What are we? Freelearners!

There's a very - very - wide spectrum of home education in this country because we have so much freedom here. Because our children are entitled to a full-time education that suits their age, ability and aptitude, as home educators we can tailor this precisely to our own individual children. I have only two, so I can meet their needs and interests very specifically, which of course in a classroom with 25+ children would be impossible.

The picture many people have of home education is homeschooling: a school-at-home approach. And indeed there are some people who do that. You can use a full, prescribed curriculum, buy all the books and follow a prescribed timetable - there's even foreign curricula available (many people use American ones because homeschooling is very prevalent there, so lots of choices)... but, that's not us. This prescriptive approach is in fact one of the things I'm consciously avoiding: the idea of drilling information into kids whether or not they're interested in it right then! This type of approach isn't the only reason I don't send my kids to school, but it's definitely one of them; and we can do better than that.

Listening to a live lecture on Stephen Hawking / black holes
because they are interested, not because curriculum prescribes it

Space art (a black hole) following the lecture

In N's world, of course, there are people in space. She's all about people.

What else is there? Many people use parts of curricula, or set resources for particular subjects, like maths. I haven't done much of that up to now because they were little (still are!) and they organically pick up everything they're interested in, but we've started doing ten minutes of maths most days now because I noticed that, while they're quite good at everyday numbers, they will really benefit from understanding the systematic nature of numbers.

Measuring the length of the dog vs. their own height - how learning just happens

The opposite end of home education is unschooling. And that's unfortunately a difficult word for many. I would call us that, if properly understood - which is to say, unschooling is simply life without school. It is not un-parenting, not un-learning, not doing nothing... unfortunately the prefix un- is in itself a negative, so while it's clearly saying NOT school, it fails to give any information about what it is. And that's why I prefer the term freelearners.

Freelearning

Freelearning sounds fun, it sounds dynamic and a bit like a sport - and in a way, that's kind of right! It is fun. It is dynamic. It’s a wild ride for everyone, including us parents, to follow the kids' interests and facilitate their learning when they're interested in something, offering ways into interest areas and networking with knowledgeable adults, finding resources... thinking of sports with similar names:

• Freerunning: a sport but also an art, using great skill, running without a track, just jumping over obstacles, this has connotations of joy and freedom.
• Freediving: diving without being tied to equipment, relying on yourself and your own body's capabilities rather than machines

Freelearning is to me a more positive, and clearer term than unschooling. Clearly it's free from school, but both freedom and learning are present and there's that sense of excitement, of freedom, of joy. That's what we aim to achieve!

The world is their classroom... both in England and on our travels

And so we play the long game. I don't have to try to cover numeracy, literacy, science, art, etc separately on a prescribed schedule over the course of a week. Instead, I follow the kids' interests of today (and interest really is the only way they'll retain anything for the long term!) trusting that once those are satisfied, new interests will come along. We achieve a rounded and balanced education over time, not every week. And I don't have to push information on them that they aren't ready for or interested in, which is a surefire way to push them away from those things in the long term!

A good example is reading. N(8) has been writing books for years now, and I don't see that stopping anytime soon; she got into writing way earlier than she got into reading, because she so wants to communciate. Because writing came first, the spelling for a long time was entirely phonetic. It's only now as she begins to discover reading, that her spelling is slowly beginning to adjust. I didn't need to immediately correct her spelling and suck the joy out of making books. It's correcting itself now; and all I did was wait and trust. Always there with an offer to help (and accepting the no thanks! because it's an offer, not an order), my role is to enable and be available.

At a recent photoshoot, N(8) had to pick a prop to represent herself - and 
it's one of the books she wrote and illustrated.

If I was trying to be a teacher to my kids, it would be pushing my knowledge and information on them whether they want it or not. I see myself, instead, very much as a resource to them: available if wanted. They often prefer to figure things out for themselves, and that is as valid a way of learning as any: in fact, I would argue, it's better than being taught/told because there is a path, a journey. And then it stays with them, both the how and the why.

So, freelearners we are.