Otherways: Home Education Network

Home education need not be expensive. You can home educate with a library card, the resources you already have at home and free resources in your community. An Internet connection is also extremely useful if you can afford it. Many commercial homeschooling supplies are available if families choose to use them and prices vary. So there is no specific cost of home education - it can cost very little or it can cost thousands of dollars - depending on what method and resources you choose to use. We advise families to look carefully at materials before making a large investment. It is unfortunate when families spend a lot of money on a resource and later find their money could have been better spent.  See our articles Home Education on a Budget and Less than a Dollar a Day Home Education.

There is no specific financial assistance to home educators in Australia and home educators are not generally eligible for the Education Maintenance Allowance. However, home educaton is recognised as a valid form of education and, as such:

• The government exempts registered home educators from the Welfare to Work laws
• Victorian home educators are entitled to the School Start Bonus
• Those with a health care card are entitled to free use of the School Dental Service
• Chidren enrolled in a state approved distance education programme and those being home educated for medical reasons may be entitled to the Isolated Children Allowance.
• Home educators can claim the Education Tax Refund.

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If you have made it this far on our website you may seriously be considering home education but now wondering, “There must be a downside that they aren’t telling me about.”

Of course home education brings its own problems - but doesn’t parenting in general? We are not promising you a bed of roses! Home education will neither solve all your problems nor mean you never have to worry about your kids again. There will be problems, there may be difficult times.

A decision to home educate should be an informed one so you need to know what the possible pitfalls are. You then have to weigh up the problems you currently have with your children in school (or see as potential problems if you send them to school) against the problems that others have experienced with home education and how likely those problems are for you.

New home educators and those enquiring into home education often fear that socialisation will be a problem but it need not be. Home educating does not have to mean your children are isolated - stuck at home all day with no contact with people outside their family. Making contact with a local group (see our networking page) can give your kids contact and yourself support. HEN also runs camps and events throughout the year. Your kids can also be involved in sports, clubs and hobby groups to provide additional social experiences and can also keep in touch with school friends and neighbouring kids etc outside school hours. Home education means living in the community - there can be regular interaction with people of all ages from babies to elderly. Home educators generally see socialisation as one of the great positives of home education. Take a look at the articles in the socialisation category as an introduction.

One problem is dealing with your own doubts and fears along the way. This article on doubt may be of assistance.

When kids come out of school, there is a process they need to go through in order to work through the stress of school and to regain their love of learning. Many experienced home educators say to allow one month of recovery time for every year of schooling that the child has had. This article on Decompression will tell you what to expect and give you some hints on dealing with this phenomenon.

Opposition from kids to formal learning can be a problem. This is a problem specific to the more school-at-home approach to home education. Switching home education styles can help. The article below on Concerns for the future may help as may the articles on the informal learning page. If natural learning (variously known as unschooling and informal learning) doesn’t sound like your style, you may find a balance between a set curriculum and informal learning and become an eclectic home educator. See more on home education styles here.

Getting back into school is not a problem should you or your kids wish to do so at some stage. A decision to home educate is not irreversible. In our experience kids make the transition from school to home or home to school pretty easily and there are rarely problems with getting back in on an age-for-grade basis. The most common problems kids report on going back into school are:

• They find it strange to enter a culture where adults are regarded as ‘the enemy’.
• Some are frustrated by the amount of wasted time in school and how slow the academic progress is.

Getting a job, going onto univeristy or further study need not be a problem either. See the sections on Grown Home Learners and Teenagers for more details.

Parents of children with special needs face additional demands but home education can have benefits that outweigh those demands. See our special needs section for articles and research of interest.

Mums becoming overloaded and exhausted is what we call ‘Home education burnout’ and it is a serious problem which some families encounter but a change of emphasis in how you home educate can solve it - see the articles Carol Answers a Question on Burnout and How to Avoid Homeschool Burnout.

More serious than Burnout is Maternal Distress which affects a small number of home educators - it seems to be more of a problem for those with special needs children. Realistic expectations and having support groups can help. There a few yahoo groups for home educators of children with special needs. We have listed those we know of on our networking page. HEN may be able to put you in touch with someone with similar circumstances for information and support.

If you have particular concerns not covered here, feel free to email editor@home-ed.vic.edu.au for information.

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Registered Victorian home educators are eligible for the School Start Bonus. The concept is that parents are granted this money to assist with the costs (books, equipment etc) involved with starting school or starting secondary school.

The bonus applies to grade prep and year seven levels or, in ungraded situations, as follows:

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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.

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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.

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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?

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Most homeschooling families consider socialization to be one of homeschooling’s great advantages. Instead of spending the better part of their days in close contact with others of their own age, homeschooled students have the time and freedom and energy to get to know people of many ages and backgrounds. With more say in the direction of their education, they become more self-reliant and self confident and less dependent upon peer approval than most school children.Few, if any, homeschoolers are isolated to the point where they don’t interact with other people. Most are heavily involved in their communities. They belong to Scouts and church groups, taking swimming and dance lessons, play on soccer and softballs teams etc. Many even do volunteer work in hospitals and libraries.

Homeschoolers get together in support groups, to take field trips, hold park days, and for other group activities. They build deep and meaningful friendships, with more time and space to talk and learn from each other than it would be possible at school.

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Parents do not lightly make the decision to homeschool their children. They realize that it is a big undertaking and responsibility. But for homeschooling parents, the task of helping their children learn is seldom a burden.Children who are given the opportunity to follow their own interests, to dig deeply into topics that interest them, to have some say in how they learn, become eager and effective learners.

Just as they help their children to learn to walk and talk by providing models ands guidance, parents of homeschooled children help their older children by proving tools and resources.

The best teachers for all children are people who love and care about them and who respect their particular way of learning - people who have the time and the patience to provide one-on-one attention.

Homeschooling parents do what teachers wish they could do in the classroom but cannot for lack of time and help and an excess of students. Any teacher can tell you that the children who do well in school are the ones whose parents are involved in their education. Homeschooling is total involvement.

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What do families do all day? As most families will tell you, there is no typical day. Homeschooling children learn through reading, through conversation, through play, through outside classes, through volunteer work and apprenticeships.Typically children will have some time on their own at home (to read, play, build, draw, write, do a science experiment, work on math), and some time with their parents, to get help with any of the above, to talk, to do some kind of focused project together, and some time with others outside the home (In music class, in Scouts, in a homeschoolers’ group, in a volunteer job).

Some families set aside a part of the day for focused academic work; others do not. Often this varies for each child and the family often adapts its schedule as the children grow and their needs change.

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Here are some things to think about; who defines what must be taught? Why? By what criteria? Who could teach everything? Are schools doing this - certainly notA good place to start is with your philosophy of education? Read a few good books on education and homeschooling. Spend some time in an educational supply shop and with a catalogue or two from curriculum publishers.

Do you already cover some of these things naturally? Could you use the local Library? Does a particular math method strike you and your child as right?

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