if Darwin had stopped being curious about the origin of species?

I’m not advocating that we run ourselves ragged dropping everything to answer all our children’s questions there and then, pandering to their every curious whim. That wouldn’t necessarily be a good thing. Children have to fit into society and live with others and understand that adults are not simply question-answering machines. And they have to understand when to be safe instead of curious, and when it’s not appropriate to ask questions – especially loudly, as one of my children did one day as we sat on a park bench next to a complete stranger.

“Is that man wearing underpants, mummy?” I’ve never seen anyone cross his legs so quickly. He walked off adjusting his fly.

All I’m saying is that if we could be a little careful with our child’s curiosity we will perpetuate their desire to learn rather than destroy it. Even though there’s a time for answering questions and a time not to do so, curiosity is still desirable. Curiosity needs nurturing. If we can be frugal with, ‘don’t’, and ‘leave that alone’ and ‘for goodness sake stop asking me stuff all the time’ (yep – that was me one day), we can avoid the danger that they stop being curious about their world.

It helps to remember that those endless questions and irritating behaviours like eating earwigs (one of mine) and posting things in the CD player (the other one) are really them just learning about their world.

Curiosity means they’re motivated to learn and is one of the most invaluable assets our children can have for their education. A curious attitude has a knock-on effect upon all their learning. It develops an educated mind. And is something to be encouraged as much as possible. A curious mind cannot help but learn.

This story first appeared in my Home Education Notebook, where you’ll find plenty more to help you along your home education journey.

Share your story?

I’m a bit rubbish at communicating on Facebook these days. It seems to be less frequented or valuable than it was, full of adverts, and now there are many other forums we can use to connect.

Fb wasn’t a thing when we started home educating – I bet you can hardly imagine that. But it soon became an invaluable tool for parents to connect through, share ideas and resources, arrange meet-ups and reassure one another, making home education feel more doable than some people first thought.

It was the chance to so easily connect with that support which made home educating a less scary and isolating prospect than it potentially could be. Stepping away from the mainstream path millions of others were heading along can be daunting. Thanks to social media no one needs feel cut off, unsupported, or without anyone to turn to now.

And actually it’s been very supportive for me too, to receive your lovely messages and comments and see how my work and words get around and find their way to those who need it. And I feel so blessed when folks have taken the trouble to connect with me and let me know how my books have helped. If you’re one of those and I didn’t reply personally please know that your comments and messages have meant so much.

Meanwhile I recently had such a nice comment from a Fb friend, along with a potted version of her story, I asked her permission to post it here because I know many of you won’t see it on there and it’s most uplifting to read.

Here’s what she said;

“It was your books that finally gave me the confidence to believe what I really already knew in my heart- that our youngest would be better off out of school. His older brothers were in a specialist residential school for very able boys with Asperger syndrome but he didn’t quite qualify for diagnosis, so mainstream-or not- was the only option.

After we took our son out of school in yr 5, I remember walking past the back to school signs and rows of uniform hanging up in the shops and just grinning because I knew I’d never need to buy any of it, ever again! The relief of knowing he wouldn’t be going back into that hellish place where he learned nothing except to feel that he was stupid and weird and generally rubbish, was immense and I just wanted to celebrate. It was definitely the best decision we made for him. He went to college for A levels because he chose to, a year ‘late’ and is now taking a gap year to work and save money before doing his degree. I’m certain that school would not have put him on this path. He’d have left as soon as possible, hating the idea of learning anything because he was ‘too stupid’. His confidence still isn’t great but at least he has ‘proof’ from his results that he is capable of learning anything if he chooses to and sufficient life experience to see the benefit of hard work to get where he wants to be. He also has friends!”

I think it’s these shared stories that make for the best support for parents starting out because they’re straight from the horse’s mouth. We can have faith in them as they are the reality of home education and consequently they are the ones that give people the confidence to go for it themselves. I know when we started out, hearing the stories from those further along were the most valuable, inspiring and reassuring. Although without the internet then we rarely heard them. Very different now!

So if you have a story to tell, or would like to share yours, maybe you’d like to get in touch and I can post it here and we can go on supporting each other in this wonderful alternative to school.

Thirteen years of writing this home education blog later…

And thank you once again to all of you who’ve been in touch over the many years I’ve been writing this blog. It is truly appreciated and I’m always so delighted to hear how my books have helped. Bless you!

Processed education can be as unhealthy as processed food

An exclusive exert from ‘A Home Education Notebook’:

Some days I got so tired I wondered how I was ever going to get the dinner. And it was those days that packaged and processed food I normally abhor looked really appealing.

