Q. What is Home Education?
Home education means educating children at home (or elsewhere), without
sending them to any school. It is taking the entire responsibility for
your child’s education. It can enable them to learn in total freedom at
their own pace. Home education is also referred to as ‘home schooling’ or
‘homeschooling’ though here, we prefer the term home education. Home
education is a way of life. Home education not only provides for learning,
but also enables enjoying the process together with the family.
Home education does not fall into a specific pattern or style of learning
for all of those engaged in it. It would be different for different home
educating families because of the flexibility it allows, the pace at
which the children concerned are able to learn and the of the many ways it
can be practiced depending on the resources and the energies of the
parents.
Some famous people who were home-schooled are, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas
Edison, Florence Nightingale, Agatha Christie, George Washington, Abraham
Lincoln, John Newton, Albert Einstein. etc.
Svani & Clive
Q: Where can I find a good alternative school for my child?
There is a list of some alternative schools on the
alternativeeducationindia website at:
http://www.alternativeeducationindia.net/altschools.htm.
At the bottom of the page are some links which if followed might produce
some more schools. A search of the internet might also be productive.
Local enquiries might be more useful.
We at the website would welcome hearing of more schools, with a view to
including them on the list. However, please bear in mind that inclusion on
the list is not a recommendation. We are not in a position to do that, and
you should always investigate and check out any school yourself,
thoroughly, before committing to it.
You might also consider starting your own little school, with other
concerned people. Or what might be called a “home-educating co-operative”.
Clive
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Q. Do I need to be a ‘teacher’ to teach my children at home?
No, you do not need to be a ‘teacher’ to teach your children at home. For
elementary and most part of middle school education for various subjects,
parents who are high school or less, are capable of teaching their
children by themselves. Most home educating parents learn along side of
their children when faced with unfamiliar or hard subjects. Children learn
together as a family. There are plenty of books or resources like videos
and DVDs that are available along with excellent resources on the web,
that any hard subject can be learned or mastered together with ease. When
still faced with difficulty, one can certainly find a tutor to help out in
specific topics or subjects. The home education online communities, is
another way to pose questions and get answers for unfamiliar subjects or
topics. Home educating groups of families can co-op with other parents and
find each others area of strength and do classes and projects on the
respective subjects on a weekly or a monthly basis. Children do not need
great teachers to teach them. They need caring parents who trust them,
have faith in them and who would be willing to spend time with them in
finding answers for their questions and who would be willing provide
necessary resources to take them to places and enriching activities.
Svani
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Q:
Where do I start?
I mean it literally. Where do i start? What syllabus do i use? What books do i
use? Do i need to ask a school for the same? How? For me it is starting from
scratch like all of you have done but i don't know as of now where that begins.
I think
scratch is the very best place to start.
There really are no "rules" to home-educating. There are no set procedures laid
down. No models. It is a voyage on an uncharted sea, like life, and that is the
beauty of it.
You do not need to contact any school about your home-educating - but you might
consider some sort of limited involvement with a school, if that seems
appropriate, and the school is willing.
In my opinion you do not need a syllabus. In fact I feel you would be better off
without one. In a way a syllabus implies a sort of comparison, and it is the
comparison/measurement side of schools that people often find so destructive. I
do. A syllabus is a sort of "one size fits all" and it may well not fit your
child at all well.
Besides, no one needs a syllabus for a 5 year old child. Or older.
You ask "where do I start" but it seems to me you have already started. You
mentioned the use of flash cards. Did you make these? I always found the making
of educational materials was more educational than using them :-).
Has your child started to count? When the first nine numbers are mastered, try
tying straws or sticks into bundles of ten to introduce larger numbers. And
later 10 bundles of 10 for hundreds. Etc.
Visit and explore toy/games shops. Or "educational material" shops - but there
is no need to spend a lot of money on fancy things; simple material is actually
better, leaving more room for the child’s creativity. Children learn well from
simple games. There is a card game with pairs of pictures which aids memory and
perception. Any games a child can master are useful - having fun is a great
natural motivator :-)
Remember, the aim of education is to learn about the world - the real world. Not
imaginary worlds created by educational systems. If I may suggest, do not think
in terms of what the child "should do", but find what they CAN do, and extend
that a little bit, if they are comfortable with that extension.
And, most importantly, your child will soon come up with ideas of what THEY want
to do. Be sure to give them the space to let this happen. Facilitate these
things, if you need to.
Have a look at our website:
http://www.alternativeeducationindia.net/recommended%20books.htm.
