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"I have most of your books Beverley... Thankyou for your unending support for homeschoolers ... by sharing your experiences,
we are into our third year of homeschooling and enjoying it thoroughly." Marina
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© Beverley Paine
I often found homeschool unsatisfying because we often didn't seem to do much. As Thomas, Roger and April grew into middle childhood and early adolescence they rarely instigated activities of the kind I'd find in a classroom of their peers. We were always busy, but products weren't always a focus or immediate outcome of our activities. Sometimes it took ages to complete a project, even years. Many projects were abandoned mid-stream, as new passions or interests arose; or as I later realised, the essential learning driving the interest was satisfied and there wasn't a valid or pressing reason to go any further.
Because the children came to projects motivated by their own interests and passions, usually bursting with ideas, they stayed on task, working for hours on end without break, sometimes focussed for days. It would have been silly for me to interrupt these intense learning sessions, to introduce an activity that would 'teach' or advance other skills...
I realised that a lot of the curriculum presented in schools mimics or tries to set up artificial environments to stimulate learning that naturally and effortlessly occurs in the home, especially in the area of health, personal and physical development. Learning hygiene and nutrition at home isn't alienated from cause and effect, sanitised by reams of paperwork and colouring in. It's immediately meaningful to the learner, who doesn't even know he or she is learning anything at all.
Homeschooling for us has been essentially activity based, and as we grew in our knowledge of how learning really occurs those activities became less contrived. It's hard to justify doing something for learning's sake, but it's easy to persuade involvement in rebuilding a petrol driven motor for a miniature car for a senior citizen to drive in the local end of year pageant as a clown... Easy because Roger and Thomas are interested in mechanics, love to help friends, don't want to perform in the pageant, but want to support it by cheering it along and helping build a float or two, as they see participation as vital to building community.
Up until a couple of years ago, I still fell into the trap of asking Thomas to do something that feels alien and not at all immediately meaningful in any context. I rack my brain for reasons, and usually find some kind of fear, and we settle on that, and do the silly thing and feel better. We're happy to compromise, but only because most of our life is full of busy, self motivated and meaningful activities that are loaded with all the goals and objectives and stated aims of all the school curricula I have ever read. I often wonder what lasting effect constantly mimicking real life, way past the age where such pretend games are happily played, has on young minds...
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Pioneering members of the home education movement in Australia,
Beverley and Robin Paine
are passionate advocates of true educational choice for families.
They began homeschooling in 1986 and three years later started the
South Australian Home Based Learners
network. Beverley continues to write for homeschooling newsletters
and magazines as well as hosting several websites dedicated to promoting
and supporting home education in Australia. Her aim is to demystify the
education process and make it accessible to all parents. Enjoy Beverley's
wealth of practical knowledge, homeschooling and unschooling tips and
ideas through articles and books and online at
www.homeschoolaustralia.com.
Since the late 1990s Robin and Beverley have been building their home education
publishing business - Always Learning Books - from home with the help of their son Thomas.
"Education is not a preparation for life. Education is life itself." John Dewey
Please visit the following websites for information on homeschooling in Australia:
Homeschool Australia : SAHEN : Australian HS Curriculum : About the Paine Family
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