ALERT : All homeschoolers, or people who plan to do homeschooling...

[SauRoNZA]

because school crushes independent thinking. because school indoctrinates. because school creates worker drones. because teachers largely s-ck. because bullying. because 8 hours a day leaves little time for independent study. because the standard of education in SA is largely horrific. because OBE blows. because mixing with your peer group is not what it is made out to be. kids in formal education are incapable of thinking independently or interacting with anyone outside of their age group, because have you actually looked at what your kids are being taught?

At least they manage to teach basic punctuation...

 

[MrsCerebus]

I find this whole discussion very interesting. As a mother who are homeschooling 3 children, and a mother who had her 3 kids in the system as well - so experienced both ways, homeschooling is so much better. We removed our kids from school as my oldest was not stimulated enough, my middle son found the masses of children all around too much to handle and mid grade 1 he could not read, and my daugther, as Cerebus has stated, had bladder issues and they could not deal with her. So, we have them all at home. We dont unschool, as I believe math and english should be part of every day life, and also reading.

Back to the OP's discussion - This warning has been sent out because our right to educate our children according to the rights, needs and wants of our children is under threat. Even with us parents sending emails, it is being deleted and ignored by the department of education, or those who are being noted on the above warning letter. They do not have the interest of the child at heart, only their pockets, they need the kids in school, because they need the money those kids bring in. Currently there is a huge number of children who are being homeschooled in SA, I am not sure of the exact number but in our area alone there are more than 600 children.

If I see from the local school, and the children of friends who go to these schools, they are overly stressed, they have tons of homework, at age 9/10(grade 4) they need to sit weekends and study - for topic they might not have any interest in, and stuff they will have forgotten an hour after the test. My kids get their history in story form, living literature, which they actually remember, without studying for hours. My kids are home in a peaceful environment, they are learning to take care of their own things, they have time to read as much as they want, they learn how to bake with me, the kids in school dont have that much time for it. They in school till 3, then homework, sports - when? Then on the weekend they are so sick of books they dont want to read?

We will fight for the right to take care of our children and educate them the way best we know how to. This government will not win.

 

[Nanfeishen]

What are they changing? There is no info in the OP.

I may be up for correction, however, from what i can find, it appears to be the BELA bill ( Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill)

The most important changes that the bill introduces are the following:

-The content and skills of the curriculum to be used by home learners must be at least comparable to the national curriculum.
-Home learners must be assessed annually by registered assessors at their own cost.
-Home learners are not allowed to enrol for alternative matric qualifications such as Cambridge and GED.
-The penalty for not attending school is increased from 6 months to 6 years imprisonment.
.........
From the process followed and the content of the bill, it seems that the intention of the DBE is to gain control over home education as well as financially benefit unions and state compliant curriculum suppliers, without consultating homeschooling parents and without providing any evidence that such measures will be in the best interests of the affected children.

https://www.sahomeschoolers.org/entry/the-first-battle-in-the-war-against-education-freedom.html

Whether or not you home school, whether or not you have children, I do believe this is a cause that needs to be championed on behalf of those that do home school.

 

[Zoomzoom]

At least they manage to teach basic punctuation...

Nothing wrong with my grammar, thanks ever so much. Don't confuse laziness with inability.

 

[Zoomzoom]

Home learners are not allowed to enrol for alternative matric qualifications such as Cambridge and GED.

So they actively want to prevent people from getting an education that might mean something?

-------------------

Unschooling or whatever you want to call it is not a new thing, the theory of it has been around for quite some time. I think, like with many things, that its success depends on the individual. Some do well with rote learning and regurgitating content like parrots. Others do not. Some do well in a completely unstructured environment and others do not. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to anything in life and where the school system (any system really) fails is in insisting that everyone learns the same way and at the same rate.

And I think it is your responsibility to do what is best for your child and good government will make allowances for those individuals who opt out of the system.

