Educational Choice

Introduction
People worldwide climb-on-board for the educational ride of their life, for some it's a bumpy ride, for others a fun-ride... yet others struggle to even get on-board altogether, depending upon their social, economic or environment situation.

Traditional schooling is the process of children learning together in a classroom setting for a number of years, or until a certain age. When you pass your knowledge on to others, we call it Educational Learning, which starts from birth. Besides our traditional schooling we have homeschooling or unschooling.

Home education in the 1980s early 1990s wasn't that common in Australia and you were regarded as either eccentric, or bad parents denying your child the wonderful aspects of traditional schooling. When I started teaching my first-born in 1988, it was seriously resisted by well-meaning people who thought I wasn't capable and that I should be sending my child to Kindergarten. He had plenty of social interaction on weekends within the church we attended back then and with other children at the local playgrounds, so I didn't think he was lacking in social interaction with his peers.

Climb on board my journey for a few minutes and discover there is more than one way to reach your destination.

Personal Journey
Education is key-to-life in my opinion. We need an education in order to successfully participate in society and to earn a decent living... so when well-meaning people's attitude toward home education develops into drastically unbalanced emotions because they are fixated on the traditional schooling system, we have a problem. Not everyone is capable for the task of teaching their child at home and it's a personal journey.

Understanding why these people reacted the way they did requires a little revealing of my background. English is my second language because I was born in the Netherlands and came to Australia on a working holiday visa. I had a great time traveling and working around Victoria and Queensland. Mount Isa area was my home for quite a few months where I lived-in with a family who foster cared Indigenous children. At any given time, there were twenty-four aboriginal children under the same roof, beside their own four children and themselves.

Poor Elizabeth was run of her feet while her husband worked the vegetable garden, paddocks and his job in town. This lady not only offered her time to feed and clothe these children aged anywhere between newborn to teenage years, but she also tended to the goats, milking cow, chickens, washing and cleaning. Of course this impressed me greatly and coming from the Netherlands it was breathtakingly awesome to live in remote, red dusty, dry and barren outback Queensland. Redback spiders galore, horse riding, extreme heat and all those happy little Indigenous faces looking up at me for entertainment. "What do now Miss? Play robbers?" So, I helped when I got back from my job in town. Cooking, cleaning, washing, playing with the children, bath time, dinner time, and school time.

Sometimes certain children couldn't attend public school, so they stayed home. I took it upon myself to read stories to them and do some basic handwriting. No internet or computers back then for us! Because English is my second language, just like English is a second language for these aboriginal children, it was cool to get together and learn together. They loved it and so did I. Language skills improved on both sides, social skills and understanding of their culture and background helped me appreciate where I came from even more. I guess what I did with these children was a form of homeschooling or education.

After several months I left and traveled down the East Coast and across the Nullarbor to Western Australia where I met my now husband. My English was still basic, but my brain was a huge sponge soaking up anything and everything I could read. When we decided to educate our first child we settled on the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) curriculum because it was a set curriculum, Christian based and easy enough for me to follow. My English skills had improved, but I was still learning so when word got out that this Dutch girl, who did not speak fluent English, was going to teach her child it wasn't welcomed by everyone! It was an effrontery to some people that I dared teach my child with the basic skills I had.

Educationalistic What!
Sadly these people are perfectly happy wallowing in their personal opinion and basically don't seem to care who they offend, upset, insult... or lower the self-esteem of the person they attacked. People's indignation can be seriously hilarious because they regarded my decision as impertinent and inconceivably stupid. I made a choice which they regarded as an insult to their intelligence perhaps.

I was even considered as a rebellious educationalist, a follower of educational-ism, and an educationalistic Judas! Is this terminology even in our dictionary?

