Home Education rates increase as parents find benefits to home schooling
Home schooling in Victoria has grown by 20% since previous years a trend which was already growing but received a massive boost since lock down. A large portion of campaigns to end lock downs have been surrounded by the use of children which I find to be a poor form of debate.
I've long since thought that my children's development received a massive boost once I started home schooling. I wasn't in the home school category but fell into it like most parents due to lock down. It has been hard and it involves being creative. Like my daughters art class under my work station while I was in a meeting. Argh, you learn to better cope with things once you get into the jist of things.
A surprising statistic that has arisen is with many parents of older children choosing to remain home schooling once schools reopened, I noticed a big change with my daughter when catching up with other parents that also struggled with work and home schooling. I felt that Lil Miss was learning more and faster but I put it down to bias as she is my daughter.
What's been identified in this
Article is that children have been excelling learning from home. Not suffering from the typical distractions and some even enjoying the learning process. A reduction in bullying and other social issues which present in a traditional institution appear to be massive barriers to children's learning development and switching to home schooling has seen school kids who weren't achieving now excelling.
Some parents are putting aside school fees to be used on private tutors or social programs as the lack of a school yard does present some barriers in regards to children social networks and circles.
This was something I did identify but was easily able to overcome this barrier with local community sports programs as I enrolled lil miss into soccer as it was a sport she wanted to play and she had made friends which she looks forward to playing with each week.
Lil Miss is such a social butterfly as many have said to me, she loves to talk, she loves to play and she loves to make new friends so social barriers weren't a major issue for her. Given that she has now spent almost two years of her 4 years on this rock in isolation social abilities seem to come easy for her to pick up and run with and she hasn't been impacted.
Lil bloke has also been quick on the buzzer to follow his big sister learning at a faster rate than she did at his age. I do put it down to first child and not knowing what to do. I was so scared of doing the wrong thing and hurting Lil miss that I may have impacted her development at times. When I watch these two play and fight. Yes they already fight, he is just over 1 year old and he throws punches at her and they roll around wrestling.
I think the future of home schooling will continue to increase with many parents finding out that through the pandemic home schooling isn't that hard. With increased learning capabilities and children's education outcomes alot better it's a no brainer on the benefits.
I'm actually amazed at the results as I was also concerned about what the outcome would be of homeschooling, clearly it is beneficial.
But of course the debate has now changed to be that home schooling impacts women more by making them have to quit work and home school children.
Interesting and I'm keen to see what more information and statistics come out in the near future.
Schools tried remote learning. But, it hasn’t worked well in Texas. I think it is partly that everything teachers have learned about teaching was useless for remote learning. They had to figure it out on the fly. And, they couldn’t turn education into home schooling as it would demonstrate how useless schools could be.
I think also a big part would be prior to COVID the tech supports weren't there where with COVID people have been forced to change.
I like her choice of colours in that artwork. 😁
I often wonder if it's down to how they approach homeschooling as to whether they see it as hard or not. When you're trying to make your kids do work the school provides and they aren't interested, you're going to have a fight on your hands. They'll do it at school, because the teacher isn't family and they're afraid of punishment from them if they don't get it done. However, if you've got the freedom to be able to change the approach to a way your child will enjoy it, then it gets more fun.
Remote learning is an interesting one as well. While schools seem to have struggled with it to a degree, it's certainly not alien to this country. After all, those in remote Australia had School of the Air for years. My youngest is doing her SACE through Open Access College, so when lockdown happened we carried on without a hitch, but I heard that it wasn't a simple transition for most schools and some still seem not to have it right. Could also be down to the child, no one method will work for everyone, after all.
Wow, nearly half her life in lockdowns! It's wonderful to know it doesn't seem to have stunted her social side. Extra curricular activities are great for homeschoolers. Often it can be a better environment than school anyway, because it's an activity they're all choosing to do, for the most part. Sometimes it's forced by parents, though.
Victoria used to be one of the easiest states to get permission for homeschooling. I'm seem to recall they've added in a few more checks now, though, so perhaps more in line with SA.
I think you need to teach the curriculum that the department of Ed recommends and it must be still OK as 20% is a decent spike of people choosing to continue home schooling.
