Home working, home learning, a new way of living.

Jun 7, 2012

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I was having a conversation with Big last night about the world of work. I, like many of my generation, have been hung up on the all important maths and english at GCSE and I’ve been puzzling over how we were going to achieve those targets while home educating. It’s not the actual subject matter that worries me – I’ve got a certificate of maths and am very literate (or so I like to think) – but the logistics of examinations. When Big burst into tears and declared all she would ever be able to do was work at Tesco it made me realise that just possibly, I’ve been coming at this from the wrong angle.

The world of work hasn’t been keeping up with the world of technology. It’s utterly ludicrous that anyone still thinks they might choose a career path in their teens, qualify for it and stay on it regardless. I myself have had several different careers now, none related to my degree subject. (Unsurprising as I’ve got a degree in Philosophy!) I’ve changed careers from care work to computing by studying at home, experienced redundancy, changed path again to be a Montessori teacher (again studying on the job and at home) and now I’m carving out something resembling an income working from home, or cafes, or trains or indeed anywhere blogging, and hopefully soon, teaching, and writing. (Hint, look out for big things when I’m back from 1556.)

And the world of education hasn’t even begun to keep up with the world of work. It is beyond ludicrous to assume that we can cram facts and skills into our children’s heads that will equip them for careers that haven’t been invented yet. No teacher is experienced in the type of learning on the fly that is needed to keep up with what is going on out there – how could they be when they’ve basically been to school, university and back to school again? They’ve never had to make it up, grab new expertise, cram facts for a quick qualification before an interview, or blag a job via skype. Which all means that schools are the least useful preparation for today’s children that they could possibly have.

So instead, what do I recommend? I recommend an open mind. I recommend exposure to a variety of ways of working. I recommend a course of deschooling for me and anyone else stuck in the 9-5, subject oriented mindset. I’m going to apologise to Big, tell her that it really doesn’t make any difference if she doesn’t have those qualifications, as I’m 99% sure she isn’t going to need them. Instead what you need to be able to demonstrate is passion, energy, drive, initiative, commitment. And if you want to work for yourself, you don’t even need to demonstrate those things, you can just get up and do it. There are some fabulous examples out there, like Louis Barnett the home educated entrepreneur and chocolatier. He had dyslexia and dyspraxia but became the youngest supplier to Sainsburys and Waitrose ever.

If that’s not inspirational, I don’t know what is. And it’s time I pulled my socks up and demonstrated, as a working mum to a brood of gorgeous but non conventional offspring, that we don’t need to do it anyone else’s way. We can do it otherwise 😉

(I’m submitting this post to the working mum’s blogger competition, because I would like more paid work, and I think I’m worth it. If you’d like to discuss paid working opportunities with me, please feel free to drop me a comment or a mail, but I don’t host other ppl’s SEO fiddling blogposts 🙂 )

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Home Ed Inspiration, Ideas, and Activities

Click the links below and scroll through my collection of ideas, workshops, excursions, and more to discover practical everyday activities you can do together in and around your home classroom.

Home Education Inspiration

Home Ed: Ideas and Activities

Home Ed: Topics and Discussion

Exploring Neurodivergence in Children

Comments

12 responses to “Home working, home learning, a new way of living.”

