Home Educators Do Get Out & About!

‘Home Education’ has always been a slightly misleading term because much of what happens takes place well away from home. It can also conjure up various images for non-home educators which may be perjorative: a lone child sitting looking bored at home, kept away from the world and with no friends; or a house full of wild children creating mayhem and a distraught parent trying to cope. As home educators know, neither is the case. Perhaps a metaphor, inspired by the memories of the summer, might prove insightful. For my family, home education is quite like beachcombing. Imagine, what I hope is a familiar scene for many, a small child playing on a beach. Their curiosity, sense of fun and desire to explore leads them quite naturally to know what to do on this big beach. They run and jump, draw pictures in the sand, poke about in rock pools, run in and out of the water, fly kites, build sand castles and look under rocks. When my daughter is playing on the beach, she’s connected to the world with all her senses. What she learns comes naturally and at her own pace. Some days she wants to pick up rocks and find out what’s underneath. On other days picture making is the subject, or playing with other children and working out the rules of the game. She learns through all her activities because experiencing the world is the natural way to develop understanding. Looking under rocks While at the beach, my daughter often picks up rocks to see if anything interesting is underneath. As we explore the pools and rocky coves, we turn over rocks and shout to each other to ‘come see …’. Sometimes the things under my rocks I find really interesting, but she will give it a quick glance and move on, and vice versa. Other times she and I will study what’s revealed, trying to figure out what it is and why it’s there. My greater experience and knowledge can be useful in providing explanations of what’s under the rocks but sometimes it’s new to me, so together we talk about the characteristics it has, and sometimes we come up with our own name for it. She often spots things that I don’t because I’m too busy trying to remember the names of things and looking at the world with tired eyes. Her fresh eyes don’t have the expectations, filters, and need to explain which mine do, so she can actually see what’s there, not just what’s ‘supposed’ to be there. The beach offers many different rocks to look under. My daughter isn’t constrained to only look under the rocks that I think are important or interesting. I can say “In my experience this type of rock often has great things under it” and she will often give me the benefit and come and look. Sometimes she agrees with me and sometimes she says, “What’s so great about that?” Of course while we’re at the beach we’re not confined to looking under rocks. We can do all the things that make beaches such wonderful places. And all the time she’s learning. If I were to insist that we keep looking under rocks all day, she would get bored, stop listening and not turn any of her own rocks over. Schools Aren’t Beaches In contrast with the beach, schools are funny places. In the past, someone, somewhere decided which rocks everyone should look under and, equally, which ones they shouldn’t. However, rather than go to the beach and look under them, it is much more efficient to bring the rocks to a central place - the school. Unfortunately, this means that children are now stuck with looking under old rocks, collected a long time ago by someone else, which aren’t in their natural place and so lack their normal relationship to the wider world. They have little left on their undersides: most of the interesting stuff was left behind at the beach when they were collected. From these rocks the children are told to imagine the vibrant world outside. If the child asks why they must study these old rocks, they will be told that this is important ‘learning’, that it will make them clever and successful. Some children find it hard to understand how turning over rocks they haven’t chosen, in which they have little interest, which are old and have bits on, will be useful in their lives to come. If they persist in this questioning they will be disciplined and quickly labelled a troublemaker. They have to be compelled to attend school where they are sentenced to many years of ‘hard-labour’ amidst the dusty rocks. To be fair, schools do try and smarten up their collection of rocks, even getting new ones in, or using audio/visual techniques to show what they look like in their natural setting. However, simply using better, more interesting rocks still leaves many other problems and it’s a long way from actually being on the beach with the wind in your hair and sand between your toes. Many children stare longingly out of the classroom window, while the teacher at the front talks on and on about the stuff which they believe is under that lesson’s particular rock. The child remembers the great times - the fun, the joy, the kites and the sandcastles, the sea and the sun - of the last holiday, when they went to the beach. Life was full of excitement, rich with experience, and much was learnt. Lots of ways to play at the beach Whilst some children are at their enforced rock-turning in schools, the home-educators are at the beach. Whatever the weather there’s usually something to see and do and most days the ‘beach-combers’ come down to enjoy the ever-changing scene the real world offers. Because people are different, beachcombers have a variety of styles they employ when they’re at the beach. Some parents feel they (and their children) need some structure for at least some of the day. You will see them diligently at work with their kids, turning over a succession of rocks. Others will have a particular interest in one area of the beach, or a specific activity and encourage their kids to enjoy and explore their passions with them. Others are more relaxed and see their role as simply getting everyone to the beach with the basics (drinks, food, buckets, spades, kites, surf boards, frizzbees, balls etc. etc. available as required!). Once there, it’s over to the kids to sort out what’s on the programme today. However, after some serious relaxation they are always ready to join in a game of catch, to help launch a kite, to explore the pools and turn over some rocks when they are asked to. Often the best times, when most fun and interaction occurs, are when there’s not much structure or too many restrictions. The sun’s out, the tide is just so and the wind is good for kites. And it’s great when we meet others and develop the world’s best game of frizzbee or cricket, or play together in the sea. Whatever the different ways of playing at the beach, beachcombers will always find time to simply enjoy being there. The children will have time to explore as they desire and to meet and chat with the other folk on the beach that day. Learning becomes an on-going activity that applies to most things; it’s not a discrete process that only takes place in one location, in one way and for a set time. It’s fun, exciting, and rewarding, encouraging children to explore and question their world, to turn over the rocks that take their fancy and seek to explain what they find. The learning is based on actual experience and observation, and firmly rooted in the real world. On occasion the beachcombers take time-out to experience other environments. Some days a cliff walk takes them further afield; on others the fog rolls in or the rain pelts down and its good to stay warm indoors, watching the school-children from the house next-door struggling off to the bus-stop to spend the day at their labours. The Beach is always there Of course, life isn't perfect and home-education isn't always easy – life intrudes with its many demands, I'm tired, or one of us is having a bad day – and we might not manage 'to get to the beach'. Like every family, we have our ups & downs, but the beach is always there, waiting for us to come and visit it again. On good days, which luckily is most of them, a lot happens and it feels exactly like we’ve had a great day at the beach. Life’s a beach: a rich and wonderful environment full of opportunities to play and learn – to experience, and thus to know. Who wants to go to school when you can go to the beach instead! Don’t call me a ‘home-educator' call me a beachcomber! (Anyone for another ice cream?) © Martin Wise, 2002