I've just attended a homeschooling conference at Adelaide University. After several years of attending no conferences at all, I've been to three just within the last few months and I can honestly say that is enough! However, they've all been very timely, and although vastly different from each other, reinforced my lifestyle decisions in the same way. I feel reassured in my own heart that writing and homeschooling, although both slow and sometimes frustrating occupations, often with nothing tangible to show from one day to the next, are valuable and worthwhile things to do.

I had to jump out of bed early to get down to the city by 9.00am. The previous night had been crisp and clear, the perfect ingredients for a bitter cold morning. I had to pour water over the windscreen before I could even go. The whole car was covered with brittle frost like some sort of massive crystal. The whole world looked icy white and when I passed the digital thermometer thing on the road out of town, I saw that it registered minus zero! All this coldness was just a bit of fun and didn't deter anyone from the hills from attending, because one of the main keynote speakers was John Taylor Gatto, who we were all anxious to hear.

It was quite a weird feeling as I walked through the Uni grounds to get to the conference in the Union House block, because I used to walk it every single day in my past, and haven't done so for many years. As I passed the Psychology office, I remembered how often I used to step into the foyer just to check if the results of some major essay or other had been posted on the bulletin board.

As I'd expected, John Taylor Gatto was fascinating to listen to. I choose homeschooling four years ago because I had a shy son who was unhappy and I was convinced that the teachers couldn't possibly care as much for his welfare as I could. Yet Mr. Gatto has so many more interesting facts to say about what he considers the corruption underpinning the whole public school system that I didn't even know way back then! He spoke in several two-hour blocks but here are a few pertinent points.

1) Schools keep stating they are going to "change" and implement all sorts of fantastic, revolutionary programmes, yet they never do.

2) An astounding percentage of  "history changing" individuals  (and he rattled off a whole list) were "C"-average students. He thinks that the "A" and "B" students have been conditioned to spout the rhetoric that the education system has been spoon feeding them. It was a very entertaining spiel, especially from a former award-winning public school teacher. I've purchased his book entitled "Dumbing Us Down" and I'm looking forward to reading it. 

Do you know, his first point was driven home to me in an interesting way during the lunch break. I took a browse in the Uni bookshop downstairs and discovered that the English section is still full of many of the same dreary old books I'd studied in my time there. And keep in mind, I began my degree in 1988! In almost twenty years, the Adelaide Uni English Department has apparently been meandering along simply repeating whatever it'd done the year before.

And what was wrong with so many of those books? I've come to see that many of them present a bleak world view. They used to make me feel depressed whenever I read them because of their content. Having had more time to think about writing over the last decade, I have to say I prefer texts that build you up and make you feel richer, happier and more optimistic for having read them. But someone in the Education Dept. once told me that this "rosy" view is short-sighted and unrealistic. But is it any more short-sighted than the one they present?

I think both world views are true, simply if you believe them to be. Some Biblical quotations I've been pondering lately spring to mind regarding this. God told the Israelites, "I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice and hold fast to Him." Deuteronomy 30: 15, 19-20. I think the people at the top of the public education system may often "choose" the "curses" instead of the "blessings". And this is another very good reason why I'm glad to have my children at home instead of trying to live up to the education system on those terms. I'd rather choose the blessings every time.

Although it was awhile coming, here is more of what I shared at the conference regarding creative writing of any sort.

Anybody who says, "I have no imagination," is mistaken. Everybody has imagination. It is like a well in the middle of a green field. It may be an open well from which it is easy to dip the fresh, clear water OR it can be a covered well with no way of any access to the water. As a result, the water becomes stagnant and still. For writing to be vibrant, powerful and colourful, you need to learn to tap into the well of imagination.

Trust Yourself

Sometimes we block the imagination by censuring what we write at the very start, while we're still writing it. We purposely hold back from writing some of our good ideas out of fear that we'll be laughed at or criticised. You might have a brainwave for a plot, then instantly decide, "I'd better not write that. Uncle Fred might think I'm basing this character on him and then I'd never hear the end of it." So that idea never gets a chance to see the light of day, the water in your well goes stagnant and part of your imagination withers.

