Can you use home ed techniques around school?

[BertieBotts]

This is probably a bit of a weird question. But I did a lot of reading about HE, when I was pregnant with DS and when he was younger, and I agree with a lot of the principles and the upsides of it. I have read various books and blogs etc about autonomous education and I think it's fascinating - DS is 2.5 and I can see him doing it already :)

But as he gets older I'm feeling increasingly torn. At the moment I'm at uni and he goes to a childminder part time. This is really really good for both of us. He absolutely loves the chance to play with other children (He's an only child and I'm a lone parent so no chance of any siblings any time soon) and I am so much better at being with him when I have had that time away from him. We went to visit a pre-school and he loved it and I want to apply for a place for him. It seems like a really lovely school, the reception and nursery class is mixed, it's very free-flow, almost Montessori-like. I'm really against homework at primary level and I was cheered to see the school's homework policy is very minimal, only reading/occasional "have a discussion about x" or "go for a walk and bring back something autumnal" type homework in KS1.

For various reasons I would like him to go to school - one being that I really really want to go back to work some time in the next few years. But I'm now feeling guilty about that because of various issues around schools which I always resonated with reading HE material etc. Things like the pressure to fit in and be the same as everyone else, the "turning off" of learning, a one-size-fits-all approach (I guess this is dependent on the school though?), and the fact a lot of it seems to be crowd control rather than learning.

So I was just wondering whether an autonomous learning thing can happen alongside school in areas of particular interest, or whether the two are incompatible and schooling will destroy the inclination to want to do this?

Bertie - I don't want to be unkind, because you've obviously thought a lot about this, but honestly, do you think that every child that goes to school has had the inclination to learn destroyed? The horror stories you hear on MN or in HE literature are the rarity, not the norm.

Most children do fine in school, most parents are happy with their DCs school.

You will find that he's tired after school to begin with - they mostly find it pretty exhausting - so he'll probably not be that interested in anything for the first term or so. But after that, yes you can follow his interests - many schooled children are fascinated by some subject or other, and spend a lot of their non-school time on it.

Thanks AMIS. Maybe "destroyed" was a bit strong I just meant even on a low level really I suppose.

I agree with AMIS. The other side of the coin is also true. Children can be HE and not have much self-motivation as far as learning is concerned. I don't like these either/or extremes: I do not find them at all the norm. Yes, some children do get 'switched off' learning in a school environment, but equally some children do get 'switched on' at school too. You have to do what is right for your child based on how you see them responding in either scenario. There are problems more common to schools -bullying etc- but try not be too swayed by the generalisations you read in the HE books.

I do think that in general school is likely to damage a child's natural inclination to learn. When I compare the adults I know to the young children I know, there is a very big difference in how they approach new things. I do know a few adults who still have a real sense of wonder, no fear about learning new things, confidence, and a real thirst for learning for its own sake irrespective of qualifications or other "rewards." I don't know very many. True, children naturally differ from adults in many ways. But it's impossible to ignore the marked difference between older children who have been home educated for many years and those who have been to school.

Do you guys not find that? I can almost (not quite) spot a home educated preteen or teen just by a brief chat. There are schoolchildren who still have that spark, but not so many. I know lots of schoolchildren and lots of HE children, and I maintain that in general there is a difference.

Can autonomous learning happen alongside school? It must be possible: look at all the people who have come through school with their passion for learning intact. But it is difficult. Maybe only certain people have such strength of character that they remain oblivious to the unhealthy messages to which they are exposed at school.

There's the matter of time, too. 30+ hours is a huge chunk out of anyone's week. There are types of learning, exploration and play which require vast stretches of time. What one can experience with the luxury of time is qualitatively different. Schoolchildren don't tend to get that time. You can't get the same effect with little blocks of an hour here or two hours there squeezed between other obligations in a mostly-full day. To say that a child can learn autonomously after school is rather like saying that sitting in the garden with a glass of wine for an hour after work is the same as having a holiday. It's a bit similar, and it's better than nothing, but it isn't a proper holiday. You still know you've got to get in and do the dinner and the ironing, and tomorrow you've got another meeting with that difficult client.

What then? If the philosophy of home education really appeals to you but you enjoy time away from your child and want him to be with others on a regular basis, and you need childcare, you may still be able to achieve all of that without school. For a couple of years my older daughter went to childminders several days a week while I worked. Then for the following few years we did such a lot of shared childcare with friends that I only actually had her with me about half the time. Depending what job you do, you may find afterschool clubs provide a few hours of convenient childcare a day. There are various options.