December 24, 2019

Sharing the Joy of Reading

By Sue Wight Like Fanny Price, I have to admit to being an unabashed novel reader. A good novel is a type of madness for me, and I sometimes become so emotionally involved that wrenching myself away can be devastating. I was once on a plane which had the temerity to land when Jane Eyre had just left Thornfield. How could I abandon her […]
December 10, 2019

Fun with Art History

By Catherine Durant Art appreciation is a topic we love to explore in our house. Alannah (10), Max (8) and Eloise (3) always enjoy delving into the life of an artist. I have been amazed at how much the kids take in. There has been many a time that they have pointed to a print on a wall or in a book and told […]
November 26, 2019

Ladder of Doubt

By Marnie Black We withdrew our eldest two sons, Anthony and Mitchell, from school back in 2000. What a leap of faith that was! We had to get out of the system after the havoc it had wreaked on our boys. Even our pre-schooler, Jeff, had been negatively affected as most of his life had been lived in a family under stress. We agonised […]
November 21, 2019

Unschooling Works, Says the Emerging Evidence

By Arthur Grant We often notice how little prompting kids require to learn outside the classroom. Simply setting them free in nature does wonders for their curious spirits, as each overturned rock and never-before-seen leaf piques new interest and inquiries. Their instinct is to explore and learn, and structure isn’t always needed for learning to be meaningful and beneficial. The term “unschooling” puts a […]
November 18, 2019

2019 HEN Survey

HEN surveys the home education community to help shape our future work. While we operate mainly in Victoria, our stats can be useful to home educators anywhere in Australia. HEN works hard for the home ed community. If you’re not yet a member, please consider joining. Membership is only $25 per year including digital Otherways Magazine (or $45 with printed copies). 2019 results: and […]
November 10, 2019

Teaching Your Children Naturally

By Wendy Morriss I spent 30 years home educating my three children who are now 32, 29 and 19 years of age. It was an amazing experience; one that I will always remember and would recommend to anyone. I liked going to school myself because I was raised in a violent household, so school was an escape. My husband, however, constantly talked about his […]
October 29, 2019

No Guarantee

So, you haven’t yet taken the home ed plunge. It would be nice to have a guarantee, right? The thing is life doesn’t come with guarantees. It would be really nice to be able to examine a home education prospectus and see pretty graphs and tables detailing the success rate but that isn’t possible. The best you can do is observe home educating families […]
October 22, 2019

What is this Home Ed thing, anyway?

By Cynthia McStephen If you are new to the whole idea of DIY education, you may be wondering what this home education stuff is all about. Of course, life varies wildly between different families anyway. So, by extension, home education, like every other aspect of family life, covers a huge spectrum. Instead of a catch-all definition, here’s a list of some of the things […]
October 2, 2019

Languages and Multicultural Education Resource Centre

Victorian home educators can now access free physical and digital language resources through the Department of Education and Training’s languages library – Languages and Multicultural Education Resource Centre (LMERC). They have resources from early years through to senior. Interested families are encouraged to visit the library and complete a membership form to receive a library card for immediate use or join online.    
September 24, 2019

‘You home educate your kids? Now, that’s a big job!’

By Cynthia McStephen Excuse me, I just have to crawl into a hole for a while before I can tackle this subject. I’m sure you won’t mind. It’s the weight, you see. It’s the sheer effort of dragging around the huge expectations the world has of me as a home educating parent: ‘You must be so organised’, ‘I don’t know how you do it […]
July 30, 2019

Natural Socialisation

The greatest benefit of home education By Lyn Saint So what about socialisation…how will your kids learn to fit into the real world! The question is so simple and yet the answer so complex. Any one of us that has been asked that question knows how difficult it is to come up with an answer that will satisfy not only the askers but deep […]
July 29, 2019

The Effectiveness of Home Education

By Sue Wight Whether we home educate from the start or as a result of school problems, we observe our kids learning firsthand. Most of the time, that’s all the evidence we need. But many of us have occasional doubts and have relatives who want to know if we are limiting the children’s future. Governments and media also want solid data on home education […]
June 4, 2019

Dinner Conversation

By Sue Wight If there’s one aspect of informal learning in home education that stands out above all others, in common with infant and adult informal learning, it’s conversation. On the face of it much of this is social, everyday talk of the kind that normally goes unnoticed. But it’s surprising how much of this kind of talk contains opportunities for learning, especially as […]
May 21, 2019

Just dribbling along

By Cynthia McStephen “Hello there from Radio Home Ed Land, where there are a million different reasons and styles for every million home-edders. Today the topic is ‘Why we do what we do’ and sitting opposite me in the studio today is … hmmm. Actually that person looks remarkably like ME.” It can be a strange experience to want to interview yourself, to have […]
May 20, 2019

A Permaculture Education

By Jackie Crosby Permaculture is about design, observing nature and working with nature. When we built our home, we faced it north (southern hemisphere), learnt about various building mediums and settled on recycled double brick for the heat transfer. We looked at our energy flows, and decided to have the vegetables growing near the kitchen and where the children play, as that’s where I travel […]
May 13, 2019

A Teacher’s Perspective

By Matthew Panopoulos, M.Ed. (research) As a NSW music teacher of almost six years, I frequently work with hundreds of students in three main roles: primary classroom, secondary classroom, and private tuition. If you asked me which one I enjoy and believe in most, it would be the last one. Having flexibility and the freedom to tailor learning to the interests of each student […]