You must be willing to write what might sometimes embarrass yourself. It's called being original and "real". It's breaking out of the herd mentality that so many of us unconsciously find ourselves in. I can remember some of the boring, trite and spark-less writing that came out of my High School English class twenty years ago simply because we were all too embarrassed to write about strong emotions when we knew the teacher often read our stories out loud to the whole class.

All our lives we're learned the "right" clothes to wear, the "right" words to say, the "right" attitudes to have. Western society doesn't encourage us to develop our uniqueness. (Just as an aside here, this is also something that can said in favour of homeschooling). Although we might conform to a group, look good and earn respect, it's often at the expense of something valuable. This, of course, is our imagination. We've made a choice to keep the cover on our wells. It's a voluntary sacrifice. When original thoughts do pop into our heads, we instantly judge them as not worthwhile and let them moulder. I encourage you to trust what you come up with and write it down anyway, especially in that first stage draft with the "creative brain" that I mentioned before.

Don't keep too busy

Another problem particular to the western world is that we tend to smother our imaginations and leave the lids on them simply because we crowd them out and leave no time for them. There are always 1000 "urgent" matters to take care of first before we allow ourselves time to settle down with pen & paper. It's vital to schedule time for your writing and then make sure you keep the appointment. Find a quiet place to sit and reflect. Let your thoughts and feelings well up so that you can examine them and jot them down. This may feel a bit strange and forced at first but this is just the creaky cover being forced off the well. Nothing kills the imagination as quickly as being busy all the time. It's more than merely letting the water in your well stagnate; it's actually filling it with stones. (I think those of us who are homeschool mothers can be very prone to having all sorts of extra-curricular, worthwhile outside events crop up to keep us busy. I used to, and still sometimes, have real problems knocking back invitations just because I've already done a few things that week and simply want to work on my current writing projects. It's a matter of continually reminding ourselves that our writing is as important as whatever we've knocked back and not merely self-indulgence. It's important because we've decided it will be)

I'll write Part 3 soon and to end Part 2, I'll finish with an anonymous quote I found that sums this up very nicely.  Why are you trying so hard to 'fit in' when you were made to 'stand out'?

On Saturday, my son came home from his archery lesson wearing a silver medal around his neck. He'd apparently won it over accumulated weeks of competition. I congratulated him but his eight-year-old sister was upset. She started to cry and complained, "It's not fair, I've been to going to ballroom dancing for as long as Logan's been doing archery and I've never won a medal! Logan gets everything first. I'll never win a medal!" And so on and so on. (I think when he took it off, she might have even flung it onto the carpet and stomped on it, but that was done on the spur of the moment).

What did we do? We did lots of talking to her, explaining that ballroom dancing is set up differently to archery and you can't compare two totally dis-similar sports, she might win a medal when she enters a dancing competition some time, and above all and most importantly, we suggested that she try to be happy and pleased for her brother and that she knows in her heart that Jesus would be sad to see her act in such a way! Yes, I knew while I was saying it that this is something parents often say but children find very hard to take on.

I felt tired and frustrated, wondering if my husband and I had made a crucial omission in our parenting to make her react like this. But then I realised this is just a natural human reaction that she was born with, just like everyone else. We didn't plant it in her. But it's this sort of domestic event that makes me understand that the behaviour we would have preferred to have seen, (in this case, Emma being excited for Logan's sake and admiring the medal), is actually the more unnatural response. Whenever people, adults and children alike, choose the unselfish action, it is evidently a learned response. We can surely get ourselves to the stage where praise for others is genuine with no envy, but it's not an easy transition. And that highlights the responsibility that we have as parents and role models to our children. In so many ways, it's a matter of helping them to re-mould their whole mindset. 

