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Our family follows an
autonomous style of home education. Out of interest I checked
'autonomous' in a dictionary and it defines it as 'having self-government'
and 'functioning independently'. When I apply this to education
it means for me that any material covered (or not covered) and
any methods used are chosen by the child rather than imposed by
someone else. It often seems to be assumed that structured
education is the opposite of autonomous education but it doesn't
appear so to me. Learning that is directed and controlled
by another person (parent, teacher, employer etc.) is the opposite
of autonomous, self directed education.
It seems entirely possible, and
quite likely to me, that an autonomously educated child will,
at some point in their lives, choose to follow a structured course
in some subject or other. Maybe they will ask their parent
to help them learn to read using a reading scheme, or work through
a maths text book themselves, or maybe it will be when they are
decide to take GCSE's and possibly follow a correspondence course
or textbook that they follow a more structured approach.
However, if they have freely chosen to follow the course or textbook
-if they have used 'self-government' in their choice and are 'functioning
independently' - it is still autonomous education. The main
point is that they are free to choose their method of education
and free to change or abandon it at any point.
Within our family we have one child who has resisted any kind of formal instruction so far. However, another child has asked that we teach them to read and also chooses to work through a maths workbook periodically. Having said that, even this child has learnt most through casual conversation and normal day to day learning. Our general approach has been to have a wide range of material available and to go out and about to places of interest such as castles, Sea Life Centres, beaches, mountains, rivers, swimming etc. Most learning happens through conversation and observation.
The hardest thing we have found with this approach is trusting that our children will learn all they need, particularly in the areas of literacy and numeracy. We are currently 'encouraging' one of our children to read one book each night. They have said that they would like to be able to read but would like it to be instant! Many nights they happily read the book, other nights they read after a little persuasion and on other nights they cannot be persuaded and give it a miss. When asked at other times they say that they do want to read a book each night but sometimes change their mind in the evening. It is difficult in this situation to resist applying pressure - there' s a fine line between persuasion and pressure and I'm sure we get it wrong sometimes.
Another thing I find difficult
sometimes is reading about other peoples experiences of home education
and how well their children are doing! They always seem to be
doing more than we are and I start to feel inadequate. However,
my children soon let me know if they are bored and I believe that
as long as they have access to varied resources, are offered a
wide variety of experiences and as much free time as they wish
they will learn all they need to learn at their own pace at the
right time for them.
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