Welcome! Our reasons for homeschooling

Hi there everyone! Welcome to my first post on "My life as a homeschooling teacher."

My intention of this blog is to share my family's homeschooling journey from start to finish. Sharing the highs and lows that I'm sure we will encounter. We are still 18 months away from starting homeschooling officially so I'm a novice homeschooling mum. I am by no means an expert in teaching nor am I a homeschooling expert, but what I am an expert in is giving everything I do my all.

My husband and I decided about a year ago that homeschooling is for us. The logistics for us is me (Alexis) homeschooling the kids three days a week and my husband (Simon) homeschooling them two days a week. They will have two days 'off' and we'll have one family day. We will be homeschooling them on the weekends just because of the logistics of the week and balancing homeschooling with our work. We have two young boys names Elliott (aged 4) and Nate (aged nearly 3.) They are only 15 months apart in age. We live near the beach which we absolutely love.

Many people question our decision to home school because I'm a teacher. Some people have told me that it is like working for Bank A but having our money in Bank B. I can see why people could be confused by our choice but what it comes down to is that there are many teachers in the system that know how they should be teaching but their hands are tied when it comes to curriculum and expectations placed on them by their school and the Education Department. I am one of those teachers.

Our reasons for homeschooling our kids are many and varied. They include:

1. Family time: My husband works weekends. This works well for us now because he looks after the boys when I'm working. However in 2017 when my eldest starts school that won't work! My husband would not get to see my son except for evenings. That's not going to build a strong family unit!

2. Curriculum: The Australian Curriculum, in my opinion, isn't child friendly. Every single teacher would probably agree that we should be 'following the student's interests.' Schools have it on their websites and Facebook pages but at the end of the day they are expected to follow the Australian Curriculum. I have been to PD sessions throughout my years teaching focused on "Inquiry Learning."(It has had different names over the years) Each session we are told to allow the students to follow their interests- to give them the lead in their own learning. Sounds great right!? The problem is that student lead learning has to be within the confines of a topic which is usually the focus of the school day for ten weeks. So if a 6-7 year old is studying "Rules and Regulations" (yes that was the term one topic for Level 1 and 2) they have to find somewhere in that topic to be inspired by. I personally don't consider that to be truly following the student's interest- but it sounds good to parents!

3. Socialisation: One comment I get about homeschooling from EVERYONE is about socialisation. "Aren't you concerned about their socialisation?" they ask. The answer is simply "Yes, I am worried about the socialisation- that's why we're homeschooling." It isn't the response they are expecting. What I have observed over my time working with kids is that many students come to school as lovely, friendly kids and in a few short years they have morphed into a kids that excludes people for different reasons (i.e you're poor, you're dumb, you're fat, you're ugly, you've got XYZ disorder and the list could go on.) 

This exclusion of kids is often condoned, if not encouraged, by the parents. I remember one instance where a student invited every single child in the class to their birthday party except for one student. They handed out their invitations in front of this child and the poor kid was standing there waiting for his invitation that never came. To add insult to injury at playtime the birthday boy told the uninvited child that his mum said that he couldn't come because he had autism. As a parent my heart bled for him. The cruelty of the situation was huge. When I spoke to the birthday boy's mother about it she denied that she had said that he wasn't invited because he had autism but was more a matter of 'well you have to draw the line somewhere.' (I truly don't believe for a second that a seven year old is going to come up with the reason 'because you have autism' on their own. ) I did convince her that there wasn't much difference between 24 and 25 children at the party. He was eventually invited, he went and enjoyed himself. 

