I had a bit of a flubber there and thought I'd missed most of March. It's a month I used to ignore and just let pass by without comment and with relative indifference. These years it's a month I feel fond of. A liminal month, not quite winter and not yet summer. Perhaps it's spring? Perhaps not. March, in short, is me personified. I'm here, and every year I'm different. Some years I'm raring to go and full of the joys of, and other years I want the duvet pulled firmly over my aching head.
This March, this year, I keep seeing potential everywhere. I see potential spring. I note the graceful beauty of snowdrops competing with the divinity of daffodils. I watch as the barren brown branches of winter burst into brilliant blossom. I thrill to the colours enhanced by the return of the sun. I feel like a spring lamb, leapy and joyous, and all things are possible it seems.
I think the difference this year is that I 'get' home education. It's the very breath and pulse of freedom. It's the sheer exultation of learning. It's the bounce and leap of doing your own things and watching your own things getting better and better and more and more.
A friend quizzed me last night on how my child will get into university. "But has she done A levels?"
"She's done a certificate that equals three A levels."
On her face there was blank incomprehension. How could one vault over A levels? How could one do a University course to prove one is ready to - er - do a University course? Wouldn't a person who didn't fit the pattern, who wasn't made to measure, be unacceptable?
No. A university will offer a place because the people there have reason to believe that the student is capable of studying a course and is enthusiastic about that course.
If any university turns down a student on grounds other than those criteria... Well, would a bright-minded, independent thinker actually want to waste time there? Would you?
We have to go to school. No, we don't.
We have to 'do' exams. No, we don't.
We have to follow our dreams, respect our natures and our talents. Yes, we do.
And, if all else fails, there's the University of Life from which we - sooner or later - will graduate.
Friday, 16 March 2012
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
A teacher's learned wisdom
A teacher writing a letter to the Writer's Forum magazine has discovered a truth that all home educators know or find out early in their home education journeys.
"Putting ownership and choice into our teaching of writing may just be the trick to creating our next generation of imaginative and happy writers."
Given the difficult ordeal of trying to make children write and read, teacher Fran Slimon decided to consult her class about what they would like to write. Their response was warm and accepting as they rushed into the classroom to find out which of their preferred topics had been selected for their attention.
It's surprising how few teachers realise the simple fact that you cannot force anyone to learn anything. You cannot make them love writing or reading. I believe that we are all programmed to learn to write and read but that we retard these natural assets by thinking that adults must and should direct the functions.
We think that children will not learn to love reading and writing and they must be made to read and write. How can you learn something which is forced on you? How can the natural course of events unfold unless you are left to uncover the treasures that reading and writing bestow in your life? How will reactance (a psychological response to removing freedom of action for an individual) not surface if you are pushing and shoving a child to do what that child is not ready for or doesn't wish to do?
Well done Ms Slimon. You have seen what is so clear. People do best what they choose to do, and, in the great majority of cases, people choose wisely.
"Putting ownership and choice into our teaching of writing may just be the trick to creating our next generation of imaginative and happy writers."
Given the difficult ordeal of trying to make children write and read, teacher Fran Slimon decided to consult her class about what they would like to write. Their response was warm and accepting as they rushed into the classroom to find out which of their preferred topics had been selected for their attention.
It's surprising how few teachers realise the simple fact that you cannot force anyone to learn anything. You cannot make them love writing or reading. I believe that we are all programmed to learn to write and read but that we retard these natural assets by thinking that adults must and should direct the functions.
We think that children will not learn to love reading and writing and they must be made to read and write. How can you learn something which is forced on you? How can the natural course of events unfold unless you are left to uncover the treasures that reading and writing bestow in your life? How will reactance (a psychological response to removing freedom of action for an individual) not surface if you are pushing and shoving a child to do what that child is not ready for or doesn't wish to do?
Well done Ms Slimon. You have seen what is so clear. People do best what they choose to do, and, in the great majority of cases, people choose wisely.
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Natural
Hey folks.