Baby Baskets
7 June 2012
I love your outlook on life, your kids should be very proud of you as a mummy. Even when I reached the ripe old age of 35 I STILL didn’t know what I wanted to do. It’s ridiculous to choose your options at 14 to decide your future.
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Allie
7 June 2012
“It is beyond ludicrous to assume that we can cram facts and skills into our children’s heads that will equip them for careers that haven’t been invented yet.”
Of course it is but that’s not really the point of most qualifications (to equip people for careers) and it never was. Most qualifications (certainly GCSE level) are mostly just hoops to jump through to get access to further learning opportunities. If you have kids who want to be entrepreneurs or otherwise find their own paths to interesting jobs/careers/whatever then that’ s great. If you have kids who might want to go to FE college at 16 then it makes sense to find out how that works in your area.
I never imagined that we’d be ploughing through IGCSEs but what I discovered from local home edders is that FE colleges round here no longer offer a broad range of GCSE courses – so it’s not an option to turn up at sixteen and assume that all paths will still be open to you. Colleges are also not up for giving access to level three courses (A levels and so on) without the ‘required’ GCSEs. So, knowing we had at least one child who wanted to be able to go to college at sixteen and take her pick of A levels (or maybe IB), we felt we needed to get the level 2 qualifications sorted ourselves.
I don’t for a minute imagine that the qualifications daughter is getting now will be an immense help all her life (certainly not in terms of content) but they hold the key to a few years (2 or 3) of free FE education doing subjects she chooses – between those tricky ages of sixteen and nineteen.
Sounds like you’re pretty determined to avoid the exams now anyway, but the logistics are not really a big deal in the scheme of things – certainly nothing to looking after a baby and a toddler!
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1. Sam
  8 June 2012
  I have never come across an A level yet that required more than 4 good GCSE passes (C or above) and most only need three.
  If you want to do a Maths A level, they will want one of the GCSEs to be in Maths. But the other two is usually unimportant.
  Likewise, to do English (lit or language) at A level, they usually would expect a C or above GCSE in English, as well as a couple of other GCSEs, but again, not too fussy as to what the other ones are.
  If you didnt have a Maths GCSE at all, but did have As in GCSE English, History, and Biology (for example), I highly doubt any A level course would turn you away from an English/History/Biology A level.
  But, baring all this in mind, and of course the fact that *most* jobs (even jobs in banks and with loan/mortgage/debt companies etc) only ask that you have “at least 3 GCSEs at grade C or above”, and rarely even specify that one has to be in Maths, it does beg the question why schools continue to lead children (and their parents) into believing that 9 or 10 or even 11 GCSEs are necessary, and more is better etc etc.
  The thing with Maths, is that shops, banks, mortgage companies etc etc… it’s all electronic. You use scanners and computers. Yes you need some ability, more so if working in a bank, counting out money etc, but most is done electronically, because humans make mistakes, machines do not. (Or if they do, it’s due to a fault and can be identified, rather than it being human error and harder to pinpoint).
  On the subject of GCSEs etc, it depends what you want to do, or what you are interested in, but with my children, if GCSEs are still used when they are nearing that age, I will encourage them to take the bare minimum (maybe one or two subjects one year, and then another 2 a year or two later). Whether they do A levels or NVQs, or go straight into a job which prvides experince and on-the-job-training, is up to them, and will depend. But I won’t be making a big deal out of GCSEs, they aren’t worth it in my opinion.
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  1. Allie
    8 June 2012
    Oh, I totally agree that the way schools push ten or twelve GCSEs is silly – way to much pressure for no real advantage. But when it comes to the *details* of what different colleges require, well that does need local investigation.
    For example, a friend just found that there was no way she could do *biology* A level at a local college because she hasn’t got a *chemistry* GCSE – she’ll have five good GCSEs but they would not be flexible about that need for chemistry. To do maths A level at some colleges you need not just a maths GCSE but a certain grade – sometimes B or above and sometimes A. Some colleges offer packages of four or five GCSEs in a year but only if you have previously studied at GCSE level – otherwise they expect a year of studying at level one first… And so on… It really isn’t a simple picture and different colleges can (and do) have very different attitudes and levels of flexibility.
    I’m not a flag-waving GCSE fan (!) and I’m glad that my teen has plenty of time and space to carry on doing the things she loves. But it is really worth doing research about the current situation in your local area if your home ed kids want to go to college, or might want to. That’s tricky because things change all the time. What we’re discovering for child one (15) might no longer apply when child two (12) is at the same stage so doubtless we’ll have to do the research again.
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Midlife Singlemum
7 June 2012
I agree with Allie. I can’t remember much of what I learned in school specifically for the exams (although I remember a lot of the other stuff). I have never been asked to produce O’level grades for anything in my life (even university was only interested in the A’levels). However, each set of exams was the key to keeping options open for the next stage.
