Comments on: Some blether about how we home-educate

By: trogette

trogette — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 19:23:53 +0000

I think there’s nothing *wrong* with not being autonomous, but I think it’s important to recognise what is and isn’t autonomous education. Planning what someone else will study means that they are not autonomous.

By: Ruth

Ruth — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 17:35:36 +0000

I think it is autonomous cos you are doing it how it works best for your children. It doesn’t sound schooly either.

By: playingitbyear

playingitbyear — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 11:01:54 +0000

Agree with you Trogette, re. structure. Absolute autonomy would mean chaos as it’s unlikely everyone’s wishes will fit everyone else’s – although I’m reluctant to get totally involved in TCS, the ideals of common preferences seem to be the best option. Ie. I need a bit of structure, Flopsy would rather we had none at all (being a 3yr old!), so she watches tv. while I do what I have to get done in order to cope, then we move onto doing what we fancy – unless we have a planned activity, which I never force her to do, but then the occassion where I might feel the need to force her doesn’t arise really. We just muddle along, playing it by ear as much as possible (hence my blog name !). And I totally relate to the bedtimes thing – if I don’t coerce Mopsy into having a lunchtime nap, we’re up until after midnight with her some nights So that’s the only kind of enforced routine we have.

By: trogette

trogette — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 10:00:25 +0000

My thoughts on it are that you can have structure in your day without structuring their education (ie broadly planning what they study) And that would be autonomous education bu not so much autonomous living, unless the child automatically develops structure, which some do but not all, and when you have more than 2 the self-developed structures might not gel…

I’m kinda desperate to develop more structure to our day but I won’t be doing any specific planning of education beyond organising attendance of activities. The structure is more about me having a plan of what I’m doing each day and getting up at regular-enough times for k to not be up ’til ridiculous o’clock…

By: Deb

Deb — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 09:47:58 +0000

I’m working on getting a-round-tuit

By: Deb

Deb — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 09:43:16 +0000

Oh, should also say I don’t think our way is very schooly – bits of it are (planning etc), but I think it sounds far more schooly than it actually is.

By: trogette

trogette — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 09:22:11 +0000

I’d call it ‘eclectic’ rather than autonomous… whereas I’d call mine round-tuit-ic…

Get that draft (draught?!) sorted Missus!!

By: Playing It By Ear » Do workbooks & structure ever count as autonomous learning?

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 07:34:01 +0000

[...] I think so, yes. Deb, of NotSheep, has posted about how they do things within their large family. She reckon’s it’s not autonmous, despite agreeing with the principles of autonomous learning, but I disagree. This is part of the comment I left on her blog: [...]

By: Deb

Deb — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 07:29:55 +0000

Re SWCNBN – yes, it was your post that brought it to my attention.

Re a child wanting to go to school – that’s an iffy one here right now, because the local authorities are being funny (and illegal imo) about dereg. So there’d be a lot of talk and consideration before it happened. But I don’t think autonomous education can include school though – I know what you’re saying, but I think going to school is a choice to hand over the decisions to somone else, a choice to give up autonomy.

But yes, absolutely, if things weren’t working, we’d change them – in fact we have, because we found that lack of structure wasn’t working for us. Hm, might have to blog a bit more about that now, because I just remembered something from the other day.

By: playingitbyear

playingitbyear — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 07:08:49 +0000

Did you see my post on ‘the woman who cannot be named’ yet, Deb?

Re your HE post: I’ve often wondered how you do things in your family, and I think it’s really interesting that you put at the end that you think you’re life is very ’schooley’. I think it sounds very autonomous to me – if one of your boys said they wanted to go to school, and you let them, they’d still be allowed to learn autonomously as what they have autonomously chosen is to learn via teachers in classrooms. If what you are doing is working for all of you, and it sounds like it is, then surely that counts as autonomous. From what I know of you (and I’ve known you cyber-wise nearly since R was born now, I think, from various email lists etc.!), I don’t think you’d continue this way if one of the boys indicated that your family’s way of learning wasn’t working for him, you’d soon change things so that it was…? Autonomous education (in my opinion) doesn’t mean intentionally refusing to do workbooks or ‘normals’, but following your children’s lead (which is what you’re doing) and if workbooks and ‘normals’ are what works for them, then what’s not autonomous about it? Might have to write a post about this on my blog now…