Celebrating 100 Issues of Otherways!

Posted on April 25th, 2004 in Otherways Magazine

Our Founders on Otherways and the Early Days of AERG

Lauris Jephcott

Fancy ‘Other Ways’ reaching its 100th issue! Congratulations to all the ‘generations’ of parents and educators who have thought it important over the years to look at alternatives.

Whilst my memory plays some tricks after more than 20 years, I remember most clearly the desire I had to make life happy and interesting for my first child, Owen, which started the quest for alternatives in education.

As a former teacher, and someone who did all the right things at state primary & secondary schools, I had assumed that my son would go to the local state school when he was five or so, and enjoy it. I even went along with him for the first week. Now, most mothers of young children share their children’s interests. I had an active five year-old brain, and when I went to school, I was bored! Despite good intentions and a friendly teacher, Owen (and I) decided that school was not for us at that time. I started looking round for alternatives to the conventional school format, and that’s what led to ‘Other Ways’. There were one or two very small ‘alternative’ schools in Melbourne at the time, and I think I wrote a short article about them which was published in The Learning Exchange, a community newspaper based in Malvern. It was shortly after this that people such as Heather Cousland, Clare Cole & Christine Gazjago made contact, and we began our alternative education journeys together.

A Summary of Australian Research

Posted on April 25th, 2004 in Otherways Magazine, Research

There has always been a percentage of Australian children educated at home. This was quite common in the nineteenth century with one historian stating that 19% of children were being taught at home in 1871. Despite this long history, research into Australian home education has been sparse. Here we take a look at some of the major studies.

Children Learn At Home: The Experience of Home Education (1985), by Ro Krivanek, published by AERG

Ro Krivanek undertook what was probably the first study on home education in Australia when she surveyed 13 members of AERG. The results showed that

Home Schooling Works!

Posted on April 25th, 2004 in Getting Started, Otherways Magazine, Research, Socialisation

The past twenty years has seen a phenomenal rise in home education across the world and the general public’s familiarity with it has moved from almost complete ignorance to one of widespread, if largely uninformed, awareness. This change has been stimulated by, and reflected in, heightened media interest with feature articles on home education appearing in national magazines, newspapers and on television and radio. Cheaper computers, computer programs, easy access to the Internet and the increased amount of educational material available on line are assisting more parents to home educate their children (Wake, 2000).

Academic researchers and policy annalists are exhibiting more than a passing interest in what has been considered up until now, an extreme form of education. As a result many studies have now been conducted into home education overseas. Overall, they show that home education not only equals mainstream schooling, but also surpasses it.

Out of the Archives - Leo Tolstoy

Posted on April 25th, 2004 in Otherways Magazine

Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910)

After establishing his reputation as an author, Tolstoy turned his thoughts to education. At the time free education for peasant children did not exist in Russia. Occasionally, a village would boast of a priest or an ex-soldier who taught a few children at so much per head. The subjects were elementary, the method a mixture of blows and learning by heart, and the results negligible. This situation Tolstoy wished to remedy by substituting public education based on entirely original pedagogical methods. In 1858, he opened a school in a single room of his large manor house at Yasnaya Polyana and, after a year of highly successful teaching, he proposed the establishment of a Society of National Education to set up public schools, design courses of instruction, train teachers and publish a pedagogical journal.