Being Wrong (And Obsessed With Telling People What To Do).

What we learn by being wrong by author Kathryn Schulz. I listened to this TED talk with great interest because I've been thinking a lot about being right. I like being right. So does one of my daughters. So do most of us and we will do anything to avoid being wrong.

It's like Schulz says; we are under the impression that our believes "perfectly reflect reality."

We get it in the abstract. But when it comes down to it- abstract appreciation of fallibility goes out the window. Traveling through life trapped in this little bubble of feeling very right about everything This is a problem as individuals and collectively as a culture.

She goes on to say that "attachment to our own rightness leads us to treat others terribly..We want others to see this world exactly as we do."

This reminds me of a time when I made my very own discovery- something that shock me to the roots. I really got it. It was an epiphany. Let me tell you how this happened.

I'm in the kitchen making zucchini chocolate bread. The next ingredient calls for sugar. I dig into the back of the cupboard, certain it's in there somewhere. When it becomes obvious that there isn't any I have to make the decision to either brave the freezing cold, dark night and make the trip to the Fortinos down the road (an 8 minute walk) or scrap the whole mixture into the green cart.
I decide to take the walk. My kids are counting on that zucchini chocolate bread after all.

In to the falling snow I go and as I go I think. One of the best things about walking is that you can let your thoughts go wild  (as long as you're keeping an eye open for rogue drivers). And so in this coldest of winter nights I get to thinking about the staff meeting I attended that day and other mundane things when suddenly,the thought comes to me; we are obsessed with education.

 As a culture, education takes up an enormous part of our lives. Think about Ivan Illich and what he had to say about this. From the moment we set foot into day care (progressively at earlier and earlier ages), to the time we enter grade school, to high school, to university and college, to post graduate and to continued education. If we don't have education we have to get it. And we have to get more of it and we have to give it to other nations. This is a culture that is stuck on school.

As I enter the Fortinos, I pause at the magazine rack to get a sense of what is going on in the world. Experts giving us instructions: how to be sexier in bed. How to make the next holiday a success. How to decorate your home. How to spend your money.

I head towards the baking section. As I reach for the sugar ( brown and white both) I am struck with another startling thought. Not only are we obsessed with education; we are also obsessed with how to be happy; how to live right. As I head towards the check out, I realize that what we are facing is a culture that is obsessed with telling people what to do. 
As I head back up the street the ugliest of thoughts hits me: Our culture is focused on people shaping. Our culture from birth to death is a culture that forces us to be the way it wants us to be. Could this because we don't like being wrong?

Why is it so important for us to feel right; Why is it hard to be wrong? A cultural position that forces us to accept one way of being for fear of being ostracized?
Schulz talks about the diminished sense of self we experience when we think others see us as being wrong. The embarrassment.
You know exactly what to think about the kid who got this  a 'failed' paper- that's the dumb kid.
By the time you are 9 years old you learn that people who get stuff wrong are lazy, irresponsible, dim wits. The way to proceed in life is to never make any mistakes. Many of us deal with these lessons by becoming perfectionists, over achievers..because getting something wrong means that there is something wrong with us.

I was reading the Lost World by Michael Crichton and there is a wonderfully strong woman- I mean this in the physical and moral sense who never lets anything stop her. In the story, Sarah Harding is an ethologist talking to a young girl (about 12) who doesn't fit in at school. Kelly is called a 'brainer' by her class mates and made fun of. She is told by her mother that boys don't like girls that are too smart.

Harding tells her a story about George Schaller who studies panda bears. She tells Kelly that before he goes in the field he reads everything that has ever been written on the animal he is going to study. Then he goes out and observes the animal himself.
"And you know what he usually finds? That everything that has been written or said is wrong....
So Kelly, even at your young age there's something you might as well learn now. All your life people will tell you things. And most of the time, probably ninety-five percent of the time, what they'll tell you will be wrong.... It's a fact of life. Human beings are just stuff full of misinformation."

I guess the whole point of this post then is 1. Don't be afraid to be wrong. 2. Question everything.

As Schulz concludes in her talk, if you want to rediscover wonder, "you need to step outside of this tiny terrified space of rightness and look around at each other.. and look out at the complexity and the vastness of the universe and be able to say, "Wow! I don't know maybe I'm wrong."

Blame it on Unschooling

Blame. Who isn't good at it? Personally, I'm quite an expert myself. "Who didn't put the milk away?" "The baby is crying because you talked too loudly." "It's your fault you missed the bus."
I'll catch myself doing it and think-this is useless.  Blaming doesn't change the situation.

As an unschooler, I've heard it been said that at should a child who goes to school turn out 'a loser' at least you can blame it on the school system. Who will you blame if you unschool?

Actually, you can be sure that when it comes to unschooling there's plenty of blame to go around when something is 'going wrong.'
Your six year old won't eat her peas- it's because you unschool.
Your eight year old talks too loudly? Are you sure it isn't because-you know..he doesn't go to school?
Ten year old wears mix matching socks.Unschooled!
Twelve year doesn't like hanging out but prefers her books? Gotta be she's unschooled.
Fourteen year swears much. Unschooled!
Eighteen year old has anorexia. Unschooling did it to her.

Sometimes the blame comes from the unschooled kid herself: "My geography sucks because you unschooled me." " I don't write well because I wasn't made to do it."
You know what my take on this is? One of the best things about directing your own learning is that you are encouraged to share responsibility for your learning and the older you get the more responsible you become for it. Ideally, you are assisted in becoming responsible for the way you act in the world.
It's a tough lesson as those of us who weren't brought up this way can attest. Now as adults we have to struggle with overcoming the urge to blame our shortcomings on others.

Unschooling is that you gain in some areas and loose in others and that is how you evolve yourself into an interested, interesting, vibrant person.
By the time you are old enough to be aware that there are areas of knowledge that you don't have but want to have, then you are old enough to seek said areas out for yourself-with the continued support and help from parents and mentors and teachers should you need them.

Revolutionizing Education-We're doing it!

Thanks to Lisa over at the Innovative Educator for sending on a link that talks about how the newest generation (Gen Z) will revolutionize education and the effects that will have on work in the future. 
Of course, unschoolers are already revolutionizing education. Whether the majority likes it or not, change is happening. Anyone with ears to hear and eyes to see can tell this. In fact, it should be that if you are not self directing your learning, you will be considered rather...deficient;- a little bit backward, if I may. 
John Seely Brown and Douglas Thomas speak of the world being "in flux,"and what learning for a world of constant change requires:

"Although learning about and learning to be worked well in a relatively stable world, in a world of constant flux, we need to embrace a theory of learning to become. Where most theories of learning see becoming as a transitional state toward becoming something, we want to suggest that the 21st century requires us to think of learning as a practice of becoming over and over again."

Becoming over and over again. Being nimble and flexible and open minded. If you think about the way emerging technologies are changing our lives daily, and how the internet and other social media are reshaping the way people learn it becomes obvious that school as usual is far behind the times.

