It's not every week you meet your MP!

I'm never happier than when I'm free from the constraints of 'school'. This week has been one of those weeks. My daughter has been doing work experience and my eldest son is in Milton Keynes on a training course. Google meanwhile is happy in his normal routine,away from the unexpected!

Work experience has taken the form of volunteering in one of our very important community hubs Ford Park. My daughter has worked in the cafe,planted in the walled garden with the volunteers (some of whom are unable to work due to mental health problems or learning disabilities) and learned about the benefits of companion planting , sat in on a level 1 Horticultural course, picked fresh vegetables for the kitchen,spruced up the nature walk, met our local labour MP John Woodcock who popped in for a coffee, experienced the anxiety of a staff member who's family live in Katmadu where there was an earth quake on 23rd April.Thankfully news came through that they were OK.

What a vast array of learning and the week isn't even over yet! When I dropped her off this morning,the local yoga class was about to begin and a group of walkers were gathering for the Ulverston Walkfest.It's obvious walking around town that it has been the Flag festival this week too!I managed to take some photos of the Gill on one of the practice walks I've been doing in preparation for the C2B next week.

I finally managed for the first time yesterday to walk up Hoad without stopping! I have been walking in  Newlands Bottom a hidden away spot just outside of town .The bluebells are finally out, and although unfurled this morning, so are the wood anemones! I even spotted two Jays, the first time I've ever seen them in the wild.

What a lovely week! Now that's my sort of Education!

Reach for the stars!

The other evening, as I sat watching television, Google came downstairs carrying his telescope case.When I asked him what he was doing he didn't respond (which we are totally used to by now) but he walked into the kitchen and I heard the latch of the kitchen door as he opened and closed it.
Later when I went to shut in   the hens I found Google, in the middle of the garden, sitting on a green plastic chair with his telescope trained towards the moon and his ipad on his knee .He was studying his  Stargazer app.I followed the line of his telescope and saw that the moon was an extremely narrow crescent that night .Above in the North east was a very bright planet which Google told me was Venus.

The thing that struck me was that Google hasn't touched his telescope for months . In fact I was thinking of sending it to the charity shop.He had obviously been reading about the position of Venus and gone out to investigate. Sure enough when I did  my own investigations this is what I come up with!
http://astronomynow.com/2015/04/21/venus-meets-the-moon-in-the-eye-of-the-bull/

Once again I've seen evidence of him learning through his own interests and motivation. For many years Google has shown an interest in the space and the planets. He discovered Kerbal Space programme . Created space rockets and space modules,watched Professor Brian Cox.All of this has been self motivated.Not bad for the little boy who didn't want to learn!

Computer Programming for Kids!

I've been planting primroses in pots today.It's one of the spin offs of having a large garden, flowers such as primroses, foxgloves and forgetmenots seed profusely and there are always spares. I'm hoping that these will root and bloom in time to pot up into pretty cups and mugs for Easter as we are planning a coffee morning to raise money for our local NAS.

Google is coding. In fact he has been coding for the last fortnight. He's been talking about "matrixes, " "vectors," and  "variables".Then a friend added "arrays" to the mix - a whole new language for me! As always in these cases when I don't know the answers I've bought him a book which arrived today  The Computer Game Design Course  . At the moment that's what Google  thinks he wants to do , so until he decides otherwise thet's what we'll concentrate on. Google tells me that he is using Computercraft from Minecraft but he has already bought a tome called Java for Dummies. My friend tells me that once you can program then it's fairly easy to read other computer languages too .

Google tells me that he was speaking to a friend who goes to school and is a year older than him. His friend is doing programming as part of the national curriculum and they are using Scratch . I recognised the name and realised that Scratch was the program used by Google four or five years ago when he first began to dabble in programming and I was looking for advice. The advice I was given was to give him the space and time to teach himself and that's exactly what I did. It's working too.Computers are such an intricate part of our world and whether we like it or not it helps to understand them.

So if, like me you have a child who loves computers and you aren't at all technically minded, don't worry.Just sit with him and ask him to explain what he's doing, get on home education forums and ask for advice, borrow or buy books, watch you tube, do online courses.Anything and everything to build up your knowledge in readiness for your child's next step (because it does appear to work like building blocks, Google learns for an intense period then stops for a while and starts up again when his brain has absorped all he's learned)
If you are looking for a simple book for beginners then this one wasn't around when Google was small but looks clear and interesting.Computer coding for Kids It's cheap with. The Book People. We also borrowed this book which is more expensive from our local library which some may find useful!

