Pros & Cons of Home Ed...

Having conversations today with a few friends who like the idea of home education but don't know if it's right for them. So I thought I would write a list of pros and cons. This list is personal to me, so not an exclusive list, just things I have noticed:

Cons

Total self sacrifice of time and energy.

You can easily forget that you exist as a person.

Sometimes you have to be the one to say get on with it, as no one else will.

You will probably wake in the night sometimes, and lay awake worrying about your kids education.

You can't just pack your kids off to school in those life crisis moments, they live them right along side you.

You have to be self disciplined to get motivated everyday and keep going when you don't always want to.

Most activities you do, will cost money, so you have to get creative about free activities.

What you put in to it, you get out of it. By this I don't mean traditional academics, I mean heart and soul, giving to your kids daily, finding new ideas, finding your own enthusiasm for life.

You can't wait for others to plan your day or activities, you need to organise activities for family or groups, for example, if you want to attend a drama class you may need to create a drama class.

You need to be prepared to adapt constantly to your children's changing interests or needs.

You need to be patient and like being with your family.

For formal study, you will need to either learn just ahead of them or get online or tutor help for subjects you don't understand.

You will have opposition to home educating, people will question you constantly and some may think you are either crazy or just plain wrong.

You won't be able to have a 40 hour a week job, you may need to cut back or even move house to afford to home educate.

Your main limits are your imagination, energy and money.

Pros 

Precious unrepeatable time with your kids.

Rejoicing watching every beautiful moment of change and growth in your children.

Ability to tailor their education to their strengthens and passions.

Time to adapt to life's flows and ebbs, when sickness or big life changes happen.

My kids have been taught by someone who completely understands them and hundred percent wants the best for them.

You can holiday in school term time.

You can have all the outdoor learning you want and snow days when you like.

You get to meet and learn from a whole range of different people and make friends with a wonderful mix of personalities and background.

Subjects and interests are only limited by imagination and not limited to a set curriculum.

Your kids can choose what path their study takes them, it could be very practical, like Outdoor sports learning or it might be more formal and lead to exams, but its up to them.

You can travel around Europe/rest of world and learn about different cultures and languages whilst others have to learn it from a book.

Your kids can give lots of energy and time to extra curricula activities, like scouts or orchestras and if they have to be out late or camping all weekend in the rain, they don't have to rush to complete homework or be up early the next day for school.

Teenagers can get the sleep and low pressure they need when their bodies are changing and their hormones are raging.

There are many online learning programs and access to information is immense with the internet, add libraries and tapping into friends or family who have special skills can add to your kids learning.

Your kids will have time in daily family life to learn household task and animal care, that they may not have time for if out all day.

Every new government idea about education, won't change you or your kids goals.

Your kids will see how you manage paid work and housework, and learn from that.

You can all have time to think and freedom to just be.

You will have a close family. Rushing and stress will not be a big part of your household, but laughter will be.

To push or not to push, that is the question.

Do you push your kids, should we push our kids? This is something that we all think about and consider. Should I be nagging more, adding pressure, propelling my boys in a certain direction?

It's hard, especially as Mum's to find that balance that special happy place for seeing our kids moving forward towards their future and goals, and who we hope they will be and letting them be and find their way at their own pace.

I don't know about you all but I can naturally get really naggy, if I give in to it. Mainly because I am worried about some thing, for example, will this child ever be able to look after a home responsibly if they can't even tidy their room? That feeling that I must nag them in to it, drive them in to some sort of tidying routine. The other one I am often tempted with is, healthy eating, nag, nag nag!

Sigh! It's so tempting to try and control everything, but I am starting to see the fruit of doing less controlling and more guiding when asked or when there is an obvious gap in knowledge. 

I often find myself, especially in these teen years with my boys, consciously backing off, deliberately reducing pressure on them. Especially with my eldest who is currently do IGCSE exams. 

I see so often, society, schools and even parents putting so much pressure on young people to perform and achieve. They are often required to show evidence of learning and good behaviour to gain approval from all around them, constantly.

See this is where is gets complicated, some pressure is good, but it's not linear, in other words it's like the changing seasons, the waves on a shore, like the migration of birds in the winter or even hibernation. I have found with my boys that some times a gentle nugging to encourage them, times to challenge them with goals, even tough ones, like my eldests exams or times in the past when they have had to deal with people that were angry with them or hard to handle, where they have had to stay in the situation and resolve it. 

