Posted in What is a true education?
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As a contact person for our local home education network, I am often contacted by parents who are just beginning their home education journey. They don't know where to begin. They want to be told where to begin and how to do it. But what they really need is encouragement and information. Encouragement that what they are doing is good for the children and will bring many blessings, and just the nitty gritty of where to get curriculum etc. Home education is still fairly small in Australia, although the number of families now numbers in the thousands and growing. The movement has (comparitively speaking) only a small number of businesses which service the needs of homeschoolers so they are not well known to those just starting out on the journey. But more importantly, as I constantly re-evaluate our own learning journey I've discovered that everyone needs to start with the fundamentals. Following a recent contact with a dear lady, here is what I wrote to her.
1. Determine why you are home-schooling. Write it down. This helps to remind yourself about what’s important to you when times get tough and it all seems just too hard. This is especially important for you if you are on your own, and you don’t have strong family support in your decision to home-school. Often when grandparents see the positive results of home educating in their grandchildren, they backflip and become your greatest ally. Sometimes they never do. It becomes important then to surround yourself with like-minded, positive, encouraging people who will help you on your journey. Joining a support group and email list is a good first step in that direction. Don’t ever be afraid to ask for help. Having your “Why I chose to home-school” document can also be handy to share with people who just don’t seem to understand why you are doing it. Be careful of sharing this though because often nothing will change their minds and it just seems to re-enforce their mindset that you’ve ‘lost it’! (This happened to me-it just made matters worse. We ended up leaving our home church because of the negative attitude of our fellow ‘believers’ to home-school.) 2. Decide what ‘education’ means to you. This helps you to determine how you are going to educate your child. To some, education means preparing the student to compete in the world with their peers for the job market. Many of these people use a straightforward text book approach which is reproducing the school room at home. They pass the standardized tests and are equipped for the job market. There is nothing wrong with this if that is what your philosophy of education is all about. Other folks (like us) decide that we want our child to learn how to think for herself. How to be a ‘leader’ in whatever situation God places her in. By a leader I don’t mean the boss but just someone who can think and reason for themselves, based on their relationship to God. Others feel that all learning should occur in as natural a way as possible. Therefore they don’t do any ‘book’ learning at all but facilitate learning experiences from a wide variety of sources. Field trips to museums, play experiences, toys & games, computer, involvement in community learning…all sorts of things. In reality there are as many different ways to educate, as there are families educating! This process for you will take a LOOOONG time. I am still constantly re-adjusting my philosophy of educating after eight years. Isn’t it good to know that even through our worst efforts, God can work wonders! So never despair, but know that God can choose to bless your efforts to educate, even on days when you wish you never got out of bed. I can give you some ideas for resources for the three steps, but please keep in mind that they are just my recommendations and you will no doubt determine for yourself, what works best for you. Firstly though, there is a site you might find most helpful in sourcing second hand books etc. It is the Australian Homeschool Classifieds board and can be found at http://homeschoolads.proboards51.com/ I recommend joining that because you can find a wealth of support, chat, answers to questions and best of all BOOKS & other resources. I am not necessarily meaning that step one needs to be complete before you move on to step two & three etc but that’s how I feel a child’s learning each day needs to be prioritized. 1. Their relationship with God. Always the Bible first. Through daily read aloud from an easy to understand version, discussion, prayer together, bible based story books, Bible based multimedia etc. I’m sure you have a pretty good idea about this part anyway but I would like to recommend one resource in particular which we found to be highly useful. In fact our daughter came to invite Jesus into her heart through using this book. It’s called “Leading Little Ones to God” by Marian Schoolland and published by Wm.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2. Character building helps. There are actually many resources available in this area. As you already know, our own business, http://www.ebenezerbooks.com supplies character building books and my recommendation would be to simply source age and understanding appropriate books and resources which help to build Godly character in your child. Also modeling of Godly character traits by a child's mentors (my meaning of this is the adults that have the greatest influence on him ie: parents and grandparents if they are Christians, Church leaders etc) is of most importance. I know this sounds odd but the TV is one of the most influential ‘mentors’ to many, impressionable children as I’m sure you’re no doubt aware. A websearch for Christian character building material should bring up some relevant searches. I carry a lot of titles from Pearables (http://www.pearables.com) and find them extremely practical. I am about to make an order to include their new ‘Lessons in Responsibility for Boys. .‘ Again at this stage, choosing books & resources which demonstrate Godly character and reading & discussing them with your child is a great start. http://www.characterfirst.com has some great character building resources. The website is from the parent company in the States, but they have an Australian branch & if you like any of their stuff, you can email them Most of their products have been ‘secularised’ so they can market it to the wider community but they do have Christian content. 3. Academics. Well…where to start. There are many businesses catering to the home educating market, many specializing in materials for certain learning styles. Once you begin to put your educational philosophy into place, you will then have more of an idea of what learning style you would like use. Then once you have determined which learning style, you source the curriculum. I will give a brief overview of all the learning styles in a future post. A really good question to ask yourself which will help you determine your educational philosophy is "what do I want the end product to be?" What do you want your children to be like as they complete their education? Do you want them to be able to rattle off a list of facts? lead others? a trade perhaps? Someone who is able to walk in a mature relationship with God through Christ? Influencing the world for the Gospel? Someone with a biblical worldview and moral filter? Only you can answer these questions for yourself.
Challenges and Victories newsletter is a free e-newsletter for Christian home educators in Another great resource is Beverley Paine, a veteran home educator from I subscribe to it and find it a wealth of information & encouragement, even though it’s from the States. You will no doubt find many more resources as you journey through the home ed treasure house but hopefully this will help you a little as you begin. In Christ, |
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