Teaching an Oppositional child with Aspergers

 Its that time of year when everyone is blogging about new year resolutions, their plans for this term and their home school routine. It's the time of year when I have to remind myself that home educating an oppositional child is nothing like  home educating a compliant, sociable, neuro typical child. Take my daughter for instance, she has gone off to Hawkhirst scout winter camp near Kielder this weekend. She is never at home, if it's not a scout expedition , it's doing volunteer work at our local brownie troupe for Duke of Edinburgh, or drama with Sunday Troupe. I have no need to motivate her, in fact I have to reign her in on occasion so that she doesn't wear herself out.
That sort of home education requires little effort or preparation, you simply facilitate learning by acting as a taxi driver, juggling diary dates and paying the odd camp fee. I could posr fantastic photos of all the wonderful activities she takes part in and write pages and pages about what she has learned.
Google on the other hand hates socialising, rarely goes out and fights any effort to teach him anything.You are met with a glare, ignored completely or ordered to "get lost" (and that's the polite version) if you try to suggest he learns anything.
I learned very early on that  normal teaching methods just didn't work.In fact they resulted in aggression, procrastination and deliberate avoidance tactics to get out of doing anything.I used to worry about it.How would I explain my teaching methods to the Local authority, what proof could I provide or education if he wouldn't write, or draw or do crafts?It took me a long time for the penny to drop.If the education system couldn't succeed when they tried to 'force' my son to comply then why should I be any more successful.I was flogging a dead horse and needed to change my teaching style.
I'd learned enough by then to know that if my son was interested in something he would focus intently and could spend hours, days and even weeks teaching himself about a subject.He would read books, watch tutorials on You Tube, go to museums, watch documentaries, in fact totally submerse himself in a subject until it came to a natural conclusion.I began to realise that he was learning far more than he would have learned at school and had a much greater in depth knowledge of his 'specialist' subjects than his Peer group, in fact than many people a great deal older than him. The key was to observe him and discover his interests. After that, education was the easiest thing in the world.It didn't matter what Google learned or when he learned it, there was no race or 'end date'.Neither was there a magical date when he had to start his GCse courses or university degree (that's if he ever decides to do either of those things) The important thing is that he is intelligent enough to do them if he chooses (and it will be his choice).My job meanwhile is to offer opportunities, purchase resources and 'listen' to my child to make him the best possible student he can be!

Equality of the Sexes- through Autistic eyes!

It's been a few days since I posted,largely because I'm having a technical hitch posting photos and I LOVE taking photos.No blog should be without them!Anyway I decided to blog nevertheless and I'll worry about the problem later!
I haven't mentioned my Autistic son in a while.He doesn't (on the surface anyway) seem to do the same news worthy , inspirational activities of his siblings,largely because he still struggles to socialise or go out.Yesterday however, he told us that he had been studying the concept of feminism!
The subject he'd chosen was in itself  a revelation but ,when he started to talk about the subject, he revealed a deep thinking,intelligent young boy with a strong sense of justice!
 It appears he has been studying how inequality of the sexes came about! It started ,according to my son, because of physical differences.Stone age man were stronger than their wives, so off they went to work ,hunting and gathering whilst their wives stayed at home to look after the children.
My son kept referring to the men working 'harder' than the women and at first I thought I had a chauvinist in the making. I was wrong. Being autistic he was using the word "hard work"  to mean 'heavy physical work' .Often autistic people can be misunderstood in this way,because although they can be very articulate and have a vast vocabulary they can sometimes misuse words which to us have a different meaning. That's why you really have to get to know an autistic person really well to understand them. I often say to my son that we use the same words but speak a different language.
 He explained that there are some jobs where he would prefer to appoint a man e.g. a fireman who was stronger and able to carry him down a ladder out of a fire and other jobs where a woman would usually be better e.g. a secretary because of their ability to multi- task.It was clear as I deliberately threw opposing points of view at him,that he was of the opinion that they were both equal in their differences! I did wonder if he had read the book Why Men don't listen and Women can't read Maps.!
In his research he had covered The Suffragettes, the role of Women during World War 2 and their entrance into the workplace after the war and the strikes at The Dagenham Car plant for equal pay for women. What sparked his interest and how he came to think about the subject I have no idea! But take heart.I promise you that whilst your child may not appear to you to be doing anything remotely educational at all.They most certainly are!

Well Mr Wainwright,that's one off the list!

Today I came down a mountain with a 77 year old man.At seventy he had walked all the Wainwrights and only two years ago he'd had a hip replacement! He told me how unbelievably lucky we are to live here and I'd agreed.

The route we took was the Walna Scar road an old quarry road between Coniston and the Duddon Valley.I'd climbed the road from Coniston before reaching a gate onto open fell and was amazed to find a car park! The route was gradual and wiggled up the hill by means of a gravel path.Never quite "too hard" but I had my moments wondering if it was too much for someone as unfit as me.

As I looked back down the valley towards Coniston Lake ( or Coniston water as it is properly called) I could see the extent of the lake and the wind turbines of kirkby moor in the distance. Reaching Walna scar I could see over into the Duddon valley,over to the Duddon estuary and across to Black Combe which I've yet to climb.

I followed the grassy ridge to White Maiden,a rocky summit looking down over Broughton moor and the quarry where I sat and ate sandwiches,away from the hardened climbers making their way up Brown Pike towards Goats Water.