These harder seasons never last long and I always try and help by giving balance for the boys, like fun distractions or laugher and friends. But sometimes a gentle push is good. 

What does a gentle push look like? Well I find it's much better when it's a push by giving an idea, sparking an interest, inspiring a goal, for example, if your son wants to fly a high speed jets, say let's look at how you can achieve that, then help them with it. That is a push, but it's driven by them, inspired by their dreams or hopes. 

Pushes always need love, and understanding, and tons of patience. 

Do we let them quit? Yes I think it's so healthy to know there is an option to quit at any point. I think that it helps to talk through the times when they want to quit an activity or line of study. Sensitively try and understand who they are, why do they feel like this, what season in their life are they in? We have found with both our boys that around 11 years old, it's tough, their bodies and minds were changing they needed us to back off, give them space, sleep and time to just be. Which in a few cases mean't quiting activities that outwardly seemed so wholesome! I have found that by letting them just be, such amazing fruit has appeared, they both started to discover who they really were in the world, where they thought they might want to fit in. With out us telling them what they should be doing, they had time to discover their passions. As their passions started to show, I then offered them opportunities to grow these, so there was a gentle push again, in season.

So Shakepeare had it right, almost, to push or not to push? That really is the question.

Why I hate labels... or Undiscovered awesomeness...

Labels, labels, labels, we love to label things, I guess it is part of our human nature, the way we try to understand the world and communicate with our limited language. They help us explain people or groups of people, but when they are used to put a negative limiting label on to a person, especially when its a child, I just feel frustrated and annoyed.

I have been trying to work out why they frustrate me, what is it about labels that make me want to scream and run.

I think this frustration has grown in me since my oldest son was little.  I started to hear people talk about each others kids, labelling them, naughty or lazy or stupid or violent (I know, tell me about it!!).  The frustration grew more as I became a cub leader and heard other leaders refer to particular kids, saying "Oh he is the naughty one!"

So in the last few weeks after hearing again a label directed at a child I began to do some soul searching to why this makes me so mad.


Here are my conclusions:

 Labels are so limited. They pick one attribute of a person and amplify it. They describe a person and  they become like the bits and bods drawer that everyone has at home. That drawer everyone knows that is labelled the junk drawer.  'Junk' is so limited in its description, when you open the draw and spend the time to sort through it, its amazing the little treasures you find inside.  Suddenly the 'junk' drawer is more than just 'junk'.  Isn't this like kids, spend some quality time with the naughty child, talk to them, find something interesting to do with them and suddenly you find they are an amazing kid... We used to have a little lad in the creche at our church, who's capacity for trouble was immense, one week he made a Houdini style escape out of his high chair, out of the door and down the stairs before we could blink, but I discovered if you sat and read book after book with him and he was captivated and sat very still.

Labels dehumanise, a label turns a normal complicated interesting person, who has passions and dreams, into someone that can be dismissed and ignored because they are a lesser person.

Labels make us lazy, they give us an excuse not to find out more about a child or person. "Oh that kid is just lazy!", immediately no more time is needed to assess the child or understand him.  May be that child is not lazy, may be what appears to be laziness is actually a child that has never had anyone take an interest in him, spent any time learning what would inspire him? I have friends with artist children, who love to day dream and live in an imaginary world, which if given time is transformed from their minds into beautiful drawings, but day dreaming and lazy look similar if you have no time for that child.

Labels mean we can catalog children to process them. Bright kids in one class, stupid kids in another, this makes it so much easier for us to work with big groups of kids, but what does this do to the children involved? I know how it made me feel as a kid...sad :(

I understand labels are needed, because we are human, but can I just beg you that next time you hear a child labelled you will crouch down next to that child and smile. Take time, stop and consider that this little bundle of human weakness could have undiscovered awesomeness.

Just because it's hard, doesn't mean it's wrong...

Standing listening to the trumpet play 'The Last Post' at Remembrance Day parade yesterday was very moving. As I watched my eldest solemnly carry the flag for his ATC squadron it made me think of all the grieving mothers who's sons have given their lives for us over the years in wars. I really felt respect for these men and women, recognising their sacrifice and honouring it.

