Sep 6, 2023 5 min read Reasons to Homeschool

Teach through interest

Why we're not following a curriculum

‌Learning is the acquisition of knowledge or skills through study, experience, or being taught

They want to learn

Children's brains are biologically, evolutionarily hard-wired to learn new information, it's just what they do.

Any parent who has been on the receiving end of the 'Why?' offensive knows you don't have to teach them that.

It's what sets us humans so far apart from other animals - our ability to rapidly absorb and employ new information, adapt our behaviour, and thus overcome obstacles and challenges that potentially threaten our survival.

All you then have to do is give a child access to information and resources, add in a bit of stimulating conversation with someone who has been through it before, support them to keep trying and they will learn like you wouldn't believe.

This amplifies dramatically if they're advanced with their language at an early age and can hold a coherent conversation sooner than expected.

They're already doing it

It only takes a moment of watching a young child totally engrossed in what they're currently doing to see just how quickly, and in how much detail, they're always learning new things.

Just listening to how our kids talk to each other, how they copy our own phrasing and intonation in conversation, or how quickly they have become proficient in physical tasks has made it abundantly clear that they need very little assistance in the process of learning stuff - they just need guidance on what's useful to learn and where to get the necessary information.

'The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.' - Albert Einstein

Curriculum vs Interest

As soon as I've let loose the words 'well we're probably going to home educate and see how it goes' out of my mouth, I invariably receive some version the same (well intended) question:

"What curriculum are you following?"

To which I reply - "Well, we're not really...we're just sort of seeing how it goes"

The idea of a curriculum is rather strange when you stop to think about it. Why would you choose a specific set of seemingly arbitrary facts in a select few subjects and then demand that every child knows them to approximately the same degree?

Surely you want each child to have their own specialist areas of interest, their own curiosities and quirks, their own unique blend and style to offer the world?

This is increasingly relevant in the new age of information overload. Schools used to have a relative monopoly on knowledge - teachers were the only people who knew stuff, so you had to go to school to be taught new information - at least that was the idea.

Nowadays our instant access to the entirety of human knowledge through our incredibly overpowered mobile devices means the patient in front of me often has more up-to-date information about their condition than I do (especially if they've been sat Googling in the waiting room for a while).

The truly valuable skill now is not memorising information, but knowing where to look and when, and having an unrelenting desire to find out more.

Why we don't feel school is the optimal way to learn

Especially for gifted kids with high intensity personalities and a deep, unrelenting desire to understand a topic in real detail.

You get 30-40 minutes allocated per task (or subject), and a bell tells you when you're finished, whereupon you move onto the next task, whether or not you would actually be more interested in continuing the first one for a bit longer
You learn a specific, arbitrary set of facts (that every adult admits they likely won't ever use) that someone else has decided it is important for you to know
You're assessed using standardised tests, such that you can be ranked compared to everyone else according to how well you performed on that specific task
You are taught to work alone, and not to collaborate with others to figure out solutions to problems
You're assigned breaks at set times, rather than when you feel your concentration is dipping
You spend most of the time sat down inside a concrete building, no matter how sunny it is outside, or how much better you learn when you've been given space to run around and think out loud
You may only use the toilet if someone else grants you permission
You get homework to do for a few hours each evening (it isn't clear if homework actually helps learning, especially in young children), meaning you have less time to work on your own projects or creative ventures
If you struggle to concentrate or fit in with the above requirements, then clearly there is something wrong with you and you need medical treatment

Sounds a bit like the perfect blueprint for an employee factory, rather than the ideal setup for inspiring a love of learning and self development.

I look back and shudder at how often I was told "If you want to get a good job..." as if that was the only purpose of my education.

Set them free

If you take the arbitrary rules away, and let them learn about what they want to discover, and encourage them, then they'll learn faster than you could ever imagine.

Just look how quickly they pick up a new video game, comic book series or physical activity that they desperately want to do, and are given free reign to learn through play.

Why do we want them to know the same things as everyone else? Surely the whole point is that they're unique and they all know different things, that's what makes them special.

If you want to be exceptional in any field, be that academia, business, entrepreneurship, art - you need to have knowledge or experience that no-one else has. A childhood full of unique adventures and experiences is more likely to give you a wider view of the world, and feed into a deeper love of learning that allows you to pursue a passion to the point of becoming a genuine expert.

Covering the bases

It would be naive of us to expect a University, an employer or an investor to look at a child's CV only to find it bereft of any form of formal assessment or record of attainment and still consider them when presented with other candidates with rafts of top grades at GCSE and A level.

It is likely that taking a completely curriculum-detached approach to our kids' education may well disadvantage them later when it comes to applying for higher education or employment, should they choose that path (particularly if they would like to pursue a very traditional vocation such as Medicine).

So we're going to cover the national curriculum, and the Common Entrance curriculum, and whatever else we can find, to ensure that we haven't missed anything that might result in the kids being disadvantaged later on. We're also planning to do GCSEs and A-levels or their equivalents as normal (maybe at secondary school depending on how things pan out), so that their application forms aren't discarded before they've had a chance to demonstrate their abilities.

But our aim is to try and gently incorporate the relevant information into a much more interest-led approach of learning through play and exploration, rather than sitting down in a shirt and tie and ticking off today's box of what we're supposed to know for the exam.