This is an article I was requested to write recently. These are my thoughts based on my approach to home education. Others may do things differently.
Sustainable Homeschooling
Where do you see yourself in five years time? Only Allah
(swt) knows whether we will still be alive in five years time and what our
condition will be then, but what are your hopes? What intentions are you
building on?
If you have currently chosen homeschooling (more commonly
known as Home Education in the UK) for your family do you picture yourself, in
five years time, learning around the table, making lapbooks? How about sitting
together in a family halaqa or listening to your child recite Quran? Maybe your
eldest boy will be mature and able to lead the prayers in your home. Do you
imagine attending home school trips with like minded families, seeing your
children enjoy and develop friendships which bolster and encourage their
Islamic identity? Will you be setting up home chemistry experiments, tending a
family vegetable garden or raising butterflies? It is a little different from
dropping the kids off on a hectic, congested school run then keeping an eye on
the clock until they return, but when you are a home educating family the
possibilities are many.
How does that picture seem to you? How do you feel at the
prospect of guiding your eldest through their GCSEs whilst setting out the
playdoh for your preschooler and meeting the educational needs of everyone else
in between? Do you feel excited by the challenge and ready to embrace the ever
changing home schooling journey? It is certainly a prospect that grabs my
attention!
But, you may be asking yourself, how do I get from where I
am now to a point where I would feel confident and capable enough to be guiding
my family through all the stages of their education. The answer is that you
probably will never reach such a comfortable state, but you will be always
trying, always striving to improve and trusting in Allah to get you through.
At the beginning of the home education journey the way
forward can seem very unclear and the commitment daunting. After nine years of
home educating I can say that the way forward does not necessarily get any
clearer, you just learn to trust that you will get there, inshAllah. Until I
actually embark on a new stage of home education and start experiencing it and
working through it with my children I am never sure how it will play out. However
much prior research I have done, I am always learning along the way. When it
comes to homeschooling there is no substitute for hands on learning through
experience, both for the kids and mum!
When I first became interested in home education I spent a
lot of time reading up about it online and in books. I did my research. I
wanted to know about different approaches to learning, how to teach a child to
read, how to ensure a good understanding of maths and so on. I also wanted to
know more about how other people have home educated. What is it really like?
Nowadays with the proliferation of blogs, including those written by Muslim
home educators it is much easier to find all this out than when I was looking
some ten years ago. The research was good preparation and gave me lots of ideas
to work with, but nothing could compare to when I actually got started with
teaching my own children. Some methods I liked the theory of just seemed a
waste of time when applied to my children. It was trial and error. I was
learning as much as they were. There were ups and downs but over all we made
progress, alhamdulillah. At the same time I was working with two other home
educating families. Together we were learning how to home educate.
And we had time to do this. All of our children were still
young. We were starting from the beginning.
We didn’t need to be perfect. At that young age children don’t have many
academic goals to achieve, the important part of learning still revolves around
play and developing an Islamic personality and manners.
Starting off with homeschooling can be likened to starting
off with motherhood. At first the duties of caring for the newborn can be
overwhelming. You don’t know what you are doing and small problems with the
baby can cause a lot of stress. Few of us would look back, I’d guess, at how we
managed our first baby and think of ourselves as ideal mothers. I certainly
feel that I’ve learned from experience and although I’m still far from an ideal
parent it is much easier with my fifth child than it was with my first, alhamdulillah.
Experience is a good teacher. However, are my eldest markedly worse off as a
result of my early parenting bloopers? I don’t think so. We have muddled
through, alhamdulillah. Homeschooling is a skill like any other parenting skill.
It takes time to learn, you make mistakes along the way but with determination
you can achieve your goals, with the help of Allah.
With each new stage of the homeschooling journey, early
years, primary, secondary, GCSEs I embark with a plan to hand, an outline of
where I am going, but with an open mind. I ask Allah to help me find a way to
make a success of this venture and, alhamdulillah, things become clearer and we
find our way. Isn’t it like this for the stages of parenting too? From terrible
twos to the teens, we learn along the way.
But is there another way you may be asking? Do I really have
to do this alone? The answer to that is no – and yes.
In this country, legally speaking, home education is the
responsibility of the parent. If anyone from the local authority enquires about
your child’s education if he isn’t registered with a school the duty rests with
you. Bearing this in mind however, children do not benefit from being brought
up in isolation and making friends and learning with others are important parts
of individual development. Getting together with other home educators, pooling
skills and making friendships is a great way of helping each other learn
homeschooling together.
This is how what I am going to refer to as “sustainable
homeschooling” is achieved, inshAllah. When you take the decision not to enrol
your child in school you are taking the decision to place the responsibility
for their whole education on yourself. That responsibility was actually always yours
in the first place, but a school can be used to delegate that responsibility to
if required.
A school is usually an established institution. When you
enrol your child in the Reception class you can reasonably expect that school
to still be there to provide your child’s education all the way through until Year
6 (in most cases), should you choose to remain with that school. With home
education the only factor you can realistically hope to remain constant (by the
Will of Allah) for that long is yourself.
Homeschooling is all about making the most of opportunities
as they appear and being active in creating those opportunities too. In my
experience home education is a journey of constant change. This has its
advantages. My children have had the privilege of growing up with a variety of
educational experiences from art workshops to horse riding, swimming, trips and
the caring input from a variety of other adults. I have always tried my best to
taking advantage of such opportunities knowing that they will not last
indefinitely. Usually change occurs because someone moves on in life. Families
relocate, bringing an end to a set of co-operative classes, or social meet-ups;
a new baby arrives and the sister can no longer teach a class. Also people
change jobs or a venue is lost leading to the cancellation of a sports class or
series of workshops. I have seen this happen again and again over the years. If
a school loses a member of staff they simply recruit a replacement. It is not
as straightforward with homeschooling. A home educator needs to be flexible and
resourceful and able to come up with solutions.
However, although variety is stimulating and interesting,
consistency and stability are also crucial in the child’s education. As a home educator I feel I need to maintain
the role of primary educator for my children, especially in the core academic
subjects. While I am eager to benefit
from the skills of others in my community I know that my involvement is the
most significant factor in my children’s education. Incidentally it is often
stated that parental involvement is also very important for the successful
education of children who attend school.
There are some subjects for which I know I need outside
help, most notably Quran and Arabic and at higher levels some aspects of maths
and science. My solution is to seek tuition help when I need it and to
supplement everything else as often as I can with as wide a range of
educational opportunities as I can afford.
Personally I chose home education for my children as I
believed it offered the best form of education for my children when compared to
school. Many others choose home education in order to avoid the state system or
because they cannot afford a private Islamic school for their child. The
dilemmas of choosing the best educational method continue to apply throughout
the child’s educational years. If state school is not a desired option at age 5
the same will probably remain true at age 11 or 14. In my view it makes sense
to develop options that will be sustainable throughout the whole period of
compulsory education. If home education is to be one of those sustainable
options then it needs to be at the centre of the family home life. That may
sound like a challenging commitment, but all it means is getting involved and
being willing to join your child on a learning journey. Whilst being hard work
this can truly be a joyful experience.
May Allah make easy
what we sincerely do for His sake.