I am personally grateful that Hitler was defeated by the allies,  as his views on parents having influence on their kids education are polar opposite to mine.  His fear that parents would teach their children something other than the Nazi party line was massive, forcing him to ban home education.  So yeah!  War is horrid, but when it comes to defending your nation and freedom I don't believe its wrong.

I have thought about this conundrum a fair amount over the last few years.   It took me a few years of growing up before I realised that just because some thing is hard, doesn't mean it's wrong. 

I think back on hard things I have done, child birth was one. I think the first weeks after my eldest was born were such a massive change of lifestyle it was really hard, suddenly this tiny person was your complete responsibility and I remember staring down at him wondering what to do next. I have never for a moment regretted having kids though, even if it has cost every ounce of energy and thought trying to muddle through this parenting thing.

Anyone who reads my blog would know I love mountains, that's another hard thing.  Climbing a mountains is hard work.

  I remember climbing snowdon for my silver Duke of Edinburgh award many years ago,  with my big racksac on my back we were half way up the mountain, it was a windy day,  and suddenly a massive gust of wind knocked me off me feet and sent me rolling down a steep slope over the side of a huge rock. My rucksack broke the fall fortunately. I still love climbing mountains though,  standing on the top of a mountain gives that sense of freedom and feeling of 'I can do anything'. As you breath in the pure mountain air and look around you, the world and its daily grind seem so far away and insignificant.

Home Education is another hard thing.  I know many people have observed me home educating over the years and said, may be only with a look, surely thats too much for you. Yes, it is hard it possibly the hardest thing I have ever done. At some points I have felt the full weight of responsibility on me,  with family and friends looking on with disapproval. Why on earth would you choose to wreak your kids opportunities in life and home educate, when there are so many perfectly good schools and qualified teachers down the road.

My husband and I chose this route not because of issues with our children in school or even for religious reasons,  as our church ran a church school. I just knew it made sense. A one on one tailored education in the world with life and friends around us. I knew in my heart that my eldest son could be different because of it, he could chose to think in a completely different way to a child that is instructed how to think and what to learn all day. I love the critical and abstract thought patterns of my unconventional boys.

At first the hardest thing about Home Educating is learning self discipline and patience,  especially if like me you went from school to polytechnic to work, so you always had to get up in the morning to be some where on time and work for someone else, to suddenly everything is totally your choice. Also being patient with your kids when you are with them all day is definitely a skill that takes practice. 

A few years down the road,  the hard bits are others expectations of your kids, suddenly you feel everyone is watching your kids to see if they are progressing fast enough.  Are they reading when their cousin two years younger is on to big boy books? Are they learning to behave in a sociable manner being shut at home with Mum all day? There is incredible pressure to present perfectly behaved high performing kids from an early age, else obviously home education is failing as predicted.

I am now onto a different stage,  getting to ready to send eldest on to further education. Exam nerves have attacked at regular intervals and lots of praying to try remain calm, well kind of calm (sorry Hubby :-P).

Do I regret this journey... NOT FOR A SECOND... the times of kids crying under the table over maths, times of struggling to understand what my kids need at different stages,  balancing home and outside life. All worth it. I love that it has been hard, it is worth so much more to me. Like that climbed mountain, the view from here is wonderful, the understanding I have gained of how people learn,  what motivates and what makes people tick.  I love that my hubby and I can look back on this time and say, it was tough at times but so rewarding.

Working with, not on your kids...

I am sitting waiting for my eldest to finish his iGCSE English literature exam. He was pretty nervous going in, mainly about how long the exam was going to be, two and a quarter hours sounds like ages. 

I have time to fill and I am feeling particularly philosophical,  thinking about my last fifteen years of home educating and what I understand now and wish I had known and believed when I first started this journey.

I can see so clearly now that the key to home education is believing in your kids and allowing them to be who they are and working with them to let that unique awesomeness blossom in them.

This week I signed my two Border Collies up for sheepdog training. I have learned a lot from my extremely clever dogs over the last 5 years. When my oldest dog was one year old, he is five now, I started sheepdog training and visited a true shepherd,  he has had international champion sheepdogs, brought up with farming, sheep and dogs. Was seen on 'One Man and his Dog' at a young age, many years ago. 

The first time I visited him we went out in to a field with sheep and he said absolutely nothing. He took my dog off the lead and let go. We stood and watched as my dog, having never seen sheep in his life, take off he flanked around the sheep went behind them and brought them back to us. It was so exhilarating and thrilling to watch. Here is the You Tube video of him doing this if you are interested.
 