It was at this point I decided to return the same way,  as my daughter was climbing in the Yewdale fells with a school party and we 'd agreed to meet at four. I'd intended to
Walk to Banishhead quarry but decided it was too far if we were to meet on time.

It was half way down when I met my old man with his walking companion who was accompanied by a hound.I jokingly advised him to keep it on a lead in case it decided to join the hound trail taking place that day and I discovered it was a retired trail hound.The man explained how a trail of aniseed was set by a person on foot who dragged a rag,covered with aniseed over the ground,topping it up at various intervals.He would wait until the hounds set off before completing the route.Meanwhile there were 'spotters' on the hills (and as he pointed them out to me I could see men situated at various points on the montain-side with their binoculars ,looking suspiciously like spies on the look out in a James Bond movie.)
Trail hounds differed from fox hounds apparently as fox hounds were stockier.

As we reached the car park at Fell gate I noticed that there were now far more off road vehicles than previously and various people were walking their hounds on leads in little quilted jackets, like something from Ascot in preparation for the first race.

It was a fascinating experience and one of those events when you realise once again just how much there is to learn by getting out of your armchair and setting off on a walk,however short or long it may be. That old man didn't realise it but I learned a lot about the lakes today and now have far more walks on my 'to do list' and I was able to share what I'd learned about trail hounds with my autistic son who hopefully one day in the future will feel able to accompany me in the fells! Never say never!

Speaking a different language

This morning when I came downstairs there were several sheets of paper strewn across the floor where my autistic son ( who absolutely HATES putting pen to paper) had been forming what I assumed to be Japanese letters.Indeed they were,when I asked him about them he said that they represented three of our vowel sounds.Oh and by the way he had spent the night learning  the numbers one to a hundred!

He is a shining example of learning through motivation.He is the child John Holt wrote about in his books  How children learn and a classis showcase of how autonomous education works..

As usual and bang on cue.I saw a language course in the charity shop the other day."why didn't you buy it?" He asked

"I wasn't sure you would use it"  I replied "anyway, there's hardly likely to be a queue wanting to whisk it off the shelves.

I was right, there is was this morning, just where I'd spotted it, waiting for me to snap it up.

So now my son is the proud owner of Take off in Japanese and I have saved myself a pretty penny!

Sayonara (which for those of us in the know means Goodbye!)

Scrap yards and Charity Shops

Well he did it! My eldest has passed his driving test FIRST TIME! It was interesting the way the 'non home educating' people reacted when he told them that he had his test and would be coming to work in his car the next day. "That's if you pass" they said " Oh I will" he replied. He had faith you see, in his abilities. He wasn't boasting or showing off- he was just confident because no one had ever put the doubt in his mind that he couldn't or wouldn't do it. Although it's not strictly home education it really is- because it's just a continuation of the life long learning we've encouraged since we started home educating his younger brother.

He got his theory test under his belt as soon as he turned seventeen. He started his apprenticeship a month later than his peer group who returned to college in September and he decided to spend the time revising for his theory. My son, who hated the 'falseness' of school and exams, had a reason to teach himself the highway code because he wanted to drive.

So the test is passed, the car is on the drive (he's had that since he was fourteen) and it now has new alloys and fog lights and little tiny dust caps that look like green die with dots on each face of the cube.

He paid for his driving lessons himself (his suggestion) as he felt there would be more motivation to pass . He has also been saving for the insurance with the money he's earned since he started his apprenticeship. A lesson is comparison websites and doing his research, brought the price down to £500 less than he thought he would need to pay. Next came the lesson in using a cash back sites which reduced it by a further £40. Not bad for a maths lesson!

He then took the very mature decision to be patient and wait to the end of the month (another seven days) so that he could buy his car tax at the beginning of the month and make the most of his money. He doesn't know it yet but we'll pay for his car tax- we are so very proud of him.

So this time next week he will start learning to drive for real and I suspect that our passion for charity shop finds will be widening to scrap yard bargains in the future.

Home Education gets our vote!

I had plenty of time to think back over the week as I set off for Broughton on my C2B preparations today.

It's been a busy week. My husband has just taken his last exam in his diploma for the Institute of Fire engineers which should mean that he is an accredited engineer if he passes. Learning at home seems to have become a habit for all of us. The other day he sent me a text "Have you heard of  Sugata Mitra?Google him!"
At first I thought he must be someone sinister but then I realised he was the Indian professor who introduced a computer into a whole in the wall in a street in Delhi and watched the Indian children as they played with it.You can read about it here:- http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves
His ideas are similar to those of John Holt- children learn for themselves, you just need to facilitate them.

I smiled as I remembered back to  when my Autistic son was struggling so much at school . I began to read about home education and a weight was lifted off when I realised it would work. My husband took longer to convince but he is a convert.He is now advocating autonomous education because he knows that it works- he's seen the evidence!

