Jorie:
When I first heard about home education in 1986, my kids were four, three, one and newborn. Making it through each day was a task equal to climbing Mount Everest. The thought of keeping them home with me as they hit school age seemed daunting, distant and possibly dangerous; certainly disastrous.
About this time, I had an opportunity to visit a dear friend in Toronto. She was taking her masters in teaching at University of Toronto. While she was in classes some days, I spent my time in the very large University library, researching the words ‘Home Education’. The name that kept coming up as an authority on this topic was Moore. I bravely brought my stack of books to a cubicle and began reading.
In this superb academic environment, amongst other readers who looked academically equal to their surroundings, my mind seemed to open for the first time to what true education means and how it progresses in children. The Moores were suggesting that children learn naturally and do not need to have scholastic measuring sticks imposed by schools and government agencies. Children learn to read and write, because their parents read and write, just the same as they learn speech and other skills.
The Moores took several children with no book-work experience and readied them for standardized grade five by working one-on-one three hours per day for six months. This intrigued me. In the year that followed, we began home education, putting this theory to the test with our family. As our children became interested in learning, we began helping them unlock the secrets of reading, writing, mathematics, physics, chemistry, animal husbandry, art, music and much more. We lived on Quadra Island at the time, traveling back and forth by boat to the fish farm that my husband managed on Reed Island. We also had an apartment at the farm, where there was no end to opportunities for learning about sea life, boats, floatplanes, and salmon farming. What unfolded surpassed any learning experience we had witnessed before. Our eyes were opened to the fact that helping someone learn when they are ready does not take long, nor is it difficult.
In 20 years of Home Education, our seven kids taught me that most learning happens from seeing people do things we want to do. The purest form of learning occurs from wanting to do something, then asking for help to do it. With this in mind, there is no threat of our children ‘being left behind’ academically or socially because of our choice to learn at home. In fact, we discovered that their education at home surpassed that which they experienced at a prestigious private high school in later years. You are what your children want to be and what they want to do. If you read, they will read. If you write, they will write, if you have friends, they will have friends. This cannot fail, as the family is designed to function this way. Parents are the first teachers and remain the most significant teachers in a child’s life.
People considering Home Education ask me about structured learning versus unstructured learning. I answer them with what I have noticed. I see families who sit down daily to scheduled bookwork at home, using text books, curriculum and workbooks. Their children are interesting, well adjusted and smart. I also know home learning families who have no set schedule or curriculum; books underneath cereal on the breakfast table, paint on the floors, bicycles apart in the living room, one year olds tasting dog food with the dog. Their children are interesting well adjusted and smart.
The question is not about structure or non-structure. The question is, are you ready to learn with your children? Are you ready to read, to find out what you’ve always wanted to know, to write an essay, draw a comic character, knit a sweater, grow a garden. If you are willing to answer questions about what your children want to know and if you don’t mind helping them unlock the ancient secrets of the world; then you are ready to home educate. Be prepared for difficult questions as well. Where do I come from, who am I, do you love me? These are important questions children have and often ask with behavior struggles, especially if they are not finding answers. All the television specials , social workers, doctors, lawyers, politicians and even teachers cannot answer these important questions adequately. But with help from their maker, parents can.
I know you will have a wonderful time as you discover ways to learn at home with your children. There will be times of frustration as well as euphoria and everything in between. Remember that we learn best from seeing people do what we want to do, so find mentors and encouragers for yourself through friendship or a home learning support group such as Learners Unlimited.
