New Interview of Kat on National Podcast

In 2016, my family was featured in a national UK newspaper about our homeschooling journey (see this link here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/family/hating-the-new-sats-meet-the-mums-who-chose-home-education-over/)

Today, I appear on a national podcast in the US, focusing on the differences and changes when homeschooling in the UK and now US.

Please share the link to it - Vicki Tillman and the gang at 7sistershomeschool.com offer a wonderful support group for homeschoolers at all stages, being veterans with many years of experience under their belts.

You can even subscribe to their podcasts, and their recent series about reading and writing for high schoolers was very interesting.

http://ultimateradioshow.com/hshsp-ep-65-homeschooling-in-uk-and-us/

The Socialization Myth

I'm now a veteran of homeschooling of more than 12 years. I once taught in secondary schools in England, but decided I was in a ludicrous position of being paid to teach other's children, and paying others to teach my own -- so, I decided to cut out the middleman and start to teach my kids.

Equally, I became more and more aware that eight hours of school a day merely results in four hours of homework at night -- at least, it did in the private girls' school where I was a teacher. What an empty life for a child of 11 -- just school, school, and then when they got home, more school.

Again, I saw the value in cutting out the middle bit -- that is, the eight hours at school -- and just doing the homework bit, leaving my children an extra eight hours to bond together, to connect with me, to meet up with friends, and sometimes, to be quite alone and do nothing, if that's what they wanted.

BUT, people new to homeschooling, or thinking about homeschooling, or criticizing homeschooling, always want to bring up the "socialization" card, as though schools are the only place -- or, what's more, the BEST place -- for children to learn to get along with people.

Is this the ideal way to make relationships???

In fact, I would argue that they are actually the WORST places to learn to get along with people. Why?

• For one thing, if you fall out with a friend at school, you can just get another one. Homeschoolers have to cherish their friendships, and work through issues. They may not have hundreds to choose from, but they have a few that they bond with over many years of a quality relationship.
• For another, you are stuck in a room of 25 or 30 or 35 or more kids exactly your own age, give or take a few months. Real life doesn't work like that. My best friends range in age from 30 to 50. My kids' best fiends are several years apart from them in both directions, too. In fact, my gregarious 9-year-old sometimes does the "rounds" with the elderly ladies in our neighbourhood.  Sure, she's after extra cookies or sweets or a chance to pet the dogs, but she is connecting and relating to the elderly ladies at the same time. Just two weeks ago, we were at the Bunyan Museum in Bedford, and she begged me to use her pocket money for buying a souvenir thimble for one of her lady friends, because she has a relationship with that lady and knows she enjoys collecting them.
• A third point, and this is my own observation, is that schools tend to only tear families apart -- younger siblings daren't play with older ones, and everyone has a passel of their own friends who make no room for taggers-along. Siblings rarely have anything in common with each other, and are lucky to come together in a sort of tag-team moment in the kitchen over cookies and milk before running off to this and that and the other activity of an evening. We still have the afternoon activities, but the rest of the day, the kids are learning, playing, and living together, and gathering vital information and putting into practice about how to get along.
• Finally, so much research out there points to how socially adept homeschooled kids are, and these studies cite the fact that they interact so much with adults in their day-to-day life, instead of school-based children who mainly get peer behaviour as their role models.  In the Bible, this would equate to Proverbs 13:20 -- "Walk with the wise, and you will become wise: for a companion of fools suffers harm." I'd rather my kids grew in wisdom, frankly.

Quality over quantity when it comes to homeschooling relationships.

I think most people start with the assumption that school-based relationships are right, and thus, homeschooled ones -- being different -- are wrong. What they need to do is, first, take a look at their own life out in the real world and genuinely assess whether their social life looks anything like the high-pressured, ultra-distracting, regimented, and segregated system that's found in most schools.

Doesn't this picture below represent the way that adults socialize???

Business lunches, book clubs, weekend warriors --
the way adults work and play sure look a lot like a homeschooler's day!

Tapping into the Council

Bikeability Begins

It isn't often that we ask the local council for anything, other than to be left alone a la rights for homeschooling families. This last week, however, we worked with some very nice people at the county who helped us to provide cycling proficiency classes for twelve local homeschoolers.

