Having the courage to follow your own path

Sometimes much courage is needed to follow our own path rather than walking the one that has been worn down by many others before.  There is a comfort in following the path that is flat and well trodden for the chances of stumbling are very slim. However the bumpy trail that we fall on many times and are tested by is normally the one that takes us to the summit giving us the most breathtaking view.
Every now and then people have to take a brave step and perhaps even go it alone to reach for something new, something they feel strongly about and believe in. Its a hundred years since women won the right to vote.  This was not an overnight process it took the best part of a decade, but eventually women were taken seriously and given their right to vote.

Today there is another movement happening all over the western world where women and parents are exercising their right to home educate their children. There are many reasons for this, for some its logistics as more people want to travel and live off grid, for others it’s ethical, personal or there may be issues with anxiety or bullying.  I myself made this decision one year ago. Was it a hard decision to make? No, not really, it felt right.  Was I scared? heck yes. Did I think I couldn’t do it, yes at times, but I realised this was just collective fear.

We are conditioned into thinking we are not capable of educating our own children, even though we have been teaching them since birth. We teach them to walk, talk, and stay safe, right from wrong and self worth. So much is learnt through living and doing that children do not even realise that they are constantly learning every day. I think it’s more in our heads that we have the difficulty with how to teach our children as we only have how we were taught as a reference point, so we keep looking back to that experience. How we were taught is not necessarily how our children need to be taught, so we should in effect toss those text books out the window.
 We live in a different world now where we read and ingest information differently. We are in the age of smart phones, kindles and online learning. We do not need to sit and spend hours copying from a board or a page of text. Rhyming off things does not necessarily mean we know anything. Memorising is not learning or understanding.

Teachers constantly have to find new teaching methods as they encounter more and more variation in children’s thinking and learning patterns. What if one day there are more children left field than mainstream what will the new normal be?  There were literally thousands of children deregistered from schools across the UK last year alone. So clearly something isn’t working.  The education system needs to be radically reformed.

Schools were born out of the need to warehouse children during the industrial revolution and adults were needed for work. This has not changed much as children are still putting in a thirty plus hour week from the age of five in the UK and spend most of it with their heads buried in a book with as little as twenty minutes of outside play per day and only one hour per week of physical education at elementary level.
The best part about being a child and the thing we remember most is having fun and all the games we played.  When kids come home from school tired and a bag full of homework there is no will or inclination to play or create. Their creativity is being stifled.
If we can build bombs and rockets and think about sending people to Mars we can come up with a school system that is versatile, fun and exciting for children. School should not be something that is dreaded, feared, or stressful it should excite a child they should be eager to go and show off their talents.
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The Waldorf school system based on some of the teachings of Rudolf Steiner an Austrian Philosopher places an emphasis on children spending as much time outdoors as possible until the age of seven to give them time to get into their physical bodies.  This makes sense, for when children have learning difficulties part of the treatment plan is an exercise and movement regime to help combat symptoms. They also teach a lot through physical play and let the child learn at their own pace. There are hundreds of these schools throughout the world but there are not enough and they are private thus making them inaccessible to most.

For whatever reason parents decide to home educate, in doing so they are giving their children a choice. They can choose how and what they want to learn. People are realising that mainstream education is not the only way, there are alternatives.  We have come a long way in the last few decades, we eat healthier, exercise, meditate and practice mindfulness. So it only stands to reason that we would want the same life for our children. Perhaps we are all searching for our own personal utopia, a life without the daily grind of rush hour and school runs.  I find my days are a lot less rushed and I have more energy to do the things I enjoy.  My children enjoy learning more now as they are interested in what they are doing. They are less stressed, less tired, and not bogged down by homework. They now have time for their own creative work and have commenced their own individual projects. I am amazed at their knowledge, focus and determination and can’t wait to see how it all unfolds.