The jobs public schools prepare youth for will have all but vanished by the time they have grown up.

The world of tomorrow will require a type of person who is able to think for him or herself, and is creative enough to adapt to the ever changing scene.

Kids don't need school. "Institutionalized wisdom tells us that children need school. But this institutionalized wisdom is the product of schools," Ivan Illich wrote in his famous book, Deschooling Society.

Illich, iconoclast, philosopher and social critic extraordinaire, dared to criticize our institutions, starting with education, of which "we have become addicted to as if to a drug."
So what do kids need? Take my daughter who is in grade 10 high school and is taking a media arts course. Between thirty students they have a grand total of five cameras. And this high school is considered a 'good' school. 
 I say that what kids need is access to resources: equipment, tools and of course people. We need to unlock the community's resources and put those who have the knowledge and skills in direct contact with those who don't.
In our community of Hamilton this is already happening. We have a tools lending library that has started up, we have a freeskool that offers classes that range from gardening and welding to Spanish and knitting. There is a neat place called Think Haus  which is a shared work space / social space and collective all about hacking, crafting, DIY and doing awesome stuff and where last week my daughter learned how to pick a lock and next week will learn how to build a robot.

We need more of these places and opportunities. Why not start something in your own community? It could be something as simple as offering to share a skill with other people. It's exciting to think of what sorts of partnerships will emerge.

Staying Local

Over at Unschooled, Kate posted about the advantages of homeschooling and how she plans to do the same when she has a family. One of the possible advantages would be being able to travel.
I countered that proposition with the idea of staying local. Knowing local. Being immersed in local.

For instance, today was a sunny day (started out mysterious and foggy) when my daughter and I set out on our bikes (for the first time since winter began) and had a wonderful ride down pass the bay, and onto trails that connect our city to another town.
Let's say-it was a mini 'staycation.'

We observed red- winged black birds, hawks, blue jays, and even a woodpecker. B fed chickadees; we observed geese and ducks in their nestling grounds in the Marsh (got frightened off by two really aggressive squirrels of all things).
We had an adventure when we tried to find the historic Easterbrooks (since 1930) and I was informed by my daughter that her great-grandmother carved her name on one of the booths when she was about the same age.  We did find it and we enjoyed milkshakes and French fries.

     B really knows her 'back yard.' All our kids are steeped in the history of place (due to having a father who is a history buff). They are familiar with the geography and the ecology of our City and with its many green places and waterfalls. They are also familiar with the image of the city as Steel Town; industrial, working class, gritty, unpretentious.

They know all the bodies of water that surround the city- the bay where they frequently canoe; or skate upon in the winter. Lake Ontario where they swim (and where their grandmother had her swimming lessons as a child). The trails that connect town to town; the drinking water that we get once a month from the spring.
They know the culture scene: arts,environment, activism, literary, music and all the great people in these movements.
The university corridors they know like the back of their hands. The markets, the best vintage stores, the 'coolest' place to have coffee, brownies and a game of chess; the best place to eat falafel. The best place to get your photo copying done. Our favorite Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner. Best slopes to tobaggon or go cross country skiing. Best swimming pool. The harbourfront trail and where to get good ice cream.
Favourite movie theaters. The list goes on and on.
This is the advantage of leading an unschooled life-we explore and go where our noses lead us and we learn to really appreciate the community we live in.

Sean Ritchey: Grown Unschooler

I had this shift two years ago where I stopped thinking about my life in terms of success and started thinking of my life in terms of contribution. 
I started thinking of myself as a contribution rather than as successful or not. Sean Ritchey.

 Download our most recent interview with grown unschooler, Sean Ritchey.

An activist, entrepreneur and self described 'project architect,' Ritchey explains what he does as,"designing vehicles and platforms for people to work on things together in a different model than what has come before."

How does he best define himself? "A passionate and curious human first and foremost; grounded in pieces of gratitude."

To the comment, "unschooling is often criticized for being too idealistic and does not prepare kids for the real world," Ritchey responds that he agrees since generally speaking, unschooling does not prepare one to "work for the world of corporate America."

Unschooling prepares you to follow "what is in line with your passions and values."
He notices that "the more security you have the less freedom you have."

"Our culture generally tends to put more emphasis on security rather than freedom," observes Ritchey. "Unschoolers tend to swing their lives more on the side of freedom than security-generally speaking."

Check out Sean Ritchey's work here:
http://www.seanritchey.com/

Unschooling: experimental or experiential?

A few posts ago, I was wondering why so many people call unschooling an experiment. Someone in the comment section asked me to explain why I didn't like calling unschooling an experiment. I guess I didn't do a good job the first time so I'll give it another go.

To me unschooling is less of an experiment; more of an experience. I like to think of unschooling as experienced- based learning as in a collecting of, a conscientious bringing together of action, observation, deliberation, reflection, immersion of self in the flow of life.
Of course, along with this comes experiment. One experiments with ideas. Unschooling is not an idea. Unschooling is a way of life; a philosophy of life. It embraces the experiment; it is not the experiment.
This is how we humans attain adulthood—by the experiences we live through.

Rather than counting our years by the measure of what grade we are in as school does and waiting until we have worked through all the grades before set free,we can begin to live, unschooling demands experience now.
I understand how unschooling can be viewed as experiment—the 'what we don't know' as contrasted with what we do know: school. But I find that the term when used on unschooling tends to cast unschooling into a light that makes it (unschooling) seem like something uncertain.

That's what I don't like. Unschooling as an experiment conveys an idea that I am uneasy with—the idea that unschooling is something that careless or neglectful parents might do. People who do it are the opposite. They wish to conserve the natural traits of their children; creativity,curiosity, self-directedness. They are not willing to toss that all into the school pot—which to my mind, experiments largely with these natural qualities—often to the detriment of the child. School is the largest experiment devised for young humans.
Unschooling families wish to preserve family and community. The great experiment that separates kids from adults for the most part of their childhood is not one they wish to support. Unschooling refuses to let children be the guinea pigs in the school laboratory.
Unschooling as experiment suggests that the parents are experimenting on their children. This is not the case. Instead the child  leads with his interest; the parent supports the interests. The parent facilitates exposes, the child follows.  At its best, usnchooling is a partnership in learning and living.
Comments, thoughts welcome!

Can home-schoolers get into university part 5- cbc viewpoint analysis

I was trying to find the link for the series I did for CBC Viewpoint Analysis with Bob Sudeyko back in 2006  

http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_ekoko/20061221.html

but it appears that it is no longer there! So what I've done is compiled the articles here as a resource for those who wonder 'but does home education work?'  Here is the series and if you scroll back you can read it from the beginning. Cheers!

 Grown up without school

Kate Cayley is the director of a small Toronto theatre company known as Stranger Theatre. She’s also artistic director of the Cooking Fire Festival, a festival of new outdoor works which happens in Toronto city parks. On the side she does a bit of teaching (history and creative writing) with home educated kids.

