The Home Educator Series (part 2)

... the one where you really just want to know how to start

First things first, I can tell you all the things in the world about how to start home educating your child(ren), I can give you a plan, a schedule, ideas, pointers… but they will all be for naught if you don’t do one thing first:

Believe that up until this point you have competently and accurately parented your children according to their needs. Educating them is nothing more than having the confidence that you can (and have) done it up to this point, and you can continue to do it.

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Don’t quite believe me…? Well, look, you will have your reasons as to why you don’t want to opt-in to the school system. Those reasons are powerful enough to get you to this point. So why is there now a barrier in your mind, making you think you don’t know what to do next?

Most often, it’s because we believe that the only way to educate is doing it the same way as the very system that we are rejecting.

I am not anti-school. I am not anti-teacher. But if your barrier to educating your children at home is that you believe you cannot do it, it’s because you believe, somewhere in your brain, that the alternative (school) is the only way to do it. That a school based education is the only way to receive an education.

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Some people call this process “deschooling”, that parent and child alike need a period of time to think differently about what learning looks like, and ultimately what makes a good education. I don’t like to use labels, nor do I believe it’s accurate to say there is a set period of time you need to allow for this “deschooling” to happen and then it’s done.

What I do believe, is that throughout your home education experience, you should continually challenge what you believe education to be, rethinking and reframing would be, in my opinion, a good way to expect your home education journey to go. When I started, I believed that the way I was doing it was the best and only one to home educate. Until one day it wasn’t. Because I changed, my children changed, my views on what education and learning were, changed.

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So, how does this help you…? Well, basically, you will never really be in the “right” place to start home education, because there isn’t one. You can’t possibly know what it’s going to look like for you until you’ve done a day, a week, a month, year(s). And even then, it won’t stay still. You just can’t keep a good education down. You’ve got to move with it and see where it takes you. You just have to start, take the mental leap and start.