Home Ed kids are different

Home Ed kids are Different

Before you leave "the system" (and sometimes even after) you heard this said as a criticism. They are "weird" and "not normal".

This is of course a great generalisation. School is about conformity. It isn't so much that school "makes kids normal" as it punishes and shames those who are different. This in turn, makes children shame and punish those who are different.
I am of the opinion that HE children are different. I have sat and watched bunches of HE kids play together.
There is no age clumping or gender clumping. They do not organise themselves into the kinds of groups you might expect. They tend to be focused on imaginative play, cooperative even when confrontational (super heroes require a villain after all). They talk more, and scream less often. The risks they take are calculated ones and not generally to "show off".
Their play is immersive, narrative and revolves around identity or character. If this was a bunch of adults we would call this role play, or LARP.
There are on-going studies being done about the therapeutic effects of this kind of role play for adults.
We know it helps educate, motive and foster empathy as well as expand the kids knowledge of the different parts of the self. It is hard to see yourself as a hero or heroic if you have never played as the hero.

When schooled children enter a park mostly filled with HE kids two things usually happen. No matter how big or small the group or what age their play is very different.
Firstly their play is usually competitive and "high risk" if they are boys and "quiet" and seated if a girl. The genders do not mix, with the exception to "show off" or confront each other. Their play is usually brief bursts of physical competition followed loud vocalisation without much meaning except "being loud".
The HE kids acknowledge and may try to engage but the "schooled" kids simply seem to lack the language and ability to play narratively. The HE kids soon lose interest and play their game around or away from them.
School seems to have deprived at least some of these children of the universal language of play or warped it into a narrow band of "acceptable play". It side-lines girls entirely and put the focus of physical prowess and domination.

Learning to play is a hugely important part of childhood. All social animals learn through play. It crosses gender, race, age and even species. Mixing with other children who HE in social groups is so important. Not because of the support and educational value of play in general but because it is the doorway to a deeper and valuable kind of play, and way of being.

Home education is far too important to be taken seriously.

Special Needs

Special Needs

Lets first address that all kids are special. I have yet to meet a "normal" child.They are all very different and grow in their own unique way.
Yet there are kids that struggle particularly within the confines of the regular school system. "Special" in the school system is often short hand for "difficult" and sometimes just "thick".
Those who have extra educational needs and those who are ill often struggle through no fault of their own. Schools seem to care about the numbers of "attendance" ahead of the well being of the child.

Home education has the benefit of being able to be tailored exactly to your child. This also means the often ritual humiliation of those with educational/social/mental health needs from dyslexia to depression, autism and ADD is totally absent from their lives.
If no-one makes you feel ashamed or stupid you are more free to explore what you can do and less afraid to try what you can't.

Folks leaving the school system often worry that their "extra" support with the school system will go with the school (and it might) and feel fear that they couldn't possibly be able to cope with their "special" child. After all it takes three teams and 4 meetings a week to keep them in school! Here is the truth. Your child is not difficult, no more so than anyone else's. They are different in a system that can not make them into the "desired" shape. Sure they are more complicated, like a piano. Lots of moving parts, hard work to move places perhaps and when treated harshly makes a quite awful sound. Yet one person or even a community that know and understand how to keep it in tune, how to make it sing like a hundred voices.

My mother worked with disabled adults for a while and I meet and knew quite a few of them. They were people (some lovely, some not so) but I remember a lady called Sally. Sally had Down's syndrome as well as some other health problems. She was quite limited in what she could do physically and mentally. Yet Sally had a super power. She could make anyone smile. Any room she was in was brightened, and conversation she was at lifted. She made people happy.
Sally taught me that everyone, and I do mean everyone has a gift. No matter the physical or mental constraints you can have a positive effect on the world around you. That you are not your limitations, no matter how severe they might be.

School and it's system focuses on the things you can't do and punishes when you can't as a sort of spiritual failing. Yet a loving supportive environment where compassion and common sense rule can really bring out the best in a "special" child. It can give time and space to explore the gifts and joys of a special child. You only get one childhood. It is the foundation of who we can become as an adult. Rather than it be a "difficult disaster"  leaving the school system can be the best experience a special child can have.

