Vision for Life

How did we get here?  I must admit as a first time parent in my mid 20s there was no way that I ever would have envisioned that my eldest child would have been home educated for all but a couple of years of school.

Damien and I started out parenthood with the idea that our family unit was important, and that being connected and supported in our relationship was important and that supporting each other and our child(ren) was our priority.  Our main priority for ourselves when we met, was happiness and to have a happy relationship.  This was our vision for our future, and this has been the motivator for many of our decisions.

We started home education, because it seemed convenient for relocating back to Australia.  We stopped home education because Willow needed more social contact.  We returned to home education because Willow's happiness and our own family harmony were more important to us than the schooling system. 

With Willow being in school (in Scotland), home educated in Scotland, France and Adelaide, and back in school (in Adelaide) it became clearer to Damien and I that some of our own problems as young adults were purely to do with school and its systemisation.  We could see some of this appearing in some of the kids in Willow's school in Adelaide, certain behaviours that the 7yr olds were developing to cope with being in the system, that parents explained away as a stage, and that Damien and I with our new perspective could see was the kids finding ways to cope with have too few adults to spend time with, be supported by and to model grown-up behaviour from.

Within a very short time of removing Willow from school the anti-social behaviours that she was displaying at home vanished, and when on further questioning on my part, about how much happier she seemed, 7yr old Willow declared, "I don't have to act any more Mummy."

So this formed the basis for our decisions around education, these transformative experiences, started us on this wonderful and at times challenging but always inspiring journey that has lead us towards a usually contented home life based around education and learning.  This has meant that only Willow attended school, and that Gabriel and Arden have never been, and that Irving is heading towards being registered for home education next year.  For the littler ones in particular this experience has been all encompassing and nurturing, being surrounded by their family that loves them almost all of the time, and having an understanding that learning is inspiring and interesting and exciting. 

When they go out into the world, they transition into being independant, and they are not rudely and sharply separated from their family, and the feeling of safety that that offers them.  The separation that happens does so gently over the years: time at classes with parents present, time at classes without parents present, time with friends, time at home alone, time walking to the shop,etc.  Each skill is built up gradually and gently and each separation is partly encouraged by Damien and I, and by our child.  In the early years, this can feel very slow, but in a larger family there are so many other activities happening that the later years of school travel past quite quickly and all of a sudden, home education is coming to an end, and new experiences past school are being planned and created.

One final note, in our family, one of the main occurrences during the years to keeping life happy and content, is to always resolve emotional disturbances and disharmonies on the spot.  Some days this has meant at home learning has gone out the window, as we sit and work out and sometimes have a good cry, about life and what has been going on.  But these times of disharmony, have always worked out in our favour, as we as a family, have learnt about emotions together and have language and skills to problem solve our feelings, and the problems that they can create.  For me pre-children this was the path that I was starting that lead us to this place, the path towards being able to find and create happiness, and be content most of the time.

So my question to anyone starting home education is...What is your goal for your family?

Some of our moments...
Coffee mornings with Damien have become a thing around here, after him missing us all in the mornings!  (We tend to be later risers) 

Hanging out at the playground with everyone...so nice to have teens that have fun with everyone, that like to chat with people, and to have a family of people that look out for each other.  (Little one has a way to go with this obviously!)

Things to do whilst waiting for your older siblings...."pop"...umbrella fun!

One of Arden's latest passions, photography.  Hot chocolate on a cold day!

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2025 

I had forgotten a few of the things I had referenced here- those illuminating moments when I realised what was going on for some children in their early years of education, as they become dulled and disillusioned and surrendered to the idea of being systemised.  I imagine now that more and more children are in childcare from almost birth, that this may be harder for modern parents to notice, and I am certainly glad to have had that experience of illumination.

As a family with 20 something children, a teen and a pre-teen we still have a lot of fun.  Willow lives out of home with her fiance, in the South- West of WA, and regularly comes to stay with us, and we get down to visit her too.

Our goal as a family has stayed consistent over the years; working out how to get along, and allow everyone to be themselves, and at times it has been easier to work this out than at other times.  Introducing regular computer usage brought  some challenges, and some of these boundaries are things we are still working out and exploring.

