If you have not checked out part 1 you may want to do so before continuing here.Follow this link for part 1  So why would anyone consider home education over and above the convenience of conventional modern schooling? Everybody goes to school don’t they? Why would parents want to keep their children at home?

1.Children are already natural learners.

Children have already mastered an impressive list of achievements by the age of three. In the right environment their natural curiosity leads them and their nature is to learn.

“If, in any two years of adult life, men could learn as much as an infant learns in his first two years, they would have the capacity of genius. To focus his eyes (which is not an innate, but an acquired skill), to perceive the things around him by integrating his sensations into percepts (which is not an innate, but an acquired skill), to coordinate his muscles for the task of crawling, then standing upright, then walking—and, ultimately, to grasp the process of concept-formation and learn to speak—these are some of an infant’s tasks and achievements whose magnitude is not equalled by most men in the rest of their lives.” [Ayn Rand – The Comprachicos]

For too many young people it is the system of modern schooling that specifically robs them of the desire to learn, the want to know, that precursor to knowledge.

2. Self-led learning is the most effective learning.

A far greater degree of retention occurs when an individual wants to learn something and is interested, enthused and engaged. We all know this from our personal experience. Information that is assimilated this way, when we are engaged and self motivated is far less likely to be forgotten than information that is forced in under threat of testing (humiliation and punishment), or in a context of disinterest in the subject matter. Learning that is self led will inevitably build on the child’s understanding of their world and their reality, as they naturally follow their own sequence and learn what they are ‘ready to learn’ which means what is appropriate to learn or context relevant, or when they are learning what they need to know to achieve what they want to do. Contrast the enjoyment, engagement, meaning and relevance of this type of learning, to being forced to memorise half a page of phone book names and addresses.

3. Self-led learning facilitates individualism and sense of personal identity.

Schooling is all about conforming to a narrow mould, and at best knowing the same limited and prescribed information (the syllabus) as everyone else. Given that those who prescribe the syllabus in mainstream education cannot even agree amongst themselves what should be on the curriculum, how can anyone really presume to know what another should be learning. This is particularly true in a world where technology is changing so fast as to make information obsolete at an ever-increasing rate. Interestingly, far more information becomes available to society as a whole when many individuals pursue their own customised learning agenda, collectively acquiring a greater aggregate of knowledge ultimately then available to the community. When children are free to pursue their own agenda they are up and running defining their own identity from the start. Their life is about them, their choices, their accomplishments, their plans, their dreams. They soon learn about cause and effect, of the need to think and to plan and to act. They develop a sense of self far more ably away from the school environment of conformity. They learn self knowledge through introspection, self-responsibility from having to make choices, a sense of self efficacy from being at large in the real world not isolated from it within an arbitrary bubble. They develop their own individual character free from ...

What is education and what is it for? 

For young children it is an ongoing process by which they learn how to live their life – they need to develop their mind and equip themselves to deal with reality. They must learn to think, to understand, to integrate, and to prove. They need to discover the essentials of knowledge discovered in the past, and to equip themselves to acquire further knowledge by their own effort. Let’s explore if home-education is the best way to achieve this?

In the broader sense, education is a life long active process of wanting to know, finding out and building ones understanding of reality, with the goal of living more effectively and happily within it. When we consider all the evidence, there is a convincing argument that modern schooling may be counter productive to this end, while an appropriate home environment appears more conducive to it.

What benefits are there iof home-education within the caring environment of the family? What can be gained by allowing children to decide how to use almost all of their time, instead of spending 12 years or longer forced to do things they are quite likely not interested in at times when they don’t want to do them. Isn’t it better to teach them to obey authority and to fit in? After all that’s what the real world is like. Isn’t it better that they get used to what it’s like out there sooner rather later. And anyway, how will they learn to socialise?

These are just some of the comments I have heard over the years from well meaning people questioning my decision to keep my own children out of school and facilitating their self-led education at home. Many people are uncomfortably challenged by the whole idea, perhaps realising that they haven’t thought it through themselves. Most parents are simply doing (or did) what everyone else does. Unfortunately many of our behavioural choices are similarly automatic, doing that which is done by others, choices made with little or no conscious thought. Sending our children to school is just another of these. Most people are not even aware of the possibility of home facilitated self-led education, and when questioned about their ‘choice’ rely on their ‘group-think’ conditioning to repeat unjustified concerns. Such concerns usually melt away as the light of enquiry is shone upon them.

The commonly accepted idea is that “you have to go to school, to get an education, in order to get a good job”. The problem is that this commonly accepted idea contains assumptions that are not true.

The first is that children have to go to school. The second is that what a child gets at government schools is an education. Another is that the institution of school is where to get it. And lastly that this so-called education will lead to the securing of a ‘good job’ at the end of it and serve the purpose of living that happy and effective life as the end goal.

The truth is: Firstly schooling is not compulsory in the UK, not yet anyway. Secondly that an education in the true sense of the word cannot be achieved through modern compulsory school attendance. Thirdly there is less and less evidence of a modern education still being a significant stepping stone to a desirable career, or guaranteeing a good job in the way it once did. But also there is evidence to suggest that school attendance particularly in early years could be detrimental to cognitive development.

The Questions addressed in the podcast series are these…

* Are children already natural learners?

* What do young children really need?

* So is preschool a good idea given the psychological and cognitive development that takes place in early years?

* Is role model quality and availability as good in schools as it is in the home?

* Is self-led learning the most effective learning?

* Which is best, self-led learning or structured learning with a fixed curriculum?