But that isn't the way of the world at the moment. Individualism is seen as a threat. Conformity is required for a passive controlled citizenry that is non-threatening to the growing authoritarianism in the world. So in the guise of 'your safety and well-being' more and more control is being exerted over any and all ways in which you can be independent.

 

[buka001]

Elon musk pulled his kids out of school and started a secretive unschooling style school.

I remember reading about it, no grades and based on navigating real life scenarios that his kids will face in real life.

Never did much research on that but sounds interesting.

His kids where all in prestigious schools

Google Ad Astra and musk.

For every freethinker you mentioned there are thousands of cutouts.

Times have changed but the industrial age schooling system has not.

There is no wrong and right, and it boils down to personal choice.

Elons school is anything but a home school. It is a super elite private school that has children of parents that generally work for SpaceX.

To gain access, you need good personal connections, IQ tests and so forth.

 

[Bryn]

[MENTION=449868]RMTaylor[/MENTION] That stuff seems pretty cool for your kid at the moment, but what's the long-term plan? I assume you're going to hook him up with a formal primary and secondary education so that he can study further if he so chooses? Are you going to settle down somewhere when it's time for grade 1?

 

[RMTaylor]

[MENTION=449868]RMTaylor[/MENTION] That stuff seems pretty cool for your kid at the moment, but what's the long-term plan? I assume you're going to hook him up with a formal primary and secondary education so that he can study further if he so chooses? Are you going to settle down somewhere when it's time for grade 1?

If he wants to go to school he can otherwise there is no need for him, he can still study further without going to formal school.

There are studies of kids that have gone through unschooling and got University degrees.

Times have changed, as has the skills needed of the workforce.

It really is totally up to him, he he decides at age 12 to start a business then we will ensure that he gets the best experiences that will assist him.

If you think about it, all we as parents can do is give our kids every opportunity to be happy and self sufficient.

We trust that our child will learn at his own pace, as his interests evolve and he discovers more about the things around him, when and if he gets stuck, then we can connect him with the resources or people to assist him.

We are not like children of the corn, trying to build some isolated setting, the complete opposite, we expose him to as much as possible.

Here is the kicker, it is cheaper for us to travel and long stay in a different country than it was to stay in South Africa.

Here is a link to a study done.


https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/.../survey-grown-unschoolers-i-overview-findings

 

[RMTaylor]

Elons school is anything but a home school. It is a super elite private school that has children of parents that generally work for SpaceX.

To gain access, you need good personal connections, IQ tests and so forth.

Lol never said it was a home school, but if you look at what he is trying to ingrain in his kids is more unschooling than structured schooling.

Problem solving based in world realities allowing them to understand the world we live in and show leadership.

https://www.healthnutnews.com/elon-musk-admits-to-unschooling-his-children/

From the article:

“Inventor and entrepreneur of SpaceX, PayPal, and Tesla Motors, Elon Musk has set up his own alternative school for his children, describing the process as “unschooling,” after he reveled that traditional schooling was neither valuable nor interesting to him as a child. “I didn’t see the regular schools doing the things I thought should be done,” Musk said.

Taking on the more radical approach to schooling, Musk’s children will learn through natural life experiences, which present themselves on a daily basis. Household responsibilities, play, work experience, mentoring, books and elective classes that the child is interested in, will most likely be on the agenda. The intent will be to focus the child’s curiosity and exploration of activities initiated by them under the philosophy that if it is more meaningful to the child, it will become more understood, and useful.”

While unschooling may not be for you or your children, Musk is an outside-the-box thinker and has practiced that process in his life’s work. He is self-taught in a lot of fields (an an AVID reader), and has stated before that he “learns what he needs to learn to accomplish an objective.” He feels that people self limit their learning ability, “If you read a lot of books and talk to people you can learn anything.”

