By Carolyn Franzke (Otherways Magazine, issue 140) I used to be a teacher. I taught maths and science, and sometimes other subjects too. I was on the curriculum committee, attended lots of conferences and ran staff meetings about the value of a quality curriculum. I studied for my Masters in Education and wrote a thesis about the value of digital portfolios in improving the
By Sue Wight Home educating primary-aged children was easy as far as I was concerned. I spent time with them, read to them, played games with them, talked lots, encouraged their interests, took them to interesting places, and stood back and watched the learning happen. But home educating teenagers? I knew nothing about that! That would be hard – what about the Maths, what
By Jess Pritchard “What advice do you have for those just starting out?” It is the inevitable question, asked again and again. I clearly remember asking it (in some form or another) myself, many times, of many different people. And now I am being asked it. So here is my advice. In dot point: 1) Don’t be afraid of mess. It goes without saying
By Lyn Saint On making the decision to home educate their children many women often bring up the question – but what about my life, should I devote the next 10-15 years solely to bringing up my children – what about me…? As we all know, society today does not appreciate, acknowledge and respect women who are fulltime mothers – quite the opposite in
By Lyn Saint There has always been a lot of confusion with the public’s perception of what homeschooling is. As the name implies, people expect to do schooling in the home and therefore expect to be able to purchase homeschooling as a package for their children. Many are often quite confused and even alarmed when they find out that homeschooling is in fact all
This is never easy. As soon as you pull your children out of school, it seems as though your parents, your friends, your neighbours, even the local check-out operator suddenly have an opinion on how children should be educated and most of them won’t match with your concept of home education. Take a deep breath. There will be opposition; it is just a question
By Lyn Saint It can be done If you have found your way to this article, chances are you are having an unhappy time at school. Maybe you are being bullied, or are bored out of your mind or are just plain angry that your life is being wasted in the schoolyard. You may think you are a failure because teachers have said so
Starting home education can be quite daunting—doubly so if you are deciding to home educate children with diverse learning needs, whether they are gifted, disabled, or both (called twice exceptional or 2e). Neurodiverse kids tend not to fit in neat school boxes, and can be a challenge to parent and to home educate. Defining Giftedness Though giftedness can be hard to define, there
By Lyn Saint When the notion of home educating our children first enters our thoughts, most of us instantly dismiss the idea that we could ever do such a thing. After all, there is this huge infrastructure in place costing millions of dollars per year, employing thousands of highly-qualified people, using curricula designed by trained minds using the latest researched and up-to-date techniques. We
By Sue Wight It doesn’t have to cost an arm and leg So you’ve decided to home educate, but now you are worried about how you will ever afford all of those flashy curriculum resources, especially if home education means living on one income as it does for most families. The good news is that home education does not have to be expensive. You
By Lyn Saint ‘How can I give my child a high level of education when I didn’t do very well at school myself?” is not only one of the most asked questions, but many adults today assume that, just because they failed or dropped out of school themselves, that they are uneducated. As a notorious school failure and drop-out, these were also my thoughts
By Sue Wight By far the most frequent question about home education is: But what about socialisation? In order to answer this question, it is important to look at what people mean when they ask about socialisation as the question can be taken in more than one way. Will the children have friends? Home educating families go out of their way to ensure their
