If i’m at my most evangelical about all this at the moment, then i have to apologise. I’m feeling unsure enough of life that all the small signs of goodness are as well blogged really, because they make me feel a great deal better. Oh, and could i say, while i’m at it, how much i’m enjoying comments from lurkers – they are really welcome, so please carry on doing so 🙂
I’ve been doing a lot of listening and observing over the last few days something i hope that home ed will gradually include more of over the next few years. My mission statement is very definitely that i want to encourage my children to have courage to plan and direct their own education, while i give value added encouragement and guidance at times. Over the last few days i’ve seen more and more of the early shoots of that happening.
On thing that is interesting about having a student in the house is that, if you get a good and able one, you can hand over a portion of the guiding to someone else and learn from what you hear. I’ve got a very able student right now, one who can pretty effortlessly engage all 4 at once and do it well and safely. Actually, she’s better than me. So i’ve been handing over bits of work, mini projects and the like to her and then listening in on how it goes, to see what i can learn. I couldn’t really put it into words very well, but the effect has been quite fascinating and i can see that they are enjoying having time with someone different. I’m not sure if that strengthens or weakens my stance as an HEer though. 😆 However, i liked even more how much they enjoyed all doing the papermaking together and it made me realise i’ve avoided that stuff for overlong now, feeling that it is too difficult with all 4. It isn’t really. We need to do more of it.
Another interesting thing has been listening in on the 4 of them rehearsing “shows” together – Fran’s dancing and organising skills have really come on lately and i love listening to her training the others at dances and negotiating. I get a window into how they are spoken to and taught at dancing, where they do 3 lessons a week each. i like what i hear; i prefer it to when i hear them playing mummies 😕 Max and i have been subjected to a lot of shows to a cd of kids classics recently. It’s been um… interesting, but i enjoy seeing them make the music their own and interpreting it.
Yesterday some French resources arrived that i bought from Joanna, Usborne lotto, a set of learning materials and some flashcards and a dvd. Fran has been mithering for them for a while and as she has worked very hard on the EC french stuff, i agreed to spend the money. She is really thrilled with them and dived straight in to it. She’s keen to work with someone on it, but what is new and rather refreshing, is that she doesn’t actually need to be guided; she can see how to start, how to build up some knowledge and how to practise. Certainly she’s asking for pronunciation help, but the drive is coming all from her, she isn’t needing to be organised into it. It feels like rather a new phase in the whole “CHILD LED” thing – somehow a properly autonomous moment. What i like about it is that everything i’ve done up to now doesn’t seem to have impeded her ability to take hold of a new project and make it on her own – and that is tremendously encouraging. Perhaps i’ve not been wrong afterall. Perhaps i listened to my child and got it right.
Nice post! I got told off yesterday for not blogging the crap that happens that I rant about to people face to face but not put in the blog. I was having a chat about how this had happened, and that had happened and what a disaster it all was and one parent exasperatingly said “But you should blog that!”
But this is why: “all the small signs of goodness are as well blogged really, because they make me feel a great deal better”
I can look back on the blog and feel really good about life because I am reminded of the good stuff and forget about those disastrous moments and even those moments (eg last Weds) when I had a fleating wish that she was in school (or Borstal I didn’t really care!) so someone else could put up with my obstreperous child all day for me!
A fleeting wish even. Sigh. Why can’t I spot typos until after I’ve submitted?
Presenting the rose-coloured view can make other people feel they’re not living up to some imaginary standard though! I prefer a touch of realism 😉
And Merry, what do you mean, perhaps you’ve not been wrong after all? Questioning and re-evaluating what you’re doing is pretty essential, but I don’t really think you’ve need to doubt yoruself.
Oh you know me, i’m always worrying that i’m harming them desperately by not leaving them completely free to do their own thing. I was particularly stung by something Gill said the other week “if you autonomously educate, expect to have your children make you feel stupid lots” because although i really can see autonomy works, i don’t think it is the only way to have children who are creative and free thinkers. (No offence Gill 😉 ) So it’s quite nice to have a moment where i can see the fruits of the general approach, iyswim 🙂
What I blog is real. I just choose to omit the negative stuff on the basis of preserving some mental sanity.