On the other hand, as a teacher I always say to parents: when they find something they are passionate enough about to want to make it their career, they will go back and do whatever takes to get there – even if it takes a few extra years to make-up the missing links.
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Katie Pybus
8 June 2012
Gareth Lewis writes well on this area
“”Schoolchildren are consistently told that exams are important and some of this conditioning permeates through to people who do not go to school; they assume that their path must, at some point, converge with people who do go to school, and that the time will come when they must stop the work they are doing, however rewarding it might be, and sit some exams so that they can get qualifications, go to University etc.”
and then he goes on to say “These assumptions deserve to be questioned………”
http://thegallivanters.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/unqualified-education-part-two.html
I would also recommend edyourself.org as an example of a happy non-exam taking home ed teen and also Sandra Dodd writes about her own children who have found interesting and rewarding careers outside of the formal exam system.
Just as people beginning breastfeeding need support so do new home educators and I see the same if you decide to stay with home ed for the full term / full time – many people return to school or enter school just as Gareth Lewis writes – in some parts of the country there are very high hurdles to sitting exams as an external private candidate but there is no reason to do this.
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1. Allie
  8 June 2012
  I think it’s great if people happily find their way without the need for qualifications – all power to them. But, at this point in our home ed journey, my opinions don’t really matter much – what counts is what *my kids want to do* as they head into their late teens and young adult lives. My job is to support them in that however they need me to. So, for us, that’s helping with IGCSEs at home so daughter can enter college and get on the courses she wants to do.
  It’s also worth mentioning that not all exam studying is hell! Daughter had a fab time studying for her IGCSE biology in a home ed group led by a local mum. Yes it’s a syllabus and it’s packed with factual content that has to be learned but there’s also time for fun experiments and the simple joy of learning new stuff.
  I don’t think home ed has to be about choosing any one path as ‘right’ or ‘correct’. For us, the last eight years or so have been about finding our way bit by bit and that continues now.
  Reply
Katie Pybus
8 June 2012
You probably know already but Charlotte Rochez is compiling information on second generation home educators and your daughter might find that inspiring – we have some families in our area where the parents were home educated and are now home educating their own children and also famous people might be a good angle – there are loads of lists online of famous home educated people .
One of the home ed Mums at our adults evening social spoke of how she had bought and paid for a car at 17 whilst her schooled contempories were all revising for A levels she was happy, working and earning. I love my children to hear these stories – very affirming
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Katie Pybus
8 June 2012
but as you say technology has changed all of this and for self taught learning home ed has to be the place to be!
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Susan Mann
8 June 2012
What a fab outlook you have. x
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mamacrow
8 June 2012
We’ve always used the toolbox approach for Home Ed, from the very start. So, literacy & numeracy are the first tools we’re looking to help them put in their box, good research skills are also on our equipment list!
With Saurus, he doesn’t yet have a clear idea what he wants to go on and do – just looking a few years ahead – so we’ve agreed that it’s wise for him to have english & maths gcses in his toolbox, because – as Ali says – they could help him get on courses he really wants to do.
If one of the other kids has a really clear idea of what they want to do, we would help them pursue that – though I still think maths & english gsces are, at the moment at least, useful bits of paper to have up your sleeve just incase… Also, as we have so much more control on how and when we study for them and can quite literally hand select any tutors the experience so far has been quite rewarding!
I also think that while mainstream education and, to a lesser extent, the world of work, hangs on exams as it’s main means of assesment, being able to go through the techinical hoops required is a useful skill to have – rather than being kept in a terrified thrall of exams.
Just my rambly thoughts on the subject!
Poor Big ((HUGS)) not that theres ANYTHING wrong with working at tescos if that’s what you WANT to do, but i’m guessing it isn’t?! It’s horrid to feel trapped. And in my experience, luckily fairly unfounded xxx
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Fiona Nicholson
10 June 2012
Thanks to Katie for heads-up on this blog post. My son is 19, autonomously home educated, never been to school, and hasn’t taken exams. We have always discussed his options for short,medium and long-term and I’ve done masses of research on the subject which I’ve put on my website. http://edyourself.org/articles/exams.php
If my son had wanted to go to college it would have made sense to do at least Maths and English exams, though the English wouldn’t have been GCSE because of controlled assessment. Similarly if he had wanted to go to university, I do believe he would need exams.
Last week he played music with a different group of people to varied audiences every day/night of the week. He also did some computer programming. We debated a variety of topics as usual.
We are well aware of the risks of not having any qualifications, though qualifications won’t necessarily open any doors, if you don’t have other qualities/contacts/skills/experience.
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