What did Logan do while Emma was doing her block? At first he said that when they gave him the medal, the thought flashed through his head that Emma would be mad. And he teased her, holding it up and saying, "I'd like to thank my sponsors and agents," to make her even angrier. I suppose that's a natural response too.

Later in the day, Emma's friend who does ballroom dancing with her phoned, and Emma rushed off with the phone crying, "Guess what, Logan won a medal!" as if it was the news of the day. So I think she really was impressed, and I hope that's a positive step toward genuine pleasure for the other person. 

I was sitting in the doctor's waiting room some time ago, where another patient was chatting with the receptionist about their children. Both ladies had sons around the age of 19 or 20.

"We're over the moon because our son has just moved out of home," one of them commented. "We don't know ourselves."

"Congratulations," said the other.  "I wish you'd give me some tips on how to get rid of mine. He shows no signs of moving."

Now, I was used to hearing this sort of talk. My own mum used to discuss my brother like this. Many people did, but sitting in that waiting room, it suddenly hit me that our culture tends to give boys a bum-rap. I don't know whether it's a post-feminist culture hangover. I'd be first to agree that women's liberation was one of the best moves of the 20th century, but I hate to think that the pendulum has moved too far back in the opposite direction.

Think about it. In ancient Jewish culture, sons were a sign of tremendous favour to a family. A man with a quiver full of sons was called blessed. They were a sign of his strength and potential for the future. And Jewish boys are still acknowledged as valuable and given Bar Mitzpah services to mark their entry into manhood. Similarly, many tribal ceremonies have marked the passage from boy to man for centuries. Despite the gore and pain of some of these, the symbolism behind it is valuable and good. They all acknowledge the value of men and the noble, romantic, adventurous, capable spirits God has put into them.

Now what do we do? (I'm talking broadly here). We have sarcastic digs at our boys for leaving the toilet seat up. We complain about their rough tendencies yet keep buying them violent Play Station and X-Box games to keep them out of our hair. And teachers who are told that there'll be a certain number of boys in their classrooms roll their eyes and groan. I'm the first to enjoy a good joke, sometimes at the male expense, but it struck me that day that there might be something slightly sick in a society that treats boys like nuisances instead of one of our finest resources.

They are our next generation of statesmen, surgeons, politicians, entrepreneurs and most importantly, fathers, so it only makes sense to treat them well. You might be thinking that sitting for ages and ages in that waiting room made me overly philosophical over a simple conversation, but I left feeling as if I had a bit of an eye-opener. The easiest place to contribute to social reform is in our own homes so I made a decision to remember to treat my two sons with as much sensitivity as I treat their sister. Those of us with boys can attest that they do have sensitive hearts that need to be nurtured.

Logan's 12th birthday is a few weeks away and I'd like to think of some special way to mark the occasion to acknowledge his passage into young manhood but as yet, I've thought of nothing. Bringing up boys is a noble challenge but there are many rewards along the way. Not long ago, I told Blake that he was a good boy and he gave his cute little grin and said, "Mummy is a good boy too." Now, that's a pretty good compliment, don't you think? 

I'll begin by digressing to a time almost twelve years ago. Logan had just been born and all that week I spent in hospital, he suffered bad colic. The midwives would wrap him up firm, rub his back and press his tummy against their shoulders but when none of their tricks worked, they'd hand him back to us and say, "You'll just have to do the best you can." It was always stressful when delighted friends and relatives came to visit with presents, and the little man of the moment would arch his back and scream non-stop all the time they were there. The sight of his screwed-up little face was almost more than I could bear without bursting into tears and I remember telling Andrew, "How terrible I feel, to bring a new person into the world when all he's going to do is be miserable!"

Now fast forward another eight years. Logan was hating school. Every morning I'd shake him awake to get ready and he'd groan and ask, "How long to the week-end?" When we'd pick him up after school, he'd be tired for the remaining few hours of the afternoon before tea. Emma would be disappointed because she'd been looking forward to seeing him all day and he just wanted to flake out instead of playing with her. He'd grumble at bed time and the following day, the process would begin all over again. Sometimes I'd drive him to school and sometimes Andrew, who was still working in accounting, would give him a lift on the way to work.