My daughter came back from her trip from London even more convinced, having attended a performance of Wicked that she wants to study drama and dance. Her brother meanwhile has struggled with his dad being away and has stuck rigidly to routine to help him through. Food has been an issue for a couple of days- he's hungry but refuses anything you offer and ear defenders have been firmly planted on his head. He managed a KFC but offers of a meal at the Brewers Fayre or Pizza Hut were refused as they are places you eat "as a family". Teaching has mainly been through discussion although a new World War 2 book has been devoured.

My daughter spent the day curled up in bed yesterday reading Divergent . She wanted to finish it before we see the film tonight. It's lovely to see her enjoying books so much. Meanwhile, I've been gardening, planting seeds, making plant lables and cutting back.

Home made plant labels

Wall flowers

The wallflowers are doing well too in the fish crate we rescued from the beach last year!

I also took part in the ladies choral class of the South Cumbria Music Festival too. We didn't win but we got our highest mark ever and a fantastic feeling of achievement. Perhaps the judge's best comment was that we " Brought lots of Joy". We can't really complain at that can we?

Calculating the Cost of Aspergers- a lesson in Maths

At my son's request I bought him a scientific calculator yesterday. For a boy with whom I've done no more than basic maths I'm not quite sure why, but I am happy to wait and see.

School did a lot of damage when it came to maths.My son used to pull out the plugs of the school computers when the maths lessons came around because he dreaded it so much. Then he sat under the computer desks and hid.

It was years before he recognised that he wasn't a dunce or stupid, he just couldn't understand the point of doing something that had no relevance to him. Why do twenty questions on the same subject when you have got the first five right?

At first we tried work books and sheets but the opposition was immense and the effort required by me to ensure he carried out the task was draining.

I soon learned to let go and stop controlling. When we were in supermarkets we would discuss whether 50% extra free was better or the same as BOGOF. We would check the tiny labels you find on the shelves giving the price per gram or unit so that we could establish whether  a Box of Washing powder with 84 washes was a better or worse buy than the same make smaller box. The results were sometimes unexpected. A certain brand of yoghurt was cheaper when you bought 10 separate units than if you bought a pack of six. This was the sort of maths my son could understand and his fear began to lessen.

I introduced pocket money of £5 per week and he quickly learned to count up in fives. I paid him to help with the decorating and paid the minimum wage and he used his calculator to work out what I owed him.

He calculated the cost of the components required to build a computer. He learned angles on his skateboard or whilst playing pool and by using a compass and coordinates by reading maps.

He saw graphs and statistics whilst watching the news and reading books and taught himself to decipher the information presented.

Grams and kilograms were learned whilst cooking and shopping. Miles and kilometres whilst travelling along the motorway and, he finally cracked the time when I realised that, whilst he struggled with analogue, he could read digital clocks.

It was trial and error.We started comparing prices online, getting free delivery, buying in sales and charity shops and my son learned the value of money.

He played online maths games too for a while, particularly the Woodland school website. I began to notice him figuring out problems for himself. I didn't always know how he had reached his answer but he was often right and even if he wasn't he would often self correct when he realised there was something wrong with his answer.

He learned the order of the months when he wanted to find out when a favourite X box game was due for release. The list went on and on. The common element was that when it was relevant to my son he learned it.Furthermore, once learned he didn't forget.He was like a little computer and as he added each fact to the mix, his brain processed it and filed it in the right compartment.

He is no longer frightened by maths.It's not his favourite subject but he knows he can find out what he needs to know and he is comfortable with that and as for me I'll be interested to see what he comes up with next!

Has anyone seen Munchkin?

"You know mum, writing in Japanese is much easier than English because you write in symbols not letters", said my thirteen year old son.

"How do you know?" I asked him ,

"Well I've been teaching myself Japanese.Look here are the words I've written down,"

And he proceeded to explain how different symbols were different sounds, and that there were three classes of Japanese language.

I shouldn't be surprised at how he stumbles across knowledge without being taught after all these years, but it still fascinates me. He struggles with the physical act of writing and we took the decision early on to encourage the use of a key board because his spelling and vocabulary are well ahead of his peers and his struggle with forming letters was getting in the way of his imagination. 

His fingers now fly over the keyboard without a thought. But his comment that Japanese was 'easy' to write made me once again question why. I came to the conclusion that it is writing in patterns and shapes - something which, as a visual learner, he is good at.

Since then the family has been bombarded by apparently fluent Japanese phrases such as birthday cake, birthday card- important subjects when you officially become a teenager next week.

So whilst her twin brother has been learning Japanese my daughter decided to turn to the more mundane and practical task of actually making a cake, a chocolate cake , which her brother happily devoured  at teatime.

Then we got down to the business of designing a wind  chime for the garden. A project inspired by a photo on pin interest. This is what we ended up with and  was just as therapeutic as cooking in the kitchen!

