Working together for the better!

Well the New Year is here and all sorts of new ideas keep popping into my head.I find it always helps keep me on my toes to find new challenges and goals and it's the best part of home education too as no two days are every the same.

On the walking front I may have found myself a walking partner to help me with my  walking practice  for the C2B this year.As with many things in this house,it sort of happened by accident. In my walks round the village I've often bumped into a lady who is probably my nearest neighbour from the next hamlet, in that she lives two fields away from my house and I walk along a public footpath which runs behind her house when I take the dogs out. Her  vegetable plot lies adjacent to the path and it is a great gathering spot for discussion and passing the time of day.

Some time ago I was speaking to her and said that instead of all the villagers walking alone we should have a designated day when, if you felt like company, we should meet up at an appointed place and time each week and anyone who happened to be there , whether elderly, young , fit or frail could walk together (a sort of community walk).

A few weeks later we met at a Ceilidh and she said, " I was thinking about the walking idea, perhaps we should give it a try" .So for now it's the two of us.We had our first walk last Thursday, chatting and getting to know one another and we found we had a lot in common. She is even thinking of doing the C2B! We are walking again next week and I'll report back and let you know how we're getting on.

I've also plucked up the courage to offer a neighbour a patch of our garden to grow vegetables. I've been toying with the idea of a community garden for a while now as we have so much land and there is'nt enough time in the day for me to keep it all well tended.She would like to grow vegetables and I would benefit from someone tending a patch in my garden. Again,although I had been mulling over the idea for a while, it wasn't planned. Our neighbours had run out of wood for their wood burner, and whilst we have lots of wood, we have no wood burner so my husband offered them some seasoned wood that we had piled up in the garden. In return we got a lovely bag of home  made scones and my neighbour  chopped up a fallen tree with his chain saw and took it away for burning next year. It turns out that he has various chain saw certificates and can help us cut some trees down so he is going to do some work with my husband in the garden and use the space we have to store some wood for next year.

The idea of becoming self sufficient really appeals to me.It is happening gradually as the children become more independent and I have more free time. Having the hens means I am able to give the surplus eggs to neighbours in return for a donation to our local National Autistic society. I didn't buy them to make money,I love them clucking round the garden when I'm out in the sunshine and this year we took our first batch of battery hens which are all doing really well and looking plump and happy in their new homes!

I've decided to have a cut flower patch too. I am clearing some land to help my neighbours get started with their vegetables. I will just extend it to add a flower border which will give me pleasure and hopefully lots of flowers for our cottage!

So it looks as though I'm going to be busy.Hopefully in the summer I'll be able to post some photos of  the flowers I've grown!

We don't need no Education.Teachers leave those kids alone!

I've been reading Free to Learn .It's a book about unschooling which often works well with oppositional Autistic children. It explained that you have to  turn your ideas of 'education' on their head and give back control to your child.It certainly worked for us.

So when my daughter (who is in mainstream school) tells me that some of the pupils in her year were not allowed to do "COPE" as an option because the powers that be think "they are too clever", or that the government are going to put an end to the ELBS. (Land based science to you and me) or that they won't be doing GCSE. P.E . at school after the current course ends, alarm bells start to ring!

One thing that unschooling has taught me is that it enables your child to learn for themselves what interests and motivates them and what is relevant to them at that time.Having a foot in both camps I am learning that my daughter is not being taught to question what the teachers tell her but simply to apply the knowledge to her exam papers so that she gets a good mark.That's all well and good in the short term but it certainly diesn't prepare you for  life beyond school.

Only this morning on the radio, politicians were looking at ways to encourage people to live a healthier lifestyle. Insisting that young children  have a school dinner and banning packed lunches or deciding to discontinue GCSE P.E is unlikely to have the same impact as learning to grow your own vegetables, or spending a day on the fells dry stone walling or hedging and nurturing a love of gardening or the great outdoors.

The trouble with the current education system is that it is not forward thinking enough.It lurches from one idea to another as one by one a new education minister is put in power wanting to put his or her political stamp on the education system.

So where does that leave us? We can't all home educate our children although we do all want to give them the best education we can .

