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A Learning Naturally Curriculum for my Adolescent Son
by Beverley Paine
A few years ago I brainstormed a list of objectives I'd like my son, Roger, to achieve in his early adolescence. As time went by I realised these reflected a longer growth and development time frame, and added some more objectives as the need arose. It forms a pretty basic curriculum, covering many life skills. To this we added interest generated activities, some that he came up with and ones we developed as a family. These included solar technology, computer upgrade and repairs, modelling using LEGO, medieval weapons, astronomy, circus skills, South Australian historyand many others. A highschool equivalent curriculum for home education doesn't have to follow what schools do very closely. Covering the basics is essential and can be worked out using common sense. I did use the National Curriculum Guidelines in places to help me develop this, and to ensure that I was covering similar material and skills over time.
Basic First Aid, including CPR
Nutrition
• What is good diet for me?
• Why do I eat the food I do?
• How healthy is "healthy" food?
• Where does my food come from?
• Additives to foods - how are foods processed?
• What's my opinion on genetic engineering and food?
Getting Involved in Community Organisations
• Trees For Life
• Landcare
• Local Exchange Trading System
• Meals on Wheels (and other Senior Citizens Organisations)
• Sport and Recreation
• Wildlife/Conservation
• Overseas Aid/ Human Rights
• Health Promotion
• Youth Issues
• Arts
Visit Local Council, Parliament
• Understand meeting formats and processes, decision making, planning and development locally
• How and why rules are made, and do they work
• How does this all affect me?
• Do kids have any power, rights, how do they assert them if they do?
Understanding of different cultural practices in Australia
• Especially related to current affairs, eg visit by Delai Lama
• Ways in which different Australians practice and celebrate cultural heritage, eg visit exhibitions, celebrations, places of religious worship (with respect)
• Look into historical causes of wars, etc, around the world - changing borders, politics, greed, religious, resource hoarding
• form some opinions based on fact about Australia 's multicultural identity, population control, immigration policies
Positive thinking practice
Personal empowerment/ assertiveness training
Regular exercise program, recreation and sport
Conflict resolution strategies
Recognising and managing own stress levels and understanding causative
factors
Camping and survival skills - bushcraft
Cooking for different occasions, different groups of people
• Balanced, appropriate menus
• Preparation, clearing away
• Budgeting
• Shopping
Maintenance of clothes
• Basic sewing skills
• Laundry
• Shoe care
Telephone skills
• Answering and making (all types of calls)
• Emergency calls
• Information accessing (consumer, information services, businesses, operator)
• using the White and Yellow pages
Staying safe in the community
Peer pressure to conform
Unwanted attention
Invasion of privacy
Safety in the home and environment
Make a useful piece of furniture, a kid's toy - using wood/metal/plastics/fibre
• Safe use of tools
• Care of tools
• Including power tools
Media awareness
• Reading the "bottom line" - how what I am watching, reading, listening too is trying to sell me an idea or message and is it true or true for me or true for all people?
• The techniques used to "sell" ideas , Opinions and products (mass manipulation and control through technology and images, small bytes of information repeated, etc)
• What do I want, what do I need - really?
How has the environment I live in changed - recent past, 50 years, 150 years, 1000 years, 10,000 years, 500 million years?
• What do I think about this?
• How is this environment different from others I know (visit and compare)?
• What is it like in other countries
• How does landscape (and climate) affect how people use the land
• How are "borders" of countries determined
• is colonisation a good/bad thing - is it happening in the world now, where, who were the first colonisers
• What other species of life "colonise" and What effect does this have on the local flora and fauna
Gardening - make a garden
• Use of plants (food, building, fibre, fuel, aesthetics, etc)
• Wild foods, traditional uses across cultures (Aboriginal, herbal remedies)
• Use of plants and indigenous plants in the area
• Become involved in a conservation effort (why, how, where, effectiveness, responsibility)
• Grow own food, including harvest, care, composting, chemicals, treatment (storage, preservation)
• Become a Trees For Life grower
Start recycling and reduce consumption.
Do some simple science experiments in biology, physics, chemistry
• Visit Investigator Science Centre, Museum, Natural History Centre
• Start a natural history collection - identify and label, sort and classify (shells, fossils, bones, rocks, pressed plants)
Experiment with clay - raku firing (figures, sculpture, wind chimes, wall plaques, plates, pots, tiles)
Make something or things to sell at a LETS market stall
• Organise your own stall at a local market
• Organise a joint stall at another LETS region market
Become involved in writing for local publications - newspapers, local newsletters, magazines, youth publications
• Letters to the editor
• Responses to articles
• What is good and bad in the area, how things could be better for kids
• Creative writing - own poems, short stories, illustrations, puzzles, cartoons, etc
Begin car maintenance
• Wheel changing
• Oil and water
• Basic repairs
• Trouble shooting
• Pull bits of engine, car to pieces and rebuild
• Use of tools, including power tools
• Visit a mechanics shop
• Use of petrol/gas bowser
• Car cleaning and care
Open a bank account
Organise home weekly budget for family or yearly one for self
Write personal an business letters
Filling our all sorts of forms
Personal journal on a regular basis
Dream journal writing
Keep own calendar
Demonstrate (and practice) proficiency in basic maths functions (plus, minus, divide, multiply) to four digits, including decimals
• Times table, fractions and decimals
• Using calculator
• Be able to estimate with reasonable accuracy
• practice in real life mental calculations (shopping, cooking, making things)
• Accurate conversion in measurements (weight, capacity, length - eg. metres to kilometres)
• Use spacial terms (geometric) to describe things (spherical, angle, parallel, etc)
• Be able to draw to scale
• read charts, graphs (weather, statistics, in media)
• Read and interpret timetables
• Read maps, flow charts
Devise ways to manage own time - stay on task, finish things, avoid distractions, making and meeting contracts and agreements to do things in a time frame - finding out what it is I really want to do
Understand what is happening to the adolescent body
• How it affects moods and therefore relationships
• How can we understand the hormonal effect to maintain harmonious relations (diet, activity, meditation, relaxation, understanding body rhythms and cycles, need for solitude and privacy)
• What do I need to feel good and comfortable about physical changes?
Health and Safety around drugs, alcohol, tobacco, chemicals, food addictions - why? (disease and hazards)
Be able to use computers and technology in the local and other libraries to access information and resources
Use dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedias, atlases (and other maps)
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Since 1989 Beverley Paine has
steadfastly promoted and supported
home education as an educational
choice for Australia families.
Her books and websites aim to
demystify education, gently deschooling families so that they may meet their children's individual and unique
educational and developmental needs.
Her honesty, insights and wealth of experience continues to bring hope, reassurance and confidence to families. Beverley publishes her recent articles,
tips and links to resources in
her quarterly magazine, Homeschool~Unschool~Australia!
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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.