Spotlight on Home Ed Alumni
Find Your Own Way It might not be what you think
By Jemima
Please introduce yourself, tell us how old you are and what you are doing now.
My name is Jemima, I am 36 and I spend my days home educating my three children, who are between 5 and 10 years old.
What did your home education look like?
Our days usually consisted of some bookwork in the mornings and free time/life learning in the afternoons. We spent a lot of time outside, climbing trees, riding bikes, and looking after our pets. My parents encouraged sports and activities to help us form friendships in the community, but as a shy child I found this quite hard. I danced and played basketball for many years, but never really formed any good friendships from either. As home educating wasn’t common, my mum found it a bit hard to know how to approach it, especially as we got older. Curriculum (that she was happy with) was hard to find, and I feel that she had lots of judgement and pressure from outsiders to replicate school.
What are your fondest memories of home ed?
My fondest memories are having an awesome childhood! We spent so much time outside exploring, playing, riding bikes and all of the fun and innocent things that a lot of kids miss out on these days. We spent a lot of time together as a family, which I look back on and cherish. My parents went through the process of building two houses over the years (my dad is a builder and so did a lot of the work himself), and I remember always going down there, taking Dad his lunch, and looking around at each stage of the build. We used to love helping him bang nails and sweep up and anything else that we were allowed to do. We spent the weekends going for long bike rides or small hikes, or sharing meals with our very large extended families and hanging out with our cousins.
Is there anything you would have liked to be different?
I would have liked more social opportunities. During those years of home ed, I never had any close friends, apart from a couple of my cousins. As I got older, I longed for friendship (especially with girls, as I have three brothers). In mid high school I really felt like I was missing out, and asked to go back to school. In saying this, it has changed so much now! Socialisation is the least of my kids’ problems as home educators.
I would also like more education for the community around home educating. Back in the day, when I would tell people that I was home educated, I was often automatically put in a category of being a ‘weirdo’. Thankfully, this is getting better, but there are certainly still sections of the community that see it as a path to being a lonely and useless member of society.
Home educators are often asked about socialisation. What’s your view?
I completely understand why people worry about this and ask this question so often, because I lived it. But so much has changed in the last 20 years! Home educating is so popular now, and the opportunities for children to socialise are huge. We could socialise outside the family every day if we wanted to. My children have such a great range of social opportunities that it’s the least of my worries. But the average person doesn’t really know anything about home educating, so I understand why this question comes up (most people seem to think we replicate school—doing schoolwork 9 to 3—and don’t get out much).
Tell us about your pathway to where you are now.
I am now a stay-at-home mum, home educating my three children, despite vowing that I would never home educate my kids! The end of my home education journey was a bit rocky—I started hating being at home because I craved more socialisation and finding more friends—so I decided to go back to school.
I sent my oldest off to kinder and school with very little thought, and then off went the second child. Our second child was in her first year of school (and second child in grade 1) the year that COVID hit. This was a huge turning point for me, along with the fact that neither of my kids really enjoyed school that much (complaints about how long they were away from home, with the oldest being super shy as well). We all HATED remote learning (we live in Victoria, so had huge stretches of being in lockdown), and after a while just stopped with the remote learning altogether, and just focused on life learning. After seeing exactly what they were learning at school, I was mortified! My kids were so unengaged, and I could completely understand why. It was boring and they did not care about what they were learning at all.
After lockdowns, the kids had one term left of school to return to before the end of the year. I wanted to pull them out, but I had not yet been able to convince my husband, so off they went. That last term was a huge struggle for all of us, the kids HATED it, and it was a huge fight every single day to get them into the classroom. I spent that term joining local home ed groups, chatting with current home educators, and really familiarising myself with it all. After everything that I looked into and the people that I spoke to, I was really happy that things had changed enough (from when I was home educated) for me to take the leap. At the end of the year, I managed to convince my husband to at least let us try it for a year, and I am pleased to say we are now in our second year.
Were you home educated all your life, or did you go to school at any point?
My parents pulled me out of school at the end of grade 3 (I think) and I returned to school to complete year 11 and 12. I attended the last term of year 10 at the school, to get used to it and adapt to the change, before leaping into VCE. Every family is different, but for me at the time, this was a great move. I made some wonderful friendships in those two years and had a really positive experience with some fantastic teachers who supported me through the change. I still have great admiration and respect for the teachers that I had during that time.
Name one advantage you think school has over home ed.
Probably the facilities and access to certain things that home educators don’t get (as easily). Things like gymnasiums, science labs, technology, etc. Not all home educators can afford to supply all of these things, though that said, I don’t necessarily think these are all needed for home educating anyway.
Did you ever worry that your future might be jeopardised by not having qualifications?
No. I never wanted to go to university, as I didn’t see a need for it. I originally wanted to join the police force for a few years, but ultimately all I really wanted to do was get married and have my own family. I never really had strong career goals, because I knew that once I became a mum, I didn’t want to be working full time. I wanted to be able to raise my kids and be around to look after them as much as possible.
In between finishing school and now, I never had any problems with my background as a home educator. I studied for two years full time at TAFE, I applied and got jobs as easily as the next person, and worked those jobs for years at a time, with the longest being 10 years, before I made the choice to leave.
My younger three brothers are all also quite successful in their own ways. One owns multiple branches of a popular gym franchise and has opened two healthy fast-food establishments with his wife. They have also just built a beautiful house together. Another brother has spent time travelling, living in different states, exploring loads of places and working well-paid jobs along the way. My other brother completed an apprenticeship and has been working full time since then, even being able to purchase his first house on his own. They have all travelled to different places around the world and worked to support themselves in different ways.
Are you happy to have grown up the way you did?
Yes. I think we had such a fun and innocent childhood, and I am so thankful to my parents for all that they did to provide it for us.
Has home ed helped you get where you are today? Do you think it has influenced who you are?
I think being home educated definitely played a part in making me who I am today. It gave me more freedom to explore different things, and helped me to become a free thinker who questions a lot of things that most other people wouldn’t.
Is there anything you wish your parents had known?
That they didn’t have to replicate traditional school and that they were doing a wonderful job, despite judgement from other people.
Any advice for current home educators?
Don’t worry about what other people think; do what is right for you and your family. Take your time, especially if leaving the school system, to figure out what works for you and your child/ren— there is no rush to jump into a curriculum or routine. Try different things and stick with what works and ditch what doesn’t. Find or create a good support system, from family to other home educating families or close friends. If you do most of it on your own, make sure you take some time out for yourself every now and then. When a day is hard, or not going the way you planned, ditch the work and go outside.
Otherqay 177 – August 2023
