Homeschooling: How I Follow My Children’s Interests

When people find out I homeschool my children, I am met with a few questions. The most common are: How do you do it? Is it hard to get your child to do the work? So, in this article I will share with you how I do it, and I will tell you straight up, no I don’t find it hard at all…because I follow my children’s interests (if I didn’t, I can assure you it would be a very steep uphill battle).

I first decided to homeschool my children before they were even born. I have hundreds of reasons why I made that decision, but that is for a future article. For now, I will say that a big part of the reason was because I wanted what they learnt, to be relevant to them as individuals.

My own experiences of the education system were of a blanket approach, where you had to do what the teacher said, when the teacher said it, and only in a certain way. There was no opportunity for creativity, innovation or outside-the-box thinking. Essentially the current education system squashes your dreams and passions as an individual. Maybe this is why so many kids skip school (I know I definitely skipped school when it didn’t meet my interests).

For my own children, I want them to feel like their own individual interests and passions matter. That these interests are important enough to investigate – and on a much deeper level than you will find at any school. I want them to have a MEANINGFUL education, where they develop a natural and intrinsic motivation and love of learning.

The first thing I did was to read (if you haven’t gathered by my social media posts or previous articles, to say I LOVE reading is an understatement). Some of the books I found particularly helpful in deciding what would work best for my children are:

-       Free to Learn by Peter Gray

-       Home Grown by Ben Hewitt

-       Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto

-       The Call of the Wild + Free by Ainsley Arment

-       The Brave Learner by Julie Bogart

-       Teach Your Own by John Holt & Pat Farenga

-       Balanced and Barefoot by Angela Hanscom

-       How to Raise a Wild Child by Scott D Sampson

There are actually many more books I could add to this list, but I want to focus on the point of this article and not make this into a book list. However, you can see that I do, do a lot of research. I am a researcher, and from that research I make informed decisions that work best for my family. Which is something important to remember. As you read this, what works for my family, may not work for yours. So, take what you need from my own personal experience and leave the rest here.

From all this research, I concluded that an unschooling/natural learning approach would be what suited us best. With this in mind, I then looked up the registration requirements, and joined several Facebook groups for some support.

Basically, for Queenslanders we need to submit a Plan of how we will facilitate our child’s education for the year to come, as well as a Report which reflects on the year that has been as well as showing some Work Samples from English, Maths and one other subject of choice.

For this article, I will just focus on the Plan. To date, I have submitted two Plans to the Home Education Unit, both were approved straight away. One of the most important things for me as a Homeschooling Parent (although to be honest I prefer the term, Natural Learning Parent – because that’s more in alignment to the way we do things, you won’t find a “school at home” in my house) is that my children are involved in the Planning process. What works for us now, is that my 8-year-old son chooses 4 topics he wants to investigate and explore deeply over the coming year. Then I spend time researching different resources and opportunities I can provide for him to investigate these topics. I spread these over every subject of the Australian Curriculum (i.e. English, Maths, Science, HAAS, Languages, etc).

To give you an example, the first topic we looked at this year was Australian Birds. Now I don’t know about you, but when I learnt about Australian Birds at school, it was in a classroom, seated at a desk, with a text book. Boring. Irrelevant. No basis for the real world. That was my takeaway as a 9-year-old, sitting in my third-grade class.

For my son, he is a hands-on and visual learner. He learns best through seeing and doing. It’s crucial that you know the way your child learns. It’s no use giving them a podcast to listen to, if their auditory processing system is their weakest, you’re just setting them up to fail. So, with all this in mind, my goal was to make it FUN. That’s right, I said the word “fun” as the main goal for my homeschooling plan. Because quite frankly, “if it’s not fun, you’re not doing it right” (wise words by Teacher Tom).

My son kept a bird watching journal, we went on regular bushwalks and hikes, he wrote down his observations, we read Aboriginal Stories about Australian Birds, we collected fallen feathers to identify which bird they came from, we explored weight and gravity using those same feathers, we did Maths equations and graphs based on the data we collected in the bird watching journal and we painted birds. My son now has quite the in-depth knowledge of Australian Birds, and he learnt it all in the real world, in our local community. To him it was interesting, meaningful and relevant to his life. He also covered English through reading, comprehending, writing and spelling; Maths through graphs, equations, predictions and measurements; and I could write what he learnt from every subject, but you get the gist. It was a holistic approach to his investigation.

Throughout this entire time, he kept his intrinsic motivation. There was no force or coercion necessary, because he was learning about something he chose. His entire homeschooling plan is interest-driven. That’s an important distinction to make with natural learning and mainstream schooling; very rarely are children given the opportunity to choose what they want to learn. We also spend A LOT of time outside, even doing bookwork type activities outdoors. The studies are conclusive: children NEED nature. I highly recommend reading Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv where he discusses “nature-deficit disorder” and how it’s running rampant in our world because children are forced inside classrooms for most of the day, five days a week.

At this point in time, we are up to our third topic for the year, which just like the first half of this year, and all of last year, my son chose. I know homeschooling isn’t for everyone, and if you can’t homeschool for whatever reason, perhaps you can make time for your child to choose something to investigate at home. Follow your child’s current passion. It works best if you are right there alongside them, learning as well. Relationships and connection form the foundation for the best educations. So, get out your curiosity and inquisitiveness. I can tell you without a sliver of a doubt, that you will learn so much more too – more than you ever learnt during your own time at school. Plus, the relationship with your child will skyrocket and strengthen. It’s a win-win.