Then it was off to our local horticultural show. The show,which is in it's 134th year is a wonderful show case of the talent and creativity in the village and there were some very inspiring ideas for using vegetables such as this.....

or this.....

or making creations from old wellies like dogs.....

and swans..........

or the more demure craft of floral arrangements

As with any village show there is always time for a chat and a gossip and as my daughter and I left together with our visitor we were asked,

"Can you keep your eye out for Munchkin when you are walking through the village. He disappeared 5 days ago when we were on holiday"

" What does he look like?" I asked, assuming I was keeping a look out for the family pet. "Oh you can't miss him," came the reply - "he's brown and quite large.He's a cow you see."

Watch the Birdie!

Baby magpie with broken wing

One of the advantages of living in the countryside is access to wild life and the rythmns of nature. This morning my neighbour told me that she had spotted two Gold Crests in the garden, little wren like birds with a yellow strip over their heads, we've had Dunnock nests, pheasant nests, buzzards, curlews, wrens, Fieldfares, and all the every day birds like black birds, blue tits , chaffinches and magpies at some time or other in the garden. We even have our own buzzard which sits on the dry stone wall in the field beyond our house.

Pheasants nest in the undergrowth

Dunnocks nest amongst the brambles

This week two red kites were spotted circling over the body of a still born lamb, their forked tails clearly identifiable in the air. I have also seen a Sparrow Hawk swooping down on a collared dove in the garden and my neighbour told me that it has been swooping down on her bird feeder and snatching the blue tits.

Female blackbird (brown colouring)

We've even learned to identify the distinctive whistle of the Curlews as they fly over, and the clear call of the blackbird.
We didn't set out with the intention of studying 'biology' or habitats or birds, our knowledge has grown naturally as we've seen new birds and sought to identify them.
It was lovely during the winter months to see the garden birds feeding from the bird feeder outside the window. We have been using a commercial one this year but when my son was younger we made a Fir cone feeder.Even during the wettest winter days we were able to watch the birds as they fed outside the window and watch them really close up. As with all the subjects my Autistic son studies, we do it autonomously- there is no 'bombarding him with information'. It just doesn't work with oppositional teenagers,particularly Autistic ones! We often see herons and pheasants when out and about on our travels and my son will point them out to me. It's all he's really known since he was five and we moved into our cottage in the Lake District so he doesn't even see it as education.
And how's this for a sight - hundreds of oyster catchers rising up from the beach where they were waiting by the waters edge as the tide came in! A really spectacular sight to behold and one which will remain with me for a long time to come!

Oyster catchers

Oystercatchers

The Village Notice Board

Villages can be the hubs of Education!

As I walked up the lane today I stopped to browse the notices on our village notice board. Our disability information day was featured, as was a presentation about the last boat built in the area, a concert, a lent lunch  and the dates for the next photography and yoga classes.

It struck me how, in a very small village we had so many 'experts' and that if I had chosen to go to each group in turn I would have covered law, history, P.E, art,catering and socialising and music without a single formal lesson.

That's just how autonomous education works and the relevancy of the subject to the here and now makes the subject more compelling and  likely to be retained.

It's from little seeds such as this that projects can balloon. My son's interest in rifle shooting stemmed from the opportunity we spotted for children to go a try a free session of shooting at our local rifle range. The day was a wash out, most of the sports were cancelled and no one turned up. That is apart from my two sons! I rang up during the day to check if the session was going ahead and was told that as it was indoors it would. When we arrived the doors were locked and I could see from my Autistic son's face that this could turn nasty- he was getting stressed as things were not going to plan. Fortunately I had thought to programme the instructor's phone number into my mobile. He had been given the incorrect starting time but was just round the corner so the day was saved! For that evening my son and big brother then had an hours instruction from a former British champion in rifle shooting!

The University of Life is indeed a powerful learning tool if you choose to study there!

Interest led learning!

No one can act and learn for another.The doer must do the work himself. The task, the choice, the purpose must be his....

JOHN HOLT    Instead of Education

One of the most important lessons I've learned with an oppositional child is that you can't MAKE them learn. Learning comes from the heart and a need to know.

As I've backed off from worksheets, lesson plans and structured learning I have become what John Holt calls  a t-eacher rather than a Teacher! Rather than feed my children information which I feel they should learn like a Teacher in a school who is restricted by the National Curriculum, I have the luxury of being able to sit back to listen and observe what my children are saying and doing.

Yesterday I discussed the possibility with my son of giving him an allowance. He frantically scrambled the numbers in his head , did some mental arithmatic and decided that he would be better off than he currently is. This impromptu maths lesson took place in the car and continued throughout the day as he calculated how long it would take with his new found wealth to buy a computer for gaming.

We spent half an hour in PC World whilst he did his research and he explained about the memory in each computer and the merits of Windows over a mac for gaming and as we were leaving we spotted a rack of pc games for 97p each! We rifled through the games on offer and discovered Surgery simulator which my son had previously seen for £19.99. Needless to say we couldn't overlook such a bargain so we snapped it up and my son and his sister spent the evening operating in my front room, all the while learning the names of different parts of the human anatomy!