I went for a walk with my youngest, Y, today.
We heard the differing twitters of secretive birds. Not tweets.
We saw little rings of snowdrops, those harbingers of warm weather, drooping in their loose circlets.
We noticed groups of crocuses: all different colours and in unusual places, surprising us with their cheerful hues.
We strode along cliffs: those thinly-disguised sand dunes next to a near placid sea, and we watched a doleful gathering of purposeful clouds heading for distant houses.
We revisited a reserve in its drab winter garments and surprised ourselves with the glimpse of a solitary swan.
We were greeted by little dogs smiling in the excited way dogs have when they are out with their favourite people.
We saw no children, heard no childish voices, experienced no childish laughter...
The world was our showplace and our classroom, and we breathed fresh, free air. We will remember this day forever...
I went for a walk with my youngest, Y, today.
We heard the differing twitters of secretive birds. Not tweets.
We saw little rings of snowdrops, those harbingers of warm weather, drooping in their loose circlets.
We noticed groups of crocuses: all different colours and in unusual places, surprising us with their cheerful hues.
We strode along cliffs: those thinly-disguised sand dunes next to a near placid sea, and we watched a doleful gathering of purposeful clouds heading for distant houses.
We revisited a reserve in its drab winter garments and surprised ourselves with the glimpse of a solitary swan.
We were greeted by little dogs smiling in the excited way dogs have when they are out with their favourite people.
We saw no children, heard no childish voices, experienced no childish laughter...
The world was our showplace and our classroom, and we breathed fresh, free air. We will remember this day forever...
Tuesday, 7 February 2012
Dreaming near Walden Pond
'Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, how ever measured or far away.--"Walden'"or "Life in the Woods-- Where I Lived, and What I Lived For" by Henry David Thoreau.'
http://peacefulrivers.homestead.com/Thoreau.html
One way or another, we're all marching. Sometimes we live in concert with others and sometimes we don't.
Home educators don't.
They hear the whole orchestra. Not just little snatches of the music and not just the strings or the brass.
http://peacefulrivers.homestead.com/Thoreau.html
One way or another, we're all marching. Sometimes we live in concert with others and sometimes we don't.
Home educators don't.
They hear the whole orchestra. Not just little snatches of the music and not just the strings or the brass.
Thursday, 26 January 2012
Chinese New Year - in January 2012
I've missed it. I assumed it was in February. Last year, wasn't it in February?
This year the date was January 23rd and enter the Year of the Dragon. I'm a horse myself. A wooden horse, no less.
It gave me the shivers when I realised that I might have been the Trojan horse itself. A gift boldly given that contains nasty stuff that you don't expect. Sometimes life is like that. You think you have it figured out. You might have psychic friends who tell you what to expect - warn you of the worst or the best... Then it springs. Or, at least, you wheel it in and it delivers exactly what you don't want.
You take a strange byway. Your life might even double back on itself and you find yourself facing that aspect of yourself that you thought you'd done away with years ago. Or that you'd sorted. That dreaded truth. However, you hadn't dealt with it. You'd just buried it and hoped it was dead. And now it's struggled its way out of the earth and is lumbering after you, eyes glittering, and reaching its purple fingers towards your frantically thudding and terrified heart. Yes, like a zombie. Little wonder those films are terrifying...
We're always being tested, always learning.
No wonder I feel comfortable as a home educating facilitator.
It's closer now. Lumbering more loudly. Scraping its misshapen feet along the ground. Moaning and - oh, dear - is it crying?
That leaden feeling that you have made a mistake somewhere. That you've committed yourself to a course of action that has brought you to the moment. The moment when...
the zombie grabs you, cracks open your breast bone and yanks your heart from your palpitating chest...
Have you made a mistake so big? Have you condemned your children to misery because they haven't passed millions of exams and fought the good fight in school?
You yank your heart back, stuff it into its rightful place, seal up the gaping wound and stare the zomb down.
Have I done the wrong thing? you ask yourself.
Nah, you reply.
It's all good.