  This pattern of saying nothing and releasing the dog was how this shepherd teaches. The lessons continued in this way with only the additional of myself and the shepherd walking backwards with the sheep in front of us and the dog behind the sheep. As we turned slightly the dog would shift so he remained behind the sheep at 12 o'clock to us, this gentle leading is called finding balance. 

I have also taken this same dog gun dog training.  This involves lots of retrieving and guns. I knew that my dog wasn't a natural gun dog but I was curious and thought it might be fun. It was fun, but I can declare official my sheep dog is the world's worst gun dog. His idea of retrieval is chasing the ball then possibly bringing it back, if it seems worth it. Also he really hates guns. We had a giggle, well I did, mainly at his complete ineptitude compared with the 'super duper' Spaniels who were definitely showing off, all stuck up with their long shiny ears and perfect retrieves. We left feeling slightly inadequate,  but 'hey' what did I expect!

All this got me thinking, recently been chatting with many new home educators,  that have chosen this path because their kids weren't flourishing in school.  It seems to be quite common that it is the very creative kids who love to dream and imagine that haven't fitted in to our traditional schooling models that are quite academic and rigid. These children seem to come out of school and really don't want to be squeezed back into structured learning.

I can see it so easily now, looking back, it seems so obvious.  Why do we try and make 'gun dogs' out of our 'sheepdogs'? We need to step on to this new field of learning and release these creative kids to dream and create,  work with their strengths,  believe in them , see their true potential,  not in terms of 'number of ball retrievals' (exam marks) or their ability to be tough when someone shoots a gun (strict timetables), but look on with excitement as they take off and be what they were created for and finding a gentle balance with them.

Week in the life of...

I try to get up before my boys in the morning, not being little anymore they don't leap out of bed at 6am and demand fun, so I need an alarm clock now. I usually assess my day the night before and try and see how late I can arise with out messing up my carefully planned morning routine.

So yes I spring out of bed full of vim and vigour (sarcasm) and start my day with a morning routine of folding clean clothes before leaving bedroom, get dress, carry dirty clothes, my gadget bag (contains essential to life electronic devices) and struggle downstairs slightly overloaded to my bathroom. I put on the washing machine, clean the bathroom, and prepare myself for the day. As we only have one bathroom, if I get interrupted in this routine I get stressy.

Then I go let the dog out into the garden and go start cooking bacon and eggs, or similar for breakfast. Make a cup of tea for me and the boys, plus empty my dishwasher. While the breakfast is cooking I go drag children out of bed. This is achieved with a 'Mum of teens' dog lick attack. I take the dog with me upstairs and get him in turn to leap on the boys and lick them awake. If this doesn't work, I have taken to lately dragging my eldest legs out of bed and sitting him up, then quickly positioning the dog so he can't lay back down. I have tried removal of covers, stealing pillows, suggesting the use of an alarm clock..well the alarm clock is useless he can have a siren going off by his head and sleep through it. I have tried leaving him to sleep in, but all this does is turn him nocturnal, which isn't good for productivity.

After breakfast, depending on how dozy the boys are we either go for a walk and do a strength workout or watch a documentary. We are going through different science/history/social studies/geography documentaries which we watch may be three a week on different days.

 Every week day morning we do maths (exceptional circumstances withstanding). Sometime my youngest does maths while I cook breakfast, they are both using the online conquer maths program, most days I like to sit with my youngest and help him find ways of thinking through the maths, I never answers the questions for him, but I do show him clever tricks for quick mental calculations. My eldest like to work by himself on maths, unless really stuck.

My weekly plan for structured work I would like us to get through changes termly, depending on our goals and aims. Its totally geared towards the boys ambitions and dreams.

Currently this term we are working on iGCSE Physics using this book, we are all working through it together, my eldest is making note cards with key terms and formulas for revision and my youngest is just making general notes. We all snuggle up on the sofa and I read through and explain, until they understand one topic or part topic if a complex one. I use real life examples they can relate to, for example, how would you work out the velocity of our dog as he runs from one end of the room to the other?