Meanwhile I drew up a legal contract for consideration with regard to my son's allowance and how it was to be used, and recommended that my son take independent legal advice on the content from his grandfather before he signed anything. I was surprised to receive an email back from my son complete with amended contract for consideration. My son had perused it ,struck out the wording which was too vague and could be ambiguous and which he requested be implemented. A discussion then took place between my husband and son as to the validity of a contract signed by a minor. My husband explained that in fact it was a memorandum of agreement evidencing an agreement between us and a signed copy could be produced in the event of dispute!

None of what took place that day took place at a desk,at a set 'learning time' or was premeditated. It happened naturally and continued as a result of my son's expressed interest in what we said and saw! Learning should be fun and spontaneous - not forceful and stifling!

Learn from Experience!

"We learn something from everything we do,and everything that happens to us or is done to us.What we learn may make us more informed or more ignorant, wiser or stupider,stronger or weaker, but we always learn something." Instead of Education by John Holt.

 

My sons' fingers have been rattling over the keyboard this evening. For someone who has trouble putting pen to paper because the effort involved in forming the letters interferes with his ability to concentrate on what he needs to write it's amazing.His writing suddenly becomes eloquent and fluent and in accordance with his intelligence, whereas his hand writing is still immature and unformed. 

I suppose we could have concentrated more on neat handwriting but I can't see the point. My son is capable of filling in forms and signing his name if he needs to, but in this day and age the majority of what he needs to do can be completed by computer. Similarly with maths, it's more important that he understands the procedure required to calculate a problem rather than actually working it out in his head when calculators are freely available.

Technology is moving so fast and that can only be beneficial for Autistic children.Today I read about the Grace app for iphones  which enables non verbal children to communicate what they want by using PECS or pictures. It was designed by a mother of two autistic children to help them. (Mothers can be very creative when they have to be).So many parents I have come across have invented ingenious gadgets to help their children when they have been unable to find  resources on the market.

One mum has started a business making weighted blankets, another trained to do sensory profiling, many parents turn to blogging which opens up new opportunities to educate and learn about autism.In fact some of the most intelligent people I know have autistic children. They have had to learn to 'think outside the box' which can only be good in a society where our education system is no more that the government telling its teachers what it thinks we have to learn. Thank goodness it doesn't bother me one hoot whether the government continue with GCSE's or the new scrapped idea of a Baccalaureat- you can't improve a failing system!

Home is the base for Education.

Our school

Although I have opted to home educate only one of my children home education  is far from being my second choice. For me home education has become a liberating experience and  has freed me up from an obsession with good grades at school and not being able to procure a job without them. The major reason my other two children go to school is that they need time away from their Autistic brother, time when they can be themselves rather than carers and time when they can form their own friendships and interests away from home. For a short while I had two children at home,it was an easy choice and one which I would have no trouble making again if necessary. My eldest son was unhappy at school, there were signs of underlying bullying which were not being dealt with and my son was frequently being sent home from school due to being 'unwell'. For a son who has a 100% attendance record things didn't ring true so we opted to remove him from school for a year.Only the other day I asked him what he had learned from the experience. He was able to spend lots of time practicing his drums each day and he is now an accomplished player. He matured and experienced 'real life' and he was given load of opportunity to make new friends both through scouts and Young Carers which introduced him to climbing, indian cookery, kite surfing, camping skills and all manner of activities which he was unlikely to have much access to at school.
Home education gave us a breathing space to establish the right learning enviroment for my son. It became clear however that his brother required so much one to one that my eldest was having to place second fiddle and we considered ways in which he could 'learn' other than at home with me. One of the options was to use a tutor. We certainly went and talked to one but personality played an important part in our son's learning . We wanted vibrant , enthusiastic tutors, un fettered by the 'system' and we found instead disillusioned teachers who had removed themselves from the system in order to 'teach' in what we felt was a typically 'schooley' way. Our second opportunity was a small secondary school in the lakes with just over 200 pupils. My son was offered the chance to spend a fortnight there to see how he like it. He was not committed to stay but he agreed that a fortnight would give him time to get a feel  for the place. Within days it was obvious that he felt at home, the number of children suited him and the ability to offer the children opportunities as individuals was soon evident . He went from an unhappy lad in a huge main stream school to one with a huge social circle of like minded friends, to a school where outings were frequent and where extra curricular courses such as out door pursuits centres , planting trees for the Diamond Jubilee and catering at a local school were available. The school was still subject to the constraints of the national curriculum but my son is happy and knows its limitations. He is also fully aware that he has what it takes to succeed and has become confident in his abilities and opinions regardless of peer pressure. His grades don't matter, the fact that he tries his best does. This year he has opted to go to college one day a week to study Motor engineering and he has identified the type of learning environment that suits him best. Not for him sixth form college with its A levels and academic subjects, vocational courses are more relevant and motivational to him. He has got his own car which he is working on at home and a trials bike and reads everything mechanical in his spare time, his catering skills far outstrip those of his peers, he will be perfectly able to fend for himself when he leaves home! Our home is where he is 'educated', school is the campus where he is educated 'off site".