Brains for tea anyone?
This year the date was January 23rd and enter the Year of the Dragon. I'm a horse myself. A wooden horse, no less.
It gave me the shivers when I realised that I might have been the Trojan horse itself. A gift boldly given that contains nasty stuff that you don't expect. Sometimes life is like that. You think you have it figured out. You might have psychic friends who tell you what to expect - warn you of the worst or the best... Then it springs. Or, at least, you wheel it in and it delivers exactly what you don't want.
You take a strange byway. Your life might even double back on itself and you find yourself facing that aspect of yourself that you thought you'd done away with years ago. Or that you'd sorted. That dreaded truth. However, you hadn't dealt with it. You'd just buried it and hoped it was dead. And now it's struggled its way out of the earth and is lumbering after you, eyes glittering, and reaching its purple fingers towards your frantically thudding and terrified heart. Yes, like a zombie. Little wonder those films are terrifying...
We're always being tested, always learning.
No wonder I feel comfortable as a home educating facilitator.
It's closer now. Lumbering more loudly. Scraping its misshapen feet along the ground. Moaning and - oh, dear - is it crying?
That leaden feeling that you have made a mistake somewhere. That you've committed yourself to a course of action that has brought you to the moment. The moment when...
the zombie grabs you, cracks open your breast bone and yanks your heart from your palpitating chest...
Have you made a mistake so big? Have you condemned your children to misery because they haven't passed millions of exams and fought the good fight in school?
You yank your heart back, stuff it into its rightful place, seal up the gaping wound and stare the zomb down.
Have I done the wrong thing? you ask yourself.
Nah, you reply.
It's all good.
Brains for tea anyone?
Friday, 13 January 2012
Er hem, happy new year
Lower case: happy new year. I am a bit late. Well, I'm a lot late. Hope it was, is and will be a good one for you.
But it doesn't mean much, does it really? It's a convention. The new year could start in October or February (as in the Chinese New Year) or 6:14 on August 12th. Or never. All years could be just one big and very long year. It would do marvels for our counting skills!
Anyway, I've had a stressful morning what with Talktalk (a bit ironic that name) deciding that we no longer deserved our broadband connection and - oh, dear me - we shouldn't have our landline either, ducks. Even though what we'd done to pay for it was what we had always done, and we had paid (as we thought) for it as usual. But they said no. What a palaver... Little wonder they get rather uncomplimentary comments for their customer services. Dear me, yes.
So I am on the hunt for a new package. Take note Talktalk people: shortly I will not need your talkietalkie. I will have new talk abilities. You will be all talked out in my house, and I wish you goodbye. In fact, I never signed up to your service. The service I contracted for was provided by Pipex some years ago until they were swallowed up by talktalk.
Anyway, it won't be long now before I am free from your incomprehensible letters and your non-attempts to use a long-defunct email address. Thanks but no thanks.
The Spartacus effect
I was just reading Mum6kids' blog. What a lady Mum6kids is, and such a sterling writer. I do enjoy her blog and I'd like you to enjoy it too.
It's here:
http://mum6kids.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/the-spartacus-report-as-the-government-tries-to-get-the-sick-and-disabled-to-pay-for-the-bankers-crisis/#comment-5111
And here is the despicable government's attempt to let us, the poor and sick people who are already so many strikes down in the game of life, take the kicks from the boot of dodgy capitalism and greedy bankers.
http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/latest-news/1510-12-january-newsletter?utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Benefits+and+Work&utm_content=esa+victory
As you know if you read my blog we look after my mother. She fell in August and broke her leg which was duly fortified by a metal spike through it. They couldn't, however, replenish the normality of her brain which has been failing for many years.
It's subtle, perhaps, her mental decay. You might not catch it and, when we tell you she is not competent to make her own decisions; you might say there is nothing wrong with her as some of the hospital staff tried to do.