I clearly remember one morning in particular when I dropped Logan off. The road to school was a very beautiful country road, but suddenly he remarked, "I hate this road!"

"Do you?"

"Yep. I hate those wetlands and those haystacks and I hate those sheds and I hate those cows chewing the grass over there and I hate that gate to the walking trail and I hate that house with the gables and I hate those purple flowers. Do you know why?"

We asked him, "Why?"

"Because they all lead to school." By then we were there. I watched him climb out and walk through the gate across the schoolyard to his classroom. His head was bowed and his face had the set, resolute expression that we all knew. A teacher mentioned once to me, "Logan tends to sit at the back with a bored and dreamy look on his face. Have you any idea why?" Andrew told me later that the obvious answer would have been, "It's because he is bored and dreamy in your classroom."

Anyway, I used to hate school myself and felt really sad to think that he was suffering too. Forcing ourselves to do what we hate really isn't any sort of life for anyone. There, sitting there in the car, that flashback at the hospital when he was baby hit me. I'd said, "I hate the thought of bringing a new person into the world just to be miserable." And it swept over me again. That was basically what spurred out decision to take him out of school for homeschooling.

Just a few weeks before the term ended and we bit the bullet and made the move, the class had taken them for a walking trek along Springs Road to the wetlands to examine pond slime and bird life. It was quite a long walk for little eight year olds. They were all wearing their winter sport track-suits because the morning had been chilly but it warmed up during the walk. The fleecy windcheater had made Logan's back sweat and his feet were aching as they returned back along that road he hated. But he reported to me later that when it seemed they'd been walking hours and the school buildings came in sight, he thought, "For the first time in my life, I'm actually glad to see the horrible place!"

So our simple reason to begin homeschooling was that the alternative was causing him too much grief and having been through twelve plus years of it myself, I just couldn't stand it. It was just a few months after taking Logan out of school that Andrew decided he'd really had a gutful of accounting after several years and handed in his notice. So now life is far simpler. Looking back, it just seems like totally craziness to remember all those days, weeks, months and years of waving goodbye to Andrew and Logan whenever they set off together in the morning, considering that both of them were going to places they couldn't stand being at. Life has truly changed around here in the last three years and they are definitely changes for the better.

Most people that I've come across would agree that enticing children to read and love books is one of the best things that a parent or teacher could do. I've always agreed wholeheartedly with this and would never change my mind. However, just for the fun of it, I was trying to make it into a debate topic for the kids. At first I decided, "Reading books is good for people's mental and emotional health" is one statement that could not possibly have a negative side. After all, who could possibly argue that reading is bad for us, (apart from considering the actual content of the books in question). I didn't think anyone possibly could, so I kept trying to think of some, and to my own surprise, came up with a few.

OK, here goes. This is what I'd say if I was going to debate that reading books is destructive for my mental and emotional health. Reading has brought out gluttony and prejudice in me.

I'm not a glutton with food. I don't binge-eat but I do binge-read sometimes and that might be just as bad on the mind as the other is on the stomach. Just recently, I had a few compelling works of fiction that I kept turning the pages of until it was way past midnight and my eyelids already felt like sandpaper, just because I simply had to find out what was going to happen. It's always the same. I finally put them down and couldn't get to sleep because my mind was still whirling with the stories. And then in the morning, I was a wreck with a head that felt packed with cotton wool. Anyone else familiar with that fuzzy, depressed, achy-eyed, hard-to-think feeling?  Every time I vow never to binge-read again, but a super page-turner always puts me to the test. And then the books are over so fast, I don't get value for money. I have to show more willpower! I always say that.