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Amanda:
My husband wanted to homeschool our sons from the first day so I had some research to do when they were young. We felt it was important to find a balance between the routine of school curriculum and natural learning through exploration and experience. We also would have to be a one income family for me to teach the boys so we needed help financially in our schooling. For these reasons we have enrolled our boys as Distance Learners in the Osoyoos Outreach Program with the School District 53. It consists of a few teachers, a principal, and a secretary. They run out of a classroom in Oliver and one in Osoyoos. http://www.sd53.bc.ca/outreach/
Outreach gives us all our curriculum of our own choosing, $600 per student to spend on educational things (music lessons, gymnastics lessons, bowling, Scholastic books, paper, printer ink, etc), $175 a year cash to help with internet costs, a gym class per term (private swimming, skiing, and golf lessons- or whatever we choose as a group in Kelowna), 30+ hours a year of private Art lessons for painting and sculpture with a respected Kelowna artist, Elizabeth Dykosky, and they only check in on us (at our house!) once every couple months. We try for 3 hours a day of book work and curriculum. In the afternoons we do their activities like gymnastics, skating and Art lessons, and errands like groceries. The programs I choose are very easy to follow and easy to teach. I use Scholastic Science, Saxon math, and Sing, Spell. Read and Write for language arts (primary only). I do whatever social studies they send as the programs are similar for this. I pick through and teach them what I want to and what they want to learn. I find this is a good balance for my boys. We cover the basics in the curriculum and go deeper into things the boys really enjoy.
By homeschooling I am able to change how I teach to their learning method using videos, books, and the internet. Once they learned to read they are often exploring topics of their own. And by being in a DL program we can have financial resources for them to take gymnastics and hockey and anything else they would like to try. And best of all, I get to enjoy their childhood with them as we learn together:)
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Gail:
WHAT HOMESCHOOLING MEANS TO ME
I choose what is important for my child to learn.
I choose how much time to spend and when to teach.
I choose how to teach and when to delegate teaching to someone else.
I choose who I share this information with.
I choose whether or not to register with a public or private support facilitator or whether to go it alone or with help from friends or family.
Basically I educate my child the way I see fit.
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Joan:
We are registered with Heritage Christian School, we are what I think they call eclectic. We homeschool for a lot of reasons, one being that Em is very interested in art and we would not have time for her to attend all she wants to do as well as attend school. We do the things that Emilia enjoys, piano, voice, gymnastics, swimming. pottery classes, art classes and the like. We also like to roam around in the spring and so we take in all the fun things like heritage parks before they are swarmed with tourists. We also spend tons of time at the library borrowing every book, video, or book on tape for the subject we are all interested in. Right now, Em is keen on Ancient Rome and Xander is interested in Knights of Medieval England.
We have a great LC (learning consultant or contact teacher) who turns all our fun and adventures into something that looks like school. It is not always busy, we take huge chunks of time to do what may seem like nothing, but we call it family bonding. Yes, I do worry all the time if I am doing the right thing, but in the end I do not think there is a right thing, we just do what seems best at the time. I hope to raise strong confident and loving adults. The rest is up to them.
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Nicola:
I have three boys - the oldest is nearly 16, the second is 12, and the third is 9. They have never been to school. The last four years we have been with Wondertree in Vancouver. The two youngest are enrolled in their Self Design program, which is a Distributed Learning program where we report online every week to a Learning Consultant. We receive funding in the form of a reloadable Visa card to the tune of $1000 per child per year, which we can spend on educational items, classes, supplies etc. The oldest is an independent homeschooler, registered with their Homelearning Network, and therefore there's no reporting to do for him.
I have always resisted being told what to do with my children, and I like the laid-back, unschooling approach. This means that the children follow their own interests and decide what they want to do and how they're going to go about it. I occasionally make suggestions as to how they might like to spend their time. Sometimes they are open to my ideas, sometimes not. Thankfully Wondertree's philosophy is that children are learning all the time, and my report each week includes many aspects of learning that a public school wouldn't even consider, such as family discussions.
I take this homeschooling journey one year at a time. I am heartened to see that my oldest found his passion and has pursued it, immersing himself in his computer and many heavy books from the library, teaching himself far more than I could have taught him. This is the beauty of unschooling. I confess that I do sometimes remind him of the need for balance in his life, and that his body will thank him if he gets outside and exercises now and again!