Maybe I Should Home School? Part 2
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Originally published February 28, 2021
If you’ve read Maybe I Should Home School? Part 1, you’ll remember in March 2020 we were in the throes of Lockdown. I was battling on three fronts against the Fear of the Global Pandemic, all the schoolwork as well as the children themselves.
It was rubbish. I think all mothers of school-aged children during that period of history can agree, it was rubbish.
But the thought struck me:
“There are families that do this. For decades. With legions of children. At home. Mothers educating the kids. Feeding and clothing the kids. Getting the aforesaid kids to bed ALIVE every night. And these mothers seem to be keeping their sanity in check enough to be doing this FOR DECADES.
“What are they doing that Lockdown Learning is not? I think I might go and find out…”*
The next day, I ignored the school work and rage and instead listened to a podcast. The interviewee was a Canadian lady called Bonnie Landry, a mother of seven children who home schooled them all over the course of thirty years. She sounded calm, sane, happy. Everything I was not at that moment. Her grown-up children are engaged, pleasant and functioning members of society.
Landry was clearly doing something right.
So, I checked her out. Had a snoop about her blog. Discovered she’d generously put up on Youtube a four-hour workshop explaining her educational rhythm. And I watched, and made notes.
It was a revelation. Here was — to quote my husband — “everything I had ever wanted from education”. Good literature that opened up discussions on any topic imaginable; from ethics and morality to science, geography, history, philosophy, economics… anything. Poetry that became a vehicle for easy and quiet absorption of spellings, grammar, style and the skills of memorisation. Mathematics that went at the speed and readiness of the child rather than charging on like a bulldozer, dragging the confused, bruised and unready behind it.
And Time. Oh sweet, precious time.
Amazingly, Landry’s child-lead learning created more time in the day; education was kind of done by lunchtime. Which meant time for play, time for reading, time for cooking, time for cleaning, time for dreaming, time for… whatever. And I mean time for us all to do all these things, be it mother or child, and all these things together if we so wished.
Fieldtrips could be as exotic as expeditions to London museums or a holiday during normal school term-time (obviously when there aren’t national Lockdowns getting flung about willy-nilly). Fieldtrips could also be as local as frequent walks around the village & environs, spotting the changing flora and fungi as the year passed, naming and knowing them, talking about the history and geography of the area. Home schooling like this could foster a real sense of place, a great connection with nature and culture.
And very importantly air.
Lots of air. Of the fresh sort. Which is what children need.
Fresh air. Wonderful stuff.
It also struck me how much more time we would have together as a family. A friend noted recently that with each child you’ll only get 18 summer holidays with them if you’re lucky. That’s not many, really. Every moment with them is a gift. Sometimes quite an intense and shouty, ragey, frustrated, humbling sort of gift if I’ve not slept enough and am doing too much, but most of the time a soft, wonderful, awe-inspiring kind of gift.
When my eldest started primary school and was struggling with the intensity of it all, a mother with an older child who’d gone through a similar experience commented in passing
“You know, during that time I always resented that school had the best of my daughter; she’d keep it together until she got home and I would have to pick up all the pieces”.
I don’t just want to pick up the pieces, to gingerly handle the painful sherds of a life. I want the best of my children before I gently give them to the world. It’s only for a short period in the grand scheme of my time on this earth. Home schooling will mean some material sacrifices, yes, but we’re already in a privileged position, easily affording a roof over our heads and food on the table. These days, that’s not a guarantee for so many people. As we have that guarantee, why not give these gifts of extra time, love and a smattering of education to the children?
Now, these were marvellously impressive thoughts to have, but they were based upon the home school experiences of a Canadian lady. From Canada. Different country and a big place on the other side of the Atlantic.
Would home schooling like this work or even be legal here in the UK?
A bit more research, looking at websites such as Home Education Advisory Service (HEAS) and Education Otherwise, revealed that home schooling — or more precisely Home Education — in the UK is very much legal, alive and thriving. Wonderfully, when I voiced my tentative thoughts about home education to various friends and acquaintances, it turned out they knew quite a few home ed families. Contact details were swapped, contacts were made and I am so grateful to these women and their families who shared their experiences of home ed life (the ups and the downs).
The summer term of 2020 was also an amazing gift for us. I let the school know that we wouldn’t be doing any of the work that was now up on Google classrooms but, rest assured, the Three Rs of reading, [w]riting and [a]rithmetic would be covered. The headteacher generously agreed and so began a time of home ed experimentation, all with the safety net of school places should home ed prove disastrous.
But it didn’t. Sure, it took time to find a rhythm, time for us all to grasp that we could go at the pace that suited our family rather than the pace that schools required… but it wasn’t disastrous. The opposite in fact.
Fun
The children were, and still are, happy. I was, and still am, happy.
In July 2020, I handed the headteacher a letter to confirm our decision. The Local Authority would no longer be responsible for the children’s education; we were. And thus, we jumped ship, quietly slipped away and began this new season, this new adventure in life.
What a gift.
“Maybe I should homeschool?”.
Yes, yes, I should. Yes, yes, WE should.
Jumping ship and starting a new adventure
*For my readers that have a faith (and for those that don’t but are intrigued) there’s a bit more to this; I was pretty cross with God (who wouldn’t be, really?) and I shouted at Him:
“If you want me to home school… you’d better jolly well make it easier. This. Is. Rubbish!”
Yes. I shouted my minor frustration and demands at God, the Creator and Knower of All Things. From the Big Bang and biggest nebulae, to protons, atoms and quarks, to grains of sand everywhere, to babies not yet born, to the deepest longings in our souls, to the beauty of nature and Man’s divinely-inspired creativity, to the Great Battle between Good and Evil… All the Things He has created and He knows.
Yes, that God. I shouted at Him.
Guess what? He answered.
And He must have laughed. But as you can see, He listened and answered. For which I am grateful.
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