Save time and simplify
your homeschooling life...
Learn from experienced
homeschoolers how to write your own curriculum.
It really is that easy!
Use this website with Beverley Paine's Getting Started with Home Schooling - Practical Considerations to help you develop your own educational curriculum to suit your family situation, beliefs and lifestyle. The checklists can help you identify your children's current educational skill level in each subject area, as well as find any 'gaps' in their learning, plan what they need to cover or keep track of what has been learned. As you can appreciate this website is continuously under development... It's our aim to add pages on a regular basis in all curriculum areas: check back frequently. Feedback and comments welcome. We hope you enjoy the articles and activities and find the links and recommended resources useful. Over the next year we will be working our way through each subject area and writing fresh, new content which will also be reproduced in a reasonably priced handy reference booklet from our Practical Homeschooling Series. |
|
"Congratulations on a terrific website. It's a great resource." Steven "By sharing your experiences, we are into our third year of homeschooling and enjoying it thoroughly." Marina "Thank you so much for your wonderful website! I was getting quiet frustrated with finding appropriate information on homeschooling - thanks to your website we are now on the right track... Using your checklists for reassurance helped me to have the confidence to come up with my own programme that suits our needs." Rachael "I'm a frequent visitor to your website... I gain valuable knowledge from your website, luckily recommended in the very early stages of our homeschooling journey." Geradine "I checked out your website today and was incredibly impressed by it. I can tell it will be a great resource for our family for many years. THANKS for all the hard work that has gone into making homeschooling easier and much less isolating for families like us." Cynthia |
What Makes a Great Teacher?
© Beverley Paine Jun 2004
I read a column in another newsletter recently which asked this question and began to think about it. It's easy to think that as home educators we have to replicate the role of 'teacher' in our homes, but it isn't long before we find out that we've replicated many of the behavioural problems teachers seem to face in the classroom! I soon abandoned my 'teacher' methods and tried to be more like 'just mum' in our homeschooling life, but that didn't feel very satisfying either. There were times I knew my children would have performed much better had I been a teacher and not 'just mum'!
I guess that was what lay at the heart of the problem - the expectation I had that my children should perform... Learning isn't about demonstrating new skills or knowledge to others.
And if that's true, then teaching isn't about passing on my skills or knowledge to others - it's more about inspiring them to explore the skills and knowledge they want or need.
The article I read made it quite clear - it's not the great presentation, the wiz bang effects, the planning and preparation, or the time and effort: teaching is about inspiring children to do what they need to do to learn whatever it is they need to learn.
It isn't necessarily about motivating them, using tricks of the trade - you know - "learning must be fun", rewards, bribes, grades, threats and coercion; it's real action, generated by real interest and curiosity, the type of inspiration, way of seeing things that goes on for the rest of a person's life. It's inspiring a child to see something in a different way, of having a go, inventing, imagining; of bringing a new perspective. A great teacher makes every learning opportunity fresh and personal, and relevant to the learner's immediate situation.
Once I discovered this I realised it was much easier for me to be a great teacher around my children as I knew them better than just about any one else. Rather than spend my time focussing on performance, I began to focus on seeing life in a new exciting light - in much the same way as my children do, actually, with as much enthusiasm as they did.
Rather than think up ways to make learning fun, it suddenly became fun!
And then I came across this quote, which highlights another aspect of what makes a good 'teacher', on one of the homeschooling lists I subscribe to:
The master will rarely respond with an answer, but almost always simply repeat the question. "That is a good question," the master will say. "How can you stop hurting yourself this way?" The student will then discover the answer on his own, calling it forth from within, thereby coming to wisdom. Had the master given an answer, the student would have come to knowledge. Yet it was the master's intent that the student should come to wisdom. The two are not the same."
from http://www.cwg.org/bulletins.html .
on this website is of a general
nature only and is not intended as
personal or professional advice.
Getting Started Manual Unschooling Books Educational Games Natural Learning Practical HS Booklet Series Curriculum Reports/Portfolios Homeschool Diaries Conference DVD 
More questions?
JOIN the FORUM
Time to spare?
Browse our extensive
ARTICLE
LIBRARY
Feedback is always welcome
on our websites!
Join the HEA in 2008
and receive 2 FREE Booklets!
A percentage of sales
goes to Trees For Life
|
|
We welcome
advertising inquiries
from educational suppliers.
Email
ALWAYS LEARNING BOOKS
ABN 17 503 397 443
Beverley and Robin Paine
PO Box 371 Yankalilla 5203
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Thank you for visiting!
Pioneering members of the home education movement in Australia,
Beverley and Robin Paine
are passionate advocates of true educational choice for families.
They began homeschooling in 1986 and three years later started the
South Australian Home Based Learners
network. Beverley continues to write for homeschooling newsletters
and magazines as well as hosting several websites dedicated to promoting
and supporting home education in Australia. Her aim is to demystify the
education process and make it accessible to all parents. Enjoy Beverley's
wealth of practical knowledge, homeschooling and unschooling tips and
ideas through articles and books and online at
www.homeschoolaustralia.com.
Since the late 1990s Robin and Beverley have been building their home education
publishing business - Always Learning Books - from home with the help of their son Thomas.
"Education is not a preparation for life. Education is life itself." John Dewey
Please note that the opinions and articles included in the suite of Homeschool Australia websites are not necessarily those of Beverley and Robin Paine, nor do we endorse or necessarily recommend products (other than our own) listed in contributed articles, pages, or advertisements.
Please visit the following websites for information on homeschooling in Australia:
Homeschool Australia : SAHEN : Australian HS Curriculum : About the Paine Family
Text & Images on this site
Copyright © 1999-2008 Beverley Paine.
All rights reserved.
Help | Disclaimer | Copyright | Privacy