SCHOOME: An Adventure In Homeschooling.

By Terry R Barca

This is the book we wish we had been able to read when our adventure began. It started out as a means to recapture all of the fun and to retell some of the stories. But it seemed like a good idea to write it as an encouragement to those parents who were considering homeschooling. A question we asked was 'How does it work out?' What kind of adults come from this style of education? Our boys are all grown up with families of their own, so you will see how successful the experience was for all of us. We don't gloss over the problems either. It's all here.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Terry R Barca
• Release date: Jun 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311684257

Terry R Barca

I’m an author who lives and works in the Dandenong Ranges, on the eastern edge of Melbourne Australia.I take one day at a time but occasionally I’m attacked by several days at once.My amazing wife and I have lived in The Hills for forty-three years.My favourite colour is green and so is my favourite car.I started my working life as a Primary School Teacher in the early 1970s.Since then I have been a stained glass craftsman, furniture restorer, restorer of Player Pianos and music rolls, author (twenty one books so far, seventeen audiobooks, another on the way), photographer, basketball trading card manufacturer, basketball coach, basketball player, basketball referee, part-time shop assistant, newspaper columnist, homeschool dad, husband, father, grandfather, and a few other bits and pieces, and not in this order.I’m fascinated by people, but I prefer the company of dogs.I’m not frightened of dying, but sometimes life scares the hell out of me.I think that birds are cool but I don’t believe that they spend any time thinking about me, even though I give them lots of stale bread, and the occasional pizza crust........ ungrateful bastards!

Book preview

Throw Out Your Old Ideas About School

This chapter is probably aimed more at ex-teachers, but parents can take note as well.

We all make decisions based on our past experiences.

If you had a good time at school as a kid, you might be tempted to recreate your school experiences for your children.

If you had a bad time at school, you might be tempted to create a happier school experience for your kids.

Both of these scenarios are doomed to failure if you apply them to the homeschooling experience.

Truly smart people don’t wait to make a mistake to learn the lesson, they learn from someone else’s mistake instead. It saves a lot of time and effort.

I am assuming that you paid for this book, I would like you to get your money’s worth, so listen up!

Homeschooling is nothing like school, and if you try to create a ‘school at home’ you will find that your children will be asking to go back to their old school.

Very few people enjoy being under the spotlight 24/7. That is what ‘school at home is’; unrelenting spotlight.

One of the few advantages of the overcrowded classrooms that exist in our country is that a child can ‘hide in the crowd’ when he or she needs to.

It will take a little time to ‘de-school’ your children, but your efforts are vital if you expect your homeschooling journey to succeed.

Probably the hardest thing for you to do will be to leave your kids alone and let them get on with it.

The best homeschooling parents are the ones that interfere the least.

Your job is to encourage and hover discreetly in the background and be ready to supply whatever is necessary for the project to continue.

Less is more.

Talk to your partner about this; it is essential that you are both on the same page.

The problem arises because of the popular misconception that one person teaches another.

This is completely wrong. No one ever taught anyone anything that they did not WANT to learn.

Good teachers are really facilitators, and I’m not just playing with words here, I really mean it.

Your job as a homeschooling parent is to facilitate your child’s learning.

Kids are born with curiosity as big as the sky, and all you need to do is to encourage this. If they have been at a school for a while, you will find that their natural curiosity has been squashed, at least a bit.

Give them time and show them that you trust them to grow and learn because that is precisely what they will do.

Schools are the way they are because they need to control the large groups of children crammed into each classroom. So it is necessary to have specific rules in place just so that the poor old teacher won’t go insane!

You don’t need any of that regimentation; it just isn’t necessary.

As hard as it may seem, you merely need to let them get on with it.

One of the few rules that we had was a common sense one, the boys were not to leave the property without one of their parents being with them, and even this rule was not as necessary as they got well into their teenage years.

Schools are obsessed with the idea of keeping the children busy and seeing that something is always ‘seen’ to be happening. You don’t need to fall into this public relations thinking; you don't have anyone to impress.