My mother says every day that she wants just a cheese sandwich for lunch. Every day. It doesn't sound much, does it? Quite reasonable a request, but she makes it every day. Every day. Despite the fact that she always gets something much more nourishing. And, if we say we're making her a cup of tea, it's the 'Only half a cup of tea, with a little bit of milk'. There are, of course, many other signs that my dear old dear is demented. She doesn't have a huge memory loss which counted against us when we told the hospital that she is off her trolley. Did they care? No. Did social care care? No, they were just interested in how much money she had tucked in her fleecy socks. The social care guy told me it takes £400 to keep my mother in a hospital bed. We get about £54 a week for looking after her.
Small wonder, then, that they don't want her. Small wonder that she's been assessed as fine. No wonder that our lives are on hold, our family members live apart, that we are running two houses in tandem, that every day - every day - H or I listen to the same comments about the same things, over and over, ad nauseum and ad infinitem.
If she lives another ten years I doubt I'll be here. I'll be pushing up the daisies or rounding Cape Hope in an old tyre because you just can't do it, hour in hour out, day in day out year in year out without something going pop in you. Something to do with self. Self-determination. Time for self. Life for self in a self that ain't getting any younger.
So Mr Cameron with your army of helpers and your large juicy, fruity salary, do you think you could listen to just a cheese sandwich for lunch just a cheese sandwich for lunch just a cheese sandwich for lunch only half a cup of tea with a little milk only half a cup of tea with a little milk just a cheese sandwich for lunch only half a cup of tea with a little milk only half a cheese sandwich with a little cup of milk for very long and how long would it be before your brain curdles...
All for about 54 quid a week. And that doesn't even pay for half of our combined food shop for a week.
But, by all means, squeeze the poor and the sick out of the pittance they get from our loving and caring society. Make them all pay for being poor and sick because, for sure, the big clever bankers and those suited, shouting, share-dealing abdabs in the city of London should not pay.
Thanks to the House of Lords for trying to stem the bloodletting that sees money flowing upwards (A MIRACLE) from the poor to the rich in this society, courtesy of the already rich.
Cheese sandwich anyone?
But it doesn't mean much, does it really? It's a convention. The new year could start in October or February (as in the Chinese New Year) or 6:14 on August 12th. Or never. All years could be just one big and very long year. It would do marvels for our counting skills!
Anyway, I've had a stressful morning what with Talktalk (a bit ironic that name) deciding that we no longer deserved our broadband connection and - oh, dear me - we shouldn't have our landline either, ducks. Even though what we'd done to pay for it was what we had always done, and we had paid (as we thought) for it as usual. But they said no. What a palaver... Little wonder they get rather uncomplimentary comments for their customer services. Dear me, yes.
So I am on the hunt for a new package. Take note Talktalk people: shortly I will not need your talkietalkie. I will have new talk abilities. You will be all talked out in my house, and I wish you goodbye. In fact, I never signed up to your service. The service I contracted for was provided by Pipex some years ago until they were swallowed up by talktalk.
Anyway, it won't be long now before I am free from your incomprehensible letters and your non-attempts to use a long-defunct email address. Thanks but no thanks.
The Spartacus effect
I was just reading Mum6kids' blog. What a lady Mum6kids is, and such a sterling writer. I do enjoy her blog and I'd like you to enjoy it too.
It's here:
http://mum6kids.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/the-spartacus-report-as-the-government-tries-to-get-the-sick-and-disabled-to-pay-for-the-bankers-crisis/#comment-5111
And here is the despicable government's attempt to let us, the poor and sick people who are already so many strikes down in the game of life, take the kicks from the boot of dodgy capitalism and greedy bankers.
http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/latest-news/1510-12-january-newsletter?utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Benefits+and+Work&utm_content=esa+victory
As you know if you read my blog we look after my mother. She fell in August and broke her leg which was duly fortified by a metal spike through it. They couldn't, however, replenish the normality of her brain which has been failing for many years.
It's subtle, perhaps, her mental decay. You might not catch it and, when we tell you she is not competent to make her own decisions; you might say there is nothing wrong with her as some of the hospital staff tried to do.