Equally bad, I always hoped never to be accused of any sort of discrimination against anyone. I have to say, writing, as well as reading, brought this one out in me. I was flabbergasted that when we spoke about my own first couple of books to friends and acquaintances, many people said, "I don't read!" When I say many, I mean it really was many. Comments such as, "I only read commentaries in school and bluffed my way through" or "I prefer to be a do-er than a reader" or "Books never caught my interest" were rife. I hate to admit it, but this sort of comment coloured my perceptions against the people who made them. I even admitted to my husband, Andrew, "I don't understand how anyone with any sense whatsoever could go through life without reading books. Their minds must be really boring."

He shrugged and said, "I'm sure they watch soapies and sit coms on TV."

He was the one who helped me on my steps to recovery from this sort of prejudice. Andrew pointed out several people, including my own brother, a notorious non-reader who won't even read books that his own sister wrote.

"David is interested in greyhound racing," he pointed out, "but he doesn't get it in for you because you're not interested in greyhound racing. So you shouldn't hold it against him that he doesn't like reading." OK, I thought it was a fair enough comment and took it on board. More people than I ever expected hate reading, but it's their choice and I try to think none the less of them.

So, there you go. Absolutely anything is debatable and I could probably think of even more if I put myself to the test. Having completed this tongue-in-cheek exercise, I have to say that in spite of the binge-reading and prejudice, nothing could ever induce me to stop reading books or encourage my children not to. (But as I'll never be interested in greyhound racing, I've long since given up trying to interest my brother and other consumate book-avoiders into reading).   

I started thinking along these lines when I read an eassay about boredom in "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Women" by Kristine Carlson.

When we get bored, our immediate thought is that our life is empty and needs to be spiced up. We try to distract ourselves by searching out more activity and stimulus. I simply hate being at loose ends. And one phrase I hate to hear from my kids is, "I'm bored!" I sometimes take it upon myself to rush around finding something for them to do that they'd accept as "fun" and it isn't always easy. I feel as if I've taken a lot upon myself by choosing the homeschool lifestyle and I somehow "owe it to them" to keep their lives boredom free. Other times, I say, "Well go and find something to do," and that makes me feel guilty too, as if I'm somehow falling short in my job.

Kris Carlton mentioned how virtually everyone complains about having too much to do, yet when we get bored, our immediate response is to look around to find even more! It's a vicious cycle of the western world which seems to have no end in sight. She suggests that we simply sit with it for awhile and observe the sorts of thoughts that pass through our minds.

When we're bored, our attention tends to be focused on the past or future, on what's missing or could be better. Boredom is nothing but a trick of the mind, a man-made notion that life would be better and more fulfilling if something else is happening. It's caused by being taught to fill every spare moment with some sort of activity from a very early age. Many of us get used to the "What's Next?" mentality by the time we're into adolescence because we're so used to looking to parents or teachers to tell us what must be done next.

She suggests simply bringing your attention back to the present and reminding yourself of the importance of living in the moment. It makes sense to me. I like my lifestyle. I like homeschooling, writing, looking after the house. In moments of boredom, I simply have to carry on with the life I've got and remind myself that boredom is just a temporary mind-trick, that life is already great and there's nothing I have to do to make it any better.

Hmmm, it's worth a try. 

Not until I started reading and trying to put into practise everything I could find on the subject of Natural Learning or Unschooling did I realise just how thoroughly the systems we've grown up with at school have stayed stuck in my head, and probably in most of our collective unsconsciousnesses.

The first schooling myth that keeps popping up in my mind is that I have to get my kids to do an excessive amount of bookwork before I can believe (or prove) that they've mastered a subject to my satisfaction. Last week I got hold of what I thought looked like quite an interesting text book on Australian History and asked Logan to read the section and complete the exercises about bushrangers. He did, but not without a bit of grumbling and his "I hate this" face that I remember so well from last year. "What's up?" I asked him. "I honestly thought you'd find this interesting."

"It's OK," he said, "but we've done bushrangers."

I was mystified for a moment. "When have we done bushrangers?"

"You know, on our holiday."