Home education is far too important to take seriously.

Sample Letters (humour)

Sample Letters (humour)

Feel free to use at your own discretion.

Dear Sir/Madam,
Thank you for your threatening letter. It is such a comfort that in these difficult times you found the time to make wild judgments, serious accusations and fear-mongering remarks with a small spattering of legal comments to hide your fathoms of ignorance to my child/ren's education. I especially enjoy these because this is our first contact proving that you would much rather fear, bully and pressure someone back into a class room who shouldn't be there than actually care about the educational welfare of said child.
The education I provide does not require a certain number of hours. There is no curriculum for home education. The law states only that it be full time, and appropriate. I, me, the parent decide that.
In the spirit of kindness let me educate you for a moment.
Home education is a wildly eclectic term for a vast array of different educational techniques and ideologies.
They might be un-schooling, forest schooling, wild schooling, project learning, using the Charlotte Mason method, or Montessori, or any mix of these. None of these are wrong, or illegal. All of them are educational.
Most families coming out of the school system require de-school, a healing process for the trauma of school and it's systems. It can take months or even years. Don't worry the kids are still learning in this time, it just doesn't look like mainstream education.
Guess what? It doesn't have to!
Had you any knowledge of home education, or alternative learning you would know that these exist and valid and healthy alternatives to school.
So let me reassure you my child is receiving full time education in a variety of learning methods. If you wanted more details all you had to do was ask, politely.
You have set the tone with which you would like to communicate. Your schooling is showing. We as a family do not respond well to bullying and you might want to look at your behaviour. No gold stars for you this week! When you decide to be civil we will respond like-wise,
Your sincerely


free-range parent

Do I have to follow the curriculum?

Do I have to follow the curriculum?

Short answer. No. 

In school circles "the curriculum" is both revered and loathed in equal measure. A curriculum is (like say the national curriculum) where someone outlines what they think your child (or children in general) should know. In certain educational systems like the Charlotte Mason method, or Trivium you can buy different interpretations of what they think would currently make a curriculum. The issue with this is that it might be wildly inappropriate for your child. National curriculum in particular are not written by educators at all but by political people in Government who have vested interests (sometimes financial ones) in what children learn (or don't learn). One of the greatest freedoms of HE is that you don't have to follow someone else's idea of what your child "should" know. They can learn what they find interesting, what you think is important to know and what they might need in their lives. LA's tend to prefer national curriculum because they tend to come from a school background, but they don't have to be "appeased". As long as you are educating, from unschooling to Montessori to your own unique HE master piece the curriculum is not important.

You can of course borrow and use parts of sections of curriculum should you wish too (we recently had a look at the English G.C.S.E texts and my daughter is reading them (some she has read before). Some Charlotte Mason curriculum can be bought as well as other alternatives and again they can be useful, up to a point.

The issue comes down to standardisation. What a child should know, and how deep that knowledge can be is often determined by age. Age is an unreliable marker, as children do not tend to grow in neat little bits constantly but in slow-sluggish bits and sudden bursts. The physical development and mental ability are not the same thing and the emotional capacity are another thing entirely. 
By eight years old and off her own bat, my daughter had read 67 books out of a 100 Classic books in literature. It was on her Nintendo D.S. Yet while some she adored a lot she "didn't get it".  Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice seemed weird and pointless stories concerned with marriage and status. Though able to read these books she didn't yet have the emotional intelligence to connect to the text. I wonder if the reason I loathed Charles Dickens was because I was forced to read it at 11 years old and I had no context or understanding of Victorian Britain. 
Had I had some context, some knowledge around what we were reading, or just read it a year or so later I might have had a different reaction. 

The other thing is curriculum tend to get bogged down in not only what is taught, and when but HOW they are supposed to learn. This means a vast majority of learners never discover how they learn. Or feel "thick" because they simply are not wired to do it a certain way. This is the greatest failing of curriculum. It fails to allow children to discover and learn in their own way. It fails to place value on the natural ability of children to learn. In some circumstances getting a wrong answer, the way they taught you, will give you a better mark/grade than getting the right answer a different way. 

