HEers introduce yourselves puurleease!

[nannyme]

I'm nannyme and HEing my son aged 4.5 daughter aged 6 and semi HEing my other son aged 2.5.

We are in Bromley if anyone wants to meet up/resources share, etc.

sazhig
I just think school is a melting pot - a self limiting one but still one.
My children mix with the villain as well as the angel - the gay/straight/black/white/nasty/nice/clean/dirty ad infinitum
This is a wee bit more like the real world than my four walls and i like that.

But surely you dont spend all day in your 4 walls? I am a SAHM & pretty hermit like atm (for loads of reasons I wont go into here) but we (DS & I) still go out to the shops everyday & see friends & aquaitances around the village, we go & visit PIL every week, my parents visit every month, we also see BIL, my brother & my Aunt & Uncle every month or so, friends come round to visit (both adult & children of different ages), we go & play at the local playground every few days, we visit MIL who is a childminder so that also means we get to play with various children aged between 2 &8, we go to 2 toddler groups, one of which I help run so also attend meetings, I also go to a bf group and attend training workshops with other mums learning about bf..everything I go to DS comes with me & takes part, no matter how small that may be - he is only 2 atm!

I simply cant see how that compares to sitting in a room with 30 other children the same age as you & one adult can prepare you for anything in the real world - what other social situation has this set up?

A cross section of society far exceeds my family and friends.
I want my child to mix with people who are not necessarily 'of my choosing'

People who work at shops, attend toddler groups & attend meetings are not chosen by me, just as the pupils in your children's classes arent chosen by you!

But i dont see how your childs interaction with a shopkeeper could comapre to playing every lunch time with boys and girls from 3-11 years....from ALL walks of life..

Childrens social development is freer -i believe- outside the contstraints of the parental eye

I am happy knowing that he would not be restricted to playing only at lunchtime - if he is HE, he will be free to play with other children when we attend local HE groups (of which there are quite a few & I plan attending quite a few regularly). He will also be free to play every day after school & at weekends with any children who attend school, thereby meaning he gets to play with just as many chilren as those who attend school & his playtime is not restricted by timetables or by the age range the school offers! Infants & juniors are separate schools in our village so straight away the range of ages he could play with is restricted if he were to attend them

one of my children goes to montessori - he plays all day

NotAnOtter,

Why are you posting in this thread... maybe you could start a new thread for your self... you could name it

Come in and I will find every way possible to insult every single Home Education family

Or

I am here to be angry with Home Education families

Or

I am pretending to want to learn about home education but what I am really doing is messing with their heads

Or

I have no life, lets argue.....

Come on stop being so negative about homeschooling and move on..... why are you in here any way? You are NOT interested in homeschooling your children...

Peace & Happiness,
Dana

Dear Me

HIP Please read posting by FrannyandZooey and Flame - i think they understand me
goodnight Dana

NotAnOtter,

Well good night to you too... I am happy to see you are off to bed... you will need a good nights sleep so you can spend a wonderful day with your children.... and please don't forget this is a Home Education Introduction thread.... Not a Home Education Hater thread.....

Good Night and Good Bye....

Peace & Happiness,
Dana

NotAnOtter, to now come back and take the other side of the argument, I think people on here are feeling prickly about this question, because you have based your beliefs on an extremely limited sample (of 1 child!), have talked about her in a bit of a judgemental way, and also that this tends to be the thorny issue that comes up again and again with people not knowledgeable about Home Ed.

For most of Home Ed families the question of socialisation is simply not an issue or a problem. Thus people constantly focusing on it can be tedious or irritating. I can only speak for myself but I feel that socialisation is more than learning to rub along in a large, rather faceless mass of one's peers - which is what the school system teaches. The current school system was devised during the Industrial Revolutions, to prepare people for life working in a factory, a rather dehumanising process which does not value the individual, only conformist behaviour and mindless respect for an authority figure. Whether or not it achieves its aims is a matter of opinion.

However I think most people would agree that to succeed in life we need to have the ability to get on with a wide range of people - or different ages, classes, and backgrounds - something that can't be learnt by spending all one's time with a group of one's peers.

Most home ed families and children are involved in the community, there are also thriving and sociable home ed groups in nearly all parts of the country, and many attend mainstream groups out of school hours to pursue their interests such as sport, drama, music etc. Home ed children tend to be more involved in everyday life IMO, as they are not cloistered away for a large part of the day. Home Ed children come into contact with a wider range of people in their daily life, in my experience, and I think you are making the mistake of assuming that Home Ed children are always with their parents. This is not the case any more than your children are always with you when not in school.