The answer I think is to realise that the education system has its limitations.It's not meeting the needs of many autistic, dyslexic or other children challenged by disability or learning difficulties. Education starts with us at home.We cannot all be Mathematicians or linguists or scientists but we all know people who are or have access to television documentaries about things we don't understand.

Sit down at the table together for family meals (apparently most of us don't do that anymore).Share news, discuss what has been taught at school, throw in opposing views for discussion and encourage our children to get involved in activities outside school such  as Explorer scouts, community choirs, Duke of Edinburgh, where they will learn a whole new set of skills currently missing from the national curriculum.Enable them to be well rounded individuals who follow their passions .Guerilla Learning is a great place to start changing your perspective if you are not already questioning the system. It's never too late.Education in the UK is compulsory until you are 18 in the UK nowadays.I am confident that the Frost family education will continue for life!

We don't need no Education.Teachers leave those kids alone!

I've been reading Free to Learn .It's a book about unschooling which often works well with oppositional Autistic children. It explained that you have to  turn your ideas of 'education' on their head and give back control to your child.It certainly worked for us.

So when my daughter (who is in mainstream school) tells me that some of the pupils in her year were not allowed to do "COPE" as an option because the powers that be think "they are too clever", or that the government are going to put an end to the ELBS. (Land based science to you and me) or that they won't be doing GCSE. P.E . at school after the current course ends, alarm bells start to ring!

One thing that unschooling has taught me is that it enables your child to learn for themselves what interests and motivates them and what is relevant to them at that time.Having a foot in both camps I am learning that my daughter is not being taught to question what the teachers tell her but simply to apply the knowledge to her exam papers so that she gets a good mark.That's all well and good in the short term but it certainly diesn't prepare you for  life beyond school.

Only this morning on the radio, politicians were looking at ways to encourage people to live a healthier lifestyle. Insisting that young children  have a school dinner and banning packed lunches or deciding to discontinue GCSE PE is unlikely to have the same impact as learning to grow your own vegetables, or spending a day on the fells dry stone walling or hedging and nurturing a love of gardening or the great outdoors.

The trouble with the current education system is that it is not forward thinking enough.It lurches from one idea to another as one by one a new education minister is put in power wanting to put his or her political stamp on the education system.

So where does that leave us? We can't all home educate our children although we do all want to give them the best education we can .

The answer I think is to realise that the education system has its limitations.It is not meeting the needs of many autistic, dyslexic or other children challenged by disability or learning difficulties. Education starts with us at home.We cannot all be Mathematicians or linguists or scientists but we all know people who are or have access to television documentaries about things we don't understand.

Sit down at the table together for family meals (apparently most of us don't do that anymore).Share news, discuss what has been taught at school, throw in opposing views for discussion and encourage our children to get involved in activities outside school such  as Explorer scounts, community choirs, Duke of Edinburgh, where they will learn a whole new set of skills currently missing from the national curriculum.Enable them to be well rounded individuals who follow their passions .Guerilla Learning is a great place to start changing your perspective if you are not already questioning the system. It's never too late.Education in the UK is compulsary until you are 18 in the UK nowadays.I am confident that the Frost family education will continue for life!

Aspergers, science and Mathematics

Today Google and I have been to see The Theory of Everything , a biopic about the life of Stephen Hawking. I was surprised that Google enjoyed it as it turned round the relationship of Professor Hawking and his first wife rather than on  his scientific theories.That suited me fine.The film was well acted, filmed and emotional. Whilst in the car on the way home I comnented that the brief references to quantum phgsics and black holes went over my head and to my surprise Google launched into an explanation on the difference between Quantum physics and relativity. Where he gets this information is anybodies guess, probably from one of the space exploratory games he plays like Kerbal space programme.I had however heard of the famous mathematician Roger Penrose. I remember him being the author of a maths book I read when I was just starting along our home education journey.It's funny considering I hated maths at school just how many maths books I've read.
One of the things that changed my attitude the most was an online course by Professor Jo Boaler of Stanstead university.She wrote the book Elephant in the Classroom and she explained that in her opinion maths is taught badly in the British class room. Instead of posing problems and asking groups of children to work on finding out an answer they were shown how to answer a maths problem in a specific way and were often criticised if they tackled it from an alternative angle.Jo Boaler taught me that there are often several ways of approaching a maths problem and that the method of getting there was more important thatn the answer.
Google would certainly agree with that. Through gaming he has learned probability, angles, distance, calculus and many maths concepts without a text book in sight. He hasnt learnedhis times table off rote (which to him would be a huge waste of time), instead he has . Taught himselfcways to discover the answer when he needs it. This is the boy who used to pull the plugs from the computers tondisrupt the maths lesson because he couldn't do maths.Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from the way he has taught himself.
Oh and just for the record I left him watching Stephen Hawking's Universe with his dad when I went up to bed the other night.I have to say that I understood a little bit more about quantum physics after watching some of it and I found this site  which simplifies a subject I chose to avoid at school!