Timetables part 1

In 2006 when I first started homeschooling I thought our homeschooling experience would be a year out of school whilst travelling back to Australia- something convenient and useful to make our transition back into school easier.  We started the year in Glasgow, Scotland (our home at the time), spent some time in London, and approx 2 months in Paris before arriving back in Adelaide in June.  It was a fabulous 6months of travelling, and over that time I came to love learning as a family.  (This process had really begun when we left Adelaide in 2004).  Not really knowing anything about home education; other than my sister-in-law had started educating her kids, I felt that I needed a curriculum on how to do it.  My SIL recommended a Steiner curriculum (that she was using) and we followed that 5 days a week for grade 1.  ( Willow had been attending the Glasgow steiner school's kinde class the previous year).  We spent that first year home educating in Glasgow, Paris and Adelaide.  We were all enjoying it, and I was finding it was bringing our family closer together.

Learning in Paris

At musee d'orsay

Off to see Monet

When we settled back into living in Adelaide, for various reasons, although we'd come to love home educating at the end of year 1, we found a school to send Willow to.  Sadly after a brief stint in one school (Willow normally ridiculously talkative was saying almost nothing after school), we tried a second school where even Gabriel was commenting at pick-up time that he didn't want to go there!  (There was issues with bullying).  During our six months in school-  I connected into the home education community in Adelaide and by the time the second term was coming to an end we decided that school was not worth the trouble, and that we had a much more pleasant time home educating.

Initially I felt that I would buy a grade 2 pack to help me with home education, but as I settled back into the idea of it, I realised that I mostly knew where Willow was up to with her work, and that maybe with some guidance I could figure it out myself.  In my hunting around I came across Shining Star school in Portland, and discovered the wonderful Mrs M. who shared knowledge and files on how to create one's own plan for home education.  In the early days we still stuck to doing 5 days- but gradually we transitioned to 4 days (as we went out once a fortnight on home education outings) and finally we settled on 3 as we found it best to have a home loving day and a catch up with other home educators.

For years now, we have more or less stuck with that arrangement, though presently due to being busy with Irving, we also do a half day of craft, as we have been struggling to fit it in during our other three days.  The biggest adjustment to our weekly rhythms has always been the time when a new baby has arrived, and this has involved adjusting how we work, and due to the ages of the children some great lessons on how to take care of babies!

As people have gotten older we've also added in extra classes here and there for things that we haven't personally got the skills to teach.  Initially when we arrived back from Europe, we did some French lessons (as Willow in particular had been picking up a bit of French whilst we were there), eventually we added in music lessons and sport lessons.  Otherwise we've done some one off classes such as woodwork, science, gardening.  We also attend a lot of arts events as Willow is interested in a career in classical music, and to cater to our desire to live learning as well as do some structured rhythms - we tend to have quite extended holidays (we used to take 3months over summer, and follow the general Australian holidays, now we take 3months over Summer, 2 weeks at Autumn, 6weeks over Winter and 2 weeks in Spring.)  This gives lots of down time for people to be unstructured.

That said we are now at the stage where Willow has been managing her own time and work, and Gabriel is heading that direction.  Willow, Damien and I have discussions and regular catch ups to discuss where Willow's work is at, and anything that requires review from us (such as essays, or written pieces is looked over together, discussed and reviewed until it is at a satisfactory level).  We've found many benefits in this scenario and lots of learning happening for all of us- but ultimately Willow is learning how to manage when and where and what she is doing all week.

Poetry

Willow has been getting into doing poetry recently, and has her own poetry blog now.

Here it is.
http://theblogofpoems.blogspot.com.au/

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2025

So it seems Willow has taken down her poetry blog.  Being into music as she is, poetry seemed a natural extension to explore.  Many people complain about it being pointless, but seem to lack comprehension that modern music lyrics, are poetry, accompanied by sound.

Some examples of Willow's poetry can be found here.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2011/09/holiday-time.html

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-face-of-fear-by-willow.html

Arden trialing poetic writing.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-collection.html

Poetry resources from when Arden was learning to write poetry.  The Stephen Fry book "The Ode Less Travelled" has been popular around here.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2019/09/term-2-part-2.html

Since living in Glasgow we celebrate Burn's night here, with a small bit of poetry reading, usually after we've been to the Australia day fireworks, since they are quite close together.  Since we have Scottish heritage- Damien is Scottish, and I have some Scottish ancestry, it's nice to keep some of the culture within the family.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2018/04/summer-holidays-finally-here.html