Don't judge a book by its cover! OR All is not as it seems!

Measuring the hen enclosure

I came home from ferrying the children around today and to my consternation realised that my autistic son who has Aspergers syndrome had spent virtually the whole day on the X box with his friend playing their new Minecraft game. He was so engrossed he had missed his lunch and forgotten to drink the drink his sister had given him.
Having extricated him from his game I suggested he leave screens for a while and we ate tea as a family and spent the evening together. At bath time I was talking to my son about his brother who had walked 36 miles in a sponsored walk that day. Although he had just fallen short of the full forty miles it was his personal best. His previous longest walk being 16 miles for his Duke of Edinburgh."Oh" said my son. "He did more than half again then". I asked how he knew and he explained he had been doing maths all day in calculating the amount of bricks he needed to build his Mansion on Minecraft.It transpired that he had been practising his number bonds to help him calculate more quickly and discovering that his building looked more ascetically pleasing when it was symmetrical which meant using even numbers rather than odd!
My son has always felt that maths is his weak point and he commented that "he supposed everyone else his age would already have worked their bonds out". I pointed out that whilst they would have been taught to memorise them at school a lot earlier than him they would not have fathomed out for themselves how to achieve the answer they needed and that the whole point of home education was to learn for yourself how to do things when you needed them,
We then discussed John Steinbeck and the book that his elder brother is doing for GCSE. I explained that this was an example of something the government insisted children be taught although it may not be relevant to them in later life. I explained that I had been looking into the historical context of the book which was set in California in the 1930's.My son immediately told me about The Depression, the fact that it was the run up to World war 2 and that Roosevelt was the president. We also discussed the effects of the industrial revolution on the farm workers. It seemed that my son already knew more than his elder brother about the impact life in the 1930's had on the author without him opening a revision book or writing an essay.Yet again his general knowledge dumbfounded me! What could have been regarded as a wasted day at first glance had borne much fruit!

Why bother teaching anything when they can teach themselves?

Cooking counts as maths too!

This morning my son was explaining how you could ascertain the direction with a watch and the sun.He had been reading a library book on survival skills on the way to the supermarket. I tried to show him how to do it last year in the garden but he switched off and refused to listen because it was maths! The legacy of school is that the word 'maths' builds up an insurmountable problem in my son's mind and when at school he would hide under the desk or pull the plugs from the computers out of their sockets!
My son then went on to explain that the compass is split up into angles the main pointers being 90 degrees,180 degrees,270 degrees and 360 degrees with the angles also being marked every 45 degrees. He has talked about angles before when teaching himself to skateboard so I've experienced  his way of learning maths and it never fails to surprise me that in many ways formal maths lessons are redundant. I jumped at the unexpected opportunity to explain that the angles inside a triangle added up to 180 and that the angles inside a square added up to to 360 degrees. All this he took it between a burger and a pepsi , as he tucked into his wicked zinger meal at KFC!
Maths is a subjects which at the very least would have caused his face to glaze over or at worst would have caused a meltdown if I'd broached it but because the subject interested him he had fathomed the details for himself.
Once  in the car I glanced over to find him reading about map reading skills and contour lines and once again I found that my growing faith in autonomous learning was being reinforced. The book he is reading is written for the Royal Marines and designed for adults but the content appeals to him so he's reading it!
Every day conversations are an opportunity to learn too. Only this morning my son turned to me as he was watching t.v. One of the characters in an American tv show referred to a 'test monkey'. "Oh he means a guinea pig, mum", said my son showing me he'd taken in the new idiom he had learned yesterday. Words are fascinating and we are always discussing their meaning.Seeing a lad on a mono cycle one day  resulted in a discussion  of what 'mono' meant and a competition to see how many words we could find beginning with mono. We did the same with the word 'sub' when my son asked the meaning of  subversive.
If you are teaching an oppositional child you have to 'find' the right way.It may not be conventional but your child has the benefit of one to one and you have the luxury of as much time as you need and the flexibilty to change tack if your method isn't working! Don't give up!

Let your Autistic child lead the way!