This may seem quite a formal approach to learning, but my eldest son has goals which require certain exams, so we need to work through some set work for the exams. As a home ed. Mum I am always very aware of the balance between interest and driving the boys to achieve. If they are not interested they won't learn, so I drop the subject or find something that gives them the motivation to regain that interest. I am also aware of age differences between my boys (3 years), so obviously I don't expect my youngest to concentrate for as long and if it gets too technical and switches his brain off, its time for him to go do something else.

On top of the above formal work, my eldest works on English, which is set by his tutor. He is currently working on English literature iGCSE, having just passed his English language iGCSE.

All other learning is informal and autonomous, here is an interesting article on autonomous learning. Our days are full of spontaneous conversations, discussions on every topic you can imagine, for example, this morning we had a 'film studies' type discussion on about Star Trek and how the different aliens were supposed to be based on different stereotype national identities. This discussion also included the big question 'Do aliens exist?'. All quite fascinating, and as always learning happened whilst laughing.

My sons are both avid computer gamers, I gave up trying to turn them in to gardeners or chefs quite a few years ago, they love computer games, much like their father and myself. I can't really condemn this love of PC gaming, when one of my favourite ways to relax is to load up 'League of Legends' and play a few competitive online matches, trying to keep the 17 year old gamers on their toes! I have an extremely competitive streak and this is a fun outlet for it. Anyway digress slightly, my boys have found that role play gaming is fun, its basically drama online, so you act the part of the character in the game you are playing, this is usually part of a community of players, who you can chat to whilst playing. Its sounds mindless, but believe me its highly complex including flying realistic flight simulators whilst talking to a control tower, mapping flight paths and rescuing comrades. I challenge Mums and Dads to attempt to play these games, the multi tasking involved is huge. Both boys have become server admins for servers running gaming communities, to do this they had to write application  and submit them, they had to show maturity and responsibility, believe me there is nothing worse than an 'online gaming troll' so they both are learning to be polite respectful, but also how to deal with idiots (a useful life skill). Both boys have learn't internet safety, how to avoid scamming and how to keep a balance between real life and online life. I discourage night time gaming, so most of the time they go on the PC is in the afternoon, before dinner. This is if we are not out swimming with friends or visiting interesting places.

The boys evenings are jam packed. I guess this is my season as taxi driver, I remember my Mum and Dad taxi driving me about at this age too.  My eldest is very involved with the Air Cadets and is highly motivated to be a pilot, hence the exam work. He is also working on his Duke of Edinburgh award so he is helping to lead the local cub pack. He does many sporting and physical activities with the Aircadets and is also working through a BTEC in aviation. Nearly every weekend has some sort of activity, from service in the community to flying aeroplanes.

My youngest loves Scouts and the camping, archery, hiking, shooting and chopping wood with axes that this involves. He is also learning Karate, which is excellent exercise. He reads every night at bedtime, spy stories and wants to be a Ninja.

Then we all love to watch TV in the evenings together as long as it is an episode of Castle or Chuck, or similar.

So this is us...how we roll...

Today's Pigeon rescue.

Who am I?

Happy New Year :)

Feeling sorry for myself today, but silly christmas movies are cheering me up.

This year is going to be good. I am determined to recognise what I already have so I don't miss anything this year. While I am not feeling too well the last few days I have spent the time day dreaming and planning in my head. Some might call it nest building, I guess they would be right, but its my way of not getting bored when my body wants a few days off.  I found a fun website to make mood boards and try and identify what it is I like.

A few years ago when I moved house for the first time in ages I realised I didn't know what I liked or wanted in a home or house. As a child I was always very happy to go with the status quo, just follow others lead and keep them happy. There is nothing wrong with this but it mean't I really didn't have a clue who I was....if given a clean slate today and freedom to choose, what would I do with it?

I have spent a while pondering on this. Who am I? What do I like? I have always found it hard making decisions when faced with a choice. I think because I never really thought about what I want. I think my christian up bringing is partly to do with this, where conformity was almost seen as a requirement.... but recently I have started to discover that my faith is about complete acceptance with out conformity, with out any requirements...scary thought to someone who's life has always been to conform....I can feel many voices from my past inhaling with shock at this outrageous thought.

Think about it though, when do you feel most loved by others? When they completely accept you warts and all..when they don't say "I will accept you when you change this bit or that of your life". How can I truly accept and love those around me, if I don't know that love myself?

So this year... I am going let those around me to be different, and dare to be myself...