Some curriculum remove the child out of the equation entirely. They are written for ease of testing and marking, not learning or child development. The industry behind this is worth a lot of money and is based more on agriculture than child development. It is also about control. What someone is "allowed" to learn means that their are subjects that they are not "allowed" to learn. From human rights, taxes, the laws of their own country or state, health and well being, histories that they would rather keep hidden, a curriculum is as much what it excludes as what it includes. 


Home education is far too important to take seriously.
  
   

6 "Musts when Leaving the School System

6 "Musts when Leaving the School System

Before you de-register you have all these fears (and maybe even after). Yet most of the common myths/criticisms of home education don't really come up at all (except when others say them to you). Most of them will seem silly in 12 months.

1) Keep it in writing. (always get a receipt) 

Email is great and all that but some schools can be downright unpleasant about families leaving their school. An actual letter and handing it in (which is quite exciting actually) and getting a receipt proves that your child is de-registered and they they received the letter on a certain date. Some schools are not above lying, harassing and making outlandish claims. Now to be "objective" some might simply not know the law. Once you de-register you have no legal requirement to answer their calls, and it they doorstep you they are breaking the law. It is their job to remove your child from their register on the date they receive the letter. It is their job to tell the LA (Local Authority). They will lose thousands of pounds in funding when this happens. So if you are wondering why they "suddenly" want a meeting, you hit them where it hurts, in their funding. It is wise to keep things in writing with the LA as well. This is because they also lose funding when a child leaves the school system. Some can be lovely, however that doesn't make them not have targets (to re-school) or have NO UNDERSTANDING of non-school education at all. You can fill in their forms if you wish, but you do not have to. This leads me tidily to the next point.

2) Read up on the laws, rules and regulations about Home Education.

Most Facebook groups and a certainly lots of other groups have a bunch of files and are always updating them. It is not uncommon for school who in turn might try and get social services and people at the LA to lie, bend the truth and assume you don't know your rights. This is not something that happen often but it can happen. Knowing they can't doorstep you, knowing they can't "make" your child go back into school and reading up on your rights means they are more wary of when you politely inform them of the law.

3) Research different education methods.

School is one in a thousand education models. From unschooling to Montessori, Charlotte Mason and Project based personal curriculum's, knowing that you don't have to follow a curriculum set by someone who isn't even an education expert is liberating. Knowing that there isn't one "correct" way to educate any child will give you confidence. Even if you decide to do school at home, you may find you like some of the ideas or techniques that other methods have. This gives you something to do while you are doing the next important step.

4) De-schooling (no really).

De-schooling isn't just about the child decompressing from what was likely a different and traumatic experience (just because it is common doesn't make it any less traumatic). De-schooling primarily about the parents adjusting. It is about reconnecting with your child. It is about educating your self in what learning looks like (how did it look before school?) as well as letting go of that anxiety, pressure and "should". You know, "your child should be____". Should be holding a pen, should be not shy, should be able to do___. De-schooling is like cult de-programming. One morning you sort of wake up and realise that you don't want you kid to be X, in fact you could never be Y either. So you take what you have, your beautiful child and value them. Not when they can be something else, but right now. You can figure out everything else from there.

5) Join your local home education groups

It's not just having other families that can support you, and that you can support, it knowing you are not alone. They will be cliques and internal groups. It won't be perfect. Just knowing you can, even if you don't want to is really useful. They can organise trips and events and organise another avenue for you to kid to play with other kids.

6) Play more.

I don't mean just let your kids play (especially outside) I mean you. Play is powerful, educational and good for your body mind and soul. Don't just sit on the bench, at least not all the time. Get your face painted. Swing on the swings. Get your face out of your phone. Go on adventures, you can start small. Sing more songs, no matter how badly. Play dress up, drink imaginary tea. Turn the sofa into a battle ship. Build pillow forts.

Home education is far too important to take seriously.

