Home Education typically gets a bad reputation from all the myths that are out there. We are no strangers to them, and have come across quite a few of them over the years. Naturally, this make some families unsure about Home Education as a whole. We hope to break down some of these stereotypes.
This page was written by Cerys: now a 23-year-old, she has been Home Educated since she was 14.
I don’t have the time to Home Educate full time.
You don’t have to! Home Education is more than that. You can home educate your kids at every opportunity, and probably already do without realizing it. Every moment can be a teachable moment, and you don’t have to take your kids out of mainstream education to do so.
My education at home, for example, was spent learning about practical skills I could use in life. I learnt home economics, cooking, gardening, home maintenance, how to use the internet safely, banking, as well as what money is and how to use it, taxes, and other very important things that many kids don’t start learning until their 20s. Other “lessons” of mine were spent learning about the things I specifically wanted to know. One minute I’d be asking a science question and the next, politics or engineering.
Our point is that education at home can happen without your children even knowing it. It’s about teaching them that they can learn anything they want to, whenever they want to, even outside a school-like environment. Learning new things should be fun!
But what about socialisation!?
This is something we’ve encountered a lot. The idea that none of us know how to interact with people is usually perpetuated by pop culture, modern media, and society in general. How many times have you seen a video or film where a home educated kid comes into view and jokes are made about them being “weird” or “strange”?
We can promise you this isn’t the case.
We grow into fully functional members of society. We have friends, whether they are made in clubs, over the internet via gaming, or otherwise. I am more than capable of going into a shop and whipping up some small talk with the cashier. We know it’s called “Home Education” but many of our “lessons” were spent outside, learning about the real world and the people within it.
Home Education is just school at home.
Many people assume that Home Education is just about replicating a school-like environment, only it’s at home. When the pandemic hit and many parents realised that they’d have to teach their children at home for a while, many started buying desks, blackboards, and work books. Many people started writing out lesson plans and timetables for when it was “lesson time” and when it wasn’t. All because of this stereotype.
Most of the time in Home Ed, the children lead the education. If they ask a question, answer it! Expand on it, and if you don’t know the answer yourself, spend time with them and learn the answer together. The child asking questions is a way of showing interest in the world around them. Answer each and every one.
“Lessons” are always going on, they never actually end. Every moment is a teachable moment. Sometimes, the education for the day can just be; going for a walk and looking at flowers, doing some gardening, and maybe giving them their own patch where they can grow their own things, going and visiting a landmark and learning about its history.
This is why this website is here and why our channel exists. Children have a natural curiosity, and a great way to learn is to make every teaching opportunity fun and engaging.
Children need a school environment to thrive.
Maybe that’s true for some kids. There’s a good possibility that some children do better in a school-like environment, but that’s not the case for all kids. Many kids are actually worse off in a school-like setting.
I can only speak from my experience, but I have thrived much more in a home educated environment than a school one. My lessons were chosen by me, and I was more engaged because they were topics I was genuinely interested in. There was no weight or pressure that I often felt while I was in school. I learnt faster by one on one teaching, and when I was at school, I didn’t feel like teachers took my education seriously. It was just their job. I felt ignored, and as a result, I didn’t try as hard as I know I could have. I have learnt more, and done much better, than I personally think I would have if I had stayed in school.
This is the case for most kids, including my brother and many other people we know. Some kids learn differently, and schools tend to teach all kids in one singular way. Schools are not equipped to teach a child that may learn differently than they’re used to, which doesn’t work. As a result, many kids then feel like they aren’t able to learn. They may be scolded or made to feel “stupid” for not understanding a topic at the pace they’re expected to. Done enough times, many stop trying to learn altogether.