The 28 year old was unschooled right up to university and describes the then common perception of what they were doing as being “lunatic fringe.”

Growing up in busy Toronto where the population of home educated kids though very small was vibrant and lively, Cayley was able to avoid the isolation that could have been an issue, at the same time becoming pretty independent about discovering the city at a younger age; “My reference point was not the school. I could ride around on my bike-do theatre stuff because since 13, I was pretty clear that this was my path.”

She also had time to work and save money for a trip around Europe at age 16. Having a broad ranger of people to be around, that included many interesting adults was another advantage of living and learning in community, outside of an institutional context.

Granted, loneliness featured in the picture- especially at 13 and 14 when many of her home educated peers were opting for high school while she chose “to see it through.” Still, being alone, was contemplation time which she used to “develop a specific intellectual life.”

When it came time to begin the application process for university, that it was quite an “up hill walk” was no surprise. With no school records and registered as a dropout Cayley had to convince admissions that she was educated.

“I had to explain the entire concept to universities. Luckily in the time from when I began to when I graduated (1999 to 2001), it became a little bit more normal.”

Perseverence and persistence paid off. On the basis of a 20 page essay about Shelley’s ‘Adonais, she ended up on a full scholarship at University of King's College, a small liberal arts school in Halifax who were “genuinely interested.”

Cayley fell in love with university life, finding the competition and being graded “new and exciting” By the time she graduated though, she was really ready to be out of school- “I had a feeling that this had been a wonderful exp but I didn’t want to be in that context again.”

Summing up her reflections on growing up home educated, Cayley finds “the definitive difference was not being bored. Everybody I know seems to think of sessions of their adolescence as a really long period of intense boredom.”

She refers to a quote by Plato, that knowledge is only possible through the love of a particular thing that you pursue- admittedly sometimes at the sacrifice of other things; “my math is not up to scratch,” she divulges -“and I thought that home education gave me at a young age, the opportunity to learn that- that you learn something because you love it not because you are obligated to.”

------------------------------

For many home educated youth, getting into a post secondary institution, like for schooled youth is often the goal, as we have seen with Cayley’s story. Happily, with every passing year, “it becomes easier and easier,” assures Bruce Arai, acting Dean for the Brantford campus of Wilfrid Laurier. Referring to the Brantford campus, Arai says that they have admitted every single homeschooler who has applied.

In Ontario groups like the Ontario Federation for Teaching Parents (OFTP) have received a commitment from every registrar in the province to develop an admissions policy if they haven’t already done so.

Spokeswoman Katie Toksoy reports “they have various ways of looking at that -considering each home educated applicant individually, a portfolio or their work, entrance exam specially tailored to them, interview process, SAT II scores, letters of reference and essays, letters of intent to name the options.”

Home educated youth can also prepare for entrance into the university of their choice by fulfilling the admissions requirements; doing some high school courses through correspondence and distance education or reintegrating into the system at that point. Other students may enter post secondaries as mature students.

------------------------

Not all home educated students will want to take the post secondary route. Having had the experience of being self directed and learning independently all their lives, their attitude is one that can be described as ‘do it yourself.’

32 year old Andrew Gilpin of Alliston Ontario, who is a successful jazz pianist says there was no point in going to a post secondary. “I would have been able to go if I had wanted to, but the further along I went, the less purpose there seemed to be to it, because I was doing what I wanted to do, and I was able to do it, and I didn't seem to need anything, except maybe jobs, or opportunities, but you can't get that in university.”

Composing and performing with his partner Juillard trained clarinetist Jacoboski, they form the duo Ebony and Ivory. They travel around the world performing original pieces and well known pieces too.

Completely self taught, Gilpin, says he doesn’t have any pieces of paper at all, that prove that he can do any of this. “It felt strange at the beginning, until I just started performing more and more. And what you find out is that nobody in the audience ever asks for your certificates. They don't know, and they don't care.”

Adam Lim in another home educated grown up who has by passed post secondary education for the time being, working instead full time in a calling centre in Toronto. The 27 year old poet is head coach of a football team for boys ages 11 to 13 in his spare time. He is married and plans to have a family one day. If he decides to go to university Lim says he would go for psychology.

The young man who started home education at 12 found that for a Black youth as himself, home education made sense. “I wanted a broader education, and to learn more about my own culture. The constrictive school system couldn’t supply it.”

He cautions, “there is a lot of freedom in homeschooling. But you can be complacent and lazy in your work. I didn’t take advantage of it.”

To the question of alienation and socialization Lim responds, “I think you get more alienated in school then when you are homeschooled because in school you have to go along with the stereotypes, what with pop culture, peer pressure etc. Homeschooling enabled me to avoid becoming what you hear in the media.”

Wrapping it up;

Despite difficulties they might face, home educated children often get the kind of education and work they aspire to, researcher Gary Knowles of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) reports. “A strong sense of self and self directedness help them enter post secondaries and get jobs because they develop strengths not necessarily based on scholastics.”

The 2004 Van Pelt preliminary data on young adults confirms this claim; responsible citizenship ranked high with home educated adults; 72 percent had voted in the last 5 years, less than 7 percent had ever collected employment insurance benefits and none had ever received any social security assistance. Over 80 percent volunteered in one or more capacity.

“There’s lots of evidence that home educate children grow up to be reasonable adults, not terribly influenced by their peers, and are entrpreneurial and resourceful,” concludes Knowles.

Can Kids Get Proper Socialization at Home? Part 4 CBC Viewpoint Analysis-

By Beatrice Ekoko Part 4: Can Kids Get Proper Socialization at Home?

Can kids get proper socialization at home?

October 2, 2006

Any person who considers home education for their children will have to face the worried question: "What about their socialization?"
By this they likely mean: "Will my child end up a weirdo? Will they have friends? Will children be unprepared for the real world if they don’t go to school?"
Socialization, technically speaking, is the ability to adapt to the needs of any given group, to learn the cultural norms expected of such a person in the community in which he or she lives.
Gary Knowles of Ontario Institute of Studies in Education (OISE) explains, "One may be socialized into the ways of being associated with a fundamentalist Christian group, a teenage gang, Girl Guides, or into the local community."
A child will be socialized to the group she spends the most time with.
The question rests on balance: do you want your child socialized to the larger society or primarily to their peer group?
Because the majority of children go to school, home-educated children don’t have as many peers to associate with during the day; some children might feel lonely or as they get older they might wish to spend more time with their peers. But this doesn’t indicate insufficient socialization or poor social development. Not having a satisfactory social life can happen whether you go to school or not.
To get around issues of isolation, home-educated children rely on extra-curricular activities in addition to volunteering in the community, which academic research by Wilfrid Laurier University researcher Bruce Arai shows they do more of than children who attend school.
While kids who go to large schools are predominantly socialized by their peers, many home-education children have broader experiences in society with more opportunities to be socialized by both younger and older people, says Knowles.
For Knowles, "socialization is a moot question" for home educators. His research on home-education families found no reason to suggest that a family that is outgoing, whose kids are involved in all sorts of community groups, are disadvantaged whatsoever.
Knowles’s study of home-educated adults found that they’ve grown up to be largely autonomous, independent, and have learned to make way themselves. "I think that’s one of the major advantages of home education that kids don’t have their self esteem attacked by other kids so much in the home context: they become a lot more secure in who they are."
Knowles admits concern for families who are "cloistered" or "sheltered," or when parents are over?controlling of their children and the materials and literature their children have access to.
But as Arai points out, "If you’re determined to not expose your child to the diversity of any particular country, religion, or political persuasion, then you can do that. Unfortunately you can do that pretty effectively whether you send your child to school or not. It really doesn’t have anything to do with home-schooling."
"There are lots of racists and bigots around and they are not all home educated; a lot of them went to school," says Arai.

