By Susan Wight Towards the end of the year, I often catch up with old friends. Getting together always emphasises just how different our lives now are. They talk of meetings, workloads, changing policies, best-practice and so on. Their end-of-year display of cards and gifts from appreciative clients or students always takes me by surprise. Jealous? No, I’m happy with my life and don’t
By Marie Cosgrove I’ve always valued being different but now my girls say they just want to be ‘normal’… My home ed journey began long before I had children. I was first introduced to the idea by my sister–in-law, who was home educating my two nieces. At the time I was teaching in a primary school and struggling with a system I felt didn’t
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 Dindy Vaughan Not every child is happy at school. Some struggle along grudgingly, some fight the system, some opt out and refuse to achieve; and mostly their parents worry. In many cases it comes down to ‘school refusal’. The state of Victoria currently has not hundreds, but thousands of school-age children who are simply refusing to go. The majority are not rabble-rousers and
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 Barbara Frank We were your average homeschool family. We had been happily homeschooling our older two children for five years, and had an adorable little toddler who kept us busy and made sure we weren’t getting too set in our ways. In addition, we were expecting baby number four. Joshua was born shortly after midnight one rainy March night. He was a little
By Cleve Elaine Richey Long before my decision to pull my seven-year-old son, Alex, from public school, I was his teacher. But teaching him meant far more than “enrichment.” It meant reaching him. It meant his survival. As a baby, he’d never wanted to be held, never cooed or babbled. Unlike his sister, who took such pleasure when we played with her, Alex didn’t
By Katharina Russell-Head For those of us who went to school it is almost impossible to imagine what it must be like to grow up outside the system. The closest most of us get is to remember, or to observe, the experience of early childhood. Babies and small children do not take lessons in asking for food, or observe timetables in learning how to
By Susan Wight I rarely doubt that home education is a better way for children to learn, but I have to admit there are times when it all seems too hard. I guess this happens to all of us now and then. Some days I feel discouraged and dispirited with home education and I fear my children are just not becoming the kind of
Today my ten year old son made me proud. Not because he and his team had made it to the basketball grand final but because he acted in a way that showed he had character. When we entered the stadium, all the grand-final-hype was obvious, with streamers and screamers filling the air. Here and there, mascots paraded while banners called for victory. As we
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