One book that may be very useful to anyone with young children, is:
Teaching
Montessori in the Home: The Pre-School Years: -by Elizabeth G Hainstock
I am sure
it is available on the internet. It emphasises physical activities. There is a
follow up book for older children.
You might also look at
http://www.alternativeeducationindia.net/library.htm
Clive
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Q: Where do I start? I am new to home-educating.
I would suggest you need to start exactly as all parents first facing the
challenge of home-educating need to start; you need to drop your fears,
your misconceptions, your conclusions, assumptions, etc. All the stuff
that has been put into our heads by our own education (or mis-education),
and by giving authority to all the so-called experts. Not that one should
not be helped by the experience of others. But I find a common source of
worry to parents is when they compare their child to what they think other
children are doing or are capable of. Or comparing with educational
standards set by others - these are quite artificial, and give rise to
much fear in the parent and the child.
Then perhaps you can meet your child where you need to meet her, not
through a screen of ideas, but seeing her exactly as she is. Observing her
as she is, her needs, her interests, her capacities. Through this direct
observation you will know "where to start" - you start where she is. You
are the best person to know the about your child, much more so than others
who are only indirectly involved. You can observe what interests here and
what doesn't, you can discover the ways in which in which to present
material which she can understand, and the ways she doesn't respond to. I
suggest you feel free to experiment, drop what does not work, and use a
lot of common sense. Your love for your child will take you a long way.
Clive
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Q. How should
I teach my child?
The different
methods of home education will enable you to choose the style and way to
teach your child that would work well for your family. No matter what
approach you may take, you can be assured that your child will learn
faster and better than he or she would, in a regular school set up.
Further more, you have the luxury of changing the methods or styles of
home education once you know something does not work for your child or
your family. That is the beauty of home education. Remember that there is
no pre-set ways to follow. You do not have to follow what works for
another family or child or match a local school. It is not a one- size-
fit- all approach. This is an advantage of home education. Be open, be
flexible and be there for your child and best of all, love them. Be
prepared to experiment and find the correct fit for your child and family.
Be understanding to the fact that your child’s interests may change as he
or she grows older and mature and so you should be prepared to accommodate
that in your methods and styles of home education.
Svani
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Q. What are the
different types of Home Education?
Unschooling
or child-led learning means that you identify the children’s natural
curiosities and interests and cater to their interest in order to educate
them. This approach is based on John Holt's book, “Instead of
Education: Ways to Help People Do Things”, originally published in
1976. In this work, Holt criticizes the education system stating that,
“it is the deepest foundation of the modern and worldwide slave state, in
which most people feel themselves to be nothing but producers, consumers,
spectators and 'fans'...in all parts of their lives." Holt says that
education should be child-led and that the child's natural curiosity
should guide and inspire his/her learning. While Holt opposes the
regimented curriculum, he does believe that a parent's response to the
child's question will foster better learning.
More information can be found in the following links.
http://www.unschooling.com/library/faq/index.shtml -Provides
information and support to unschoolers.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UnschoolingResources/ - This is a yahoo
group for unschooling families.
Traditional or School at home is the conventional method of home
education. The families that follow this method use a planned schedule,
text book materials or curriculums to do assignments, tests, report cards
which would mimic the regular schools. Families that follow this method
typically purchase the curriculum materials from many of the companies
that make the same available to home educators these days or create their
own curriculum using materials from the library and on the web.
Classical
home education originally started in the Middle Ages. The five tools
of learning, known as the Trivium, are reason, record, research, relate,
and rhetoric. Younger children begin with the preparing stage, where they
learn basic reading, writing, and arithmetic. The grammar stage is next,
which emphasizes compositions and collections, and then the dialectic
stage, where serious reading, study, and research take place. In the
Rhetoric stage the primary focus is on communication.
http://www.gbt.org/res.html-Wealth
of resources on classical home education.
Relaxed" or "Eclectic" style home educators use a mix of different
approaches, by using workbooks for math, reading, and spelling, and taking
an unschooling approach for the other subjects. The advantage of this
method is that the parents cover the subjects thoroughly of all the
subjects they feel that are absolutely necessary. This method allows the
family to choose textbooks, field trips, and classes based on their needs
and interests.
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/clayvessel/index.htm - provides more
information on eclectic home education.
