The heart of home schooling !

Anna and I had a pleasant surprise of a friend whom we knew during our time at the Christian Medical College, Vellore, who is a Paediatrician trained in the UK and holding a doctorate in Bio-medical engineering, visiting us a few weeks ago. Most of our conversation was on home schooling that she offers to her children. This meant that she stepped back from active clinical work and yet well involved in supporting organisations overseas involved in the home based care of children with neurodevelopmental needs.

I am gathering information about fathers or Mothers who offer home schooling to their children because of their desire to create a better all rounded formation of children in the early years of formal education. There are situations where parents have no option but to opt for home schooling as the local schools do not suit the children well. There are other parents who offer home schooling to give experiences to children well beyond the text booked learning confining themselves to the essentials, which is the pattern in many schools. 

What fascinated us from the visit of this friend was her joyful recollection of how it was a learning for herself. She even talked about knowing the geographies of some countries about which she had only limited information. She referred to this an an enlarging experience. 

It sets me thinking. We send  our children to school and leave the academic formation of our children to teachers. Most parents help with  the homework of children, which they might have to do each day. The subject wise interaction between parents and children is minimum. When we saw the photos of this family visiting toy and book libraries we realised that the mother and children were co-learners, with all of them sitting together and sharing information with each other from the book they read. 

That gave me some clarity on the essential part of co-learning ! When parents are keenly involved in the information package children are required to know and an interactive environment is created, the learning becomes joint learning!

The children learn what parents themselves seek to know! Helping children to learn can be condescending to 'teach' or giving an ambience of  'learning together' !

That creates the heart of home schooling- co-learning ! What a wonderful experience it is that children and parents can learn together! That gives home schooling more legitimacy !

M.C.Mathew(text and photo