Home Schooling

[gness]

Though Smo's thread went a little wonky Shar's views on home schooling were really interesting.
My daughter's school closed at the start of her GCSE course so five families decided not to enrol their children in a new school but to educate them together ourselves for two years. We did employ redundant teachers and it was the best thing we could have done. Had I my time over my children would be home educated......any thoughts?

[LazyGun]

Interesting, Shari - When you say theoretically attend Steiner school- what did that mean in practice?

[Sharingan]

Well I attended but only for a few months before we realised that if we changed my official residence back to my father's house in the UK I wasn't actually a German resident so it didn't apply to me, I was just on a very long visit. This was not far off true anyway as I have always gone back and forth between the two roughly equally.

[LazyGun]

OIC - So you did not get the opportunity to experience the fairly unique Steiner teaching style then? Some interseeting debates going around some of the central tenets of Steiner philosophy right now, especially as quite a few applications for new free schools in the UK have been from Steiner proponents...

[Sharingan]

We were quite lucky with the science aspect as my Grandmother is a retired Pharmacologist and she'd been involved with my older brother's science education so by the time they got to me she'd got it down pretty much down both equipment wise and also with preset lessons. Thankfully for her I was more arty, although one of my older brothers went on to do sciences, but he had to do GCSE and A levels at college in order to go to Uni.

[yogasun]

Thanks Sharingan, I rather thought that would be the case.

[Sharingan]

Not for very long Lazygun, but it was a very relaxed learning experience whilst there and not a million miles away from some sort of group home schooling if that makes sense.

[erin-x]

There is a big Steiner School in Edinburgh. I would have loved to have done a placement there as part of my training.

[society]

To be honest when I hear kids being home-schooled I always thought to myself "yer right how much time would they actually spend studying, they'll be distracted by the Tv, refrigerator, other family members and just doing whatever they feel like". Sharin, you've proved me wrong and made me changed my mind about schooling at home.

I find you to be articulate and eloquent, and quite knowledgeable.

[atalanta]

Unfortunately, in the UK, home-schooling is so unregulated that you could get a family of Nazis bringing up children to be bigots and nazis like themselves, and nobody could stop them. Nobody could even check up on you to see you were giving your children sufficient lesson time or lessons of any kind of quality. You could claim that one walk a week was "nature study" and was sufficient "study" for several children for a whole week. These children could then be left to their own devices on the Internet or playing games for the rest of their "school" time. It is nobody's responsibility to check the quality of Home education. It also gives ample opportunity for anyone whose religion teaches inferiority of women to give their daughters "education" in nothing but housework, cooking, and looking after granny.
Even if "home schooling" were to be regulated by some education authority, I shoud still oppose it on many other grounds - too many to go into here.

[Sharingan]

Thank you society, but I do have one brother quite like that, he didn't find the self discipline side of being home schooled easy at all and was always being reminded he ought to be doing something constructive, but he's just a naturally lazy git lol, so I do think it's harder for some people than others. xx

[Sqad]

atalanta....good post......you have mentioned the points which would worry me also......the supervision.

[society]

Atlanta, you forgot babysitting or child-minding too. :)

[jim360]

There are I suppose risks to home-schooling if it's not monitored. On the other hand at least it's "only" one or two children being indoctrinated. Schools, if also not properly monitored, could easily do the same to an entire generation of local children.

Anyway, as long as there's reasonable regulation I don't see a problem with home-schooling.

[sebhfhion]

Home schooling. Well there are so many facets to an Education that the success of Homeschooling should not be measured in Intellectual terms only. Young people have to learn to interact not only in a social situation but in a competitive and work based environment. At school you learn to get along with people you don't particularly like, you learn to work in teams and experience social and sexual interactions with your contemporaries. You can't get this homeschooling where you are in a loving environment, surrounded by invariably middle class well educated parents and siblings. Even if you are exposed to plenty of social interaction it is always with people who have the same interests or backgrounds. This results in perhaps extremely well informed individuals who have little concept of life outside their well-defined parameters. They tend to be outspoken but find criticism difficult, especially when the criticism comes from personality clash rather than valid argument because they have not been exposed to people who 'just don't like them' as they would in main stream education and find it hard to cope as there is no rationality behind the dislike. Going to School is so much more than getting educated.

[gness]

Thank you for the interesting and varied points of view and Shar for your input which was really useful and enlightening.
In the end it must boil down to the child and the parents. My son would have been difficult to home school I think, too easily distracted and not very academic though he has done very well since leaving at the earliest opportunity and has provided employment for many people so I can't complain.
For various reasons my daughter would have floundered or at least not achieved so well in a State school. I worked in State schools and it wasn't the environment for her. She was a gifted and very focused girl so the education we chose for her suited well.
There is the possibility of a home school child becoming insular or unwilling to mix with different people. The parent has the responsibility to ensure that doesn't happen. Through Brownies and Guides, sporting activities, theatre and holiday work in a factory my daughter became a good social mixer which, with her education, has held her in good stead.
As Seb so rightly says...going to school is more than education but education is also more than going to school. Striking a happy medium could be the solution...I have experienced too many parents who view school as a baby sitting service and school holidays a time to be endured rather than enjoyed.