The Tutor with her Watchful Eye

Since most kids in England are put through cycling proficiency at their schools, it's sometimes hard to pin down the same opportunity for the home-ed community. When my eldest wanted to do it, she had to carpool with a neighbour to Banbury, a town about 16 miles away. This time, we made arrangements for it to happen right on our doorstep.

Raring to go!

Monday was a bleary, dreary morning -- the first day of schools' Easter holiday period, but we were up and out the door for a (generous) 10:30 am start, meeting at the car park to the local Bowls club. Bike checks. Helmet checks.  How's them brakes? A bit of obstacle course, and then over the next few days, the kids were even sent to tackle THE BIG HILL.

Navigating real roads.

By Friday, they were all duly passed for their right turns, their left turns, their stops and signals, their road sense and judgment.  Yes, even Rocky passed on all these skills, and now I have only one more child to make safe on the roads before my job can be considered done.

Happy Trails.

That's not for another few years yet.

Thanks to all the local homeschooling families who took part, and to another home-ed mum who took the lead on the afternoon group of 6. The process was all very painless in the end, and I'm happier to let my kids pop to the shops on their bikes, knowing that they will be visible and communicative to the other vehicles around them.

(Now if we could just get the same support for exam centres and fees for our secondary students, we'd be quids in!)

English Civil War Workshop in Oxford

Traipsing around Oxford in the pouring rain in the wettest
winter on record (almost), we met up with 11 other homeschoolers at the Museum of Oxford for a workshop on the English Civil War.

Flood Times in February

Our hands-on portion was led by Kate of the Education Department, and she had the children try on replica clothes and think about what it would be like if suddenly 6000 extra people were billeted in a city of 10,000.

Kate Dresses a Cavalier

This discussion session usually takes about 45 minutes (so we were told), yet you know what homeschoolers are like:

• What do the beeswax candles smell like?
• How tall were the pikes?
• Did soldiers have to carry their blankets and food with them?
• What would water taste like if you drank it out of a leather flagon?
• Why would you even drink the water, if 6000 extra people were throwing their sewage into the Thames?

Look at all those raised hands!

So the 45-minute session turned in 1 1/2 hours, capped off by the chance to write with quill pens on parchment paper.

Getting the Knack with Quill and Ink

"Dear Mom, I gave my wife the
keys and she won't let me in
the house. Thanks."

The last part of the 2-hour workshop entailed some time in the museum collection, but unlike the previous incarnation of the museum, with lots of bits and bobs from the Civil War era, the current displays have very little to see of any era, and was very disappointing. Judging from the website, this is only temporary as the real galleries are due to open next month after refurbishment.

Killer in a Bowler

To me, the best part of these workshops are meeting other homeschoolers in the area. Today's group seemed especially wonderful, for some reason. Attentive and inquisitive, knowledgeable and keen, the kids seemed to get a lot out of it, and let others get a lot out of it, too (including the four mums and dads who stayed to join in).

A Mum Lurking for Her Turn
with the Quill Pen!

RSC Richard II Homeschooling Viewing

We were so fortunate that the Royal Shakespeare Company allowed us to be a venue for free web-streaming of its latest play, Richard II, starring David Tennant of Dr Who fame.

A scene from the RSC Richard II

Nearly thirty homeschooled students and their parents met at the Charlbury Baptist church on a nippy Friday morning, some coming from as far away as Bristol and northern Wales.

Warm and Cosy while a King is deposed.

It was a great opportunity to see Shakespeare performed like this, and such accomplished actors.  Too bad they changed the script, though, and lost some of the ambiguity surrounding Richard's death and Henry's complicity in it.

We hear they're going to broadcast Henry IV Part 1 next year in the same way, and I'm getting my name on that waiting list to offer the opportunity to local homeschoolers again.

My question makes the board -- I'm famous!

Celebrating Foreign Family Holidays

It's that time of year again -- fourth Thursday in November when all of England carries about its usual weekday business, and we US-born expats try to salvage a bit of home by celebrating Thanksgiving as best we can.

This year, for the first time I think ever, we celebrated what's essentially the US version of Harvest with another American family.