The Waldorf Method is based on the work of Rudolf Steiner. This
method stresses the importance of educating the whole child—body, mind,
and spirit. In the early grades, the emphasis is on arts and crafts, music
and movement, and nature. As the child gets older, they are taught to
develop self-awareness and how to reason things out for themselves. In
this method there are no standard textbooks used. Instead the children
create their own books. The Waldorf method also discourages the use of
television and computers because of the belief that they impair health and
creativity.
http://www.rudolfsteinercentre.ca/ - Information on Waldorf Education.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorfhomeschoolers/ -Online community
for Waldorf home educators.
Unit Studies method uses child’s interest and then ties that
interest into subject areas like math, reading, spelling, science, art,
and history. For example, if you have a child who is interested in ancient
Egypt, you would learn the history of Egypt, read books about Egypt, write
stories about Egypt, do art projects about pyramids, and learn about
Egyptian artifacts or mapping skills to map out a catacomb or mummify a
doll. This can also be accompanied by field trips to the museum that
contains Ancient Egypt related materials. The advantage of this method is
that it recognizes the fact that people learn best when they are
interested in the topic. The disadvantage is that sometimes the unit study
can become so long that the child might lose interest even before the
study is completed. Also, to create a unit study requires a lot of work
and pre-planning by parents.
http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesArticle/id-1255.html- This link
gives a wonderful detailed explanation of designing unit studies with ease
using a little creativity.
Charlotte
Mason Method believes that the children deserve to be respected and
they learn best from real-life situations. This approach believes that
children should be given time to play, create, and be involved in
real-life situations from which they can learn. Children take nature
walks, visit art museums, and learn geography, history, and literature
from books that make these subjects come alive. Children are encouraged to
show what they know via narration and discussion and not by tests and
scores.
Books on this method are, A Charlotte Mason Education and More
Charlotte Mason Education, both by Katherine Levison.
http://simplycharlottemason.com/home/ - Web link with tons of
information on Charlotte Mason home education.
Montessori
Method is also gaining popularity world wide. The Montessori method
stresses "errorless learning," where the children learn at their own pace
that help them to develop their full potential. The Montessori method
emphasizes beauty. This method avoids things of clutter. Wooden tools are
preferred over plastic tools, and learning materials are kept
well-organized and ready to use for the children. The Montessori method
also discourages television and computers, especially for younger
children. Mostly Montessori method is used for younger children even
though there are materials available for kids of higher ages.
http://www.michaelolaf.net/ -
this website provides all the resources on Montessori method and the
practice of home education using the Montessori method.
DVD or Video
Home Education method uses educational movies to learn arts,
literature, languages, science, math, world history, biographies etc. This
is not to be confused with television watching. This method is based on
the fact that a powerful movie can be very inspiring to a child who is
interested in learning a subject or topic that can be pretty complex or
complicated to understand otherwise. This is especially useful for
children to learn about Biology. This especially helps with the lab
experiments for Physics, Chemistry and Biology that would be cumbersome
and impossible for home educators to get access to otherwise. Also,
Courses on social sciences and arts, it is easier to view a DVD or video
on the lessons than just reading from a book.
http://www.schoolvideos.com/-This
has 100% educational videos of free 2 min previews to view the list of
selection. They also contain teacher’s materials along with the videos and
DVDs.
Virtual
schooling or Internet schooling is based on doing schooling on the
internet via the many choices of online schooling that are available. This
is a popular choice for families with children who are in middle or high
school levels of learning. Anything from math, language, arts to Physics,
astronomy etc, is available online for families to take advantage of.
http://www.aleks.com/ says the
following about its online classes. ‘ALEKS is a web-based, artificially
intelligent assessment and learning system. ALEKS uses adaptive
questioning to quickly and accurately determine exactly what a student
knows and doesn't know in a course. ALEKS then instructs the student on
the topics she is most ready to learn….’
Svani
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Q. Why do
people choose to Home Educate their children?
Home Education
is a popular choice of education in many countries, including USA, Canada,
UK and New Zealand. The major reasons for people to choose to home
educate their children are that they are dissatisfied with the school
choices, academic achievement, concerns about their children’s spiritual
and character development, facing bullying and other pressures at school,
and generally seeing the limitations and inadequacies of conventional
education.
Svani & Clive
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Q. Should I use
curricula to teach my children?
A (1) It
is up to you to decide whether to use or not to use curricula. If you
choose to use curricula, you can buy them from your local book stores or
text book vendors. If your child learns best by natural curiosity based
learning of questioning and exploring, then let the child learn in that
way and create your own lesson plans and curricula based on your child’s
interests. You can answer your child’s questions, find books for them to
read or for you to read together with them or find ways to do field trips
based on their interests.
svani
A (2)
Although they might seem the easiest option for the parent, curricula
represent a sort of limitation on learning. They say “this must be learnt,
and not that”, but a child’s interest is not so easily confined. And there
is the danger that they invite comparison of the child, between what the
child should know, and what he/she actually does know.