“When you grow up and have children of your own, do please remember something important: A stodgy parent is not fun at all! What a child wants - and DESERVES - is a parent who is SPARKY!” -Roald Dahl

The Importance of de-schooling

What is Deschooling?

Deschooling is the idea and process of taking school, and all it's rules, ideals and structures and letting it go. Even if the you are thinking of doing structured education, this time is vital to adjust, and release the stress and mentality of school.
It can take a few weeks, but equally it can take much longer, because it is not just the kids that need to adjust, but it is primarily the parents.
You would hardly expect someone who has been in a traumatic relationship to just leave it and be fine. More over you would find that if you recreated that sort of relationship soon after that the familiarity would make it something your child accepts, but it damages the parent-child bond and adds to, rather than heal the child from the trauma.

School as trauma.

Most Home Educating families who have been in the school system leave because of trauma, from bullying to the school trying to force a child into a different shape than they are. The mental, physical and emotional damage from school can be deep. Ask any adult who has been bullied.
Psychologically school is a building where education is given to them. Learning is something done to them, not something they do. Failure to understand or comply leads to punishment and how good you are at test often determines whether a teacher will even bother trying. Children are told time and time again what they can and can't do, what they are and are not good at, when they can pee, when they can eat, when they can speak. It makes for a adult v's child mentality.

Deschooling is the learning to be, without bells, and standing in lines, or sitting in rows. It is about the child finding out who they are under the uniform, under who they have been told they are.
What if they are not "thick" or "lazy"? What if they are not a "freak"? What if they are not "difficult"? What if they just needed the opportunity to learn to do something themselves (the only way something truly sticks)?
Deschooling is about the parent letting go (some of us need waaay more time at this than others). It is about the parent learning that education looks very different than school. That all that six hours a day from 9 until 3 is about schooling, not education. It doesn't just happen while sat at a table writing, or you standing over them telling them to "do it like this". That they are far more likely to copy you than you realise. If you want manners, be polite. If you want them to read, read and have books around. You want them curious and keen? Be curious.

But how long?

Well that depends on many factors. Some say a week for every year in school, some say a month. In reality healing and letting go of school will in the long run fix more problems, and in fact most Home Educating families who have issues about getting their kids to "knuckle down" or has kids "refusing the work" will be asked "did you deschool?"
Taking a week off, or a holiday simply isn't enough time for the parent to really let go or for the child to heal.

I can see I made the mistake myself. I didn't deschool at all. I pushed hard and had 6 hours a day at home sat at a table, when I started. (Yes I am an idiot.)
It was only when I got too sick I had to let go. A process that took about 2 years. It fundamentally healed my relationship with my daughter, and allowed her to learn things about herself and the world I never imagined. When we take a break from the idea that learning and school are the same and are very different, that education happens everywhere, all the time we can feel better that we are doing "enough". That play is powerful, important and necessary for healthy children then you are ready to begin. Children heal quickly it is only when we give them the space and time to do so, we can also heal ourselves.

Home education is far too important to take seriously.

Dealing with Critics

What Critics really mean.

It’s really easy to feel overwhelmed with “helpful” friends’, family, strangers and busy-bodies raining on your Home Education party. In my experience there are two kinds of critics. Those who are afraid for you, and those who afraid of you. Some of it is cognitive dissonance. School for many is not just a way of life but a process that was fundamentally so important to them (how it is important doesn't matter) that they can’t imagine anything else. If you know teachers (as I do) I have seen some people never leave a school environment. It is literally all they know. It skews their world view so strongly they can not, and are terrified of looking outside of it. In an uncertain world there is a comfort to the predictability (even if it is predictably awful). I have seen teachers so physically and emotionally broken they end up in hospital, but “have to be there when the bell rings”.

“What about the real world?”

 If the “afraid for you and your kids” critic believes they need to “save” you from being over protecting (being bullied gives you character) or from “being weird”. This normally comes from having seen first hand how people who are different are socially punished, especially in school.They believe that being made to conform to what they think of as “normal” is necessary.