Then the penny clicked. Two years ago, when Blake was just a tiny baby, we went on a great caravan holiday up the centre of our great country and then back down the east coast. On the way up, we'd visited the basement of an old hotel in the town of Forbes where the bushranger Ben Hall used to meet his friends and they'd discuss their plans. The atmosphere felt very eerie and thick with gloom. Logan walked around and read the plaques on the walls about the history of the individual outlaws along with me and Andrew. Then when we hopped back into the car, we had a good discussion about the fact that there was no Social Security or other government welfare payments back in the 1800s, so young men might have felt as if turning to a life of crime was the only way they could support themselves. Later, I read aloud a book to the family called "Midnite" by Randolph Stowe. It's a comic parody about the life of a young bushranger. Finally, Logan watched the movie "Ned Kelly" starring Heath Ledger. So I can understand why he thinks his education on the subject of bushrangers is complete. Perhaps it is. The idea that he has do bookwork to prove it is just my idea.

Thinking back to my own youth, I have to admit that I learned more from my own personal reading and research about topics of my choice than I did from school lessons. I remember a mini series called "North and South" that got me fascinated about the American Civil War. At school we only learned Australian history until Year 12 level, so I used the library to do my own personal research, which I would have done whether or not I'd been at school.

The second myth I've been trying to push out of head is the one that says we have to sit down for long blocks of time if we want to learn about a particular subject. But I've done things such as walking in the playground with the kids, noticing a particular bird and telling them what sort it is and where they like to live. They've noticed that the seagulls and cormorants at the beach are different to the more colourful parakeets, black and white magpies and honey suckers we get in the Hills. So Natural History gets learned and remembered during leisure times. It's just my own brain that tells me I should be making them sit down for blocks of 45 minutes to learn History or Science, because that's the way I'd been brought up to do it at school.

It's been fun but very challenging to put to rest my old programmed ideas, and I have to say, the kids are very helpful at making me remember, because of their reactions when I get too "schoolish" again. And I really think they've been learning more than they did last year when I used to behave like a school teacher.

Love it or hate it, the Public School is here to stay. I was reflecting on what I actually learned and here is a list of 20 things.

1) That if I got really passionate about any subject, I could do my own research and end up knowing more than the teacher. This used to surprise me during Primary School especially, when I thought of teachers as experts about everything.

2) That some teachers are not above shaming students. I've never forgotten the Yr. 2 teacher who called me useless for being unable to skip properly with a rope, even though she could see how hard I was trying. "Everyone else can do it!"

3) How to "plan" headaches, period pains or sudden accidents a short time before P.E. lessons at High School, so that I had an excuse to sit it out. The trick was to do it only sometimes to make it unpredictable, and to sometimes miss the lesson that came before too, so that it wasn't obvious that I was singling out P.E.

4) How to conform and blend in with a crowd. (Does anyone remember the "buckle bag" craze of the early 1980s? Girls had small vinyl handbags which they'd smother with key rings. My mother bought me one which was not the regular design for a buckle bag, but I decided it'd be better to make the best of it and use that one rather than have no buckle bag. Big mistake! My buckle bag became a laughing stock. I found out it would have been better not to have one at all than having one that wasn't quite "right". This made me a geek and a nerd.)

5) That the human brain is somewhat rigid. Once I earned the reputation of a geek and a nerd, it was stuck fast like Super Glue, no matter what I did.

6) That when you know the right answer, it's sometimes wise not to raise your hand, lest you come across as too much of a geek or a nerd. The teacher will roll her eyes and say, "I can't believe nobody knows that," but at least you haven't given your peer group a fresh reason to pay you out.

7) The meaning of several abusive names and swear words, so that when I was called by them, at least I knew what people were talking about.

8) How to memorise the Times Tables parrot fashion when I was in Yr. 3.

9) How to use my brain like a Sketch-O-Graph. Cram huge slabs of information into my head before a test and clear the slate to get ready for the next one. I remember groaning just before the BIG Yr. 12 exams began. "How can I keep all these facts and figures in here?"

