Learning in the Absence of Education
Essays on Homeschooling
© Beverley Paine
Index
Homeschool
Australia
A Radical Educational Alternative!
Every so often I am reminded that the lifestyle I have adopted over the years is extremely radical compared to many of my friends'. I don't feel different or radical, but a close look at how I live reveals this. For example; no fridge, no flushing toilet, no mains electricity, no school for our children!
Before my partner enthused me with his do-it-yourself philosophy during the last of our tender and naive adolescent years, I was a regular, ordinary person. Neither myself or my family could have pictured the life I live now. A couple of years ago my father commented that I could have been 'successful' if I wanted too! What he actually meant was if I had gone to university and chosen a career, instead of mothering! But what do fathers know?
I refused to be judged by the materialistic standards of society. By rejecting what others take for granted as necessary I have found power and freedom. Power to choose for myself what is right for me, and freedom to find it.
In doing so, I have been able to reduce my dependence on money, the thing that so often gets in the way of seeing my own happiness!
Not everyone has the opportunity to live this way, even if they wanted to. Living close to shops means we can eat dairy food and meat the same day we buy it. A composting toilet, although an ethical choice for us, is often not available to most people, due to ignorant local government by-laws. Generating our own power fits with our Earth friendly philosophy, but tinkering with electronics is Robin's hobby. Homeschooling, even if it is becoming more well known, is definitely radical by today's standards, especially when you live next door to a perfectly good school you have no quarrel with.
However, homeschooling is only a natural extension of the do-it-yourself philosophy we adopted more than twenty years ago, when we took the almost crazy decision to build our own house. Why spend a lifetime aiming for self-reliance only to hand over your children to someone else, or more accurately an endless stream of other people over twelve or more years, to take care of them and teach them those important lessons about life? Especially when the messages and values they are receiving at school are in contradiction with those you hold dear. Keeping them home was one of the best decisions we ever made. And definitely the most controversial.
People are usually surprised to learn our children are educated at home. Their first comments often relate to our children's social life. There is a basic, and misguided, assumption that, next to the three Rs, the main reason children attend school is to become socialised. There is much I can say on this topic, but I have found my need to justify to others that my children's socialising process is okay has diminished as I have grown more confident and assertive about the outcome. My children have shown me any concerns I may have had about their socialisation were unfounded and based on ignorance in the first place.
One of the biggest problems I have experienced over the eleven years of homeschooling has been distance from other families who think similarly, and share our enthusiasm for homeschooling and permaculture. Contact with other homeschoolers was nice for the children but absolutely essential for maintaining my confidence in the direction I had taken with their education. In 1989 I decided to start a newsletter, networking homeschooling families across the state. Within no time I was receiving phone calls from people I had never met inquiring about how to begin homeschooling.
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Excerpt from Learning in the Absence of Home Education: Essays on Homeschooling
© Beverley Paine, 1999