Right fit for some

Home-educated brother and sister Sean and Devon Atherton of Hamilton have tried school and had very different experiences.
While Sean, 15, adapted to the scene during his semester long stint, and felt he "really fit in well," and plans to continue school, Devon, 14, did not.
She found a culture alien to her sense of self. In contrast to the girls at the school, she says, "I didn’t want to wear their clothes nor did I go along with their makeup stuff. I didn’t want to be the same as them. I felt pretty lonely there."
Atherton decided to return to her home education.
"The way I see it now, for some people, school is the right thing. For others it’s not. Right now, I don’t think I’m one of the people that it’s for," she muses.
Devon’s experience does not mean that she is poorly socialized: her self-confidence instead reveals a healthy social development.
It’s a characteristic in keeping with a small but significant study of home-educated girls by Susannah Sheffer. Her book A Sense of Self was a response to media reports in the 1990s highlighting the negative socialization of adolescent girls in school.
While girls in school where reported to be "losing their voices" and doubting the validity of their goals, "even their own perceptions," Sheffer’s study revealed that home-educated girls ages 11 to 16, were having a very different, more positive experience.
"They expressed comfort with disagreement. They didn’t think you have to be the same in order to have a close relationship."
Perhaps what people are mean when they use the term "socialization" revolves around the idea of citizenship and what they think makes a good citizen. The difficulty is that the definition of a good citizen is unclear as it is constantly evolving.
Schools grapple with what they consider citizenship education. Yet if you look at the history of citizenship education, "it’s not by real design and purpose. It comes out of classes in history and geography: not necessarily the best basis for citizenship education," according to Arai.
"Teachers are puzzling out what a civic conscience means," reports Christine Brabant, researcher in the department of Education at Sherbrooke University in Quebec.
Both she and Arai see home education as producing different but equally valid understandings of citizenship that emphasize the importance of family and participation in community.
For Brabant, parenting is the first and greatest citizen act, and doing it well is already a great commitment to society.
"I think any committed mother is one of the most important citizens."

8:59 AM | Read comments (1) | Permalink

How do they learn? The many ways of home education part 3 CBC Viewpoint Analysis

By Beatrice Ekoko Part 3: How do they learn? The many ways of home-education

Aug. 29, 2006

As the school bell summons children to their classroom desks, what are home-educated children doing? One scenario that readily comes to mind replaces desks with a kitchen table, the paid teacher with mom, both of whom are following curriculum laid out by the provincial Ministry of Education.
Liesl Neven of Dundas, Ont., has done that and much, much more, foregoing the provincial curriculum to assemble a package from an abundance of options (everything from Waldorf to Afro-centric, Charlotte Mason, feminist, classical) to suit her family's needs. Neven's guidebooks have names like Modern Curriculum Press Math, Spelling Power and Keys to Good Language.
With six children at home aged 2 to 11, Neven's home-schooling job is clearly a full time commitment. Her husband, Drew, is a self-employed carpenter.
Although they are quite flexible in how they structure each day, "we do have set things we cover," Neven explains. The children find comfortable spots to study; on couches, the kitchen table, at the public library, or outdoors, swinging in a hammock.
A typical day will have the children doing math and language arts in the morning, and science, reading and "more reading" in the afternoon. Neven believes "history is best learned through stories and biographies" and foregoes standard textbooks when exploring the lives of "Genghis Khan and the Mongol Horde," Mary Slessor, and Teresa of Calcutta, to name a few recent investigations.
"One of the most satisfying things," Neven remarks, "is to watch them become fascinated with a topic of their own and take learning to levels most school kids can't imagine."
Still, the image of omnipotent master of every subject towering in front of the blackboard might seem daunting to potential home-educators. Math, science, history, literature: Can home-educating parents have the knowledge base to make it happen for their kids?
"No individual can be expected to know everything, whether they are teachers or parents," reassures social scientist Bruce Arai, acting dean at Wilfrid Laurier University's Brantford campus.
"The essence of home education is to play a much more active role in your child's education than what happens in the school. It's not about conveying knowledge from the mind of one person into the mind of another, filling up this empty vessel that is your child. It's really giving them the opportunity and the resources to learn on their own."
What parents need is to "be open-minded and willing to work with the children," Arai concludes.
Central to many home-educating philosophies is the freedom to allow children to, as Neven puts it, "becoming fascinated with a topic of their own."
For a sizeable number of home-educators, curricula of any kind are cast aside as unnecessary, unhelpful constraints on what they consider an entirely natural process. Humans are, as has been pointed out, learning animals.
Whereas school structure is seen to limit natural curiosity by adhering to schedules and pre-determined units or themes, home-education permits children to become self-directed learners. The belief that humans learn best when free to follow their interests gets the label "natural learning." It is an ideal summed up in the epigram by George Bernard Shaw that has "the child in pursuit of knowledge, not knowledge in pursuit of the child."
To some it is called "life learning," "independent learning," or as the late John Holt coined it "unschooling."
A former teacher, Holt's experience around children led him to agree with 20th century historian, thinker and iconoclast, Ivan Illich, that "most learning is not the result of instruction. It is rather the result of unhampered participation in a meaningful setting."
Unschooling parents act more like facilitators and guides than teachers, focusing their energy on "exposing rather than imposing," as one home-educator puts it.
Bev Hoefs embraced unschooling philosophy while raising her four children. The flexibility that unschooling provides enables her to run her Carlisle, Ont.,-based home business, making "baby slings," and also allows her children access to more of "the real world"' learning business skills, meeting people in the community, and earning money for passionate pursuits and interests, like horseback riding.
"They resented it a bit when I was on the phone with a customer, and we were late getting to their activities," Hoefs recalls. "But they enjoyed going into Toronto with me to go fabric shopping and factoring in other excursions."
Hoefs's oldest daughter entered grade 11 last February but still makes time to hone her entrepreneurial skills making and selling baby keepsakes bracelets.
Hoefs, who has only one daughter left home to educate, says that unschooling has given her children the opportunity to "do their own thing, whatever they want to do," although she admits unschooling is "definitely a leap of faith."
When her eldest, at Lake Head University taking Outdoor Recreation, decided to attend school for grade 11, Hoefs confesses she had doubts about his preparedness.
But by graduation he was on the principal's honour roll. "They get in there and they figure it out. It really doesn't have anything to do with what we make them learn!!"
Whatever the home-education model they pick, be it a learning community, a teaching cooperative between parents, distance education programs, and, in the case of older children and youth, engaging in an apprenticeship, mentoring arrangement or attending college courses, families can find support and companionship along the journey. They may find other families to exchange resources with, join drop-ins, or join online support groups when they need help. No family need go it alone.

