Those of you who have followed this blog for a while will know of my "will I, won't I" debate with homeschooling.
(For those that don't you can catch up
HERE.)
There have been several obstacles in the way of homeschooling. The lack of income, the nature of the work we do (often dangerous, not child friendly), the fact we are so far away from public/free resources, lack of transport.... yadda, yadda, yadda.
We had plans worked out, clever money saving ideas for learning, how we would split learning between us, Kim fully committed and eager to participate.
There's only one problem.
Ollie doesn't want to do it.
Its a bit like deflating a balloon.
The trouble is, although he is none too fond of the academic side of things at school, he loves being there. He loves his friends, the activities they do, the plays they put on, the art and music lessons, if you just took away maths and English he'd happily move into school!
This left me in a bit of a quandary.
I honestly believe that his reading and maths problems would improve in a home education environment, that he would be able to do these subjects one to one in his own way and have more time to do the things he loves, I saw it fitting in with a newer, shinier, BETTER family lifestyle and he said no!
As a parent which way should I go?
Take him out of school anyway because I think it would be best for him?
The trouble is I've yet to come across a home school story where the child in question was taken out of school against their wishes. (Although this is just my experience, there may be many of them!)
Most of the time the children either never attended school or left school having not enjoyed the experience. To take Ollie out of school when he enjoyed going seemed..... well.... as bad as making him attend school if he hated it.
So for a while I gently seethed, not at him, just the unfairness of it.
I had worked myself into a frenzy, made plans, saved a thousand useful websites, picked up books from charity shops and it was all for nothing.
Then on Xmas day I opened a present from my Mum and found myself holding Mary Griffith's book
"The Unschooling Handbook.
I had asked for it weeks ago, when still in the grip of home school preparation, and now I looked at it forlornly.
What was the point in having it?
That day I flicked through it and dismissed it as no good anyway.
It seemed to be made up entirely of case studies, snippets of information from
unschooling families, there was little to tell me what I wanted to know about homeschooling.
I put the book to one side.
Then a few days later I picked it up again and started reading.
And promptly felt very silly.
What had I expected from a book on UN-schooling? Lists of subjects? Tables of set tasks? Goals to reach by certain ages?
Palm.... meet face.
The book was an honest look at unschooling families, how they educate, how they cope with outside factors (official and "friendly fire), what they do if a child asks to go back to school or wants to try it out and the shift in family life that can cause.
I read it and I finally GOT it.
The unschooling principle is one that can be applied even when your child is IN school.
I had been worrying about all the wrong things!
My whole reason for wanting to home school had centred around the fact that Ollie needed extra help at home with his weaker subjects. I had seemed faced with hours of one to one tuition which neither of us wanted and I knew these sessions would not be productive. more likely they would be bitter and angry as he tried to get away with not doing it and I pushed him into it.
It was this worry, the worry that our relationship (tempestuous at the best of times) would break completely under this strain, that had me looking at homeschooling.
Reading the book I now understand that instead of slapping down the reading/maths book, and demanding that we learn to do it right, I should instead be looking at ways to promote his strong points, find acceptable ways to practice his weak points (through play, games, TV, computer and seemingly unrelated tasks like reading instructions or weighing feed for the horses for example).
I took a good look at what we are doing and saw where the improvements could go.
Rather than restricting TV time (which can be significant after school) isn't it better to make sure the DVDs he watches are half educational? Wild life and war documentaries are no chore to watch for my kids, they can't get enough
David Attenborough! he LOVES the
Horrible Histories series on BBC i-player. Even movies like Toy Story and Star Wars have good messages and morals.
I also realised that valuable resources at home are not being used to their full potential, like the expensive keyboard the kids got as an Xmas present in 2009, used a handful of times and then sat on top of my wardrobe because there was nowhere to put it. Well imagine that! Today I found somewhere to put it, so its plugged in and accessible when ever they want! We have a stack of board games that only need an adult added to get started.
I needed to chill out a bit. Stop worrying, let it go.
I'd like to think I know enough about his weaknesses (they are my own as well of course) to know that they can be overcome.
In the early 90's me and school parted ways.
School did not know this of course.
I was "ill" at home a lot, because I struggled at school, found the work boring and/or hard. I found my artistic side strangled by art teachers who were not good enough to be real artists, my musical side stomped on my teachers who had no interest in music, only the mechanics of scribbles on paper, and my literary side squashed by teachers who only saw my spelling mistakes and not the fiction or poetry I had worked hard on.
Yes, some of my need to home school my kids stems from my school experiences, no one needs a degree to see that.
Most of my learning during that period between the ages of 12 and 15 I did alone.
I read anything and everything, from cereal boxes to wine making books.
I watched daytime TV before "daytime TV", so I watched old movies, Open university programs, the news, gentle documentaries about British wildlife or northern iron works. I watched cookery shows, detective shows from the 1970's, even the schools programs from infant to sixth form standard.
Looking back I unschooled myself pretty well.
Do I wish I had a university degree?
Sometimes.
Do I feel I'm lacking intellectually?
Not really, because you see, I'm STILL doing it!
Unschooling doesn't stop when you hit 16, you never finish it, there's always something new to learn. It doesn't care if you're in formal education or working full time, its just IS, and if the barriers are taken away and the tools are laid in front of you to use how ever and when ever you want you can't fail.
So for a while at least I am relaxing.
I think its all going to be OK.