Speaking about teaching children, “It makes more sense to cater the education to match their aptitudes and their abilities.” We would agree, teaching children shouldn’t be likened to an assembly line, they are all different and learn differently. There is beauty and strength in that. With unschooling, problem solving is taught, and children are also given the tools they need to solve those problems. He wants his children, and all children, to reach for the stars in an unhindered and open-minded way. And we couldn’t agree more.

 

[Sly21C]

That's how the invisible government rule the masses, by passing policies behind the back door.

 

[Bryn]

If he wants to go to school he can otherwise there is no need for him, he can still study further without going to formal school.

There are studies of kids that have gone through unschooling and got University degrees.

Times have changed, as has the skills needed of the workforce.

It really is totally up to him, he he decides at age 12 to start a business then we will ensure that he gets the best experiences that will assist him.

If you think about it, all we as parents can do is give our kids every opportunity to be happy and self sufficient.

We trust that our child will learn at his own pace, as his interests evolve and he discovers more about the things around him, when and if he gets stuck, then we can connect him with the resources or people to assist him.

We are not like children of the corn, trying to build some isolated setting, the complete opposite, we expose him to as much as possible.

Here is the kicker, it is cheaper for us to travel and long stay in a different country than it was to stay in South Africa.

Here is a link to a study done.


https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/.../survey-grown-unschoolers-i-overview-findings

Surely it's not that easy going to university without any primary or secondary education though? A few cases of it occurring don't necessarily indicate that it's accessible to all.

Are you guys intending for your son to just keep having fun and learning random practical stuff that he claims an interest in, or will you impose a homemade curriculum of maths, programming, geography, biology, science, music etc? If you plan to stay on the move then presumably tutors for certain subjects are not possible, yet you also presumably want to expose your son to as wide a variety of academic disciplines as possible.

 

[RMTaylor]

Surely it's not that easy going to university without any primary or secondary education though? A few cases of it occurring don't necessarily indicate that it's accessible to all.

Are you guys intending for your son to just keep having fun and learning random practical stuff that he claims an interest in, or will you impose a homemade curriculum of maths, programming, geography, biology, science, music etc? If you plan to stay on the move then presumably tutors for certain subjects are not possible, yet you also presumably want to expose your son to as wide a variety of academic disciplines as possible.

i am waiting for him to get slightly older since he is only 5 now, and then i will get him to start learning code if he is interested, right now he plays a lot of minecraft and roblocks, and understands sales funnels lol

when he is 7 we will see where he is at and what he wants to do, there is 42 000 world schoolers in our group and we meet up, and do skill share with the kids.

but for the next 2 years all he needs to be is a kid and have fun, learning as he goes along.

we do geography, history, science every day and math occurs naturally in daily life.
It is difficult to explain the difference between learning say history and geography in a class room, compared to picking a place on a map and then going there, learning about the people, culture and what they eat first hand and what a difference it makes to his intellect.

as a society we do not need to memorize a bunch of useless things anymore, that is why we installed YouTube kids on his tablet and showed him how to voice search.

he follows his interests and has questions if he does not understand something, that is how he learnt colorshe knows everything about dinosaurs including latin names, eating habits and groupings.

this was for us affirmation that he can self improve himself if he is interested in a subject and has unlimited tiime to pursue it.

He is into robotics now.

in 2 years we can have this discussion again and see where we are at, we are not crazy or rigid in our thinking, if it does not work, then we will adapt to ensure that he gets what he needs

We are just ensuring that for his informative years, we can hang with him and not leave it in a strangers hands, while expanding his mind as much as possible.

 

[Zoomzoom]

Lol never said it was a home school, but if you look at what he is trying to ingrain in his kids is more unschooling than structured schooling.

Problem solving based in world realities allowing them to understand the world we live in and show leadership.

https://www.healthnutnews.com/elon-musk-admits-to-unschooling-his-children/

From the article:

“Inventor and entrepreneur of SpaceX, PayPal, and Tesla Motors, Elon Musk has set up his own alternative school for his children, describing the process as “unschooling,” after he reveled that traditional schooling was neither valuable nor interesting to him as a child. “I didn’t see the regular schools doing the things I thought should be done,” Musk said.