One particular day springs to mind where my youngest made mint creams which took a bit of supervision, mostly in the form of keeping her fingers out of it especially when they’d been other places. And the eldest made fudge and just needed an occasional question answering but then went onto maths which she was struggling with and needed explanations. This was much more demanding than anticipated as I couldn’t remember how to do half of it and had to look it up. Then the youngest was on a website trying to research something it wouldn’t and getting more and more frustrated. And I just seemed to seesaw between the two of them like this all morning. By afternoon I decided we needed to get out for a swim before I was torn in two, but that finished me off. So I admit to resorting to the easy option of opening a packet for dinner.

At least I thought it was the easy option.

Sometimes I think the packaging designers must sit in their studios laughing as they think up the most complicated arrangements of plastic and cardboard just to annoy tired parents at the end of a demanding day.

We rarely ate packaged or processed food. I like my meals to have ingredients as near to their natural state as possible – that’s where taste and nutrition comes from.

But when I’m beyond scrubbing potatoes or cooking anything inventive we resort to it at times, even though I never relish it. For processed and packaged food tastes like … well, it doesn’t taste of much at all. It is limp, lifeless, tasteless – apart from salt, suspiciously full of unknowns and mostly totally uninspiring.

And it was that day I thought; this is just like education really. Education has become so processed and tightly packaged it is almost unrecognisable as education.

Just like how hard it is to recognise nutritious ingredients in processed food, education has become so over processed it too is losing some of the value of the original ingredients. It has become as unpalatable as eating forced and cling-filmed strawberries in the middle of winter. There is no taste. There is nothing to arouse the senses and the effect doesn’t last.

Isn’t that like systemised schooling?

I used to think my mother was a bit of a nutcase insisting on buying dirty carrots. Now I know why she did it. Carrots with the soil still on them keep without rotting for ages. Those washed and plastic-packaged ones from the supermarket just turn gooey and stink like mad.

Packaged and processed education doesn’t last forever either. And I reckon it turns the children gooey.

I read of an experiment someone once did on a class of school children. They were told they were going to be tested on a certain subject at the end of the week and given information to learn for it. The children sat the test and the expected number did well. A few days later the same children did the same test without warning and hardly any of them scored well. The learning they had processed for the test didn’t last – just like the carrots.

Education like food needs to be as near as possible to its natural experience in order for it to be lasting, inspiring, arouse the senses and be worth having. Experiences are the basis for all learning, for meaningful learning. Learning packaged into tightly restrictive curriculum or second hand learning in workbooks, removed from the original experience, loses its appeal just as much as food. Learning and education need unwrapping.

It is natural for children to learn. During their everyday lives at home pre-school children learn loads of things. They acquire skills. They pick up knowledge. They do this naturally, experientially. Just as we all do all of the time.

All experiences teach us something. Our interests and pursuits broaden our minds. So do books, Internet, telly, ordinary every day interaction with people and things. And also our work, our outings, anniversaries, celebrations, social gatherings. Learning is natural. And learning from first hand experiences in this way is meaningful, rich, stimulating, and retained. Children learn naturally from this all the time.

Then they are removed from that natural learning environment just before they’re five and shut away from it in schools. We’re told that the only valuable learning is that which comes from teachers, packaged into a National Curriculum and contained in expected outcomes and objectives.

So children are processed through this type of learning and adults are conditioned to devalue learning outside of that. And what happens? Children begin to lose their ability to learn anything that isn’t neatly wrapped for them. And I see an awful lot of teenagers who have about as much enthusiasm in doing anything as I have in eating those out-of-season packaged strawberries.

In both the strawberries and the teenagers the zest has gone.

With food I have options. Mostly I buy food in its natural state. I am deeply suspicious of processed pies, potato alphabets, pasta shapes in suspect sauce and the infamous turkey Twizzlers! But sometimes at the end of a hard Home Educating day I’m as pleased as anyone else to open a pizza. When I can get it open that is.

But I do have the choice and you will probably know which is better for me. I suspect you might also be thinking that I would be a better parent for giving my child a natural potato that’s been baked than a processed pizza.

Yet it’s funny how people don’t seem to have the same view of education.

Everyone seems to think that a packaged and processed education is better for children than a natural one.

I got more criticism for allowing my children a natural education than I did putting them through an unnatural educational process. Yet if I continually gave them processed food instead of natural food I wouldn’t be considered a good parent at all.

