Educating Yourself, Home Schooling and Self Motivation

By Ina Woolcott

If you have never done anything associated with home schooling, then 'how does homes schooling work?' is a highly interesting question. You may be wondering - how can one learn if there is not a 'professional' teacher present presenting the material? This is the most common scene world wide, and people are used to the 'norm'. They think that any other way is wrong. But who says this way is right, or the only way? Just because we are told, indoctrinated, that this is THE WAY doesn't mean it is by a long shot. The thing about education is - there is no one way to learning or teaching.

Even you, visiting this page on this website are taking part in a form of home schooling. You are curious and are finding information on the subject home schooling. You are educating yourself! Sometimes this is also referred to as interest-motivated education or self-motivated education. Your curiosity becomes aroused in a given subject, extending to just about anything you can think of, and this motivates you to find out about it. By doing your own research you are learning. This is one reason I love the name of my website, home-schooling. Most of us are at home when surfing the net and home-schooling ourselves!

Now, home-educating children varies for all families. Some families follow the lead of their children, helping them explore what topics interest them. Eventually all subjects are covered that would get covered in public schools, but not necessarily in the same order as a public school, and at the child's own speed. Then there are families who follow public schools curriculum's via textbook. Or both styles can be used or adapted in any which way to suit the student and the parent.

Children generally learn extremely well at home, in fact, far better than their peers at public schools. Of course this depends on the family and the student, but the thing is we are ALL in the process of constantly learning, no matter what our age. The mind/brain loves being stimulated and learning new things.

Home educating can be a highly rewarding style of learning, however, the success of it is linked to the way one approaches it. The main principle is motivation, for all parties concerned. This is the deciding element. Sometimes home schooling has good results, sometimes it doesn't.

One reason lays in the fact that state/government dictated curriculum's are stiff in structure, ensuring all are kept busy and acting at standardised levels. In the home, there is no underlying structure, allowing more room for fluidity and freedom with less pressure on being at a certain level at a certain time - most homeschoolers do develop their own personal structure though over time, often with means of measuring abilities. Whilst the latter may be seen as limiting by some, it may actually be a big advantage as self assessment and self motivation are encouraged. Of foremost importance however, is the freedom that is allowed to explore that which is of most interest to the student, giving learning a much more fun and rewarding angle.

Some people feel that kids who have been educated at home will be disadvantaged when applying for college or a job vacancy as they don't have a bit of paper saying they passed such and such an exam to show their academic prowess. In reality though, most colleges and employers keen and happy to look past paper credentials and find out about ones abilities in a more personalised way.

Actually, most colleges support homeschoolers applying as they believe they will be well-rounded, who will ultimately help in creating a more dynamic and diverse student body.