© Beverley Paine, March 08

"My child is not year a year old and I'm planning on homeschooling her. What do I need to do to educate for myself to prepare for the journey. I've read I can on parenting and homeschooling but am beginning to feel the need for a education degree or diploma to help stave off any doubters who challenged our reasoning."

Naturally my first (not so modest!) suggestion would be to read anything by me. Take a look at my Always Learning Books website - you might want to purchase my FAQ booklet and my Overcoming Objections booklet for starters. The second one is good for tips on what to say to those doubters.

You won't need to consider my getting started book as it's a manual for how to write your own curriculum, but the language series of booklets might be useful and will help you to realise just how easy teaching your children at home is going to be.

Learning in the Absence of Education is one book that doesn't sell well (unfortunate title - my then ten year old son suggested it because he felt it described learning at home!), but the feedback I get is very positive. The essays help to empower people to realise that what they are already doing is generally enough, and that it's okay to not keep up with schools or teach like teachers, etc.

I also suggest that you begin your education in the library. I spent a lot of time in the pyschology section looking up accelerated learning, not because I'm into that, but because it is where you'll find the scientific evidence that backs the concepts of learning styles and how learning actually happens, how people learn, and how best to faciliate that proces. Plus there is usually a lot of information on early child development.

Next, research different educational philosophies: Rudolf Steiner, Charlotte Mason, John Holt, Maria Montessori. All old hat now, but the school system is built on their ideas. It's all good sensible stuff (perverted by schools because schools are not really about education, they are about management of populations).

In the meantime, don't educate your child, PLAY with him, and involve him in your life. OBSERVE him. Learn who he is, what he likes, what he dislikes, what his strengths and limitations are. What turns him on and what turns him off. Really get to know this little person. That's the bulk of your homeschooling preparation education process.

Lastly, begin to hang out with homeschooling parents. If you want you can start a playgroup for families with young children who are either homeschooling already or intend to homeschool. Go to any activities or events planned for homeschoolers in your area. Even if they are planned for older children, you'll find the information you glean from the other parents invaluable in boosting and maintaining your confidence in your educational choice.

© Beverley Paine, http://homeschoolaustralia.com

Yesterday I read part of the Level 1 Victorian Essential Learning Standards, a .pdf document that I had downloaded a couple of years ago. I've always made a point of reading school curricula – it helps to know what schools are thinking about how learning happens. I'm not overly impressed by this document, but I was heartened to see the glossary – always a good idea in any document of
this nature. As a fun exercise I went through the glossary and translated the jargon.

Jargon is all around us. The jargon we are most exposed to and probably notice the least is the jargon of advertising. It is always a interesting and
awareness-raising exercise to identify and translate advertising jargon with children, especially during the ad breaks while watching television. Analysing the words used in magazine or newspaper advertising, and then looking for these in the news items, is another way to see how our thoughts, actions and beliefs are cleverly manipulated by the media.

• product: output of human activity in form of an artefact
• technological product: artefact created to meet an identified need or want
• sensory perception: seeing, hearing, feeling, touching, smelling...
  that is, experiencing life via the senses
• technological process/technique: human activity (eg cutting, digging, shaping, usually carried out using tools)
• skills, techniques and processes: ways and methods of using and
  handling just about anything
• manipulate: handle
• realise ideas/goals/effects/outcomes: achieve
• outcome: result, usually expressed as a desired result (goal)
• objective: what we hope to achieve
• range of processes: use various methods
• document: write, tape, film, take photos, etc what happened
• multimedia resources: anything that includes words, images and sound; eg DVDs, internet, computer programs
• media: can be anything one uses to create something as well as the way information is conveyed to others. Arts media - paper, canvas, paints, body (eg dance), clay, etc. Information media - books, television, internet, newspapers, etc.
• investigations: opportunity to think up and ask questions and then
  work out ways to answer them
• materials: anything that can be used to make into something else
• information product: something that tells/shows others what you know
  using computerised technology
• graphic/visual organiser: a way of showing on paper how different
  parts relate to each other or link together - map, flowchart, graph,
  time-line, etc.
• design brief: a statement that tells why, how, where, when and just
  about anything else that is necessary to help solve a problem.
• design: a map that shows how we transform ideas into action and
  results/products.