John Barratt-Peacock
This account was told to me when I was interviewing hundreds of home educating families across Australia for my doctoral research.
You live in the city? Check! There will be a waterway somewhere and even if it is not as rustic as the one in this story, it will reveal great treasures to those who befriend it!
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It was my husband’s idea to home educate. He got it from his mate Joe at work. It was his idea but guess who would be doing it! Not long afterwards he left me for a computer technician but that is an old story now.
Let me describe for you the home we built together. A river has cut its way through high ground leaving a fast and narrow channel of rushing water between two cliffs. About halfway up the cliff on a sort of large shelf we built a two storey stone and mudbrick house with just enough room to turn a car beside it. We had spring-fed water and big plans to draw power from the river in the gorge, but all that went to Queensland with the ‘other woman’.
Suddenly I had three children and myself and I just couldn’t stop asking “Why?” Indirectly, Joe had got me into this and he and his wife Sheila were a great help at that difficult time when I was sliding into depression. They made the trip from Hobart bringing lots of materials and advice, but best of all they brought food, energy for cleaning the place up and other adult voices.
It helped that I had to do things with the children every day. I know a lot of home educators feel good about not having to get up for the school bus in the morning but that was not good for me! It was all too easy to lie in bed and mope rather than get started on the day. It was on those days that I began to realise just how great my children were. The youngest would burrow into bed with me while the older ones would brew strong coffee and talk about what had to be done that day. Where did my eight-year-old get all this organising ability? In those first few months she practically ran the entire household!
The children did work through the books that Joe and Sheila had left but as I began to get stronger I realised that their hearts were not in it and they were doing it just for me. We were reading a book in the Little House on the Prairie series and one day I just said, ‘Let’s see if we can catch some fish like they did.’
We walked down to the river and found a place where a little waterfall fell over a ledge near the bank. There we put rocks in the bottom of a plastic milk crate that we had covered with some fly wire from an old screen door and sank it in the shallows under the fall. It didn’t take long and we continued to walk beside the river just for fun. We saw other places where we might arrange fish nets and we pulled a lot of driftwood out onto the bank. That was when we saw the mushrooms.
There was a place where the cattle loved to congregate just above the riverbank and right there we saw more mushrooms that we could believe. Some were so fresh that we just ate them then and there but we returned home to get a basket to carry the rest.
After that, every morning started with a walk along the riverbank. We studied how the river found its way, what animals and birds lived on it, what they ate, where they nested or slept and what grew near and in the water. When we returned home we got out the reference books and looked up what we could but soon we had to go into town for information and to consult experts, and then the projects came thick and fast!
Nowadays one could consult the internet for information but contacting people built up networks that were valuable and rewarding for all concerned at the time and later became an incredible help as the children moved either into the workforce or higher education.
All the children began to keep journals. Those who couldn’t yet write drew pictures. Some days were blank, and that was ok, but it was amazing how they all began to develop accurate drawing skills as we became familiar with our riverbank. It also affected what we got out of the library. Wind in the Willows came first but then all sorts of exploring, history and adventure stories. I had not realised just what a long tradition we were in when we chose to live by the river.
What developed was not natural learning nor did we use a curriculum, although our collection of reference books, courtesy of St. Vinnies, grew considerably. Really we were doing river based home education!
As well as learning about our environment and following that up in the library and museum, we began to learn some of the old crafts from the days before plastic. John Seymour was a favourite author and the Readers Digest Back to Basics. From the willows and reeds, we made a range of baskets which we dyed with natural dyes. When we got good enough, we found that a friend was willing to put them on his stall in Salamanca Market. They actually began to sell and the money came in very handy! It also gave the children a great boost and an increased sense of self-worth to find that they could make things that people would buy. That formed the basis of a study of work, money and investment, which I thought of as Practimaths!
Of course it was not all great. The winters were cold and long, though our house was out of the wind and the riverbank provided all the fire wood we needed for heat and cooking. Winter was when I got most ‘down’ and the children most fractious, but we got through it with board games and experiments in lighting that led to lots of work with mirrors. We would have liked a telescope to look at the stars in our clear winter skies but they cost too much, so we just made more baskets, tried to make linen out of nettles (it didn’t work) and such other things as we could and that might sell.
During this dark season I began to realise just what a spiritual and emotional support the children were. Despite everything they had no doubts about the basic things of life. They just seemed to know everything would turn out well and it just so often did! Reading the classics from my own childhood gave us lots to talk about and compare ourselves with. We felt that we were doing just as well as Robinson Crusoe and probably a bit better than The Children Who Lived in a Barn.
Was I using them as an emotional crutch? To be honest, yes I was sometimes but then I also supported them at times, as every mother does, so I just took it as normal that we all supported each other as the need arose. Our family grew strong and the children developed into maturity and understanding – even if I had no idea where they might be in a school curriculum.
Eventually the time came when the eldest wanted to go to college. She shared a flat with a friend and did very well indeed. Even though she was well behind in some subjects her self-discipline and personal organization skills saw her right up with the others at the end of first term. She has since taken a degree in Zoology.
The middle one is working in a restaurant in Sydney and saving madly for a sailboat and the youngest managed to persuade the big landowner here to lease her a narrow stretch of land along the riverbank and to throw in a pile of old sheep netting and other useful stuff.
His grown up children run his own property now and he spends a good deal of time with my youngest and me as we continue to enjoy the river and now grow a few veggies along its bank.
Looking back, it has been a very satisfying life and the children have all turned out well. I am so proud of them! I certainly would not have imagined that this is how my life would go but, even if I could go back, I would not choose any other way. Oh! We never did catch any fish in the milk crate but we did eat lots from the river nets and we also caught lots of eels, smoked them in a converted fridge and at $5 each we were never short of customers!
Otherways 148
