Home Schooling

[canberramomma]

One of my close friends is a teacher, and she offered to get me copies of studies detailing the social and educational disadvantages to home schooling.

In the end all she could find was the complete opposite. In fact, the only negative she could find was my own mental health in being around the children all day, but I'm actually really looking forward to it!

It will give my life a much more tangible focus.

That can only be healthy for all of us, don't you think???

[paradise lost]

I am considering homeschooling for my very bright daughter, mainly so she doesn't have the school experience i had - "You're smart, sit and do the work and the thicker kids will get the "teaching"" - story of my education up until uni, mainly i feel, looking back, because i was unlucky enough to go to school during the years when it was un-PC to stream by ability or encourage brilliance. If i find an adequate school i feel will nurture her gifts then i will consider sending her there instead because i believe the social experience of school is very important and it's the aspect most of my HSing friends have to work hardest at.

In my city there is an HSing chapter which meets weekly for social time, and most of the homeschoolers skill-swap (i.e. one dad might teach French to 30 kids over a week by calling on various homes and simultaneously another mum will be doing the same with physics). Most of the HSers i know have some structure, but it is generally child-focussed and child-led. For example the reading books are chosen by the children - i know a 9 year old who just did a book report on Brave New World because she'd been DESPERATE to read it. It took her a while, but she really enjoyed it and her reading age jumped about 2 years in the space of those months. Projects are defined by the parent/teacher, but subjects are often chosen by the kids - i know a family doing an extended year long project on the park i live next to - the youngest (5) is learning all the trees by bark and leaf while making a scrap book, the two middle kids (7 and 9) are looking at the annual changes and growth of a group of trees encompassing the commonest breeds, making their own elderflower and elderberry products, and documenting a family of swans which bred this year (cygnets are now fully fledged and independant ), the 9 year old is very into horses so she's also doing a project on the draught horses of glasgow, their history, use and breeding and profiles of the 3 heavy horses owned by the city and kept here in the park, and the oldest (14) is looking at the history of the Park in the context of Glasgow as a city, and in terms of the changes in Scottish law which have been lived out here.

I don't know a single HSed child who is not doing as well or better than a school-schooled child of a similar age.

Bx