A Feast for a Large Crew

It was such a blessing to bring our family's traditions and recipes together: turkey, ham, sweet potato casserole, broccoli-rice-cheese casserole, cranberry jelly and cranberry relish and cranberry jell-o, stuffing, gravy, rolls, and such an abundance that we didn't even get to the pumpkin or apple pies nor the pumpkin cake.

An amazing feat for my host and hostess considering they only moved into this house on Monday, and had to learn how to cook with an AGA oven, having never used one before.

This could be a Norman Rockwell picture!

Of course, we remember our families back in the States, the football games that are televised hours and hours later, the little things that are missing from the table like green and black olives, queso, my aunt's special fruit salad, and my cousin's wonderful buttermilk pie.

But the joy of sharing with others is that new experiences and traditions can join with the old, and we can appreciate how God has made so much variety in this world, and yet loves each one of us as an individual.

And for that, how can we but give thanks?

A Homeschoolers' Kind of Field Trip

In April (2013), our history co-op arranged a workshop with a local National Trust property called Upton House. The remit was to discuss a number of their medieval paintings, learning to de-code their symbolism, and also appreciate what was medieval about them.

Upton House
A National Trust property near Banbury

Upton House is a great place to do this kind of in-depth study of art because:

• it offers its educational workshops when the house is closed, so we can have the place to ourselves;
• its education department is very good with young people, and handles any behavioural issues like Asperger's very well.
• its works of art are deliberately displayed without glass in their frames, at eye height, and without ropes to prevent getting close, so that people can best appreciate them;
• its art collection is extensive and of high quality, including works by painters like El Greco, Hieronymous Bosch, Tintoretto, and others (later painters include Hogarth, Canaletto, and Gainsborough).

For 1 1/2 hours, the co-op students were face-to-face with some of the works of the greatest painters in the Middle Ages, studying symbolism of flowers, of characterization, of colour, of fable, myth, and legend.

The Co-op examines Hieronymous Bosch (1450-1516),
"Adoration of the Magi"
One of them said, "Oh, how much like Dali it is!"

After the workshop, we adjourned to the lovely gardens on a beautiful spring morning. We had our picnic lunches and let the children play in the woods and by the ponds, on the stairs and amongst the flowers, waiting for the house to open to the public so that we could wander around the house and view some more of its vast art collection.

Picnic in the Park

We also were keen to get back into the house to see what changes had been made since we'd last come here three years previous, when we had visited as part of a study of the 1930s. The excellent Education Department had, at that time, assigned each of the children a role in the household staff and proceeded to explain all their duties during a typical weekend of that era. The Education Officer played the role of Lady Bearsted (of Shell Oil fame), and even my volatile 8-year-old (elevated to the stately role as butler) was the picture of duty, submission, and importance.

Last Time at Upton House
"You just can't get the staff!"

And yet, in true homeschoolers' fashion, we ditched the planned return to the interior of the house and left the children to the roaming, the exploring, the delighting in the senses, soaking up the sun and bathing their feet in the cool water of the "Mirror Lake". One of the few days so far this year with some warmth (we all got sunburned), and we decided to let the children just BE.

Exploring the Gardens

Enjoying the Sun and Friends at Mirror Lake

So, we never did get "back to business", yet it was one of my favourite field trips we've ever taken.

Just Another Homeschooling Field Trip

Our history co-op of 16 children met up at Oxford Castle today, taking a school's tour and having a workshop about castles.

Busy Timmy and his friend
climb the Oxford Castle motte(for the fiftieth time!)

 We have been studying Our Island Story, and most recently, about England just after 1066. England's third Norman king, Stephen, basically stole the throne from his aunt, Matilda, but after fighting a civil war for 14 years, they eventually agreed to let Stephen stay king as long Matilda's son (later Henry II) could become king next. Some of these historical events played out at Oxford Castle, so it was neat to be in the very place where Matilda escaped from the tower on a snowy evening, wearing white bed-sheets so she wouldn't be seen.

The view from the top of the tower

Catapault-building Workshop:
launching marshmallows
at the enemy's castle

True to form, a 2-hour session lasted us all day, since once the tour and workshop were over, we used the rest of the day to explore what we hadn't seen on the tour, re-visit some of the cool parts, climb the motte another hundred or so times, watch the tourist film, dress up as prison officers, body-pump on the old jail treadmill.

