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Better Than Average
© Beverley Paine Often, in my reading on home education, I find the children mentioned are either all very 'gifted and talented' or have some 'learning difficulty'. The latter generally draws sympathetic comments, fails to help many such children. The first description, though, seems to echo a common misconception in the community, an expectation that homeschooled children have to do better than average to be 'okay'. Although statistical research repeatedly demonstrates home educated children rating better on standardised tests, why does the perception remain that they all have to? It seems that anything less than 'brilliant' represents a failed home education system, whereas 'average' is an acceptable outcome from schools. Home educating parents keenly feel this pressure to perform better than teachers at school. Is it because home educated parents have to 'prove' their children are progressing educationally, whereas teachers and schools are by and large unaccountable? Unlike homeschoolers they don't face deregistration if they don't come up to scratch. Or is it the blind faith the community puts in the 'trained' professionals? Sometimes home educating parents feel that others in the community are waiting for them to 'fail', and any perceived character flaws observed in the children will be blamed solely on the fact that they are home educated. Some home educated children excel in certain areas, but what about the children that 'lag' behind their same age peers, academically or socially? Home educators agree that the education provided for their children can easily be superior to that offered elsewhere. There are plenty of people in the education system who would readily concur. It is only the people indoctrinated by the idea of one, singular 'school' education system that try to scrutinise home educated children to make sure that they 'measure up'. Their expectation for achievement is higher for home educated children than for the majority of schooled children. This places unwarranted stress on home education. We, as home educators, know our children are better off, so why do we need to continuously prove it to anyone? Who are we accountable to after all? Other people, the school system, or our own children? We need to resist the urge to continuously 'prove' that home education is as good as, or superior to, school education, as this leads to stressful comparison and competition, and reinforces undesirable stereotypes in the community.
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education in Australia. State and Territory governments are responsible for regulating home education and have different requirements, however home educating families are able to develop curriculum and learning programs to suit the individual needs of their children.
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Pioneering members of the home education movement in Australia, Beverley and Robin Paine are passionate advocates of true educational choice for families. They began homeschooling their children in 1986 and three years later started the South Australian Home Based Learners network.
Beverley wrote Getting Started with Homeschooling in 1995-97 and since then continues to write books and booklets on home education. She balances spending time helping home educators with working in her garden and renovating her home, as well as continuing to build her collection of writing on a variety of homeschooling subjects. Beverley maintains an extensive collection of websites as well as several Yahoo groups supporting families teaching their children at home.
In 2007 Beverley joined the HEA and was a committee member for three years during which time she edited and produced the HEA Newsletter, Stepping Stones for Home Educators magazine, annual Resource Directory and other HEA publications.
If you'd like to keep in touch with what Beverley is up to her in her life, sign up for the Homeschool Australia Newsletter or visit her Homeschool Australia Facebook page.nor do they endorse or recommend products (other than their own) listed in contributed articles, pages, or advertisements.