Monster & Teeny

A lifecycle blog!

So chicken or egg? Tadpole or frog? caterpillar or butterfly? Life or Home Education?

It’s been an excellent couple of weeks, both for Home Education chez MonsterTeeny and for life and as I was pondering that very thought while cooking dinner tonight I realised that very little seperates the two in our house these days.

Last week we were away in Norfolk, in a hired out Youth Hostel with 7 other Home Educating families - there were 12 adults and 20 children (including a day visiting family who joined us one of the days). A, the children and I would number these people among our closest friends, we have spent 9 camps in the company of some of them, had all of them to stay at our house, been to most of their houses, shared birth celebrations, weddings and other happy times with them, comisserated during the bad times, shared their daily lives through blogs and their real lives when geography and time allows. This was the second such camp I organised myself and I have had a hand in the organisation of others and various other social events for that same group.

Today I spent my day in the company of my SIL, Lucy and a lady who is considering Home Ed for her nearly 2 year old son and wanted to meet some people who are already doing it. We reassured her about various things, introduced her to the idea of autonomy, learning through life, relaxing about the stresses of parenthood and gave her plenty to go away and think about.

I realised tonight that within certain circles I actually have a profile, I am a Home Educator. I am doing it, right now, every day. It is no longer something we ‘are considering’ or ‘toying with’. It is what we do, what we have been doing for four years now and aim to continue doing indefinitely. I realise that I speak with confidence about what we do, I actually am in a position to give advice and reassurance and anecdotal evidence. I have proof, living with me every day that what we do works.

I also realised that this Home Ed ‘profile’, this role within the group that A, the children and I have is a massive part of our lives, it has shaped our family and how we live our lives. What we are doing now will be what our children remember of their childhood one day and our lives, my employment, our socialising, our holidays, our leisure time, our entire lifestyle all revolves around Home Education. The woman we met today expressed concerns at how she would fit educating her son into their lives, I answered that just living life is educating and told her to observe the 7 children pottering around infront of us, from the two small boys looking at a dinosaur book together and telling each other the names of the ones they knew, to the two girls dividing up the My Little Ponies between themselves and giving them all names to the pair of siblings sitting playing with a leappad with the older one coaching the younger one, to her own little toddler wobbling round, picking up things, taking stones out of a plant pot and looking at them, dropping them back in to see what sound they made and taking it all in. All while we four sat and drank tea and chatted. How would she fit in education? How could she possibly prevent it!

This week we spent a lovely blissful afternoon on the beach, the children got wet in the sea, collected pebbles and shells, clambered on the sea defence rocks, shouted into the wind, chased the waves, drew pictures in the sand, talking and asking questions, making observations all the time. I recall learning about the beach by sitting in a classroom with books showing pictures of the beach, my children will probably never recall actively learning about it, but they will cherish happy memories of spending time there and just know all the answers to whatever questions their own children might one day ask.

I recently signed up to a free trial for educationcity. I confess to doing this with the sole intention of refreshing my own mind with just what it was I found so objectionable about it when we had free trials in the past. Educationcity is the new black in some Home Ed circles and I wanted to check I hadn’t missed some wonderful aspect of it before I wrote it off. Both Monster and Teeny have had a go at it, working their way through the entire Science section for their ages on the trial but showing very little interest in any of the other sections. Monster looked at the literacy bit tonight because I clicked on it and answered the first question on one bit in a very bored ‘what’s the point of this nonsense’ type tone before dashing off to do something more interesting instead. Teeny looked at the maths stuff tonight too and having got the first two questions right on 3 different bits she quickly clicked on quit when she realised the subsequent questions were just going to be more of the same. She did do the next year up Science ones though The reason I came to mention this was that loads of the science stuff is on life cycles - frogs, butterflies etc. and this goes only to further prove my theory that far better than learning through classroom type resources is to actually be out there doing it, prove my theory that we don’t seperate life from education and continue the age old question about which did come first. Two years ago we had a butterfly garden from insect lore. We used their caterpillars the first time and then topped the garden up with cabbage white caterpillars we collected from the garden. We watched them grow, make their chrysallis and hatch into butterflies which we took into the garden to let fly away. Last year we took frogspawn from my parent’s pond before all their goldfish ate them, kept them whilst they changed from frogspawn to tadpoles to froglets, transfering them outside ready to become frogs ready to hop off. We currently have 15 eggs in an incubator, due to hatch into bantam chicks this weekend, which we will do a bit of rearing of before handing them back to the farmer who’s hen’s laid the eggs ready to go and live on the farm. I currently live with two small children, changing daily, spreading their wings, breaking free of their shells and stretching their legs ready to jump, leap and fly into the world one day. I’m providing for their needs, including helping them learn everything they decide they need to know, ready to let them go off and have their lives which may well include doing the same for their offspring one day. And just like us observing while we nurture our eggs, caterpillars and tadpoles, I too am learning, discovering and being amazed and awestruck simply being in the presence of this process and being made aware of how very deep an impact this particular life choice has had on me too.