MEHETABEL and other autonomous HEors

[FlamingoBingo]

Hello, I've just read your post on the previous thread about your son and his medicine degrees - I'm now going to stalk you, if that's ok!?

I keep having wobbles about being autonomous, even though I'm really, really convinced by it. A few of my autonomously educating friends have suddenly gone all structured on me and are insisting on a certain amount of 'work' each morning - handwriting/maths etc.

I now have no one around me IRL who is fully autonomous - all the people I used to get my confidence from have changed their minds! Consequently, I'm losing confidence.

Thankfully my mum is fully on board and supportive, but it's hard not having anyone around me who has done it with children older than mine and their children have turned out ok.

I know in my head I have nothing to worry about - my children know loads and love books and are very capable. But I just keep getting this niggling worry that I used to always keep at bay by saying 'well it's ok, because so and so is fully autonomous and their children are ok'...

Bump

Just to say...

I tend to lose confidence in autonomous home ed about 3 weeks before a child does a massive step change development in some area about which I was vaguely worried...

You wanna go to the zoo soon? I could invent a really boring compulsory worksheet for your lot if it would reassure you

Im got myself a chair, as I would love to read an experienced opinion as well!

flamingo -those over on the shiney thread told me to speak to you about home ed, and i have been reading your posts with great interest (other posters aswell though

I am just starting out home edding my 12 yr old, who i believe is older than yours?

Can i ask, what do you feel the benefits of autonomy are, and how it benefits your DD? Do you envisage her taking exams (GCSE's) at some point?

I hope you dont mind me asking here

Ive

I can say the benefits of autonomy, though I'm not flamingo:

people are not buckets. Knowledge cannot be poured into them, however diligent the learner and however charismatic the teacher. Knowledge is something we create in our own minds. And the most effective, efficient and lasting way to create knowledge is to be creating the knowledge we are interested in.

If I am trying to read a boring book on a subject I am not interested in, my mind will drift and I will feel tired. But if I am engaged in trying to solve a problem I really want to solve, the minutes fly by without me noticing.

It's just the same for children. The most efficient time for a child to learn to read is when they want to do it, and the most effective way for them to do it is for them to try, and ask for help where they need it. Every child's trajectory is different.

So the role of the parent of the autonomously learning child is to offer, without pressure, activities and ideas the child might not have thought of, and to back off and help where wanted. Also, to notice the learning potential of EVERYTHING in that child's life. A trip to the supermarket needn't be explicitly educational but it cannot help being educational, unless the child sleeps through the whole thing.

The motto might be "learning all the time"

So... with a 12 year old, autonomous education means a lot of you getting back out of the way, and giving her time to work out what activities she enjoys. Be in the present moment. And if, as she gets older she wants to do exams then you can facilitate that for her. It's entirely up to her (And, frankly, if she discovers aged 17 that she wants to do something that requires some GCSEs, it isn't going to take her 2 years of full time study to get them. They are not that hard, it's just that schools can make a massive performance of the whole thing. Might be worth having maths and english at some point. OTherwise GCSEs are just an unnecessary passport to A levels or BTecs or whatever, which are themselves an unnecessary passport to university [an OU foundation course or two will do just as well for university entrance])

not brilliantly impressed by my summary... maybe flaming can do better

Ooh, posts! yay!

Lovely Ommward: Yes to zoo - DD2 keeps asking if we can go. Will arrange asap.

Jetcat - My oldest is 6.5 so yes, younger than yours. Will have to look at the shiney thread - I didn't realise you were HEing!

I believe that autonomous learning is more efficient. Have you read Alan Thomas and Harriet Pattison's book 'How Children Learn At Home'? Or anything by John Holt?

I don't think coercing them to sit down and do maths will help them learn maths - I think that letting them learn maths from daily life, and from asking me questions when they're pertinent will help them learn maths, for example.

I don't know what will happen when they're the age of your DD, but I hope she'll be interested enough in things to put my mind at rest!

I think if you're just starting HEing your DD, you may find she needs a long period of looking like she's doing nothing before she develops an interest in learning again - lots of children I know who have been in school have had their curiosity damaged and they need time to really trust that they're in control again.

Also, for me, autonomy in education is a moral issue - I believe that children should be in control of their whole lives and that includes what they learn.