Odd that!

Years ago, children didn’t have much opportunity to learn. They didn’t have opportunity to learn skills or access information like they do now. And many children didn’t live in homes where education was valued more highly than earning a crust of bread. Children were needed to mind siblings, pick potatoes, crawl along factory floors in between dangerous machinery and sweep chimneys.

Well I don’t know whether folks have noticed but that’s changed. Most of our kids today live in an environment where education is available, where there is access to information, where skills can be learnt. Naturally.

They are surrounded by people using skills and accessing information. And quite naturally they will learn from that.

But we as a society have been led to believe, as education has become more packaged and processed over the years, that this processed type of education is the only valuable one.

Our attitude to processed food is changing, thank goodness. We’re beginning to value unprocessed meals. We’re even beginning to see how processed food can make us ill.

I’d like to see our attitude to processed education changing too. For not only is some of it meaningless, unfulfilling and un-lasting, it too can make our children ill.

Like with unprocessed meals that I actually peel and prepare, I tried to give my children an unprocessed experiential education as near to its natural state as possible. If we were learning about plants – we had plants to hand that we dissected. If we were learning about history – we did it in a historical setting like museum or castle. Get the idea?

This way, just like fresh picked, in-season, unprocessed strawberries, the flavour of the educational experience we gave them was meaningful and stimulated all their senses in a way that is still lasting.

You can read more supportive stories in ‘A Home Education Notebook’. And the new edition has a new added epilogue which tells the stories of the children we home educated alongside now that they’re grown up!

The health benefits of Home Education

“Her eczema has all cleared up. She’s been plagued by it for years but there’s no longer any sign of it now that she’s not going to school” he said.

This dad had stopped me in the lane he was so excited to tell me. He’d leaned out of the truck window to flag me down.

“And both the children have been so happy – and busy,” he went on. “They’re like different children. We can hardly believe it!”

I can!

I have heard the tale so often. About children who’ve had minor conditions and illnesses and health challenges, even behavioural issues, which remarkably disappeared once the children had been out of school for a while. It’s a tale often told among the home educating community.

It was the same for us. Our eldest, who suffered endless infections to the point of needing anti-biotics during her few years at school, hardly seemed to get any during our yeas of home educating. Despite the fact that our children were still in almost daily contact with mainstream groups through regular mainstream activities, clubs and classes that other children attended and as such exposed to all the usual germs.

Our home educating contemporaries remarked upon the same thing happening with their children. One child who was regularly hospitalised and missing school, to the point where the parent was being suspected of being the cause, ceased to have her condition once she came out of school to be home educated.

One of the most marked differences which parents reported was in their children’s behaviour. Tantrums, anger, migraines, bed-wetting, melt-downs over little things, disruption, withdrawal, lack of motivation, dwindling mental health, – all manner of issues – seemed to settle once the children no longer had the stress of being in school in their lives.

There is an argument that children will have to suffer stress later in life so they should get used to it in school. But it’s a poor argument for the simple reason that later life is nothing like school. Nowhere are the circumstances of school replicated, where you have absolutely no choice or autonomy in managing the stressful situations we find ourselves in. Unlike youngsters in a school scenario where they’re just expected to shut up and suck it up, regardless of whether it’s disrespectful or even harmful or not. Later in life we have a voice – and a choice, even though those choices may be extremely challenging or limited. And I think it is the voice-less helplessness that children feel in school, which gets to them, never mind the noise, crowds, threat and hubbub which many find overwhelming.

When schooling affects children’s wellbeing it affects their potential and their learning opportunities. Happiness is as important to their education as health is – the two are intertwined. (Read this article here on why happiness is important for education).

School should come with a health warning. Or better still it should be organised so it isn’t a health hazard at all! Because facts need to be faced – some children are just Not Fine in School or this organisation wouldn’t exist.

And we should not be treating this as if it doesn’t matter, as many parents and politicians would treat it. As the politics says; every child has the right to an education. It follows then that every child should have the opportunity of good health, as the two are intertwined, and if the government are providing institutions which cause the opposite by their pressured policies and structures, both on kids and teachers, then the politicians are denying the children that right. No question.

If you’re a home educator, let us know if your child’s health was affected by school and if home educating changed it.

Meanwhile, the dad above continued to regale me of their happy home educating adventures so far and I was delighted to listen. Another set of kids who no longer have to suffer for their education.

A voice and a choice are important to education https://rossmountney.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/whats-happiness-got-to-do-with-education/