People often comment that home ed children seem more confident and comfortable when talking to adults. I also like to see a wide age range of children playing together at HE meetings, with none of the usual "you're too young", "you can't play, you're a girl" type of segregation you get in the playground.

I don't live in an area with a unusually high concentration of Home Edders, but there are 3 other home ed families within 3 minutes walk of my house, and these are just the ones that I know about. Most home ed families socialise with others as a normal part of their week.

Of course there are a minority Home Edders who do seem to have chosen Home Ed as a way of keeping their children away from real life. I think this is more often the case in the US where some members of the religious right choose to home ed for this reason. This is not representative of most home ed families in the UK.

I hope this helps. If you are interested in more in depth information about Home Ed I recommend one of the excellent books on the subject such as Free Range Education by Terri Dowty.

Btw, is anyone else laughing at Dana laying into NAO and then signing off 'Peace and Happiness'?

Posts always sound nicer with a peace and happiness or a have a nice day.

Without talking to/knowing a few HE mums, the only view you can have is from experience (often limited because if you spend your life in the school circuit, you tend to meet the school schoolers) and tv - most of tv portraying "unusual" families (the woman on wife swap who had her children out of school to keep her company and clean ornaments being a prime example).

2 years ago, I was of the opinion that HE children had no socialising, and that they sat down to lessons, but at home, so was confused as to how any parent could think to do what a teacher does - this was down to my experience of one girl when I was at school (withdrawn from school for the religious reasons). In the last year I have seen it from a completely different angle. I have been to some of the socialising groups, and I have met more families and it seems much less bizarre (and from my experience of the girl, I was even borderline thinking it was cruel).

Completely forgotten my point now... DS is yelling.

Thankyou FrannyandZooey and Flame.
I have come here to learn - Dana (peace and happiness?) has the 'wrong' perception of me! I am trying to educate myself about home educating....ridiculous to say i 'hate'them !!!

Just to address a couple of NAO's comments (and not to get at you NAO, but you did say you're here to learn more):

"I just think school is a melting pot - a self limiting one but still one.
My children mix with the villain as well as the angel - the gay/straight/black/white/nasty/nice/clean/dirty ad infinitum
This is a wee bit more like the real world than my four walls and i like that. "

So is HE - home-edding families come from many different backgrounds, cultures, sexual orientation, etc. HE crosses the boards, my children mix with children from many different backgrounds.

"A cross section of society far exceeds my family and friends.
I want my child to mix with people who are not necessarily 'of my choosing' "

A few people at one of the local HE meets I wouldn't choose to socialise with (or for my children to) - but we go anyway, there's people there we do get on with and we just 'manage' the others (after all, we can't expect to get on with everybody).

"But i dont see how your childs interaction with a shopkeeper could comapre to playing every lunch time with boys and girls from 3-11 years....from ALL walks of life..

Childrens social development is freer -i believe- outside the contstraints of the parental eye"

It appears that you are assuming that HE-ed children never leave their parent's side. In our case my eldest son needs support due to his difficulties in this area, but my 9 year old had plenty of 'social development outside the contraints of the parental eye' - as do many, many HE-ed children who play out just like their school-attending peers.

School is not a natural environment for children (IMO) and as an institution to 'educate the masses' evolved very recently more as a form of subsidised childcare and means to train up skilled workers than some utopian vision of nurturing a life long love of learning (something that has become a 'buzz-quote' of recent governments).

Schools are (IMO) fairly rigid in their provision and do not allow for what I would consider to be particularly natural opportunities for social development, unless as an adult one spends one's time in a very narrow-aged peer group.

I'm certainly not about to get drawn on the many opportunities for negative experiences of social gatherings that are available at school, suffice to say that my son's social difficulties were concreted through 2 years of persistant bullying which the school refused to recognise and led to his arm being broken by a group of children (along with generally being beaten up, bricks being thrown, etc, etc.)

As someone with children 'in both camps' I would certainly say that HE offers the better social opportunities.

Good Morning....