10) That in Yr. 12, teachers tend to overload us with homework from their own subject, forgetting or disregarding the fact that we have 4 other subject teachers doing the same thing.

11) That if a class pass well, the teacher will get credit for being a good teacher, but if many of them fail, it's their own responsibility. (OK, maybe that one is a bit of a generalisation, but I often noticed something like that).

12) That life can throw you curve-balls. Drama, which I'd expected to be a brilliant subject, became a hassle and a drag, while Biology, which I'd just crammed on because I needed a "science" component, was brilliant. (I think this was the best lesson I learned.)

13) Silent reading lessons were never long enough.

14) Einstein's theory on time relativity. 50 minutes would fly for a silent reading session, but every second would pass like a year when I was doing P.E. or Maths.

15) That it felt good to be honoured by receiving an English Award for outstanding subject achievement for 3 years running. Although this one felt nice, it was, perhaps, the worst thing I learned. It led to the conviction that if I wanted to be successful, I'd have to repeat the experience as much as possible. I developed a healthy "Performance Mentality". I'd have to hear good about myself before I gave myself permission to feel good about myself. That I was obligated to do something stunning if I wanted to be liked and appreciated. This one took years to outgrow and still rears its ugly head sometimes.

16) That there would always be better and worse students than myself. There were the "intellectually challenged" stream from the "special" classes who never seemed to twig at anything, and the smug "Dux" type who consistently achieved Distinctions right across the board. That adults tended to shake their head at the first type and smile broadly at the second type.

17) To unconsciously label A-students as "A-people", C students as "C-people" and so on. And that we all found it easy to accept these labels.

18) How to whip up an acceptable essay with a beginning, middle, end and logical thread of argument, even though I loathed every moment of it and would far rather have been reading books.

19) That for some reason, most public schools were built to the same architectural plan, that looked like mental institutions or penitentiaries.

20) That teachers seemed to instinctively know that most students found work a drag, because they'd "punish" us by making us stay in to do more.

Interestingly, although it seems school taught me quite a bit, I don't remember all that much about any subject matter. I did read some good books and learn a few fun games, but these are things I would have done at home anyway. Most of the "lessons" I've listed here from my first 17 years have been a pleasure to try to un-learn throughout my next 19. I know there are some genuinely passionate, well-intentioned teachers out there, but I do think the Public School System is a strange beast which has metamorphosed a life and heart-beat of its own, independent of any individual within it. From what I've seen of my nephews' current experiences, it hasn't changed much in 20 years and I see no reason whatsover to let my kids "learn" these same lessons.

Nothing like a funny parable for getting a good message across. I believe this one was originally from "Chicken Soup for the Soul".

Once upon a time, the animals decided that they must do something heroic to meet the problems of a new world. So they organised a school. They adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, swimming, climbing and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, all the animals took all the subjects.

The duck was excellent in swimming, in fact better than his instructor, but made only passing grades in flying and was very poor at running. Since he was slow in running he had to stay after school and drop swimming in order to practise running. This was kept up until his webbed feet were badly worn and he was only average in swimming. But average was acceptable in school, so nobody worried about that, except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of the class in running but had a nervous break-down because of so much make-up work in swimming.

The squirrel was excellent in climbing, until he developed frustration in the flying class where the teacher made him start from the ground up instead of from the treetop down. He also developed a leg injury from over-exertion and then got a "C" in climbing and a "D" in running.

The eagle was a problem child and was disciplined severely. In the climbing class he beat all the others to the top of the tree but insisted in using his own way to get there.

At the end of the year, an abnormal eel that could swim exceedingly well, and also run, climb and fly a little had the highest average and was awarded "Dux as the top of the school.

The prairie dogs stayed out of the school and refused to pay fees because the administration would not add digging and burrowing to the curriculum. They apprenticed their children to a badger and later joined the groundhogs and gophers to start a successful alternative school.

