Pavlina McMaster - Home Education Network

September 2, 2015

Dealing with Burnout

By Carol Naigon Question: I’ve been homeschooling for 10 years now. I have five children ages 3-18 years. My question is, how do I effectively homeschool when I no longer have the heart for it? I am burnt out, tired and just plain bored of it. Yet, my conscience won’t allow me to imprison my precious children in the typical school setting. Burnout is […]

September 2, 2015

The Danger of Maternal Overload and Maternal Distress

Home education is not an easy option. It differs from classroom education and produces different results in the child, parents and in the family as a whole. Choosing to educate your child at home is making a long-term life-style decision that will affect every aspect of your family’s life. It is not a choice to be made lightly because it requires a great deal […]

September 2, 2015

Reading

Reading is a perennial topic amongst home educators. Many find that children do pick up reading quite naturally in the normal course of a home learning situation. Others are adamant proponents of a phonics method. ‘Late’ reading is not uncommon amongst home educated children. In school late reading is considered a problem and can result in children falling behind in all areas of the […]

August 28, 2015

Children educated at home don’t learn like they do in school

Ockam’s Razor, 1996 Robyn Williams: Bertrand Russell never went to school; it didn’t appear to do him much harm either, as he still got to Trinity College Cambridge, revolutionised 20th century mathematics, won the Nobel Prize for Literature and did quite a bit for philosophy and politics as well. Avoiding school was commonplace for the British aristocracy. But does it have a place in […]

August 28, 2015

Should I register? (Victoria)

This information has been updated from an article written for Otherways magazine by a home educating lawyer in 2006 when registration became a legal requirement in Victoria. Why register? The law requires it. It is a serious thing to break the law. Victorian home education law remains among the least restrictive regimes in Australia. Registration is straight forward. The regulations and processes are not […]

August 28, 2015

Victorian Home Education History

Victoria has always been the easiest state to home educate in and we have fought hard over the years to keep it that way. Up until 2006, it was allowable under a combination of the Victorian Education Act 1958 and The Community Services Act 1970 which stated parents had to send their children to school or ensure they were receiving ‘efficient and regular instruction in some […]

August 28, 2015

Informal Learning

by Alan Thomas Infants start learning informally from (or before?) birth, mainly through interaction with the mother or other caregivers. Part of this is learning how to behave in culturally appropriate ways, e.g., how to deal with emotions, how to interact with others in the family and wider community, and the acquisition of cultural values and attitudes. This alone requires a vast amount of […]

August 28, 2015

Natural Learning in Action

By Susan Wight Natural Learning is not ‘Doing Nothing’ Confession time: Sometimes I get ‘the guilts’ and think I’m not really educating my children at all. This feeling usually creeps in following someone’s wide-eyed response when I tell them that I home educate. “Wow, I could never do that! You must be so organised!” The overawed responses vary but the words ‘busy’, ‘dedicated’ ‘organised’ […]

August 28, 2015

Jean Lave’s Problem

by Dr John Peacock Jean Lave had a problem. She knew that the best scholarship said that schools were better than other places of learning because in schools skilled professionals taught general principles that were objective and unbiased because they were not dependent upon particular contexts or situations. That same scholarship said that other sorts of learning, such as go on in the home […]

August 28, 2015

Eclectic Heretic Homeschooler

By Lisa Donnelly I read with great interest the article in a recent home education magazine defending unschooling to structured schoolers. In my neck of the woods, the shoe seems to be permanently on the other foot. I can’t count the times I’ve heard my fellow homeschoolers, most of whom unschool, utter conventional proverbs such as, “when you’ve homeschooled long enough, you’ll unschool.” Statements […]

August 28, 2015

Head, Heart and Hands

Weaving Waldorf Education into Home Learning By Brenda J. Armstrong Receive the children in reverence, Educate them with love, Send them forth in freedom – Rudolph Steiner I watch our nine-year-old daughter as she eyes the many baskets of wool yarn in the small store near our home. The rainbow of naturally dyed colored skeins is plentiful as we search for the “right yarn” […]

August 26, 2015

Special Needs or Just Special

It was going to be his first day on the mountain and my old anxieties were creeping in. With his brand new snowboard tucked under his arm and his first-ever season lift ticket hanging from his neck, my 12 year old son, Conor, was off on an adventure of his own choosing. He seemed to be ready to tackle it all, but I wasn’t […]

August 24, 2015

Dental Care

The Commonwealth Child Dental Benefits Schedule allows for up to $1000* basic dental treatment over a two-year period for eligible 2–17 year olds. 2-17 year olds are eligible if they receive Family Tax Benefit A or other relevant Australian Government payments. Notes: Treatment is bulk billed through Medicare Eligible children pay $0 – no out of pocket costs No wait list – your […]

August 19, 2015

60 Minutes Segment on Unschooling

This was aired in 2014 and republished as part of the 60 Minutes archive in 2020. Also available ‘Extra minutes’ are on YouTube Channel 9 Mornings with Sandra Dodd The Clark family were interviewed with The Chronicle and the website contains a video with them as well Issue 140 of Otherways magazine carries stories from both Carleen Sing and Rachel Clark and their 60 […]