Now why on earth would anyone laugh at Peace & Happiness??? Is that not what everyone wants? Is a wish of peace and happiness not allowed if I find someone totally backwards and rude in their manner? NotAnOtter might be totally backwards in her thinking but I can wish her peace and happiness..... there is nothing wrong with that.... I am allowed to disagree with someone and find them totally insain and still wish them the best, No???

FUNNY is how this is an introduction thread and I introduced myself and not one person here has taken that into account....

You all just want to pretend to educate NotAnOtter about a subject she finds repulsive..... yes she does... she feels above anyone who home eduactes their children.... so no matter what you say she will try and leave you second guessing yourself....

Peace & Happiness,
Dana

I didn't get the feeling that Notanotter found home-educators repulsive or that she thinks she is 'above them'. I do think she doesn't understand how home-education works and I think some on here have tried to help her understand home-education better. I don't think it's fair to say that someone who doesn't understand something is backward thinking or insane.
I don't think anyone is pretending anything. It appears to be a genuine discussion with some difference of opinions. If we have so little confidence in the choice of home-educating our children that someone merely suggesting it isn't the right thing to do has us changing our minds then maybe home-education wasn't right for us in the first place. However, most home-educators have thought long and hard and have researched quite intensely before choosing this option and so can cope with the criticism that people with little or no knowledge of how HE works may level at them. Some new home-educators do need some support in the early days and fortunately there are some very helpful seasoned HE-ers about who are willing to help. Plus organisations such as
Education Otherwise and Home-education uk
As for second guessing, I do that as I am relatively new to home-education and it is part of me comparing the school system with the HE system in order to find what is best for my child. I am leaning heavily in favour of HE for my children although I still have 5 in school at the moment. I have 1 child being home-educated and 1 coming out of school in at the end of this term and 1 pre-schooler who is unlikely to ever go to primary/secondary school.
I don't see a problem with helping people to understand something. It is also useful to be able to correct any misconceptions that non-HE people may have.
However, I do think this is out of place on an introduction thread and any query should have it's own thread.

Not that I'd want to wrongly describe anyone's opinion, but I'd agree that I do not find anywhere in NAO's post that s/he finds HE 'repulsive', rather I think that s/he is not aware of the full spectrum of HE experiences that families may have.

Welcome the list HipLVmom, I recognise you from other lists.

I am not pretending to educate NAO - rather I am offering my experience as an example of how HE may occur within a family and as for second guessing - I am confident in my family's choices regarding their education not to be left 'second-guessing' by ANYONE who comes along and questions my choices.

Please do not presume that any HE-er on this list is so shaky as to feel threatened by someone on an internet list who may not understand HE.

HipLVmum, yes I am laughing at the phrase 'peace and happiness' tacked on at the end of your extraordinary, aggressive posts. I find your comments insulting and patronising, and I don't think any of us appreciate your attempts to dictate the way this thread should go.

Still it would have been polite for us to acknowledge someone who has introduced themselves.

I think we have all just been introducing ourselves to each other on this thread, I don't see why we need a lot of posts saying "Hi" "Hello" "Welcome" etc every time someone new posts. I haven't seen anyone else being specially acknowledged or welcomed, nor have I seen anyone else getting all humpty because of that.

Eeeek we are a vicious lot

I think the Home Ed section will get a bit fluffier again when Fillyjonk comes back. Till then we will have to make do

Hello everyone,

I have only very quickly scanned over the many many posts that have appeared since i was on here last. I have to say that I am quite shocked by some of them!

It appears that some posters are quite avidly picking on others on the thread.

I do not agree that non-home edders should not be allowed to post on this thread. Their opinions are as valid as ours. And we shouldn't belittle them for that.

And reading the post, I have to say that I was probably more shocked by responses from home-edders then I was from the non-home edders.

We have all made the decision to home educate our children. Based (hopefully), on thorough research and discussion.
I dont expect my friends to understand my decision to home educate. Most of them question me and I am happy to answer their questions.

For many people it is simply the norm to send their children to school. And when you meet someone who goes against the norm, all sorts of questions arise.

Rather then having a go at non-home edders for being here, we should listen and answer their questions.

I think part of the problem arises because those that home-ed and those that dont both can get quite defensive about their choices in education. We should take this as an opportunity to learn from each other. I certainly have no problem with people who send their children to school.

Have a nice nite.
Sorry if that didn't make much sense, am so tired after a hectic weekend.

Can we have a nice thread day tomorrow please?

Love and hugs to you all