This is an excerpt I found in a book I was reading. I thought it was very interesting and not surprising at all. It supports the idea when students begin to focus on preserving their grade-point average and 'getting ahead of everyone else', it diminishes the actual content of what they learn. Once they receive the desired grade, what they've learned is quickly forgotten in the pursuit of the next test or exam or paper. Here goes.

"Two groups of elementary students were asked to do some reading. One group was told that they would be tested on what they read and the other group was given no expectation of any test or evaluation. When both groups were tested, the group that expected the test demonstrated better rote memorisation but the group that had not expected the test showed better understanding of the concepts contained in the reading. Interestingly, the researchers returned a week later and tested the two groups again. As they expected, none of the children remembered as much as they had for the first test. Surprisingly though, the children who had originally expected to be tested had forgotten far more than the children who'd simply read the material without expecting to be tested."

I have to say, I remember getting completely stressed over my Year 12 exams when I was 17 but I remember hardly any of what I've learned. However, now that the kids and I are studying the human body, some of what I learned in my Year 12 biology class is coming back to me. I think it is such a weird feeling when something you appear to left behind in your dim, dark past comes flooding back. As I read the "Little House" series to Emma, the same thing is happening. With each chapter, I find myself anticipating what is going to happen to Laura and Mary in the next chapter, although I haven't read them for years. It's like having something saved on computer file, doing nothing, for years. The human brain truly must be an astounding organ.

We're having another blast of summer heat this March. A few days ago I took my two older children to pick strawberries at a nearby strawberry farm and preserve factory. There were fields and fields of them. We could smell the sweetness in the air whenever we breathed in. It cost us more than I usually pay for strawberries because they charge by the kilo and we were having so much fun, we probably picked more than I'd ever buy from the shop. Even Logan ended up enjoying himself although he complained at first about having to work "in this stinking heat." When we got home he immediately went into the backyard to tear around playing cricket, and when I pointed this out he said, "This isn't hard work." We've dipped the strawberries in chocolate, eaten them with sugar and cream or just dug into the pot. It was a nice thing to do while they're still in season.

A few nights ago there was a feature on a current affairs program about an alternative school that has been set up in Victoria. It shared some of the characteristics of many homeschooling families. Children learn at their own pace, when they want to and what they want to. The emphasis is taken off tests and exams and placed on the joy of learning just for the sake of knowing more. But the government has taken away funding to it and here is the reason why.

"By taking away the need to sit regular tests and exams, students are crippled in their thinking. They miss out on a necessary component in their development which is competing with their peer groups. Therefore, they enter the 'real world' with no idea of how to push themselves forward to vie for the best jobs and make the most of themselves."

I was upset by that report. The more I dwell on it, the sadder I feel. What sort of 'real world' do we live in, anyway? I don't want my children to learn that they must do their utmost to become "No 1" out there and to look at others as threats or people you must tread over on your way to the top. In fact, I'm sure comparing ourselves to others is a surefire way of making ourselves feel either proud and haughty or totally frustrated and inferior. I've experienced both these feelings at different times. There will always be people who are both better and worse at doing what we do and that's the way it will always be. Comparison is a treadmill we need to jump down from.

Galations 6: 12 says "Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself without comparing himself to somebody else for each one should carry his own load." No wonder it is so hard in our culture to learn to define our worth by our relationship to God, when we are so programmed to learn to regard each other as rivals.

I remember reading one of Robert Kiyosaki's earlier books before "Rich Dad, Poor Dad." This one had the apt title of "If You Love your Children, Don't Send them to School," or something like that. He included this story. In one of his first ever exams, a friend leaned over to ask him the answer to one of the questions. Robert knew the answer and whispered it back, but the boys were caught and hauled before the principal, who punished them.

The school wanted to gauge each individual's progress in order to rank them and therefore, the two boys were "cheating". But in young Robert Kiyosaki's bewildered opinion, he was simply helping out a friend, which is what his parents had always taught him to do. It makes you wonder, doesn't it?