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Why home educate?
The reasons for educating your children at home are as varied as the families doing it.
There is an impressive, and growing, catalogue of research showing above-average outcome for home educated children in both academic and social realms, the details of which can be found on the Joyous Learning website and forums. However, for the purposes of the article, I would like to focus on the way that home education can simplify and revolutionise daily family life.
Home education is the ultimate in individualised education, where children can learn what interests them, at a pace which meets their learning needs. The flexibility of home education means that the needs of the whole family can be more readily met without needing to fit into external time frames. Home education can be facilitated by all kinds of families – single parents, partnered parents, working parents, stay at home parents, country and city families, big and small families.
A recent discussion on Joyous Learning explored some of the benefits to home education, for the whole family. Some of the fantastic benefits of not attending school include:
- Eating freshly prepared food when you’re hungry! No more soggy sandwiches in the lunchbox
- Starting the day in a leisurely fashion without the rush to get to school on time
- A more relaxed pace on Sunday evenings without having to ensure that homework is done and uniforms are laundered for the coming week
- Spending more time outside and away from fluorescent lighting
- Choosing your own clothes every day – no uniforms! No arbitrary rules about haircuts and jewelry
- A calmer home life without schedules and deadlines
- More time to do things that are of real interest
- Moving with your own rhythms – self regulating rather than being dictated to by external framework
- Having responsibility and ownership of the process
- Avoiding busy school drop offs and pick ups
- Children not being judged by teachers and instead learning to evaluate their own work without criticism
- Being able to go on holidays at any time rather than during school breaks when prices are inflated
- Going to zoos and museums on the quiet weekdays when the other kids are at school
- Avoiding situations where bullying and sexual harassment can occur
- No reports - kids aren't judged by people who actually don't know them well at all
- Social lives extend beyond recess and lunch
- Intrinsic learning – kids learning because they are interested and not because they are being bribed into learning with external rewards such as star charts or punishments such as detention
- No dietary restrictions - many schools have nut free and other dietary policies
- No need for labels such as delayed or gifted - just letting kids be who they are and get there in her own time
Home education means freedom for you and your family to be yourselves and learn together. If you are interested in home education for your family please visit us at www.joyouslearning.info
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