I actually don't know what home education is

I have been making a few notes on what we do and discuss. It is exactly the same set of things as a couple of weeks ago before the transition to being back in a formal place of education.

So as a result I realise that although we have been home educating completely autonomously for 6.5 years, all the notes I took and typed up for the Local Authority are useless. They are not evidence for home ed occurring at all. Just for living in a family household with me.

So what is home ed then? The absence of a greater authority than the mother and father? No, because I have been hyper-aware of the presence and threat of the Local Authority over our lives. There has been a big cloud of disapproval, fear and misunderstanding following us around for all this time from family and acquaintances. At best, confusion and awe.

My presence and commitment? That could be it. When H was deregistered both times, he instantly developed this look of a flower turning towards me as if towards the sun.

Yet this time H has gone to a place of formal education he has not switched off psychologically as he did last time, 6 years ago.

I still don't feel I have put my finger on it yet. So what is autonomous home education? What is it about home education which makes it such, beyond the legal status? Is it purely a legal construct? No more than that? All that fear, over a nebulous contemporary human definition?

Help me out in the comments box.

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It is Monday morning now and I think there are 2 parts to this: the legal framework and the parent/child bond of loyalty and trust. The most important of those is this bond. If anything gets between the parent and the child it causes damage to both sides, irrespective of the type of education. If choosing home ed is the way to get the poison out of the relationship, then so be it.

Back to school or not back to school

I can't believe it but 6 1/2 years of home education are over, just like that, from one minute to the next. I have all these home ed blogs on my side bar. You are so, so lucky, even when it is going unpredictably, everyone is unsure about what exactly the purpose of all this is and there is no obvious achievement of goals.

Believe me, all sorts of things are growing and changing while you have a confusing day or year. I am about to get my reward after all these dark nights and out on a limb days.

Somewhere ages ago I read a tiny snippet from an old Nordic saga or some such mysterious voice from the deep about boys lying in the ashes by the fire for their teenage years.

This image from many centuries away struck me as a glimpse of how things really are and how it will be ok to let things progress in their own ancient way. I got the image years before I needed it, but it was there in my mind, ready for me.

I see autonomous home education everywhere

Once or twice a year I have a conversation with a person who has a child, son usually, who is no longer following the expected path. I so recognise the sudden change in dynamics in the family:

There is the careful choice of words, wanting to protect the young person's dignity.

There is the clear lack of a future the parent can boast about, or rather mention to fend off assessments by curious relatives and neighbours.

There is a new living in the present, which is most disconcerting when this is not what mainstream society is about.

There is a need to really trust the child, themselves and the process, without the foggiest idea of what will happen next.

To me it is clearly the start of a time of autonomous home education. An open ended support time with lots of rethinking and relaxing, refinding interests, ranting, feeling very confused... for all members of the family. Oddly it may be about refinding the family itself, a place for having your own rituals and habits, fending off the world and others' wishes. Doing it your own way, not following an illusory perfect family life routine.

Others wouldn't use the term autonomous home education for this. It could be called a going back to basics, a time out, a pause or a time for rethinking things.

Draft post from 2/7/2013

Where am I? End May 2014 - 4 new blogs added

http://nacimpakshiraz.wordpress.com/blog/ Lecturer on Iranian films at Edinburgh University. Useful because I am in a little Middle Eastern Film club of 3. We post dvds to each other and watch them in turn.

http://backroompoets.blogspot.co.uk/ Because I have been along to one meeting so far. It is remarkable to be with a dozen people all reading out their own work, then analysing and making suggestions for improvements while the writer sits in a receptive silence. Will I dare to take anything more personal next time? Will there be a next time?

http://pro-lernen.ch/blog/ German language autonomous home education blog. Home ed is legal in Switzerland, but illegal in Germany, remember that.

http://murielecamac.blogspot.co.uk/ French language poetry blog. I want to restart reading French since it is available to me, even if it seems utterly unfamiliar somehow, like something I used to do many years ago.

Hilarious old post from 2009

This is just so true and funny. If I hadn't blogged about my dreadful day as a mother it would have been lost for ever. I hope it gives you a good laugh. It shows how lovely T and H were, and are.

http://shinynewcomputer.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/not-good.html

17 is on the horizon, and 50 is looming

Next winter H will be 17. As the law stands this means he will no longer be officially home educated and the Local Authority will no longer have him on their books. I am wondering what happens to home educating younger humans as they go towards the late teens. At what point do they and the parents stop using the term home educated? Where will this leave my status in the world? How will I describe myself then? Will we still pass our days splitting hairs and playing endless variations on Monopoly? Will we feel free? What will H be passionate about? Who will he be friends with?

In just under 2 months I shall turn 50. Khamseen Jahre alt. J'aurais fifty ans. It feels confusing. Normally I cut my hair very short at each decade. Each time it has been a mistake, but irresistible nevertheless. Maybe I will lose my moorings very slightly. From the content of this post it is too late to ask that question, I am already under way, motoring before I raise the sails, switch the engine off and proceed on the wind alone. No longer wallowing, but heeling a little from the wind.