Yeah I know half her life, she's been brining it up alot lately. It's been years since XYZ her holiday to QLD over 2 years ago was her favourite. She was only really a baby but it must have left an impression on her and she wants to go back.
We did alot together I believe my partner was just Newly pregnant with my son and it took alot out of her so lil miss and I would often run down stairs to grab a coffee and strawberries that you dipped in chocolate. Good times.
Don't know about over there but over here you don't need to teach to the curriculum as long as you're mostly covering it. I have been covering it in a very asynchronous manner which I think the moderator finds simultaneously frustrating and enjoyably challenging 😅
Homeschooling has been on the up and up for a while, hopefully it will end up at the level of my head universe sooner than it did in my head universe 😆
!ENGAGE 15
In SA we cover the 8 curriculum areas for homeschooling and someone comes out each year to assess how you're going. As long as they are covered, it doesn't really matter how you approach it and some areas, like language, only need to be briefly touched on. Having said that, when they were still in school and struggling on certain work I would find other ways to explain it to them at home that were a little more enjoyable. Once they understand it, it becomes less daunting. Although there were still those teachers who insisted on things being done in a way that made the process tedious, no matter how well they understood the subject.
I feel that even when you don't go out of your way to cover the curriculum areas, you generally do anyway, because they are the basis of our everyday lives. Reading, writing, sums, measurements, history, culture, fitness, health, cooking, identifying things, appreciation of arts, technology... English, Maths, Science, Art, Language, Social Studies, Health and PE, Information Technology.
I didn't know any of that and I'm not too sure. However, I will find out soon enough. Next year is prep and I've already had a call from education department to find out what I'm doing as all the primary schools in my area are at capacity.
Oh, wow! Is that due to having to limit numbers for distancing or population overload? What age does official schooling start for Victoria? I think it's 6 here.
Certainly homeschooling implies a commitment on the part of the parents and whether it is difficult or not sometimes has a lot to do with the way in which the parents assume that commitment, I have read in many articles that with the pandemic in countries where homeschooling was not well seen have transformed their way of thinking to see the large number of people who have committed to the training of their children, Many friends have told me that they had no idea how their child learned his lessons or how he was able to do all the homework he was sent to school without the right help, One of my friends told me that he felt very sorry for his little daughter because when she was in school he punished her and scolded her a lot because she did not learn the lessons easily without paying attention to why or looking for the problem with home schooling he discovered something that not even the teacher had told him his daughter is dyslexic and that prevents her from reading or learning with the ease and speed that another child of her age can do and he could discover that because once the pandemic started he was the one who took on the role of being her teacher. That is why today there are many parents who are truly convinced that homeschooling is the best thing that this pandemic has left them.
Yes, this precisely. It's not for everyone and there should be no judgement the on those who don't take to it, because we're all different. I admire those who really find it hard, but still try their best in these lockdowns, while eagerly waiting for the schools to start back. 😆
So good that your friend discovered his daughter's dyslexia. I can imagine it's something easily overlooked in the big classrooms the teachers work in. He must have done quite a bit of research in order to be able to help her advance.
!ENGAGE 15
Dear friend very well written, nowadays people are won over to the idea of homeschooling because they have seen the benefits of personalized attention in children, of doing new activities and creating learning paths that go beyond just learning the lesson. I think that certainly more and more people are embracing homeschooling. By the way I really liked your daughter's painting I love the colors on the walls ha ha ha, I was much more creative as a child I think my mom once told me to paint even the dog.
Hahaaha my wife goes absolutely crazy over it and yes my cat has been painted a number of times.
Lil Miss says to her mum "you can't tell me off that's dad's table and he said I could" lol
!ENGAGE 15
Hello friend very interesting article that points out that children are learning much more with home education and is something that is attributed to the personalized attention in addition to the use of different strategies to get our children to learn something that sometimes in schools is neglected by the large number of students that corresponds to attend to a single teacher per classroom. Today I believe that home schooling, in countries where it was not a custom and that with the pandemic have seen the need to implement it, have discovered its benefits and that makes many more parents today are betting on this educational model. Thank you for this reflection.
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