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YOUR LETTERS

While I appreciate the sentiment attached to this article, I can't help but wonder at the gaps left in a child's socialization when he/she is removed from the public system.

It seems to me that this style of education is informed by individualist child-centered educational theory, and spends little time developing a viable interpersonal community within which children can grow into their personhood. If it takes a whole village to raise a child I wonder at parents who have choose to assume that role alone.

While I appreciate the comment from the reader who has chosen to educate her child at home (and socializes them through after-school activities), this approach seems to be particular to her family structure and may not be viable for many families - especially lower-income families with two full-time employed parents.

In my view, instead of giving up on the public school system, we need to develop new approaches to community-based education that retain a richly social model of education, while strongly increasing the role that parents play in the education of their child.

Home schooling seems to be a short-term solution to a public school system plagued with long-term problems.

Chris Lepine | Edmonton, AB

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Home schooling is appropriate for some kids/families, just as public school is appropriate for some, Montessori is appropriate for some, etc.

Different children have different learning styles, which are not always satisfied in public school, or Montessori, or home schooling, etc. The trick is to find the situation which works for each child and each family.

After having worked in public education as both a teacher's aide and as a teacher, from kindergarten through to college, I have observed that giving the children the tools to learn with, instilling in them the enthusiasm to learn, and allowing them to follow their passion as a framework for learning are pretty much the key to a successful education, including having the child take some responsibility for his/her own education.

I've watched three local families raise their children (ranging in age from 17 to two) using a combination of home school learning. These kids are remarkable, responsible, personable and bright, and the overwhelming majority of them plan to attend post-secondary institutions ranging from universities to music schools, to formalized apprenticeship opportunities, all with a combination of study and work times.

We need to recognize that not all children learn the same way, as well as to embrace differing approaches to family culture.

Leah Main | Silverton, BC

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This series is so encouraging for a new unschooling parent!

As a co-parent of two children adopted at ages six and nine from the child welfare system just two years ago, a home based education has been the answer to cope with substantial learning gaps. However, as we experienced the closure of those gaps we realized the countless other benefits of unschooling.

We have the awesome privilege of watching our children transform before our eyes! They have become sponges for the 3Rs and our daughter has exclaimed on a number of occasions, "Math is fun now - it makes sense!" Their developing self worth is evident with the tenacity they demonstrate when tackling new problems and any of the social/emotional challenges they came to our home with have all but disappeared.

As a social worker in the field of child psychiatry I have come to appreciate how a home based education enhances the parent-child bond, which is the social template for all other future relationships. My children and I learn together, play together and live together - then at the end of the public school day they learn and play with the neighbourhood children, attend swimming lessons, social clubs and church. It is a great pleasure to be such an agent for the education and socialization of my children!

Simone Pelley | Conception Bay South, NL

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I find it hard to believe a child can learn math outdoors in a hammock, and noting same does nothing to reduce the stigma associated with home-schooled children.

While stories can be enlightening, policy has to be based on hard information. Does anyone have any sort of idea as to what proportion of home-schooled individuals go on to post-secondary education, as opposed to individuals who go through the standard school system?

What types of careers are these people getting? How about average income? What about the development of social skills and exposure to different perspectives and cultures?

My home schooling took place from supper time to bed time, and included weekends.

Jonathan Dale | St. John's, NL

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These articles are very unbalanced. A few feel-good testimonials, some quotes from experts, who most likely were not unschooled.

The ancient Greek teachers used their version of the classroom for teaching. Now this is not a good system any longer.

If unschooling is, it would be wise for governments to get out of the education business, at least in the early stages.

I agree we humans are designed to be learning animals, like all other mammals. I work in social services. I meet a lot people who, for whatever reason, have little desire to learn. Children want to learn but some of them eventual lose the passion along the way. You can blame it on a number of things. Passion is lost for some.

Nick Pirozzoli | Brantford, ON

11:33 AM | Permalink

By Beatrice Ekoko Part 2: Who Home Educates?