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!

Our year ahead!

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A new year is here and I'm still grappling with the changes I have to make. One thing I've learned through home educating is that small steps are enough, life is too short to stress yourself out trying to fulfil life changing resolutions then berating yourself when you don't quite get there.The thing is to focus on what you want to change and then take little steps in the right direction.Sometimes you may end up taking a few steps back but that doesn't mean you've failed.You just take a deep breath and set off in the right direction again. Writing this blog continually reminds me how far we've come on our home education journey.It may not be the same journey as anyone else, in fact if I compared myself with those families forging towards GCSE's and diplomas I would no doubt feel like a failure of a mother but what we do is right for Google and to see how happy and talkative he has been over the Christmas holidays has been proof of that. He has watched 'The Great Human Journey", read a book on Military History called Great Battles and Armies and Commando Magazines from the 1980s and despite having a rotten cold over the past few days has been happy and chatty and has us in fits with his off the wall sense of humour!
We have lots to look forward to,my daughter's lambs are due in February, we have raised beds to prepare in the garden and broad  beans to plant, a skiing trip for three members of the family, and some tuition blocks in motor engineering for my eldest in Milton Keynes. An exciting year!
I will be training for the C2B again, the challenge of walking 23 miles is no longer the goal but I realised that I get so much pleasure from the walking running up to the walk in May.I see new places and meet many interesting people and I love taking photos of the things I see along the way!
Through walking I learn about the local history and geology too.Things I would never have dreamed of studying .
So I have no plans to 'plan' our education. I know that learning will happen automatically.I  do however plan to spend less time on Facebook to free up time for more reading, writing letters and spending time in the garden.
I want to concentrate on spending locally rather than line the purses of the big corporations.That will take some time to achieve and a gradual change of lifestyle. I want to eat more healthily as I am concerned about what is being put into our food without  our knowledge. Finally I want to try and do some small thing to help the children at the Kepep Children's Centre in Greece whose plight weighs heavily on my heart since I first read about  them last year.Humanity is  not always as humane as we like to imagine. So there is a lot to accomplish this year.I'd better get started!

It's been a cold, cold, Christmas!

We have been without heating over the last few weeks,  after our central heating boiler broke down. We have no hot water and have been reliant on our beanie hotties to keep our feet warm in bed!

My husband reminded our children that in fact it was no different to our own childhood, where we woke up to ice on the windows, dried our clothes on an airer in front of an open fire and hot footed it downstairs every morning to warm ourselves!

We didn't have a shower in those days and baths were weekly rather than daily. Things have changed in a matter of four decade's.

It hasn't all been doom and gloom as we've found ourselves each evening, gathered round the gas stove, my daughter curled up in her onsie reading her new Christmas books, her brothers playing on the ipad or watching movies on the television.Normally everyone would have been doing their own thing in their bedrooms or in the teenage space above our garage.

We've missed the spontaneity of having a bath when we want one but we have been overwhelmed by offers of help. It was nice however to spend a week over Christmas in the warmth of a lovely Scottish apartment.

Anyway, all those lovely socks and woolly hats and onsies we got for Christmas have come in especially handy this year and made me realise even more just how precious those everyday practical gifts really are.They'll get used again and again and the love that came with them will be remembered every time we put them on! So thank you everyone for our wonderful gifts. They have given us an especially "warm feeling" this year!