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Do homeschooled kids end up homeschooling their kids?by Beverley Paine I responded by saying that, while I would love my children to home educate their children, it's something they will work out for themselves. In our situation the partners have not been home educated, so home education is new to them. Their lives will follow paths determined by their needs, not what has happened in the past. "If they could have their way" assumes that there is a chance they can't - which I don't believe will happen. Home education tends to develop individuals who have considerable self-understanding and awareness, people who know can identify what they need and how to meet those needs, and have a good idea about what they want and how realistic and achievable that is. They use whatever resources are at hand and think laterally about possible resources and tend to actively problem solve - all this helps them achieve what they need and want. They create pathways to "have their way" so to speak. Secondly I don't think my children's experiences of home education was either 'good' or 'bad' - it was simply an experience that they benefited from in many ways. The educational side of their childhood - how we home educated, what we did, etc - is nowhere near as important to determining the type of adults they have become as their genetic inheritance (personality traits, inherited medical conditions, etc) and the quality of their parenting experiences. Offering them an education free of the confines and restrictions of school simply allowed my children to grow up to the be the people they are, not who someone else (including me) wants them to be or thinks they should be. As parents and home educators we responded to our children's needs as they arose. I think most of us eventually end up doing that because it makes sense and it works and it is what makes home education more responsive with better results than school based education. How we measure those results is an individual thing: my perception of success and benefit will be different from my child's perception, both during childhood and then looking back on it as an adult. For many years people would ask my youngest if he thought home education was better than school and he could only honestly reply that he didn't know: he had not experienced school and was not prepared to make a judgment about it. He was happy learning at home in the way he was - that's all he could say. Would he home educate his children? He says, 'that depends' - he is aware that there will be many factors to take into account when the time comes around to make that decision and that his personal experiences as a home educator are important but only one of those factors. As a movement home education is are seeing second generation home educated children but it is also seeing home education children becoming school teachers and many children of home educated children going to school too. I don't see this as saying anything about the effectiveness or benefit of home education, simply that people are people and have access to a wide selection of choices to suit their needs. At the end of home education most of us define success and benefit differently than how we did at the beginning: we're grateful for the friendships we've created with our children, we're grateful they know their own minds and can problem solve their way through life, that they are autonomous and responsible, we're happy that our choices helped them get there, but we're also aware that what we did is what we did and that they need to carve their own paths through life. And isn't this the whole point of parenting and educating our kids, to get them to this point? I love that my children make their own choices and don't feel the need to emulate my example. I think it would be helpful to gather all kinds of statistics on home education, how it happens and its outcomes, but mainly so that we can provide appropriately targeted support and build home education community more effectively. As a general tool to assist planning or evaluate past happenings statistics are useful but I am cautious and tend to be skeptical of them.
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education in Australia. State and Territory governments are responsible for regulating home education and have different requirements, however home educating families are able to develop curriculum and learning programs to suit the individual needs of their children.
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Pioneering members of the home education movement in Australia, Beverley and Robin Paine are passionate advocates of true educational choice for families. They began homeschooling their children in 1986 and three years later started the South Australian Home Based Learners network.
Beverley wrote Getting Started with Homeschooling in 1995-97 and since then continues to write books and booklets on home education. She balances spending time helping home educators with working in her garden and renovating her home, as well as continuing to build her collection of writing on a variety of homeschooling subjects. Beverley maintains an extensive collection of websites as well as several Yahoo groups supporting families teaching their children at home.
In 2007 Beverley joined the HEA and was a committee member for three years during which time she edited and produced the HEA Newsletter, Stepping Stones for Home Educators magazine, annual Resource Directory and other HEA publications.
If you'd like to keep in touch with what Beverley is up to her in her life, sign up for the Homeschool Australia Newsletter or visit her Homeschool Australia Facebook page.nor do they endorse or recommend products (other than their own) listed in contributed articles, pages, or advertisements.