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Getting Started with Home Schooling: Practical Considerations
 
 
Finding the 'Right' Path... Allowing our Children to Teach Us How to Teach Them

© Beverley Paine

Second guessing is natural for homeschooling parents. Our levels of confidence go up and down, sometimes within minutes! It's not as much about educating our children as it is about parenting... I felt the same way when my children were babes and tots. One minute I was sure that whatever I was doing was the 'right' way (I'd read a book, was given some sage advice, or had thought things through logically) only to have the child react in an adverse or obtuse way. Parenting and home educating is like dancing on hot coals: the minute you feel you've picked the safe or right path - ouch!!

I like that. It was hard to get used to, but eventually I came to see that the real lessons were for me, not for my children. I'm the learner! They are my teachers and they teach me about life and about learning and why I am here, on this planet, right now. I have lots of other teachers too, but for a long time it seemed that I the most to learn in life from parenting them. It's still happening even though they are 19, 23, and 25!

What we're doing is hands on learning: we're learning about learning, at the 'coal face', where learning is happening at a fast, enthusiastic place. Sometimes we can't see the coal for the coal dust and feel a little lost, but it's there, all the time, happening whether we're attending to it or trying to make it happen or having a short break or holiday from learning. We can't stop our children from learning - they're like sponges soaking up whatever learning is meaningful to their lives that is floating about in each and every moment. As homeschooling parents we get overly paranoid about satisfying other people's conceptions of education and end up working much harder than we really need to. Our children usually put up with our misplaced enthusiasm: children are amazingly forgiving!


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Since 1989 Beverley Paine has
steadfastly promoted and supported
home education as an educational
choice for Australia families.
Her books and websites aim to
demystify education, gently deschooling families so that they may meet their children's individual and unique
educational and developmental needs.
Her honesty, insights and wealth of experience continues to bring hope, reassurance and confidence to families. Beverley publishes her recent articles,
tips and links to resources in
her quarterly magazine, Homeschool~Unschool~Australia!

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  Choosing Homeschool Curriculum
Getting Started - how to write your own learning programs
Natural Learning Answers
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Learning Without School - how 30 families homeschool
The Homeschooling Trail - Christian unschooling life
Learning in the Absence of Education - how we did it
Practical Homeschooling Booklet Series - your questions answered!
Educational Games Booklet Series - make learning fun!
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photo of Beverley and Robin PainePioneering 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.
The opinions and articles included in the suite of Homeschool Australia websites are not necessarily those of Beverley and Robin Paine,
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