First published in Whole Woman - Winter 2011

You need to be a teacher

No! In fact you do not need any teaching qualifications whatsoever to home school. Having been present in the classrooms of some teachers it's possible to argue that even teachers don't need teaching degrees! What gives parents the edge on teachers is that no one is as dedicated to seeing their children succeed as a parent.

My child is not interested in learning

All living things are driven to learn, it is fundamental to survival. Who cares if your child isn't interested in calculus (I don't even know what it is) who cares if your kids don’t want to read Shakespeare, it’s not remotely relevant to a modern lifestyle. Let your child follow their own interest! If they're interested in cars, they might be a mechanic, if they're interested in animals they might be a vet, if they're interested in reading they might be a writer, if they like fashion they might design clothing or fabric etc etc. Do not give credit to any curriculum that was not designed by your child because children will only truly absorb that which interests them.

A child can not learn to read without school

Actually a child can learn to read all by themself. A child who lives in a  society where so much revolves around literacy will naturally want to learn to read and will ask the questions they need to ask in order to self teach themselves. In the very very rare event (there are no documented cases of unschooled children not learning to read, however there are plenty documented cases of schooled children not learning to read)  that your child does not self learn literacy, adult literacy classes take thirty hours to teach the skills needed in order to read successfully.

Without discipline a child will never succeed in the REAL world

Discipline comes from within, it can not genuinely be enforced. It is not self discipline that makes a person keen to be employed full time, it is a basic need to earn money in order to survive in our currency based society. Yes, many people skive off work but the overwhelming majority of them were schooled, the vast majority of society in general, is schooled. A recent study of nearly 6000 home schooled and unschooled children found that only one of them was receiving a social security payment, and that child was receiving a disability pension because he was in a car crash. And just one more nail in the coffin of this REAL world myth; school is NOT THE REAL WORLD! There are absolutely no similarities between school and real life.

School socialises children

The definition of socialisation in the Cambridge dictionary is "to train people or animals to behave in a way that others in the group think is suitable". Animals hey? Nice! However that's not what people mean, they usually mean that children will be lonely and have no friends, and that couldn't be further from the truth! Home school groups meet right across Australia. They go on camping trips, excursions to the museum, beach, zoo or anywhere else you might see a normal school outing, they have formal dances, work experience, and they meet just to play all the time. Home schooled children are very social! Children are innately social, they don't need to be taught how to behave in social settings.

Home schooled children can't go to university

Actually many home schooled children do very well in university! Adults who have not completed school are happily accepted as mature age students, and school leaver aged home schoolers are able to sit a university entrance exam the same way potential students from overseas do. Home schooled children thrive in a university environment because their learning style is so self driven whereas many schooled children have been sheltered and ushered through school without developing fully functional self motivation.

They won’t learn the same things as all the other kids

No. They won’t! And the children in other countries, other states, and even just another school in the next suburb won’t learn exactly the same stuff. Unschooling is an advantage because children don’t fill their head with useless stuff that they forget as soon as the end of year testing is over, they learn things they are really interested in and retain most of the information. If all the children left school and all entered the same occupation then it would be important for them to all learn the same stuff, but school leavers will do everything, from entering university to study more, to traveling, working in a factory, starting a family and so many other things. What children need to learn is life skills, not trivial facts.