The difficult thing is trusting it. I don't know why I worry. My DD1 learnt to read without being taught, they've all learnt to count and the older two can add. DD1 can add quite complex sums and is brilliant at mental arithmetic. DD1 in particular is advanced in her reading compared to other autonomously educated children but that's just her. The fact she learnt it autonomously should be evidence enough for me! They all have a far more advanced understanding of the world and general knowledge than their schooled peers - in primary school the main focus is on literacy and numeracy so they spend most of their time doing that, and learning to do things that they would be doing naturally if they were at home like visiting the post office etc. Mine understand that as they do it all the time. They have more time to spend on the general knowledge and science side of things. They have a great grasp of geography because of the fun wall map we have of the world, and thanks to doing postcrossing - sending and recieving post cards to and from countries all round the world. No teaching, just answering questions. They know loads about the Victorian period and the Second World War because they developed a real interest in both periods of histoy. They know about air raids and evacuation. They know about not having electricity. They know a lot of science.

I think I've just convinced myself in that post I have no need to worry. I just wish I had more autonomous educators around me to keep my confidence up!

Exams? I don't expect them to do GCSE's unless they have a great desire to. Same with A-Levels. I know there are plenty of other ways to get to doing a degree if they want to. I also know that if they found themselves interested in a career that require them to have the standard 5 GCSEs or 3 A-Levels (or is it 5 AS levels now?) then they could do them all in the space of a year. My friend wanted to start working as an MCA and needed a maths GCSE - she'd failed her maths O-Level as a teen and never retaken them. She did the GCSE and got an A within the space of 2 weeks! She booked the exam, checked that she had a good enough knowledge (from life) of the syllabus, had a friend coach her with exam technique and then did it!

The other benefit of autonomous learning for me is the relationships within our family. I encourage DD1 to remember to practice her recorder because she very much wants to learn saxophone when she's older and wants to have a clarinet for her birthday in May. I have said (truthfully) that we can't afford to buy her a clarinet if she's not going to play it, so if she can show us she will practice an instrument daily, then we'll get her one for her birthday. No coercion involved, just reminders. And she does practice every day - just for 5min but then she gets tired and bored and I don't want her to be put off it. We all try to live consensually and that would be damaged if I insisted on them doing certain amounts of certain sorts of work.

Also, I don't want them to get into the attitude of 'learning is boring and only playing is fun'. I don't want learning to be separated from the rest of their lives.

Sorry for rambling! FB me if you want to

flamingo - i was hoping that if i got you to explain the benefits of autonomy then you would convince yourself of why you are doing it!

My DD does love to study, at least she did, she would often do pages and pages of extra work at home when doing a certain topic at school, so i dont think i would need to re-establish her interest.

What i would need to do, i think, is to have a little rest to enable her to get out of the mentality of because she was doing a certain topic at school, that means we have to do it at home!

and thanks for the offer of FB you. WHen they said on the shiney thread i should talk to FB - i actually thought they meant i should talk to facebook - and was mightily puzzled

hahahahahaha Jetcat! Very clever - good psychology.

thanks again, and ommmward, i meant to thank you earlier for your helpful post

Hi found FB's post and ommward's very interesting. I'm desperately trying to autonomously home ed my dd (6.5) and ASD (poss Aspergers or HFA). I think its very hard as you wonder what they are learning - but as you say they are learning, I think, a more diverse life than if they were at school and applying the subjects in an everyday way. I think my main worry is that dd hates writing (a common problem with asd i understand) and i try not to push it and just let her do it at her own instigation (which she will do, if she's designing a poster for example). I have now come to the conclusion that as long as she can write and have the basics of maths it doesn't really matter if she knows about the Tudor period etc as long as she has a sense of history and her world. It is very difficult though when you have been brought up in a school way of thinking. Any advice you can offer i would greatly receive!!!!

"I have now come to the conclusion that as long as she can write and have the basics of maths it doesn't really matter if she knows about the Tudor period etc as long as she has a sense of history and her world."

Just, amen to that, really

The National Curriculum can give such an impression that there are certain sets of knowledge that everyone should know at certain ages, but it's totally arbitrary. Why the victorians in whichever year it is? Why not the 15th century instead of the tudors? Why not get a national trust card or english heritage membership, and get to know the local historical landmarks really really well instead, and engage with them on whatever level your child is up for? (which can be anything from in depth conversation about history to "oooh, lots of grass to run on")