Let me know in the comments ways you meet your child’s interests, or ways you plan to.

Love & Gratitude,

Steph xx

Children Learn At Their Own Rate & In Their Own Time

Children learn at their own rate, and in their own time. Seems pretty self-explanatory, doesn’t it? Yet, the current education system seems to have misplaced the memo. I’m not just talking about the formal school years either, this issue starts from daycare and preschool. With the pressure for “school-readiness.” As if daycare/preschool is more of a bootcamp, instead of a place where children can spend the most important years of their development in a place of presence, support and nurturing, filled with play.

Let me tell you a personal story involving my own children. My eldest son didn’t start talking until he was 2 years old. He also wasn’t formally taught to read, until he spent a brief stint of 2 terms at a state school. However, when he was ready, and when he was learning things in his own way and time, his learning skyrocketed. He went from not being able to read, to reading 100+ page chapter books targeted at children at least 2 years older than him. He went from only being able to write capital letters, to writing stories with correct grammar and punctuation. He went from simple maths, to understanding algebra and multiplication within a very short space of time. Is he a genius? Honestly, I have no idea what the benchmark for being classed as a genius is. What I do know, and what I contribute his understanding to, is this:

Learning about WHAT he is interested in, WHEN he is interested in and HOW he wants to express that learning.

For example, at the beginning of the year we did a 10-week investigation on Australian Birds. He went bird watching and kept a journal, collected feathers and other nature items to create artworks, read many fiction and non-fiction books on Australian birds, wrote stories using birds as the characters and did maths equations based on the information he collected in his birdwatching journal. I want to add, that my son chose this unit of study. He wanted to know all about Australian birds, and use real life situations to do that learning. Instead of just reading about birds in books, he went out into the world. He found them, he identified them, he observed them, and as a result his knowledge of them grew in a real, fundamental and concrete way.

Now to contrast this story with my younger son. He wasn’t delayed in his talking. In fact, he could very clearly and accurately say words like “asparagus” and “vacuum cleaner” at 10 months old. At his current age of 4, he taught himself all addition equations up to 10, he can count with no errors to 50, he can write his own name and he can recognise most of the upper and lowercase letters of the alphabet. Did I intentionally teach him any of this? No, no I did not. Am I shocked that he can do all of this at 4 years old? Yes, my answer is yes. To spell his name, he observed it on name labels, then he used chalk, lines in the sand, pencils, lots of trial and error, until eventually he has been able to write his own name…neatly and accurately for the past several months.

My point in telling you these 2 stories, is that children really do learn at their own rate and in their own time. For many things, children don’t need formal learning. They need supportive, understanding and considerate adults to help them along the way when they stumble, struggle and occasionally fall. But they don’t need us to sit next to them, telling them exactly how to do things, or give them worksheets or alphabets to trace. Each child has their own strengths and weaknesses. Some children pick up maths really quickly but struggle with physical activities like coordination. Other children learn to read and write really quickly, but find it challenging to hold a musical tune. Does this mean they are failures? Nope, nope and nope. This means they are human. They will naturally gravitate towards those areas of learning that resonate with them and that they tend to excel at.

When my eldest son spent those few months at school, he struggled. He became anxious, perfectionistic and stressed because of the pressure he was placed under by the school to meet certain standards at certain times. Now I will tell you truthfully, I LOVE paperwork, like I get enjoyment in filling out forms and answering questionnaires (yes, I may be weird but I did love my admin jobs in my previous employment lives). However, the worksheets my son was given, well it was boring as batshit quite frankly. Not only was he doing copious amounts of worksheets at school (I knew because I would go in every week to help his class with literacy groups), but he was also given them as homework…at age 5! I wasn’t given homework until high school. These are actually some of the reasons I pulled my son out of school, and we started our natural learning (some call unschooling) journey. He has gone back to loving learning about new things. I know how he learns, so we do a lot of hands-on, real life experience learning. I also know he is learning a lot, because every time one of my Family Day Care families walks through the gate, he is immediately telling them all these wonderful and insightful facts and information. He is demonstrating his ability to retain and comprehend what he is learning, not just memorising and regurgitating it at will for a test.

My final thoughts for this, is that teachers are not to blame for this. I know that the teachers at my son’s school were amazing. They often told me they didn’t like how the Australian Curriculum seemed to be moving to younger and younger years of age, so that Year One level is now actually taught in preschool. They are struggling too. The problem stems from the very top of the education system, where the curriculum and testing comes from. From the people who have no idea about child development, no idea about the increase in mental health problems among children and who perhaps had traumatic childhoods they have not healed from or they have forgotten the magic of childhood play. Either way, the entire system needs an overhaul by professionals who are lovingly invested in the best interests of the children, and who have the neuroscience and knowledge to understand how the developing brain works.

What are your thoughts on the education system? Are you children thriving or struggling? If there are things you could change about your child’s schooling, what would it be?

Leave you comment below.

Thanks for reading, and until next time…

Much gratitude,

Steph

Recommended Reading:

Cooperative and Connected - Aletha Solter

Dumbing Us Down - John Taylor Gatto

How Children Learn - John Holt

Free to Learn - Peter Gray

Aware Parenting & Homeschooling

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of having my second conversation on my dear friend and mentor, Marion Rose’s Podcast.

We chatted about Aware Parenting, Homeschooling, High Sensitivity as children and parents, and so much more.

To hear this conversation, please CLICK HERE.

Feel free to leave your thoughts and feelings in the comments below afterwards.

Much Gratitude,

Steph