John Holt · Tuesday October 10, 2006 by june
Reading through this blog so far, I’m aware that it sounds as though we are very structured in our approach to Home Education. However, we don’t think of ourselves as using a structured approach. We’ve been Home Educating for nearly 9 years, our approach to Home Education has evolved over this time, and it has always been a response to the needs of our children.
Every Home Educating family is unique – and, to some degree, so is their version of Home Education. When you first start out you have to make a decision about where to start. We started out with John Holt, and have evolved from there.
We have always done some reading related work with James, because we were already aware of his dyslexia problems. We always did maths too, but only in 15 minute a day blocks at first. He demanded lots of science activities, and there was always art materials available. Other than that, we provided access to educational opportunities, and trips out, we’ve always had paper, paints, pens, books, computers, cd-roms, videos, lego, meccano, modelling materials, clay, etc… around the house. The children have always had the freedom to do their own thing and learn their own way. We spent much of our time down at the beach, playing in the park, and walking in the wood. James enjoys being exposed to new ideas and new activities, so my main job was to bring new things into the mix.
For a long time that was what our Home Education looked like.
Liz was only a toddler when James first came out of school. She suffered from glue ear and related hearing problems until she was 5 or 6, and as a result was quite clingy (in a nice way). She didn’t like us to be out of sight, and she wanted to be doing things with mum. Liz has always liked being given ‘work’ to do – which is a bit odd, but we obliged. Whether it was counting and organising shells, or going on the computer, playing with dolls, colouring in, or painting. She liked to be organised. Left on her own she just wandered around behind me. So a lot of Liz’s early Home Education was about encouraging her to be more independent in her play and learning. Setting up situations where she could take the initiative. Eventually we came up with “Home Ed Allsorts” and separated her parent-led Home Ed, from the Liz-led Home Ed by having Home Ed Allsorts mornings. That worked quite well.
Even though Liz and James have been Home Educated together, their Home Education has always reflected their individual needs.
The children are older now and the Home Education has changed. James has a career in mind – and knows there is work he has to do to get there. He is starting from behind because of his reading problems, and there is a lot of ground to cover. So our days – and the work we do – are organised with that in mind.
Liz desperately wants to improve her spelling and writing skills – and she knows she needs to put work in to achieve that.
At the moment, the biggest challenge for me is to make sure there is still time left in the day to do the more interesting, and fun activities that I enjoy doing with them.