I should be asleep

After 2 parties in one day, here is a first episode of a series about home education.

Raised by Wolves

Watch it quickly before the week is up.

I don't feel like a wolf, but maybe home ed mothers have pretty sharp teeth after all.

To ployon - autonomous education again

Ancient Greek anyone? I found myself offering to teach H the first line in my Ancient Greek book when we were last out and about in our garden under the huge moon in the late evening. Since the answer was 'No', I quickly told him those first words and that they meant 'The boat'.

It all started when we were talking about the planets, stars, the sun and photons. Qi had told him about the great length of time the photons take to get to the surface of the sun. We mused over the inscrutable nature of light and I tried to point out a planet. Saying it was at 1 o'clock in relation to the moon didn't help. Pointing out Orion without a laser beam was difficult too.

Would you like it if I told you that I have started both my paragraphs with quotes from ModPo texts. I just got another one in there. This is where common texts turn into in-jokes and get irritating to outsiders.

Caroline Bergvall's VIA

Tracie Morris Africa(n) and with Val Jeanty

Gertrude Stein's Portrait of Picasso - video in French about her writing, art collection

Beautiful home ed Ted talk

11 minutes discussing home education

http://unschoolery.com/hackschooling

Have a look at the comments too, don't get stuck on the first couple of comments though.

School's out - sense of freedom - Work begins

Even though I went to school and left at 18 I don't remember this incredible sense of freedom that I'm getting as a parent.

I am out of The System which I have feared and had to deal with without showing my fear for so many years. Even when the system is as good and thoughtful and well-meaning as possible, it is still a place of control and fear. Maybe it's just me, but even so, what a difference!

I feel as if we are a family again. I am a parent again. I hadn't been aware of how much I'd lost since 2000.

The home education of H continues in its highly autonomous way. That's just our household and goes on through the seasons.

T starts work tomorrow morning, so is not making the move to uni for a year. That makes it feel like Christmas, all of us still here under one roof, putting beds together, doing things to the MG. Which has just given off pretty noxious exhaust, I even smelt it at my desk at the far side of the kitchen... so much for lyrical moments!

Unnerving familiarity, archaeology and an experiment

I get a shock when I click on a blog and find that it is using exactly the same template as mine. I tend to forget that the design I'm using is ready made.

Today I went to an archaeology session at the Ashmolean in Oxford. We were able to handle flint tools made during the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic times in this country. One fitted my hand so exactly. Others were warm from being handled by the others as we passed them carefully around the big table to each other. I nearly dropped one flint at the beginning! The table had layers of soft plastic over it, but even so...

How timeless things are - the archaeologists can tell if a piece was chipped into shape by a left or right handed person. Most people doing the chipping were right-handed back then. They can also spot small pieces which were mistakes. They were chipped in not quite the right way and so a differently shaped piece popped off and was left on the ground.

The last part of my day was dealing with 2 eggs which were past the eat-by date. T and I have done things like burning a whole pack of matches in the garden to see what would happen. H and I haven't done this sort of thing yet. So, we went and egged the old stable wall in our back garden. H had such a good time. He flung the eggs with such force and we were both so happy at being vandals!

Covering the whole spectrum

In the morning H and I discussed what was wrong with home education and felt some emotions. Physics was mentioned.

At lunchtime I handed him a science revision book which covers all 3 sciences clearly I thought. I also forwarded to him the 2 most recent Oxon-home ed email digests so he could see what was on locally.

By tea time he had pronounced the book boring and wanted to make shortbread with me. We had such a great time, converted weights, halved the quantities, doubled them again in the middle of mixing, and wound up with delicious shortbread and a happy, satisfied mood.

My offer of a formal tutorial time spent sitting in the drawing room discussing anything he fancied was turned down flat, but we just happened to discuss all sorts of interesting things over supper at the kitchen table, even though he told me he disliked the kitchen.

It was that sort of a day, up and down and around about.

I will go into our family saga of paypal losses, hacked gaming accounts, stolen tech items, deleted email accounts and a broken brand new tech item another day. My desk is covered with files for each of these traumas. I am the go-to fixer, even though I am trying to be very slow and grumpy about it. I can't help being a tiny bit proud that I can speak politely and effectively to people working in big organisations.

Home Education

I hardly ever write about home education, but I'll try. Where are we? H is now 15. Umm, what else? I am working my way through my backlog of monthly home ed reviews. I want to type these out so I can send a year's worth, Jan to Dec 2012, to my contact at the Local Authority. Ideally I will be able to do this by early spring.

My current way of putting a tiny bit of structure into a 99.9% autonomous way of home ed life is: pick a subject heading and put on my daily household tick sheet. Then try to spot when this subject is touched on and if necessary do something deliberate to ensure a smidgen of whateveritis happens. The one I'm on at the moment is Art, so I am thinking of handing over my camera and asking H to take some photos with it. This has been going for several days now, so may be over soon too.