In case you are not familiar with the Judas scenario I will quickly explain... Judas in the Bible betrayed Jesus by leading men to the garden of Gethsemane where Jesus was arrested and taken into custody which eventually led to his death on the cross. Now... if you have ever worked in an abattoir or the abattoir's yards, then you will know there is often just one cow who is trained to lead all the other cows to the slaughter. This leading cow does not get slaughtered but is put back in the yard, fed, watered and made ready to lead the next mob to their death. This leading cow is called the Judas cow because it is regarded that this cow leads his own kind to their death just like the man Judas did in Jesus' time. Interesting that I was regarded as an educationalistic Judas because I decided to not send my child to public school. Certainly one homeschool mum couldn't mean the death of our entire education system! Or were they scared more families would follow this alternate option?

To come back to my decision of homeschooling... soon after we moved out of the city and found a beautiful little 5 acre property where we settled for seventeen years, homeschooling, growing fruit, vegetables, raising animals and learning to our hearts content. There are many young adults who choose teaching as their career and some of those have encountered similar problems of ridicule within their family, circle of friends or neighborhood. Perhaps mortified friends exclaimed hurtful outrage at your decision to want to become a teacher! Ridiculed your abilities, your natural tendencies, or your aptitude.

Embrace your Dream
Emotional disconnection must be their main goal in life in order to hide their inadequacies. Regardless if you are a homeschooling parent, or a teacher or a student teacher, it is your freedom of choice to embrace your dream. Embellished within your dream you will eventually discover the true meaning of life and your calling. Now that my homeschooling years are finished because my children have grown up, I needed a new project. My husband asked me what that was going to be! Candidly I replied... me! So I have started journalling and observing my own behaviors, motivations, background and trying to understand why I do what I do.

Everyone encounters troubles such as stubbornness and emotional disconnection at some point in life. The tough part is when performance has been the driving force for us. Teachers are required to perform in order to retain their job in the education system. Often parents are required to perform if they wish to be granted permission to teach their children at home. Children are required to perform if they wish to achieve their certification and so the driving force of our educational merry-go-round continues.

I believe that education is essentially a source of unlimited knowledge and learning. A never ending merry-go-round of knowledge gained and unfortunately... knowledge lost. No matter which part of the world you come from it seems that's the case. The academic fraternity, worldwide, is an ever-changing scene of those men and women who have studied and want to pass on their knowledge to others. Some are certified teachers, others the elderly who have lifetime experiences, and others who are mature parents willing to sacrifice their career in exchange for teaching their children. As humans we gain experience and skills passed on to us. Language skills, hands-on skills, health, or Spiritual beliefs, it doesn't matter... the fact is that each one learns at a different rate and is at a different stage of learning in their life and that is what makes living and passing knowledge on to others worthwhile.

Homeschooling or unschooling families are far more accepted in society now than ever before due to factors such as our recent Covid19 Pandemic outbreak. Teachers, parents and children all had to adapt fairly quickly during this unprecedented phase of our lives. Different approaches to delivering the curriculum had to be brought about quickly as children were kept home from traditional schooling due to Covid19. Some teachers have been amazing at this adaptation of environmental and social change and developed new and exciting ways to actually improve on their educational standards, concepts and techniques. Others couldn't cope due to the restrictive practices they had embraced.

For homeschooling families it didn't change much apart from their outings and social gatherings with like minded families. In fact, homeschooling families came into the spotlight during those days by the academic fraternity because they already had proven techniques in delivering education in the home.

Suddenly homeschooling wasn't a moral conundrum anymore but a solution!

In Conclusion
As you can see from this... we all learn from each other. No one person is the same, we all have different ideas, needs, dreams, cultures, approaches, choices and ways of doing things in general. Let's continue to learn from each other and enrich the lives of those we teach. We only have a short time on this wonderful planet of ours so let's spend that time wisely teaching each other, not with pompous superiority but with humility and love for mankind. Don't let someone else's educational knowledge (or lack of knowledge) become your dilemma, but a challenge to give 💯 % of yourself to your chosen dream in life... whatever that may be!