Bunch of unicorns

I’ve been home educating long enough now, to feel pretty happy with what we do. I’ve seen my children learn and grow, and many of the things that left me nervous and uncertain in my early days have been overcome. I have two adult children in their early stages of making their way in the world, and on the whole I feel home educating has been the right choice for our family.

Some things that I think are worth considering on this journey are the balance between structured (classes, etc) and unstructured learning (question led and going down rabbit holes!) and multi-generational family and independent learning.

My parents were a blend of structured and unstructured in their approach to learning, and some of my fondest memories are of me spending time with my Dad, and having him explain to me various activities, that perhaps other adults would have thought I was too small to understand. As the second youngest of 12, I assume now he treated me this way because he was treated this way( he died 21 years ago). I feel very blessed to have had this experience and to have been able to bring an experimental multi-generational sense of learning to family, that I now realise was routed in spending time with my Dad.

When we started home educating, DD23, had been to a Steiner school and the creativity and the practical side, and the screen minimisation (both DH and I were in favour of this, both of us had computers young, and DH works as software engineer) and in our early years I was very much trying to replicate Steiner at home. I did quite a bit of reading on it, including reading some of Steiner’s takes on education. At this stage now, in my 18th year, I feel this background continues to serve me in how I approach education with my children, as I have this understanding to fall back on, when I am wondering how my children are progressing in life. The main tenants, I find particularly useful are knowing that children in the first seven years tend to imitation, from 7-14 they tend to imagination, and from 14-21 they tend to inspiration.

In practise what this looks like is children under 7 copying everything they see and hear, try to use their vision of the world and what interests them to create the sort of people that they wish to become. For children 7-14, the imagination stage can be creating anything- stories, game, drawings, etc. 14-21 year olds, need guidance through mentorship, inspiring people and stories, and initiation to start to bring themselves into maturity.

So coming back to my earlier thoughts- structured and unstructured learning. Both have value and both have potential. My preference is to have a balance of both in our family. A class with an exceptional teacher/mentor can impart knowledge that I lack and the right circumstances speed up learning. However they do not tend to teach a child how to be a self-directed independent learner. That is something that unstructured learning can offer- particularly I think if a parent/guardian is prepared to be a co-learner with their child/student. Doing research together, asking questions together and exploring together, set up the child to understand how to do the process easily when they are more mature.

Multi-generational learning, in a family or in extended community, brings enormous rewards in that the student gets to receive skills across the family, or across the generations of people that are becoming or have become significant in their field (this of course does not have to mean paid work- it could be a hobby that they are exceptional at). Independent learning give the student a chance to research , to understand their own boundaries and how far and how much they can push themselves without an adult judging whether they have done enough or are good enough. It encourages them to self-assess and to work on themselves, themselves.

Some interest led learning- Arden exploring textures of fabric close up, on my camera.

And so, over the years I have noticed a couple of things in my community here, in Perth. People doing very structured home education- with lots of text books and classes can manage the high school years easily. They fall back on the idea of the traditional view of education, probably pre-dating modern schooling. Those that unschool in the early years, and do not learn how to learn with their children seem to come unstuck at high school, and seem to particularly need to send their children to high school, as they are uncertain how to transition into more academic style learning. This seems to be particularly the case when people claim that unschooling is “doing nothing” (I have heard this statement quite a number of times over the years, and I highly recommend reading John Holt for anyone that thinks that this is what it is). I find it quite a shame that many people come unstuck at this point, and I think it would serve many people well to remember that they are the child’s first teacher- walking, talking, etc and to remember that what skills one has as an adult are valuable to pass on to children. Not force on to them, just work side by side learning together, so that the best of both world’s can be had, and that there is no need to find endless classes (or schools) because sometimes learning in the family at home can be enough.