With homeschooling, every day is not a wow day. As with the rest of life, most days happen with some stuff getting done and some stuff not getting done.

Relax and trust your child’s instinct for learning.

Give Your Home School A Name.

Not only is this a fun idea, but it also has a practical application as well.

Everyone is impressed by a title.

Business owners have known for a long time that you can increase a person’s workload by merely giving them a grander sounding title.

No extra money, just a better title!

You can use this thinking to your advantage.

It will get certain people off your back.

For example, your children will often be asked, Where do you go to school?

Our answer was Waletta College.

Our house was built in the twenties in an area where people often gave the house a name. Our house is called ‘Waletta Cottage’, so ‘Waletta College’ wasn’t a big stretch!

When your children write to companies for information, you will receive prompt responses, as people are impressed by correspondence from private schools.

Your children will have a lot of fun designing the school logo, choosing the font and the colours etc. You could even write your school song if you are so inclined.

If you have taken your children out of a mainstream school, this is a good activity for them during the ‘school de-programing’ period (1), as it will give them an instant sense of identity.

Get some tee shirts and windcheaters made up with your home-school logo on them. This will give you excellent ‘cover’ when you are out and about.

Everyone loves a uniform, in some strange way it gives us a sense of belonging. Most of us are desperate to belong. We put up with all sorts of things just so that we can feel that we belong.

I think that there is something slightly disturbing about all this, but I acknowledge that it is a fact.

On a more positive note; the process of naming you home-school and designing a logo with open up many opportunities to discuss, with your children, our human need to belong. You could go into the positive aspects, safety in numbers, a sense of community, two heads are better than one, etc.

Even more importantly, especially for teenagers, the sometimes negative power of peer pressure which stems directly from our need to belong.

These discussions can lead to some exciting places. Uniforms, for example, are shorthand for our position in society. The police and the army wear uniforms so that they can quickly identify each other and so that we can quickly identify them as people in authority.

The business suit says, I am an important person with a responsible job. A party dress says that we are out to have fun, a Hawaiian shirt says that we to install mirrors in our house. If we see a person in old dirty clothes, we assume that that person is a struggling member of our society, or maybe we see them as not belonging to our society at all, depending on how we think.

An interesting exercise is to get your children to take a few photos in different but busy locations.

Print out these photos and ask your children to guess what each person in the picture does just by what they are wearing. You might find that you get some interesting answers. (2)

1. See chapter on ‘Getting the taste of school out of your mouth’.

2. See the chapter on literacy through media.

Washing the Taste of School Out of your Mouth

If your children have been at school for a couple of years, as ours had, you will probably have ‘experienced’ the modern school environment, and you might be tempted to replicate this environment at home with your children.

Don’t!

You probably won’t know how to start your homeschool, so you go for the desk/programmed lessons/ scheduled routine, because you don’t know where else to go.

I can understand this, but I am strongly suggesting that your job is to allow your children to de-program themselves, and this may take several weeks.

Nothing else matters at this point. Encourage your children to follow their interests during the so-called ‘school hours’.

Eventually, this won’t be necessary, as your children will revert to that natural, instinctive ‘learning behaviour’ that they were born with.

All children are curious about the world, and your job is to facilitate their learning by taking trips to exciting places, getting the best out of the internet (1), involving your children in sporting teams and by supplying paper, pencils, cameras etc.

It’s your job to answer questions (2) and to encourage debate.

If they want to talk, drop what you are doing and go with the flow until they feel the need to move on to the next adventure.

Resist the urge to create a ‘school at home’, because it just won’t work.

If you push the idea of a ‘school at home’ you will find that your children will tell you that they prefer being at school because at least there they can occasionally ‘hide in the crowd’, and get some peace. Most children don’t like being in the limelight all the time.

There are going to be times when you feel that nothing much is happening.

Learning is a quiet, subtle process, sit back and let it happen. You don’t have to be a, but you do have to lead. Your leadership will come in the form of a calm, protective presence. You will be the person that all children need, the calm facilitator who has the wisdom to know when to step in and when to give your children the space they need to become