Getting Started with Homeschooling
Practical Considerations for Parents of School-Aged Children
© Beverley Paine
Index
Homeschool
Australia
Natural Learning Approach
(continued)
It is not focussing on the child's life as the centre in the family.
All family members are learners, and each of them have unique needs and experiences. Natural learning for children is a social phenomenon, moving first from the primary caregiver, to the immediate and then extended family, to friends, then to local community, and finally to the wider society and beyond, always allowing an interactive and interdependent process to occur. No one member is more important to the social structure than any other - all have their own special unique contributions and places.
Natural learning is building families and communities, and places emphasis on the development of beneficial and co-operative relationships and associations. Allowing children to be small, insignificant, but much loved, fragments of a cohesive and supportive whole, gives them the opportunity to offer their best, without the crippling fear of failure faced by the increased pressure to perform by parents that results from being the centre of attention.
It is not something you can do to, or with, your child.
Natural learning is what we allow to happen, not what we make or create. It happens anyway, despite attempts to make it happen! Children are learning all the time, not just when learning programs or learning activities are organised!
If parents are interested in offering a natural learning approach in the education of their children, the following tips can help:
Take the effort to be positive. Reword into positive phrases anything negative you say. For example, instead of saying ‘Don’t run inside!’, try ‘Please walk inside’. Say what you want to be happening, rather than point out the undesirable behaviour. Say yes more than no - and save no for those times it is really needed - for truly dangerous situations or behaviours. Be clear in your own use of language when you are making statements, asking questions, making requests or commands. Avoid ambiguity.
Have clear agreements, expectations and consequences and be consistent. This is especially important around disturbing people who are busy working on something. Everyone has the right to work undisturbed. Reorganise the environment to reduce incidences of disturbance. This has an added bonus of increasing independence and encouraging independent work habits.
Have things readily available - easy to see, easy to reach. Let people know where things are kept, perhaps by labelling shelves, cupboards, files, boxes, etc. Use pictures as well as words on labels for non-readers. Materials need to be freely available - if children have to ask each time they want to use something, independence and creativity are discouraged. Have alternatives available when particular things run out. Creative people generally use a lot of resources - accept this and budget for it, or find cheap, free or recycled alternatives.
Make sure your expectations of your children are linked to their development, not the ‘norm’ or ‘average’. Keep in mind , however, that children are quite capable of performing difficult tasks, and can conceptualise quite complex ideas if you, and they, believe they can - trust and have faith in their growth.
Have realistic and reasonable expectations, allowing risk-taking, approximations, guesses, mistakes.
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Excerpt from Getting Started with Homeschooling, Practical Considerations
© Beverley Paine, 1997