So do the other kind. The “afraid of” critics. Bucking a social norm as a teen is seen as “normal” as a parent it makes you weird, difficult or a bad parent. The idea that you don’t have to follow the rules is just so “out there” for them it can make them foam at the mouth in outrage or stare at you blankly as they get an Error 404 signal in their brain. It is important to understand that most criticism comes from fear. Being different is a virtue not a failing. That examining the world from a different perspective is a gift. The people who changed the world the most are people who were different.  Yes your children will be different and have different experiences. That is one of the benefits of home education not one of it’s failings.

And lo, the cry went out: what about socialization?!

The “afraid for” bunch are either overly romanticising their own childhood or fear that if a child is not forced to sit staring at a teacher unable to talk for hours at a time your kid won’t have friends. This isn't Mallory Towers. Or Hogwarts. Or Grange Hill. Also the idea that being home educated mean you never leave the house or speak to another human soul is frankly ridiculous. Much like prison, in school the friendships you make (and enemies) can be very intense at the time. However once that forced association is ended, the relationships often fade quickly. The “afraid of” bunch just do not believe that anyone could learn about how to deal with people in a non-school context. There is a seditious idea that without school the child will be “broken” somehow. If the child is allowed to express themselves, their gender identity, sexuality, personality and tastes freely we are tearing down society. Or worse trying to turn our children into what we want to make them. “Maybe they’d____ if they were at school”. Forced association is not that same as socialization. Say it with me! Home educated kids meet people of all ages, and backgrounds all the time. From clubs and groups to hanging out at the comic book shop or park. The friendships they make are just as valid and important as those of children at school. They are often based on similar hobbies and outlooks rather than being shut in a room for three hours at a time needing permission to pee.

“How could you spend all that time with your kids, you’ll be overwhelmed?”

Being overwhelmed by your kids can happen. However in you only spend time with your kids after they have been shut up in a stuffy box being talked at all day, they are not going to be the same as they are de-schooled. The “afraid for” tend to feel overwhelmed and frustrated and transfer their relationship or what they imagine it would be like onto your family. They don’t know that ending the school run and the rush to “cram” everything in being gone allows for a peace rarely known. The “afraid of” tend to think that you won’t be able to cope. In fact only trained professional, like teachers can cope with children all day every day. The thing is between groups and the slower pace it is much less overwhelming than having a miserable child at school.

Structure and Tests.

Although not many parents would say it there is an idea that if there isn't a school (or a school like structure) then there would be no structure and life for a home educating family is day-time television and lazily lounging around. No I won’t lie there are plenty of home educating parents and kids who don’t get out of the jammies if they don’t have to (why would you) but that doesn't mean we are lazy. It speaks to what they imagine or fear they would do if they could rather than anything to do with your life. Some home education is very structured and even if the education isn't they might still have set days out or groups as well as a set house routine. It may look unstructured from the outside but things like the times libraries close or events happening don’t wait for home educators. We too have weekly calendars and we have to be able to juggle quite well too.

Test Culture

A written test only really shows what a person knows on that day, at that time, under that stress. That is all a test shows. It doesn't take into account the person or the individual. It doesn't show the sum of their knowledge. It is a snap shot, not a film. Test culture and the corporatization of education went hand in hand. Tests and marking of them is big business. In fact the test business has more in common with Big Agro than nurturing the next generation. It is part of a business model that takes the human out of the equation. Yet that fear. The fear of failing a test will ruin your life is so pervasive in our society some people and even home educators can't see past it.

While certain fields require you do an examine or meet a certain standard a lot of university will allow to apply without any GCSE's or A-levels. In fact they care more about if you can pay your tuition fees than if you have any formal qualifications.

That fear that without that piece of paper (and all that by default comes with it) your future will be nothing, is a hard one to shake.

By coming away from that fear and looking at your child excels in, what sets their passions aflame and encouraging them you give them something far more than if they passed a test at school. It makes your child stand out and gives your child space and time to explore and think. When faced with 40 or 100 people applying for a job someone who is talented, driven, adaptable and self motivated stands out. You can always pick them up as an adult later should you find you need them for something.

Home education is far too important to take seriously!