Curricula are
not designed with your particular child in view, but are intended to teach
what is considered necessary to grasp a particular area of knowledge. If
it is intended to rejoin the school system at a later date, or to take
external examinations, then curricula may be necessary in certain
subjects.
Clive
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Q. How do I
know if my children are learning?
Children are
always learning. Just like you discover your child was learning as a baby,
you would discover that your children are also learning by observing,
interacting and just by spending time with your children.
http://www.naturalchild.com/jan_hunt/evaluation.html -This article by
the psychologist Jan Hunt expressed beautifully of how a child learns at
home and there is no way to stop their learning.
Svani
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Q. What about
socialization?
This is based on
what ‘socialization’ means to you. If socialization means interacting with
other people and be able to communicate and live harmoniously in a
community, then home educating does a better job of raising your children
to do so than regular schools. Studies show that home educated children
are better socialized than the school going children. Home educated
children model behaviours of good parenting, wonderful family values and
learn lessons from real life living. Also, they get the opportunity to
interact with various age groups in the community in real life everyday
situations. If you are wondering how home educated children will learn to
be tolerant, get along well with others, share, wait for their turns,
respect differences and such, home educating is the perfect way to learn
all the above, even better than regular schools. Here is why. In regular
schools the children are grouped on the basis of common age and the
‘socialization’ that happens in a classroom or school is not the true
depiction of the real world. Your child’s modelling of behaviour would be
based on his or her age peers, which is not always good model. The
socialization that happens in the schools is in the playgrounds with
supervision (or lack of supervision), in a controlled environment, which
is rarely a depiction of real life socialization. In real world, people
are of different ages, different backgrounds and different walks of life.
What better way can there be to prepare to the children to the outside
world than home education?
http://learninfreedom.org/socialization.html-This article talks more
on socialization and home education.
http://www.nhen.org/newhser/default.asp?id=292- “The truth about Home
schooling”, also talks more on socialization and home education.
For an article
on home-education and Socialisation by Vineeta,
click here.
Svani
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Q: Won't the
children suffer from lack of contact with other children?
The most common
question Home-educating parents hear. It is rather ironic, as it is not
uncommon that the basic reason parents turn to educating at home is that
their children are suffering FROM contact with other children (and
adults), in that free for all jungle that is often the school environment.
But there are many steps we can take, to ensure children have the
opportunity for social contact. I will describe my own experiences in this
area. However, this was mostly in New Zealand.
Home educating
two children was a help, although the age gap of 6 years minimized this
effect. And by the time we started, the children already had a set of
friends, as we had been living in a community situation previously. But we
moved to another home, so this social contact was limited to holidays and
the occasional weekend.
Outside activities provided another circle of acquaintances – my son did
martial arts, and volunteer work with horse riding for disabled children.
My daughter also took this up, and she did gymnastics three evenings a
week, providing more friends. She did drama with another group. I think
there are many activities available in towns generally: Hobbies, sports,
hiking, nature pursuits etc. You might be surprised to discover what is
going on in after school hours. And if there isn’t the activity your child
wants, try to start it.
Then there was
an established group of home-educators in the area, an organization of
over 100 families is fact. (Actually this was not so very significant in
our lives, as the motives for home-educating of a great many of those
families were vastly different from mine). This perhaps is something that
home educators in India have to work on- forming local groups where
possible. Even two families getting together can be very significant (see
our data base at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alt-ed-india/database for help with
this). Parents should not be afraid of advertising themselves, and perhaps
when they have the confidence giving public talks about what they are
doing. This could encourage others to consider the home-educating option.
And perhaps eventually lead to the formation of very small informal
schools.
To return to my
children. Actually they did attend school, for short periods, and to
limited extents. They both attended Centre for Learning near Bangalore for
one term when I was teaching there. My daughter took a few special classes
at a nearby Steiner school for two years - this was because of her
mother's interest, I should add. But I feel these brief encounters with
schools were very positive. Admittedly they were very special schools,
including being very small. It was interesting to observe the ease with
which they fitted
into school life. But they were happy enough to return to home-educating.
I think it is important to add that all not all children need to
socialize. In fact there may be times in their life when NOT to engage in
socialization is important and indeed necessary for them, in ways perhaps
we do not understand. So I suggest that parents do not be anxious if their
children show no inclination to mix with others.
