| 26 January 2006 | ||
| 9:00 am |
The Licola camp was the best and possibly the biggest camp we have ever hosted. Most of those who attended have already booked for next year! Even bigger and better, we have lots of keen people with fabulous new ideas for the next one!
Again on the first week of the school year, from January 26th to February 1st 2006 at Licola Wilderness Village on the Macalister River.
| 6 December 2005 | ||
| 1:00 pm |
Science for Home Educators
Creatures of the Slime - with Andrew Plant
Discover the great variety of life forms that existed hundreds of millions of years ago - amazingly enough made up of ’slime’.
Tuesday 6th December 2005
11:00am (junior) and 1:00pm (senior)
See Science at Monash category for booking & location details
Receive the children in reverence, Educate them with love, Send them forth in freedom
I watch our nine-year-old daughter as she eyes the many baskets of wool yarn in the small store near our home. The rainbow of naturally dyed colored skeins is plentiful as we search for the “right yarn” needed to complete her next knitting project - a winter hat. This isn’t just one of our everyday errands. This is actually an important task in the seasonal rhythm of our educational life as we prepare to take on various handwork projects during the cold months ahead. It is a task that also connects us in a deeper way with the educational philosophy that is rooted within the very framework of our family: Waldorf education.
Founded in Europe by Austrian philosopher and scientist, Rudolf Steiner, Waldorf education began when Steiner gave a series of lectures to the workers of the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in Germany.
By Levina and Geoff Snow
We chose to home educate our two children after the kindergarten experience for our elder child was a disaster - bullying and being excluded by the other children and being overlooked by the teacher. The choice initially was to home educate for a few years - then for primary school - then for lower secondary. As it turned out our children each only attended full time school for one year - Year 12.
by Katharina Russell-Head, Templestowe, Vic
Why has the Victorian government suddenly become concerned with regulating home education? Who has brought up objections to the existing legislation? What is the problem that they want to solve? What fears are being expressed? Are they afraid that children outside the public school system will be uneducated? That they will be unable to read, or write, or be mathematically competent? That they will know nothing of the world? That they will be neglected, or exploited, or isolated? Does the government fear that what it cannot control is therefore out of control?
Kevin Lees has been supporting home education for a long time. He has now been contributing to Otherways for twenty years! We thank him for his continued and enthusiastic support of home education.
by Kevin Lees
Many parents have told me they were put off maths at school, and probably most people regard it as hard, or dull, or generally both. And yet not everybody will enjoy maths anyway, just as not everybody enjoys ballet or footy. But it can be fun � at least mentally exciting. As well as the approaches proposed by Susan Wight and Thomas Armstrong in Otherways 105, I believe there is value (for those children who enjoy it) in exploring mathematical ideas themselves. And, with one or two exceptions, my suggestions are EASY. It’s just a slightly different approach to maths.
By Dindy Vaughan, Ringwood Victoria
Not every child is happy at school.
Some struggle along grudgingly, some fight the system, some opt out and refuse to achieve; and mostly their parents worry.
In many cases it comes down to ’school refusal’. The state of Victoria currently has not hundreds, but thousands of school-age children who are simply refusing to go. The majority are not rabble-rousers and delinquents; they tend to be quiet, somewhat withdrawn and, one guesses, depressed. They sit at home, they play computer games, they socialize a little with a few friends; and again; mostly their parents worry.
A child who is not happy at school is not necessarily a ‘misfit’. Schools are full of excellent dedicated teachers doing all they can to present the best programs available, but not all children can fit the pattern.
So what do you do with a child who is not happy?
When my five-year-old daughter exhibited extreme distress after one term of school I acted swiftly. I took her out.
Homeschooling is an increasingly popular educational alternative in which children learn outside of conventional schools under the general supervision of their parents.Homeschooling means different things to different people. For some families, homeschooling means duplicating school at home, complete with textbooks, report cards and regularly scheduled field trips. For others, homeschooling is simply the way they live their lives - children and adults living and learning together in a seamlessness that would challenge an observer to determine which was ‘home’ and which was ’school’.
If you think of a kind of homeschooling continuum, with ’school at home’ at one end, and ‘learning and living completely integrated’ on the other - you would find homeschoolers scattered along that line with every possible variation of what homeschooling could mean.
A wise man once said, “We can teach our children to have courage, faith and endurance; they can teach us to laugh, to sing, to love.” For many, the deepest and most abiding benefit of homeschooling is the claiming (or reclaiming) of the their family. Homeschooling families spend an incredible amount of time together living, learning and playing. They have the opportunity to develop a depth of understanding and a commitment to the family that is difficult to attain when family members spend their days going in separate directions.
Many families like the flexibility homeschooling provides both parents and children. Children can learn about things they are interested in and at a time in their lives when they are ready to learn. No preconceived schedule forces them ahead or holds them back.
Holidays and outing can be planned for times when the family is ready - and often when the crowds are smaller or the costs lower. Children can learn about the ‘real world’ by being part of it - no artificial settings to ‘provide exposure”.
Children can receive a superior education attuned specifically to their own needs, learning styles, personalities, and interests - at far less cost than that of a private or public school.
Families choose homeschooling for a wide variety of reasons. Some parents enjoy being with their children and watching them explore the world. The learning process which begins at birth simply continues naturally with the parents as teachers. There is no need to dissolve this parent-child partnership because a child reaches a certain age.Some parents are wary of public school curricula, and choose to teach their children at home so that they may better supervise the content of their children’s education.
Some parents find their children’s learning differences are not dealt with effectively at school and decide that homeschooling may be more suitable for their children’s’ needs and learning style.
Some parents consider their local public schools unsafe.
Whatever their reasons for originally choosing to homeschool, families which continue homeschooling discover that their educational approach works for their children and for the family as a whole. Learning in a nurturing environment, together with positive socialization, produces bright, interested, and emotionally healthy kids. What better reason to Homeschool?
