Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Home Education and School for the Barefoot kids.

28 November 2008:
I'm feeling the pain of no routine right now, but we just can't seem to get into the swing of home education again. I was wondering whether the kids would be better off at school. Then a strange thing happened. I heard that there were Greek lessons for kids in a nearby village, paid for by the government, and run by the local teacher in after school hours. My 3 were keen, so we decided to check them out.

I also sat in on the lesson which was 1 hour and 15 minutes long. The first 30-40 minutes went well, then I noticed that Cara (8) had kind of glazed over, was yawning and not paying any attention. Another 5 minutes and Ronan (10) was doing the same, looking at his watch, and fidgeting around. Sam was doing his own thing, drawing on his bit of paper, so he was quite happy. I was suddenly transported back in time to my own school days, attending but non attentive. Watching Cara was like looking in a time travel mirror, the glazed, 'wish I was somewhere else, but I know I've got to sit here' look on her face. It was really interesting to watch them, and REMEMBER how many hours I spent in a class, wishing, wishing, I was somewhere else, only a tiny portion of my awareness in the classroom (just enough to keep me out of trouble!!).

So, a timely reminder really. Home education isn't perfect, not by a long shot. But, for us, it's definately preferable to the classroom alternative. It's something about freedom... freedom to choose to do something else, freedom to decide how to spend a day, freedom to think about whatever you want, whenever you want.

Phew. The school experience has also given me a metaphoric kick in the butt to organise our day more efficiently, and prepare learning material for the kids. A new system!! (yep, another one, but hey, I'm enjoying the freedom of changing my mind too!!).

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