So I hope this
helps a little. Each situation is different of course. But I would like to
say to newly started home-educators, do not be anxious about what you
think might go wrong; do not imagine all sorts of problems occurring. When
you perceive a real need for the children, you can tackle that challenge,
together with your children. It is all part of learning. Do not try to
look too far ahead. And I do believe if we tackle home-educating with
intelligence, and with patience things have a way of working out. As is
true for all aspects of life
Clive
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Q. Should I
test my child?
A(1) It
depends on what and why you want to test. You do not have to test to know
that your child is learning. But if you are testing to accommodate him in
certain class or school or college, you may very well do so based on those
needs. Some home educating families like to test their child if the child
is interested in being tested. You could download tests online or order
tests from some companies to administer the tests.
Svani
A(2)
There may be a downside to testing. In fact it is this question of a child
being compared, graded, measured against other children that leads many
parents to withdraw their child from school.
The issue seems
to be; is the child (and perhaps the parent) clear that it is only a
particular skill that is being tested; to see if some area of knowledge
have been assimilated? Or; is there identification with that
skill/knowledge going on, so that the child feels that HE is being tested?
Ie, the child himself, how the child sees himself?
One might say
that if the result of the test is positive, then the child will feel good,
but that is just the other side of the coin of feeling bad because they
get a bad result. The two sides cannot be separated, and both sides
condition the child.
I feel the whole
of issue of measuring, comparing, a child must be looked at very
carefully. If a child is measured in one area, that sense of being
measured may condition a child’s whole perception of his life. Measurement
of a child, of any human being, can be very destructive; it is a form of
violence. Is it not degrading for a child to be measured? We can see in
ourselves that comparison of ourselves leads to much unhappiness.
Clive
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Q. Can I home
educate an autistic child?
You can
absolutely home educate your special children at home. In my experience,
for families dealing with special issues like yourself, I find it works
best when the children are home educated rather than being as part of any
other 'school' situations. I am not even sure if there are schools that
are capable of handling such issues in India. I trust you have already
explored the sites on Indian Autism information on the web. Please take
the time to go through the following links as they offer a wealth of
information and I trust that they will benefit your family hugely.
http://homeschooling.about.com/od/specautism/Special_Needs_Autism.htm
- talks about autism issues and offers insights to help the families to
home educate their children with special needs.
http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/weblinks/autism.htm- talks again
about autism and support.
Please consider becoming a member on these lists as there is a TON of
support and resources available that would reassure you that you are not
alone in this journey. Also many of these parents are going through
similar situations that you will be able to relate to, and be able to
offer you suggestions and help based on their own experiences. You can
discuss your concerns, curriculum, or even vent your frustrations and you
will receive tons of support. There are parents from all over the globe in
some of these lists.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aut-home-fam/ - online community for
families that home educate autistic kids.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASLearningAtHome/- online community
for home educating special children.
Svani
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Q. What
subjects should I teach my child?
A(1) Let
us remember that the natural world does not divide itself up into separate
subjects – it is what it is, whole and complete. So to categorise learning
into subjects is limited and will condition the child’s mind in various
ways. Is there an approach to education that does not limit in this way? -
that seems an important question. Perhaps to specialize into particular
subjects is necessary for older children, when they may wish to take
examinations and are thinking of particular careers. But younger child may
be happier with an approach that naturally blends reading, writing, art,
science, craft, mathematics, geography, history into an integrated
wholeness of learning.
Clive
A(2) It
is your choice as to what subjects you want to teach your child. It also
depends on the interests of your child. Some families like to follow some
loose structure for learning certain subjects weekly and do more rigorous
mathematics everyday. But some may choose to do the Reading, Writing and
Arithmetic, the three R’s, rigorously every day. And you could do
sciences, arts, history and geography based on your child’s interests. For
example, if your child is interested in nature, animals and plants, then
you can let him or her explore the same with hands on learning like
gardening, or raising a pet or just watching his or her backyard. That
combined with some interesting reading from the library books, would cover
a wide area of subject of Biology without having to follow a dry text
book. You can do field trips to local farms or garden centres or zoo or
invite a friend or local specialist to give a talk on the respective
subject. You could also press leaves and flowers or do painting or drawing
together as part of Arts and learn about the growth of plants and animals
in your state or city as part of geography.
Svani
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Q. Is
home-educating legal in India?
A. Basically it
seems home-education is not illegal in India. But there are many issues
involved, and there may be variation from state to state in these issues.
For a discussion
on the issues, go to
"The legal situation" page of this website.
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