School for Real Life

Independent learning creates independent learners.

Most of us have been raised in a traditional school system, where our learning was mainly from textbooks, workbooks, and the blackboard. We were bored and unmotivated most of the time, we wished we didn’t have to be stuck in the classroom listening to one person tell us about subjects chosen for us by educators in an era gone by. Most of us have lived full, successful lives without needing to know much of the information that we were forced to memorize and regurgitate in school.

 We are beginning to realize there are more fun, effective, and creative ways for children to learn. Researchers are still studying how children learn best and about the problems, they encounter in the school system but teaching children in traditional schools, is like learning about polar bears in a zoo…there is no room to navigate one’s preferred style of learning. After all, a child standing at the check-out counter with a ten Rand note in her hand will be far more motivated to do the maths calculation than one sitting at a desk with a workbook, and this applies to many other skills taught in school.  Not only do children become independent thinkers and self-managed students but the environment of home education promotes family bonding and improves learning outcomes. Attending school, in general, weakens the relationship between parents and children, as family groups are not together for most of the day and parents are always struggling to keep up to date and be involved in what their children are learning. Each child is unique, and

different ages and stages, this would suggest that any form of education that is designed for the masses cannot be in a particular child’s best interests.

Since every child is one-of-a-kind, you need to understand their history, their physical, emotional and mental health, their developmental milestones, talents, interests, and potential as well as other intimate family information. This personal information should be used to tailor-make the child’s education to suit him or her, education needs to be flexible. The school system can never provide this kind of customised education. Home education can!

The school system fails learners in many ways – by focusing on policies, procedures, administrators, teachers, and controlling large groups of children, the needs of the individual child are overridden by the needs of the system.

One of the goals of home education is to raise humans who will become self-disciplined and take responsibility for their own education and their own lives. Students can take ownership of their education and do what they need to do for their own reasons, not to conform to the requirements of a teacher or a school system. Home education means parents and their children can choose which learning materials they wish to use. They can study topics that interest them and use materials that are not in conflict with their values and beliefs. This allows for greater freedom and diversity, rather than a one-size-fits-all ideology.