Taking on the more radical approach to schooling, Musk’s children will learn through natural life experiences, which present themselves on a daily basis. Household responsibilities, play, work experience, mentoring, books and elective classes that the child is interested in, will most likely be on the agenda. The intent will be to focus the child’s curiosity and exploration of activities initiated by them under the philosophy that if it is more meaningful to the child, it will become more understood, and useful.”

While unschooling may not be for you or your children, Musk is an outside-the-box thinker and has practiced that process in his life’s work. He is self-taught in a lot of fields (an an AVID reader), and has stated before that he “learns what he needs to learn to accomplish an objective.” He feels that people self limit their learning ability, “If you read a lot of books and talk to people you can learn anything.”

Speaking about teaching children, “It makes more sense to cater the education to match their aptitudes and their abilities.” We would agree, teaching children shouldn’t be likened to an assembly line, they are all different and learn differently. There is beauty and strength in that. With unschooling, problem solving is taught, and children are also given the tools they need to solve those problems. He wants his children, and all children, to reach for the stars in an unhindered and open-minded way. And we couldn’t agree more.

Hopefully he manages to find someone to teach his kids the social skills he sorely lacks. Accusing one of the divers from the Thai rescue of being a pedophile because he was having a hissy fit his submarine was never going to work was not OK.

 

[Freshy-ZN]

there is 42 000 world schoolers in our group

What group is this please?

 

[RMTaylor]

What group is this please?

46k now

 

[RMTaylor]

Hopefully he manages to find someone to teach his kids the social skills he sorely lacks. Accusing one of the divers from the Thai rescue of being a pedophile because he was having a hissy fit his submarine was never going to work was not OK.

Lol that is not related to unschooling but yes he is a weird one.

 

[Trompie67]

I am homeschooling for the following reasons:

1. My son has autism and time and again normal schools have ended up with him in tears because of bullying, and other factors
2. The CAPS curriculum in particular is full of this SJW pro-ANC crap every second page is about how superior the one is to the other.
3. Schools are a political playground for parents who have political aspirations but are too slapgat to even join the ANC/DA and make it a reality
4. Religious BS being forced down the throat of my child

Reason 1 is valid. Reason 2 I cannot comment as our children are doing IEB. The remaining 2 are the chips on your shoulders.

because school crushes independent thinking. because school indoctrinates. because school creates worker drones. because teachers largely s-ck. because bullying. because 8 hours a day leaves little time for independent study. because the standard of education in SA is largely horrific. because OBE blows. because mixing with your peer group is not what it is made out to be. kids in formal education are incapable of thinking independently or interacting with anyone outside of their age group, because have you actually looked at what your kids are being taught?

Utter nonsense.

Maybe a bit strong but I get it.

I truly believe you are looking in the wrong place for this. Independant/critical thinking is something one learns at home, you absolutely can attend a public school and be capable of thinking for yourself.

I don't think that schools are responsible for this so I'm not angry that they don't do it. I think you might be blaming public schools for not doing something that you're supposed to be doing anyway ...which you clearly are.

Again: the parents who are capable of teaching this are the ones like you who are able to think this way to begin with - you're not seeing many of these in the system, unfortunately - but that isn't because of the system it's because parents are failing at home.

Here's the thing - there ARE schools that encourage critical thinking. Problem is most parents can't / won't be bothered to seek them out. Or are not prepared to travel longer distances to get there. Or are not prepared to move home to enable their kids to attend. It's much easier to moan. Or even easier to leave them at home to be schooled there.

Unschooling is not unparenting, we just don't want our kid to spend 12 years learning useless stuff, to keep him busy and then enter the job market at the lowest rung.

School doesn't prepare you for the real world, so we have taken it upon ourselves to in our opinion give our boy the best start possible.