The reason for this new plan is that some of the months I am reviewing from 2012 have massive blanks where whole subject areas like Music, Geography or Physics simply didn't get discussed in my hearing or to my knowledge. The odd thing is that I can't remember when H didn't understand anything we chat about. He always knows what I mean. I have asked my mother in law if he has ever not understood a word she uses or followed her conversation. Maybe I could challenge her to tell him about things he can't possibly be au fait with and see what happens.

My top tip is to wait until the child in question is taller than you. At that point older relatives stop getting so aggressive and panicky. It is a good feeling. I'd like to have read that somewhere earlier on. I think they need to see that the child is obviously strong and chilled out. Nothing less than actual evidence will do. There seems to be an underlying suspicion that we can't bring up our own children. Maybe they had doubts about their own abilities and are projecting them furiously onto us?

A bit off topic, but I saw a mother shout fiercely at her little boy in the supermarket today. I felt a bit outraged etc, but by the time I had walked a few aisles further on I remembered that some of my worst parenting moments happened most publicly in the supermarkets in this very same town. Had things been different, she might have been the one passing by as I revealed my worst temper! In fact, who knows, she might have been one of the silent and understanding witnesses. No one ever tutted at me. We just give each other a wide berth when parenting gets too much around here. If there is a chance we give each other a rueful smile or an encouraging smile.

Joy - My time line book has been useful - Mouse engineering

I have been adding notes to my Charlotte Mason inspired timeline book for 3 years or so. It goes from the Big Bang to the present day, but the far and distant times are the most interesting.

Today H asked me something about why cats don't stand up on 2 legs. I have seen our visiting cat d just  this in order to get a better view of another cat which was prowling around. That chat led on to me showing him my timeline, I was able to point to the moment when early chimpanzees and early humans diverged.

Luckily I had put a star beside the time when Fire was first used, and the start of the use of Spears, then the practice of Burial and Jewellery. So I said, look at those things too!!

After that, H brought me his mouse with all its replaceable parts, so we fiddled with this and I showed off my cave woman skills of finding out how to do the replacing. I also showed off my high tech woman skills by explaining that the dusty item was the bit which had most recently been in use. That was fun. We have a large piece of black fleece as our table cloth in the kitchen at the moment. It is a wonderful surface to use for this sort of taking apart work. Nothing rolls away and everything is visible. Neither of us could work out where the little weights were meant to go. We didn't care enough to google it.

MP George Galloway speaking out about Ian Henderson in 1997

On Twitter I have just spotted a link to this piece of Hansard from 1997. Read it and see how many similar situations have been reported just in the past few months.

Systems like a written record of speeches in Parliament over many years and online search allow this access to past words. Words are so powerful both in the present and for the future. Many people work to create these systems and maintain them with a sort of faith in their importance.

I love George Galloway's turn of phrase and manner of speaking. He can survive anything, even the cat episode on Big Brother, (my hint to my son H to explain who he is). H got it immediately! Another note for my home ed log.

Forgive the gruesome blogs I follow

Since finding Al Jezeera last year and becoming gripped by the important events in the Arab Spring I have added relevant blogs to my sidebar. This is nothing to do with home education, but this blog is for me rather than for the home ed community.

There are some very graphic photos only a few clicks away. I am getting used to a level of detail I would not have expected before.

The same warning goes for the anti-death penalty blogs, not for photos, but for eye-witness accounts. The reality is so shocking and real-time.

A little of what I read about gets into my conversations during our home educating life, not much though. One comment goes a very long way, judging from my memories of one-off statements by my parents years ago. I am 31 and 33 years older than T and H, so my interior life is utterly different from theirs. I am experiencing the generation gap from this position as a parent.

However, I could not home educate without my own varied interests and passions. They are crucial, even though they have only sprung up as the children have come to give me time alone in which to pursue them. It has not been the other way round in our case. I could not have imagined the amount of brain space I have to attend to other matters. Perhaps home educating has been the creator of this space and time?

John Taylor Gatto would appreciate a letter

Evidently he is recovering from a stroke and has had a few get well soon letters. As one of the inspirations for home education he could do with some more. I have just sent one :)

http://radiofreeschool.blogspot.com/2011/10/john-taylor-gatto-send-john-get-well.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RadioFreeSchool+%28radio+free+school%29

That is a link to a longer piece about him, with a photo and email contact details.

Words of wisdom

Read, reflect and inwardly digest this guidance from those ahead of us on the Home Educating journey.

Each paragraph is like a warm bath or a smile. All those reminders of exactly what this is about. The reasons for the groups and email discussions, late nights and deep breath decisions.

Learn Nothing Day

Every year the 24th July is Learn Nothing Day, which is impossible by the way!

So, what happened on that day for us? I found out that those red and green berries which grow on a thick stalk are thriving at this time of year; T found out about Khan Academy via a TED talk; H found out how melatonin helps with his sleep cycle; and I found out what the King and Queen of Norway look like and how beautiful the singing is in their Cathedral.

Rebooting process

I find I need to reboot my thinking every day: what am I working towards, what is the point, will it work, etc? Is there a way to bypass this recreation of a whole way of thinking each day and start each day at the point I left off the day before?