I'm not seeing what I consider to be well adjusted, well socialised kids in schools. Some people have said "oh that's normal for kids to do this and do that..." Is it though? I don't think it is. Over the sixteen years I have taught I have seen an alarming change in what is deemed 'normal' and 'acceptable' behaviour. When I started teaching the preps, Grade 1 and Grade 2 students they were, in my opinion, well adjusted, friendly students who, for the most part, included everyone in their class. Not every student in a class is going to be besties each other, that's a given. What I have noticed in kids of late is that they seem to think that merely not liking a kids isn't 'enough'- they have to tell that child that they don't like them. They have to let them know that they "hate" them. And then the spiral of "tit for tat" starts that can last years. I don't want my boys in that kind of environment where  behaviour like this is considered okay- because it's not okay with me.

I could go on about socialisation for ages. But enough for now. I promise I will talk about this is a future post. 

4. Time wasting: As a teacher I see an enormous amount of time wasted in schools. When you step back and have a look at how much time children actually spend on independent learning tasks it is in my estimation about two hours of real learning time per day while they are at school for  six and a half hours a day. There's wasting time while the teacher deals with students with behavioural issues, there is the organisational stuff (marking the role-which I've seen take one teacher take 10 minutes to do twice a day each day, lunch orders etc etc) There's waiting in line, there is waiting for the rest of the class to finish their work so they can go on with the next part of the session. I often see children waiting in line and think that my kids aren't going to waste so much of their lives waiting in a line. When we home school we are going to do an hour each of reading, writing and numeracy and the rest of the day is going to be on the 'rest of the stuff' like Science, History and Geography. 

5. The Rigor and Routine: This is the stuff I truly loath. I hate the idea that my children will do something just because they hear a bell. It's very "Pavlov's dogs." I don't like the idea of uniforms, lines and being silent. I don't think this is what children are meant to do. The longest hour of the week is assembly. Expecting children (and adults for that matter) to sit in one place for an entire hour listening to awards, house points, "Week in review" by the principal is ridiculous. When I questioned this I was told that it was indeed a learning experience because they were learning how to be a good audience member. But you know what?! My boys are going to learn about being a good audience member when they go to see puppet shows, or to the movies! Which one would you prefer to be doing? Over a year that's 40 set aside for assembly, or 280 hours over seven years at primary school! I'm pretty sure I can find something more exciting to do in those 280 hours!!!!

6. Anti social behaviour: Here I'm talking about aggression and harassment between students, and students towards teachers. Bullying is a huge issue in mainstream schooling. Every day I see examples of clear and obvious bullying such as hitting, kicking, punching, scratching, biting and name calling. These ones are easier to get to the bottom of because there is often others who see it. 

But then there are the more subtle examples of bullying (particularly with girls) which are a lot harder to deal with because they aren't out in the open like a punch. There are often no witnesses to the incident. I'm talking about children intimidating other students through whispers, excluding from groups, notes, emails, text messages (I'm amazed at how many primary aged students have access to mobile phones.) Even when faced with the physical note, email etc students will often deny their involvement saying "it wasn't me that wrote that note" (for example) and then it becomes a matter of "he said, she said."

With each example, regardless of whether it is the open kind or subtle kind of behaviour there is a limit to what the schools are "allowed" to do. I've seen one student kick the principal in the face, the VP in the balls, bite, kick, punch, spit on their class teacher, and I personally was hit over the head with a rock while trying to protect a student from being hit. This was all by the same student, and he obviously has major issues. He was suspended over ten times in the first term. The department was of little help to the school in regards to how to deal with him and he continues to be aggressive towards everyone he encounters. Yes he definitely has the 'right to an education' but I think the students and staff's right to a safe learning and work place should be put above his right to an education. Some may say this is wrong, but what I feel is wrong is hordes of students (and staff) feeling anxious everyday about what one child might do to them. Saying to a child that child X has a right to be there at school which mean they will more than likely be assaulted by the other child- that doesn't help the child to feel safe.

So there are the main reasons for us to choose homeschooling for our kids. We are by no means 'anti-teacher' but rather we don't like the limits put onto teachers in regards to the way we teach. I'm sure mainstream schooling will work for many people but not for everyone. 

Please come back to see more of my posts about our homeschooling journey.