Unschool Monday

Joining up with Lauren  over at owlet.  This week there was a discussion on ABC Radio National about home schooling.  I listened as I 'knew' (online) one of the home ed mums involved in the discussion.  It took me the rest of the day to calm down!

Although they had home ed adequately covered and gave Shae and the other mum a relatively good amount of speaking time I was stunned by the ignorance of one of the other guests, a professor of education.  If you are going to invite a professional to give his opinion then surely it would be wise to firstly check that he understood a bit about home education.  I am disappointed in ABC for this error on their part.  I am also amazed (perhaps naively) at the number of people who have such a strong negative view of home education without ANY idea whatsoever as to what it really is.

So, for starters here are some things we DON'T do:

• stay at home 24/7
• sit at a desk all day with books
• assume to be able to teach our children ALL the things
• isolate our children from other people
• do it on our own

Just a FEW of the things we DO:

• play
• talk
• read
• research
• go on excursions
• do workshops and courses
• play team sports
• go to sporting venues to learn new skills such as martial arts
• go to girl guides
• have play dates
• learn from other peers/friends/strangers
• out source teachers

Before you can have an opinion on  home education you need to understand what it is and what it isn't.