Our first priority is to ensure that he can function more independently on a global scale, therefore he has equal input on where we go, where we stay etc.

He helps us book air tickets and accommodation, exchange money, work out exchange rates etc.

We keep the explanations simple since he is only 5, but he has been doing it for 2 years now and at times has told us that he wants to travel, if he is over where we are.

He can converse with people from any nationality and age, and has mastered the art of reading body language to communicate with kids from different countries.

We are not anti structured education, but studies have shown that boys learn different to girls for example, and are more hands-on.

He taught himself colors and how to count watching YouTube videos.

We let him self regulate his sweets, game playing, youtube etc.

If you where into wood work and instead of only being allowed 40min a day to absorb it, you where given tools and unlimited time to spend on your interest, you will start hitting walls that you will need to overcome to carry on.

At some stage you will need to learn maths and how to read and write to carry on, that is where our boy is now, he wants to learn to read, his own choice and he gives it his full attention.

His reason is that every night we read a story and then we all three have to create a story to encourage some free thinking, before going to bed.

He wants to read more stories to himself lol.

Busy writing this on my mobile and very lazy with punctuation, my apologies for that.

1.Our boy actively learns vs passive learning.
2.Has time to master his chosen subjects.
3. Is learning to think for himself with no limits put on him.
4. retains the information since it is by choice.

The benefits out way the negatives, and if he decides that he wants to go to school, he is welcome to give it a try and stay if that is what he wants.

The only negative is when parents basically use it as an excuse to stop parenting and it can lead to social isolation.

We had that when we started our world travels 2 years ago, staying in hotels isolate you.

We have for the past year, been living as local as possible.

This let's us experience the people and country first hand and our boy has kids to interact with.

Playing with older Georgian kids.

You do not need to be anti structured education to chose alternatives, we just want our boy to be independent, since we could be gone tomorrow.

We spent 2 weeks in a commune in Siberia, where he was given free access to a bands equipment.

After a week, 4 kids started a band it was really bad but the experience and tine that they put into it was brilliant to see.

We tend to forget that our kids are their own people and we cannot put our issues and fears on them and the best that we can do is prepare then to be able to navigate life on their own terms.

Damn that was a long post, with crappy punctuation

I think your boy must be a genius. Booking airline tickets & calculating exchange rates without being able to read yet takes some serious skill.

 

[cerebus]

Here's the thing - there ARE schools that encourage critical thinking. Problem is most parents can't / won't be bothered to seek them out. Or are not prepared to travel longer distances to get there. Or are not prepared to move home to enable their kids to attend. It's much easier to moan. Or even easier to leave them at home to be schooled there.

You won't find a public school that can expose a child to the same quality of education that they can get for the same cost at home - not by a long shot. Our bookshelves are overflowing with age appropriate literature, and what's shocking to me is that they're actually reading it. My sons are beginning to sprint past their peers in reading and maths - the difference is quite striking.

Now, I do have some other good friends who use public schools and their daughter is also a prolific reader, but again it's mainly due to the influence of their parents who don't have a tv at home and just pack the shelves with books. In that case the benefit of school is negligible.

Or you could send them to private schools which are reputed to be very good, but then we'd need to spend around 15k/ month for that alone, in which case my wife would need to go back to work, and for what?

 

[ArtyLoop]

As for moving... I moved to another province to get decent schooling for my child- in the end homeschooling was the ticket..
Its not about moaning and your comment makes me think you don't have any children. If you did you'd understand its not just a case of let's move little Johnny to another school and move house just like that.

 

[cerebus]

As for moving... I moved to another province to get decent schooling for my child- in the end homeschooling was the ticket..
Its not about moaning and your comment makes me think you don't have any children. If you did you'd understand its not just a case of let's move little Johnny to another school and move house just like that.

But surely you understand it's your fault for not moving around the country with your family until you found a suitable school. Not the school system, we're not allowed to criticize that unless it's in relation to the ANC then everyone moans.