My mother says every day that she wants just a cheese sandwich for lunch. Every day. It doesn't sound much, does it? Quite reasonable a request, but she makes it every day. Every day. Despite the fact that she always gets something much more nourishing. And, if we say we're making her a cup of tea, it's the 'Only half a cup of tea, with a little bit of milk'. There are, of course, many other signs that my dear old dear is demented. She doesn't have a huge memory loss which counted against us when we told the hospital that she is off her trolley. Did they care? No. Did social care care? No, they were just interested in how much money she had tucked in her fleecy socks. The social care guy told me it takes £400 to keep my mother in a hospital bed. We get about £54 a week for looking after her.
Small wonder, then, that they don't want her. Small wonder that she's been assessed as fine. No wonder that our lives are on hold, our family members live apart, that we are running two houses in tandem, that every day - every day - H or I listen to the same comments about the same things, over and over, ad nauseum and ad infinitem.
If she lives another ten years I doubt I'll be here. I'll be pushing up the daisies or rounding Cape Hope in an old tyre because you just can't do it, hour in hour out, day in day out year in year out without something going pop in you. Something to do with self. Self-determination. Time for self. Life for self in a self that ain't getting any younger.
So Mr Cameron with your army of helpers and your large juicy, fruity salary, do you think you could listen to just a cheese sandwich for lunch just a cheese sandwich for lunch just a cheese sandwich for lunch only half a cup of tea with a little milk only half a cup of tea with a little milk just a cheese sandwich for lunch only half a cup of tea with a little milk only half a cheese sandwich with a little cup of milk for very long and how long would it be before your brain curdles...
All for about 54 quid a week. And that doesn't even pay for half of our combined food shop for a week.
But, by all means, squeeze the poor and the sick out of the pittance they get from our loving and caring society. Make them all pay for being poor and sick because, for sure, the big clever bankers and those suited, shouting, share-dealing abdabs in the city of London should not pay.
Thanks to the House of Lords for trying to stem the bloodletting that sees money flowing upwards (A MIRACLE) from the poor to the rich in this society, courtesy of the already rich.
Cheese sandwich anyone?
Friday, 30 December 2011
Nice to see you
Well, I'm back. I've been away from you but I've missed you.
I've travelled far and wide and I've never left my location.
I've ridden on the beams of light called thought and struggled to understand that singularly fascinating subject called Quantum Physics.
I've visited a thousand new ideas and marvelled at a million stars.
I've watched films that made me think about life, the universe and everything, and those that haven't made me think at all.
I've seen the end of the sensational series about a wizard called Harry Potter and his friends (and enemies) and chewed over the fact that my children - now grown - have had the boy who lived as their companion for many years.
My life has changed little, and changed completely.
My thoughts are roving yet revolve around certain subjects and people.
This last couple of months I pushed my comfort zone a bit by learning a few hours worth of Russian.
I promise to stretch myself even more in 2012 by reading Y's Christmas gift to me, a book called Russian for Dummies. And I look forward to ever more happy hours reading, learning, thinking and growing.
Now off to relax with The Nutty Professor (a film, not a person!)
I've travelled far and wide and I've never left my location.
I've ridden on the beams of light called thought and struggled to understand that singularly fascinating subject called Quantum Physics.
I've visited a thousand new ideas and marvelled at a million stars.
I've watched films that made me think about life, the universe and everything, and those that haven't made me think at all.
I've seen the end of the sensational series about a wizard called Harry Potter and his friends (and enemies) and chewed over the fact that my children - now grown - have had the boy who lived as their companion for many years.
My life has changed little, and changed completely.
My thoughts are roving yet revolve around certain subjects and people.
This last couple of months I pushed my comfort zone a bit by learning a few hours worth of Russian.
I promise to stretch myself even more in 2012 by reading Y's Christmas gift to me, a book called Russian for Dummies. And I look forward to ever more happy hours reading, learning, thinking and growing.
Now off to relax with The Nutty Professor (a film, not a person!)
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