I hoovered round my son today. That may not sound like very much but to a mother of an Autistic child it's quite a feat. For many years my son has vacated the room at the sound of the hoover. Today he was wearing his new ear defenders to see if they worked. They did and he was thrilled!
Next week he has asked to try them out in Morrisons and I'll report back. I wonder if we should have tried them earlier. When he was five years old he used to complain that the playground was "too noisy" but we didn't know he was Autistic then and didn't know what he meant. It is only in the past few months that his sensitivity to noise seems to have increased and with it a greater tendency to crave routine and hate unexpected situations. I thought Peltor ear defenders might help him.
Blogs and websites can be a great resource when finding out about Aspergers. I've recent joined the Face book page of Autism UK and found that the help and advice of adults with Aspergers has been invaluable. The explanation of the sounds and sensations in supermarkets has made me think again about encouraging him to go into supermarkets. If it really is that bad why make life hell for him when in reality he can order his shopping online if he wishes later on. It's really not a matter of life and death if he never sets foot in a supermarket .Too often we are encouraged by the Health professionals to    'force' our children into uncomfortable situations to 'integrate' them into society. School is a case in point with many children being forced day after day into a school enviroment until they reach the point of school refusal. There is a view among many Home educating parents that forcing children to 'fit in' is not the right way. If we listen to and support our children they may one day ask to try something which previously they would have struggled to try. Many parents have seen their children mature and ask to do things, albeit later than their peers, when they feel they are ready rather than forcing them to do it because the charts say they should be 'reading' or 'speaking' at a certain age!
The real 'professionals' are the adults with Aspergers who have been there before us, Those who were bullied and tormented in school, who were labeled 'disruptive' because they were misunderstood but who have now succesfully made a life for themselves despite the setbacks. We need to listen too, to those who lost all their self esteem or became depressed or ended up in prison because of the lack of knowledge and support so that we can do something about it. That's why support groups are so vital.

When Autism becomes a Physical Disability!

Aspergers on a good day! You woudn't have a clue !

Well I found myself yesterday in the cafe of our local garden centre with my eleven year old under the table hands over his ears! I wouldn't have minded but he had specifically asked to go there the previous day and this was supposed to be a treat.
You see my son has Aspergers and sensory overload can cause him to 'shut down' in the most inconvenient places. I should have seen the signs. When he woke up that morning I reminded him we were going out. His face took on a glazed expression and he said he was 'too tired'. As a home educator I often worry about his lack of motivation and desire to go out. Whilst he will often say he is bored, he refuses to do anything you suggest to the point that you give up, knowing that this is a phase he is going through on that particular day and nothing you can do is going to change it. I suppose it's a kind of depression. It's sad to see, he misses out on so many opportunities but my job is to provide those opportunities and facilitate his interests and on the days he grabs the offer it's another step foward.
Well, going back to the garden centre scenario. I had insisted we go. My son had requested it and even set the departure time. There are times when he as an adult will need to go out and I had all day if necessary to cajhole him. In fact it took ten extra minutes to get out the house, rolled up in a duvet and looking like a hot dog in a bun. I bundled him into the car before he could change his mind and off we set.
 For the first fifteen minutes or so, when he realised the new car radion needed programming; he was animated and chatty as he programmed our favourite radio stations into the radio. Then he picked up his science enclyclopedia ( our car is like a travelling library) and began reading! My son learns more in the car and when he is out than at home usually , as there are no computers or tvs to switch on when I'm not looking!
At the garden centre it was like switching off a switch, he rolled tighter into a ball and refused to get out. My heart sank. We had driven 15 miles through beautiful Lake district countryside and I was going to have to wheedle and cajhole my son to do every little thing. I finally got him out the car. There was a brief glimmer of hope as he threw a coin at the little bell in the wishing well at the entrance then he LIMPED into the garden centre and up the cafe stairs.
I've known my son long enough now to know that the autistic traits like limping, groaning, sitting on the supermarket floor come with sensory overload. He sat at the cafe table and said he didn't want anything other than to go home. I asked if I could have a drink and he agreed so I bought him his favourite hot chocolate with cream, marshmallows and a flake and said if he didn't want it I would have it. As I stood at the counter I watched him out the corner of my eye as he tucked into the cream, flake and marshmallows before curling up into a ball. I manged ten minutes holding him tight and rubbing his forehead until he slipped under the table and sat there whilst I finished my coffee.
I was desperate to buy a birthday present and it didn't look as if I had any chance of that. We made our way slowly downstairs and in the quiet of the showroom I suggested he try a wheel chair. He perked up , smiled and said he would try it.
 So there we were ,my.normally mobile autistic son wrapped in my coat being pushed round the garden centre (even having a go himself) and myself suddenly free from the chains of autism and able to enjoy ourselves. It was a bit Andy and Lou in a scene from Little Brittain! My son said he suddenly felt "secure and safe" and I realised that to him his autism is a disability which on occasions can cause him to become deaf, mute, immobile whatever.

Instead of feeling guilty about using the wheelchair I had discovered something that worked for us on that day and therefore he was as entitled as any other disabled person to use it. Just because he has a disability that cannot be seen doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. So we learned two things, my son experienced the difficulties faced by someone who is confined to a wheelchair and can only see the displays as a certain level and often has to travel the long way round to get where he wants to be ,and I learned once again to go with my convictions and do whatever it right for us as a family unit, without fear of being judged by people who don't understand ,to make life easier for my son and me.