August 16, 2006

While home-based education may seem like a risky or experimental new venture into unfamiliar territory — and many of those who embrace it will frankly admit it sometimes feels that way — it is not new.
Throughout history people have always taught their own children or had other kinds of learning arrangements in place, be it mentoring, apprenticeship, tutors or incidental.
Compulsory schooling, on the other hand, is not much older than 150 years old in North America. In Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador, a child's education was the responsibility of the family, not the state, until 1943. Seen in this perspective, mass institutionalized education — not home-education — might look more like the experiment.
Ministries of education have achieved a breathtaking degree of control in those succeeding generations, creating the widely held impression that school is the place to go if you want to learn. Home-education re-entered public awareness in large part due to the "hippie movement based on the counter-cultural influences of the 1960s," writes Dr. Bruce Arai in Canadian Journal of Education, 2000. The pre-eminence of formal, curriculum-based, mass schooling had always had its critics, but the hippies went further and put the alternatives into practice.
Linda Quirke, an assistant professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, notes the changing landscape: Twenty-five years ago, to home-educate your child was something "unique, quite distinct and different. Many people hadn't even heard of it, so in that era, it really was something unconventional. Now it's become something easier to try," she says. "The stigma of being a home-schooling family is much less today than before when parents would have had to overcome hurdles, especially legal hurdles in the U.S., in order to do it."
While many provinces closely regulate home-based education by means of curriculum requirements and inspections, few provinces require families to register with a school board. As a result, many tend to remain below the radar; tracking home-educators becomes a tricky business.
The most recent attempt to uncover the home-education demographic is a 2004 survey conducted by Deani Van Pelt for the Canadian Centre for Home Education (CCEE) in Alberta. The data gleaned from the survey of more than 1600 home-educating families suggests it is no longer recognizable as a "hippie movement."
According to the findings, a typical Canadian home-educating household is a white, Christian, two-parent family with a father as primary income earner. These families tend to have a slightly lower than average income because the mother usually stays home with an average 3.6 children (well above the national average of 1.1) of elementary school age. However, "mothers do contribute to the family income at a higher rate than in the past," Van Pelt notes.
And while most home-educating parents tend to have more college or university education than the average, few are certified teachers. Less than two per cent were home-educated themselves.
Geographically, the provinces of Alberta and Ontario have the greatest number of home- educating families. The majority reside in the suburbs and rural areas where it might be easier to cut costs and live more simply — often in keeping with other values they may hold concerning lifestyle, such as a preference for holistic living over consumerism.
According to Arai's research, some parents felt strongly that home-schooling is part of an alternative lifestyle, but "the majority of parents … felt that they were normal in all respects, except for the fact that their children did not go to school."
Demographics can reveal much about the question, but can obscure much as well.
"The question, of course, is whether this sample group is representative … of all home- educators in the country," Van Pelt says. "Just because the majority of participants reflect a certain demographic does not negate the presence of a wide and growing diversity of others."
"People right across the spectrum home-educate," says Gary Knowles, a professor with the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. "A cross-section reveals people with huge resources and wealth, to those with meager means. Even homeless people 'home'-educate," Knowles says.
In his experience, Knowles says he has found that home-educators, whether single parents or same sex, aboriginal or white, are similar in that they are "generally resourceful and independent people who are confident enough to take charge."
To many people of marginalized heritage, home-based education can represent an empowering break from a model that has traditionally not served them well. In some cases, such as the residential schools forced upon aboriginal communities, formalized education has been a destructive force wreaking havoc on traditional culture.
Many black home-educating parents who have grown up in the school system report having to endure subtle or openly negative assumptions about their intellectual abilities; as a result, issues of low self-esteem haunt their experience.
For such parents, home-education can become "an avenue to give black children a new way of seeing themselves," says Monica Wells Kisura, a political economist researching Black/African Canadians and Americans home-schoolers, while completing her Ph.D. in international relations at American University in Washington, D.C.
Yet choosing to home-educate remains a difficult choice for people who have, nevertheless, come to view conventional schooling as a means to social mobility.
"Home-schooling is the most radical statement that black people have made regarding self determination and resistance since decolonization and the Civil Rights movement in the '60s" Kisura says.
Home-education can be viewed as a movement of many movements, a realm increasingly inhabited by people of varied religions, philosophies and ethnic backgrounds. What unites them is simply the fact that they don't regularly attend school. Howthey learn becomes more personalized, at times idiosyncratic, with widely divergent methods employed, as we shall see in subsequent articles.
YOUR LETTERS: I didn't think that home education was still an issue for debate; I would think only an issue for discussion. In my view, it's part of our culture and society and it will never go away. I home educated my three children successfully for eight years. Two are in university on substantial scholarships, in the U.S. and Canada. Our youngest is a straight A student in public school with what her teacher referred to as "extraordinary leadership abilities, well beyond her years." I look forward to following her development over the course of the next few years. I have taken opportunity to ask my eldest, who is now 20, "Do you feel you missed out on not being in public school through high school especially?" He never hesitates to state, "No, It was the best thing you ever did for me. I will always be grateful for what you did." He recently won a major competition at his undergrad school in California, competing against Masters level students. I believe he has an advantage over his peers because he was home educated and had productive time to focus on his career development. I have returned to my career and have since taken on university to complete my degree, a life long dream. Had I not chosen to home educate my children, I don't believe they or I would be where we are today. Tricia | British Columbia Your story on home-education was very much appreciated. Although this type of education is gaining more and more popularity, it is not often that I find references to it in the media, so it was interesting to read it. I want to share my own experiences, since I was home schooled for most of my elementary and secondary education. What I've noticed over the course of my life is an ongoing growth in maturity for the home education movement. When my parents decided to home school me (before I would have started kindergarten), this was something relatively unknown. My mother had a friend with a doctorate in education that recommended that she try it. I have always appreciated the recommendation! Home education gave me an education that, while not perfect, was custom designed to my specific strengths and weaknesses. I developed a love of learning, as well as an ability to work independently that has served me well throughout my university years. Now in my early twenties, I would very much like to home school my own children. This does not mean that I have anything against schools in general. Actually, I attended high school for one semester in Grade 9, and then again in Grade 11. I was a part-time student for the first semester, and attended full time during the second semester. Both times I elected to return home the following year, not because I hadn't enjoyed my time in school, but simply because I felt that (on the whole) I preferred to be home schooled. One reason why it was possible for me to make that choice was because of the presence in my city of a fabulous support group for homes schooled teenagers. It provided social activities, as well as academic support in certain subjects. More and more, parents who home school do not do so out of a desire for an "alternative lifestyle"; many of them see home schooling as very mainstream and normal. Many home schooling families I know have opted for a "combination" approach, where their children attend school for a few years (in some cases "just to try it") or receive high school credits through online courses. Many home schooling families have mothers who work outside the home. My mother home schooled my two younger brothers while operating a family-owned bookstore. Most home schooling fathers are heavily involved in their children's education; often parents divide up the subjects they are most comfortable teaching. Home schooling does not suit every child or parent best. But for many, I feel that this sort of "mixed" approach will prove suitable. A child can benefit from a variety of education approaches, including a traditional classroom setting, online learning, and a good dose of parental love and encouragement. Education is not a one-size-fits-all approach, even with an individual child! On the whole, while growing up I usually thought of myself as being perfectly natural, spending most of my time with my family instead of in an institutional setting. I appreciate the many fine teachers I know who teach in public schools, and have even considered becoming one myself. But, for parents who are in a position to integrate home education - whether on a full or part time basis - into their children's life, I highly recommend it. Michael Trolly | Ottawa, ON Kudos to Ms. Ekoko for presenting her clearly elucidated position on home educating. Two of my nephews (aged eight and 10) are home educated and there is no question that the benefits of this have been remarkable for them. Of course their parents have had to make some significant sacrifices in terms of lifestyle to make it possible. As an example, living here in Vancouver with inflated housing costs has not been possible for them. There seem to be some inevitable sacrifices here and there in the curriculum as well - not only on a daily basis but also as some facets of the program get more and less attention than others. Some days get more educational focus than others, etc. Significant support for curriculum is available, however, and if home educating families join with others these difficulties can easily be turned into new learning opportunities. Joint classes or group field trips, a morning with the Joneses to learn about the fish in their pond, etc. become feasible - and may make exploiting those teachable moments much more meaningful and present for the children. Correspondence and electronically delivered curriculum materials are also available and make the job of teaching and learning with their children much easier for parents than one might imagine. Several home-educating families that I've met started to feel uneasy around the beginning of what would be high school for their children's' peers. They began to face some difficult questions. How will we deal with increasingly demanding content in mathematics for instance, how will we conduct lab experiments in science classes? I was a university instructor for many years and now teach senior science and mathematics at a small private high school. My wife is a humanities teacher at the same school and we both have graduate-level training in our areas. I'm quite confident that between us we could do justice to the secondary curriculum, and if we were to decide to home educate our children when they reach school age we certainly wouldn't try to do it alone. We would do as much as we could to become part of a community of home educating families. The learning and social learning opportunities this would produce would be invaluable. So what would such a network of interdependent home educating families and their schooling experience look like? Parents (let's call them teachers for a moment) could play their strengths to the benefit of all the students, and the students could learn and grow with others in a community of strong and common values. Clearly large public schools are increasingly impersonal and very difficult for some students. And some parents feel their family's values aren't reflected in those environments. For those families home schooling can be a valuable option. I would add that a small, quality school with a parent, student and teaching community that shares a family's values can be another valuable option. Of course both entail sacrifice, but that is no surprise to a family with a strong enough conviction to consider home education or private schooling in the first place. Aaron | Vancouver, BC Thanks for referring to home-education, not schooling. Much of the effort emphasizes positive education, not the "colonial" socializing of children, hence the waves of unschooling, deschooling movements. In the 70's we liked to quote Dr. Raymond Moore who promoted late start to school (if at all) to 10 years: "The sooner you institutionalize your children, the sooner they will institutionalize you." In 1970 while attending lectures with Ivan Illich (of deschooling society fame) in Mexico, I met with John Holt and acquainted him with the legalities of home education. He was soon to start his newsletter "Growing Without Schooling". Looking forward to more articles. Tunya Audain | West Vancouver, BC As a home educator for the past 12 years, I really enjoyed reading this and gaining even more insight into the movement across the country. I'm looking forward ot reading the next article. Andrea | Miramichi N.B. I home schooled my daughter because her learning disability was not being accommodated in the regular school system and she was being bullied by other students and teachers. She grew into an independent, motivated, curious young lady with a strong appreciation for life-long learning. D. Bonnycastle|Saskatoon, SK I was not surprised by the factoid that the hippies started or restarted the practice. But I was surprised to learn that some of our eastern provinces put the onus of education on the parent and didn't have any state run education until 1943. The questions that we need to ask and answer are these: What do we mean by education? And if state education is the experiment, why did we change from centuries of home schooling to state run education systems? Societies grow and change. Expectations change. Many parents demand that the state provide subsidized daycare for their children. Daycare is another form of state institutionalization. Frankly if the state wanted to save billions, it would be get out of the school business. What we are discussing in this debate is whether I like my children to stay home under my control, or for part of the day let someone else be in control. Nick Pirozzoli | Brantford, ON