One friend blogs her HE life but it just seems to be a litany of disasters yet I know they do a lot of the good stuff too but the good stuff doesn’t get blogged.
Also, being completely unable to keep a record of what we do here, the blog is also intended to help me with any LA response I may have to do so it probably does present a more utopian view.
hmm, our blog I think is a reasonably fair view, but we don’t doom and gloom too often. [having just doomed and gloomed!]
but I think I just blog what I want to, without thinking of readership or future.
Oh, I was only talking about my personal approach Michelle.
I really don’t think there’s One True Way of HE, and tbh I think anyone who thinks there is, is, um, deluded. Can’t say I’ve ever felt stupid just because someone else knows something I don’t either 🙂 And yeah, I know you need to worry! But it’s better for me to point out that you don’t need to than just ignore it, I hope? 😉
It’s true, having seen the way Anna’s blossomed at school with much much more structure imposed on her, I sort of wish I hadn’t tried so hard to do the autonomous thing really – not that I did, because I’m too much of a control freak. But of course it can work in different ways.
Really pleased to hear it’s going so well atm, the french thing sounds great 🙂
I blog the “interesting” whether that is good or bad. I’ve had days where “They’d live at boarding school so that counts as home ed right?”
I can see where totally autonomous/ free range ed would work for some, but me and mine need a bit of structure or we’d kill each other. It also provides evidence to keep Granny off my back.
I’m glad it all arrived safely and is being enjoyed! I’m still feeling my way through the structure/autonomy issue (aren’t we all!!) so all blog evidence is read with interest.
I know we’re guilty of a rose-tinted blog but that is because I always stuck with the rule that I wouldn’t blog what I wouldn’t print out and stick in the front window. I am also increasingly aware that our kids are readers of our blog – and that certainly affects what I put in.
It’s great to read other people’s reflections on what they do – whatever their approach. I often get ideas for things we might do from other people’s blogs.
I think the only way to judge if your HE is ‘right’ is whether everyone involved is happy with it – right now. I know I preach about autonomy – but I do it to boost my own confidence, not to undermine what anyone else is doing.
“Perhaps i’ve not been wrong afterall. Perhaps i listened to my child and got it right.”
Cough! Perhaps???? Ya think???? I suspect you have got it very right m’dear.
I learnt a long time ago (Adam is 18 now) that whatever you do is never, ever, ever going to be ‘right’, sad but true.
With Olivia (she’s 10 now) we just go with the flow. Sometimes it’s complete autonomy that’s required, sometimes it’s complete structure, down to the very last second, that’s required.
It’s still not ever going to be ‘right’.
I know that now. I am reconciled to the fact that I will never be ‘right’ all the time.
But I also know that, when my children are grown and adults (Adam is ‘almost’ there!), I can look them fair and square in the eye, and say, “I did the absolute best I could at the time.”
That’s what keeps me going through all the crappy times
Oh, well, I’d take issue with that too Jo, lol! I look back on my parents, and although I have quibbles over some specific incidents (which are not many, and which are mostly since I was an adult than a child), I think they got it right. We really did have excellent childhoods. My parents are not perfect, and I never thought they were (and C was a bit shocked 5 minutes ago when I told him my dad used to put Dettol in the bath when he bathed us), but I really think they took the rightest possible paths with us.
I remember being about 19 or 20 I guess, and my mum having some concerns over my drug use (98% class C 😉 ), and saying to her that she’d done a good job and that she must realise that, that she should *know* that she’d raised me well, and to trust me. I have no idea if that was reassuring, pmsl! But it made perfect sense to me at the time 🙂
I have no such confidence that *I’m* doing such a good job, but I’m certainly not resigning myself to accepting that nothing will ever be ‘right’. I have high hopes that our kids (and I’m sure Adam and Olivia too) will look back and feel the same way that I do.
Lovely post, Merry 😀
And um, I kind of had my tongue in my cheek when I said :”I just thought I’d post this as a warning to anyone embarking on autonomous home ed with their children: be prepared to feel very, very stupid.”
Looks like I need to be a bit more careful how I say things! 😆