It was tempting to leave him here!

On the back to our car, we stopped off at the covered market and ordered some cheese from the cheese man. We finished off with a family pose by Oxford's famous Radcliffe Camera, now part of the university's library system.

Choosing Cheese

The Crew of Four
in front of Radcliffe Camera

Basically, just another "school-plus" trip that we enjoy so often as homeschoolers!

Not enough pictures lately

I just had a glance at my blog and realised that I've hardly been posting photos lately, so the posts look really bland.

Sharing Thanksgiving with our British Friends!
(Gratuitous busy picture to catch your eye)

So, for a visual feast, I'm including some photos from a recent field trip we took with our homeschool history group to St Albans. (Click on the images to make them larger)

St Albans Trip

A little over an hour's drive toward London is the city once called Verulamium by the Romans when they occupied England (roughly 43 AD to 410 AD). Shortly before the Romans left, and during a period of Christian persecution, a local, rich pagan named Alban gave sanctuary to a Christian. While in hiding, the Christian had many conversations with Alban, and eventually, Alban converted to Christianity. One day, Alban swapped clothing with the Christian, who was able to sneak away in disguise, and then, when Alban was captured, he refused to make sacrifices to the pagan gods and was ordered to be executed.

St Albans Cathedral peaking over Autumn Foliage

An abbey was founded on the site of Alban's execution in the late 700s by King Offa, and then under the Normans, the current cathedral was built (c. 1077). During this time, the areas of settlement, which had been on the lower plains across the River Ver, migrated to the environs of the hilltop abbey, and at some point, the name changed to St Albans.

Alban was the first Christian martyr in Britain, and some argue that he should be its patron saint and not Saint George. Some of his actual bones are still kept in the reliquary in the cathedral, having been returned by churches from the continent who, not being subjected to Henry VIII's dissolution, were possessed of them for nearly sixteen-hundred years.

Our Field Trip
This year, we have been studying Our Island Story with a group of six other homeschooling families. St Alban's martyrdom is covered in one of the earlier chapters.

Even though we studied Roman Britain last year (when our topic was Ancient Civilisations), we decided to look at the Roman ruins as well as the cathedral. After all, we'd come this far for the cathedral, why not see the other sites there, too?

So, we had a workshop and tour at the cathedral, and then self-guided tours of the Roman theatre and the Verulamium Museum.  All were within walking distance, and it was arguably the most beautiful day of the autumn.

"Rocky" plays the role of the Roman judge
 in the cathedral workshop:
"Off with his head!"

"Timmy" (L) and "Killer" (R)
Walking through the park from the cathedral
to the theatre ruins

"Phoenix" (middle in teal) with her
friends at the Roman theatre

"Rocky" the Roman

If you want to see my reviews of the cathedral and the museum, see these links at TripAdvisor:

http://tinyurl.com/cr9r7wb

http://tinyurl.com/ced2vd8

I enjoyed them both, and highly recommend them if you can get to the area.

Recent Blog Entry Teases out UK Home-Ed Law and Misunderstandings in the Media

Home Education in England has come under the Government's scrutiny in the last couple of years, mainly because of some high profile cases of child abuse which the media still tries to link to home education.

The facts of this are misremembered, skewed, and often entirely wrong.  Our most notable case was of a child who was withdrawn from school under Home Education laws, but who had been known by the social services and whose siblings were flagged as being malnourished at school, and yet the authorities didn't act in time to save her life.

Home Education was never the culprit, though the newspapers often like to say that it was a contributing factor.

A home-educating dad has taken a stand about this and written a very thorough, reasoned response to an article about this published in the Times Education Supplement last autumn.  Pour yourself a cup of coffee and have a look at it.

http://northshropshe.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/khyra-ishaq-abused-twice/

A Boyschooler's Birthday

Surprised "Killer" this weekend with a "rock school" birthday party, led by his guitar teacher and the teacher's drummer from his band, Million Faces.

Here's the song they composed during that morning's session.  It's called "Chicken Pox", and the singer is doing "pox, pox, pox," sounds along with crowing.



What a hoot!