11:32 AM | Permalink

Who Home Educates? part 2 of a CBC viewpoint analysis series on home education

By Beatrice Ekoko Part 2: Who Home Educates?

August 16, 2006

While home-based education may seem like a risky or experimental new venture into unfamiliar territory — and many of those who embrace it will frankly admit it sometimes feels that way — it is not new.
Throughout history people have always taught their own children or had other kinds of learning arrangements in place, be it mentoring, apprenticeship, tutors or incidental.
Compulsory schooling, on the other hand, is not much older than 150 years old in North America. In Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador, a child's education was the responsibility of the family, not the state, until 1943. Seen in this perspective, mass institutionalized education — not home-education — might look more like the experiment.
Ministries of education have achieved a breathtaking degree of control in those succeeding generations, creating the widely held impression that school is the place to go if you want to learn. Home-education re-entered public awareness in large part due to the "hippie movement based on the counter-cultural influences of the 1960s," writes Dr. Bruce Arai in Canadian Journal of Education, 2000. The pre-eminence of formal, curriculum-based, mass schooling had always had its critics, but the hippies went further and put the alternatives into practice.
Linda Quirke, an assistant professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, notes the changing landscape: Twenty-five years ago, to home-educate your child was something "unique, quite distinct and different. Many people hadn't even heard of it, so in that era, it really was something unconventional. Now it's become something easier to try," she says. "The stigma of being a home-schooling family is much less today than before when parents would have had to overcome hurdles, especially legal hurdles in the U.S., in order to do it."
While many provinces closely regulate home-based education by means of curriculum requirements and inspections, few provinces require families to register with a school board. As a result, many tend to remain below the radar; tracking home-educators becomes a tricky business.
The most recent attempt to uncover the home-education demographic is a 2004 survey conducted by Deani Van Pelt for the Canadian Centre for Home Education (CCEE) in Alberta. The data gleaned from the survey of more than 1600 home-educating families suggests it is no longer recognizable as a "hippie movement."
According to the findings, a typical Canadian home-educating household is a white, Christian, two-parent family with a father as primary income earner. These families tend to have a slightly lower than average income because the mother usually stays home with an average 3.6 children (well above the national average of 1.1) of elementary school age. However, "mothers do contribute to the family income at a higher rate than in the past," Van Pelt notes.
And while most home-educating parents tend to have more college or university education than the average, few are certified teachers. Less than two per cent were home-educated themselves.
Geographically, the provinces of Alberta and Ontario have the greatest number of home- educating families. The majority reside in the suburbs and rural areas where it might be easier to cut costs and live more simply — often in keeping with other values they may hold concerning lifestyle, such as a preference for holistic living over consumerism.
According to Arai's research, some parents felt strongly that home-schooling is part of an alternative lifestyle, but "the majority of parents … felt that they were normal in all respects, except for the fact that their children did not go to school."
Demographics can reveal much about the question, but can obscure much as well.
"The question, of course, is whether this sample group is representative … of all home- educators in the country," Van Pelt says. "Just because the majority of participants reflect a certain demographic does not negate the presence of a wide and growing diversity of others."
"People right across the spectrum home-educate," says Gary Knowles, a professor with the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. "A cross-section reveals people with huge resources and wealth, to those with meager means. Even homeless people 'home'-educate," Knowles says.
In his experience, Knowles says he has found that home-educators, whether single parents or same sex, aboriginal or white, are similar in that they are "generally resourceful and independent people who are confident enough to take charge."
To many people of marginalized heritage, home-based education can represent an empowering break from a model that has traditionally not served them well. In some cases, such as the residential schools forced upon aboriginal communities, formalized education has been a destructive force wreaking havoc on traditional culture.
Many black home-educating parents who have grown up in the school system report having to endure subtle or openly negative assumptions about their intellectual abilities; as a result, issues of low self-esteem haunt their experience.
For such parents, home-education can become "an avenue to give black children a new way of seeing themselves," says Monica Wells Kisura, a political economist researching Black/African Canadians and Americans home-schoolers, while completing her Ph.D. in international relations at American University in Washington, D.C.
Yet choosing to home-educate remains a difficult choice for people who have, nevertheless, come to view conventional schooling as a means to social mobility.
"Home-schooling is the most radical statement that black people have made regarding self determination and resistance since decolonization and the Civil Rights movement in the '60s" Kisura says.
Home-education can be viewed as a movement of many movements, a realm increasingly inhabited by people of varied religions, philosophies and ethnic backgrounds. What unites them is simply the fact that they don't regularly attend school. Howthey learn becomes more personalized, at times idiosyncratic, with widely divergent methods employed, as we shall see in subsequent articles.
YOUR LETTERS: I didn't think that home education was still an issue for debate; I would think only an issue for discussion. In my view, it's part of our culture and society and it will never go away. I home educated my three children successfully for eight years. Two are in university on substantial scholarships, in the U.S. and Canada. Our youngest is a straight A student in public school with what her teacher referred to as "extraordinary leadership abilities, well beyond her years." I look forward to following her development over the course of the next few years. I have taken opportunity to ask my eldest, who is now 20, "Do you feel you missed out on not being in public school through high school especially?" He never hesitates to state, "No, It was the best thing you ever did for me. I will always be grateful for what you did." He recently won a major competition at his undergrad school in California, competing against Masters level students. I believe he has an advantage over his peers because he was home educated and had productive time to focus on his career development. I have returned to my career and have since taken on university to complete my degree, a life long dream. Had I not chosen to home educate my children, I don't believe they or I would be where we are today. Tricia | British Columbia Your story on home-education was very much appreciated. Although this type of education is gaining more and more popularity, it is not often that I find references to it in the media, so it was interesting to read it. I want to share my own experiences, since I was home schooled for most of my elementary and secondary education. What I've noticed over the course of my life is an ongoing growth in maturity for the home education movement. When my parents decided to home school me (before I would have started kindergarten), this was something relatively unknown. My mother had a friend with a doctorate in education that recommended that she try it. I have always appreciated the recommendation! Home education gave me an education that, while not perfect, was custom designed to my specific strengths and weaknesses. I developed a love of learning, as well as an ability to work independently that has served me well throughout my university years. Now in my early twenties, I would very much like to home school my own children. This does not mean that I have anything against schools in general. Actually, I attended high school for one semester in Grade 9, and then again in Grade 11. I was a part-time student for the first semester, and attended full time during the second semester. Both times I elected to return home the following year, not because I hadn't enjoyed my time in school, but simply because I felt that (on the whole) I preferred to be home schooled. One reason why it was possible for me to make that choice was because of the presence in my city of a fabulous support group for homes schooled teenagers. It provided social activities, as well as academic support in certain subjects. More and more, parents who home school do not do so out of a desire for an "alternative lifestyle"; many of them see home schooling as very mainstream and normal. Many home schooling families I know have opted for a "combination" approach, where their children attend school for a few years (in some cases "just to try it") or receive high school credits through online courses. Many home schooling families have mothers who work outside the home. My mother home schooled my two younger brothers while operating a family-owned bookstore. Most home schooling fathers are heavily involved in their children's education; often parents divide up the subjects they are most comfortable teaching. Home schooling does not suit every child or parent best. But for many, I feel that this sort of "mixed" approach will prove suitable. A child can benefit from a variety of education approaches, including a traditional classroom setting, online learning, and a good dose of parental love and encouragement. Education is not a one-size-fits-all approach, even with an individual child! On the whole, while growing up I usually thought of myself as being perfectly natural, spending most of my time with my family instead of in an institutional setting. I appreciate the many fine teachers I know who teach in public schools, and have even considered becoming one myself. But, for parents who are in a position to integrate home education - whether on a full or part time basis - into their children's life, I highly recommend it. Michael Trolly | Ottawa, ON Kudos to Ms. Ekoko for presenting her clearly elucidated position on home educating. Two of my nephews (aged eight and 10) are home educated and there is no question that the benefits of this have been remarkable for them. Of course their parents have had to make some significant sacrifices in terms of lifestyle to make it possible. As an example, living here in Vancouver with inflated housing costs has not been possible for them. There seem to be some inevitable sacrifices here and there in the curriculum as well - not only on a daily basis but also as some facets of the program get more and less attention than others. Some days get more educational focus than others, etc. Significant support for curriculum is available, however, and if home educating families join with others these difficulties can easily be turned into new learning opportunities. Joint classes or group field trips, a morning with the Joneses to learn about the fish in their pond, etc. become feasible - and may make exploiting those teachable moments much more meaningful and present for the children. Correspondence and electronically delivered curriculum materials are also available and make the job of teaching and learning with their children much easier for parents than one might imagine. Several home-educating families that I've met started to feel uneasy around the beginning of what would be high school for their children's' peers. They began to face some difficult questions. How will we deal with increasingly demanding content in mathematics for instance, how will we conduct lab experiments in science classes? I was a university instructor for many years and now teach senior science and mathematics at a small private high school. My wife is a humanities teacher at the same school and we both have graduate-level training in our areas. I'm quite confident that between us we could do justice to the secondary curriculum, and if we were to decide to home educate our children when they reach school age we certainly wouldn't try to do it alone. We would do as much as we could to become part of a community of home educating families. The learning and social learning opportunities this would produce would be invaluable. So what would such a network of interdependent home educating families and their schooling experience look like? Parents (let's call them teachers for a moment) could play their strengths to the benefit of all the students, and the students could learn and grow with others in a community of strong and common values. Clearly large public schools are increasingly impersonal and very difficult for some students. And some parents feel their family's values aren't reflected in those environments. For those families home schooling can be a valuable option. I would add that a small, quality school with a parent, student and teaching community that shares a family's values can be another valuable option. Of course both entail sacrifice, but that is no surprise to a family with a strong enough conviction to consider home education or private schooling in the first place. Aaron | Vancouver, BC Thanks for referring to home-education, not schooling. Much of the effort emphasizes positive education, not the "colonial" socializing of children, hence the waves of unschooling, deschooling movements. In the 70's we liked to quote Dr. Raymond Moore who promoted late start to school (if at all) to 10 years: "The sooner you institutionalize your children, the sooner they will institutionalize you." In 1970 while attending lectures with Ivan Illich (of deschooling society fame) in Mexico, I met with John Holt and acquainted him with the legalities of home education. He was soon to start his newsletter "Growing Without Schooling". Looking forward to more articles. Tunya Audain | West Vancouver, BC As a home educator for the past 12 years, I really enjoyed reading this and gaining even more insight into the movement across the country. I'm looking forward ot reading the next article. Andrea | Miramichi N.B. I home schooled my daughter because her learning disability was not being accommodated in the regular school system and she was being bullied by other students and teachers. She grew into an independent, motivated, curious young lady with a strong appreciation for life-long learning. D. Bonnycastle|Saskatoon, SK I was not surprised by the factoid that the hippies started or restarted the practice. But I was surprised to learn that some of our eastern provinces put the onus of education on the parent and didn't have any state run education until 1943. The questions that we need to ask and answer are these: What do we mean by education? And if state education is the experiment, why did we change from centuries of home schooling to state run education systems? Societies grow and change. Expectations change. Many parents demand that the state provide subsidized daycare for their children. Daycare is another form of state institutionalization. Frankly if the state wanted to save billions, it would be get out of the school business. What we are discussing in this debate is whether I like my children to stay home under my control, or for part of the day let someone else be in control. Nick Pirozzoli | Brantford, ON

11:32 AM | Permalink