On Homeschooling and the System

I home educated my daughters, but I generally try to avoid being too negative about the school system and certainly school teachers. My daughters actually started out in the school system and while it ultimately didn't work out for us, I know it suits some and I've encountered more lovely teachers within the system than I have bad ones (much of the time when teachers couldn't help with my girls' specific needs it was down to the restrictions of the schooling system, not their desire to teach). However, in this article I will be venting a bit on my frustrations with the school system which fails so much of our youth.

^{Image courtesy of @crosheille.}

A bit of background first

I was probably fairly lucky in my education, as while I spent a short time in the state (public) school system, most of my school years were at a Rudolf Steiner (Waldorf) school. I actually didn't realise at the time just how lucky I was, because it was a school specifically catering to a deprived area where most families, us included, could never normally have afforded private education. Sadly this school has now been closed down by the education department and I've heard that at least one other Waldorf school in the UK has also been closed down. Make of that what you will.

The Waldorf approach to education is much more holistic and individual to the child than the state school system, yet while they did things differently, there was still the need to conform to the government approach when it came to exams and this was my first experience of how exams don't always allow you to demonstrate your abilities, so much as demonstrate how well you can jump through hoops. Both my sister and myself were pretty much put off art at this time of our lives, because of the way the exams work. We were basically made to feel like we had no talent in that area. This all came back to me recently with my youngest doing her SACE (South Australian Certificate of Education).

I started home educating my daughters just before their 10th and 8th birthdays. It turned out to be the best thing for them. Once they approached their mid teens we started looking at what they wanted to do moving forward. My eldest knew she wanted to do science at university, so we looked at different ways she could get into university. We knew some children went back into school at this age in order to do their SACE and get an ATAR score. I don't know exactly how the ATAR works, but different university degrees will demand scores above a certain amount to allow you on them. In school you are led to believe that these scores are the be all and end all of getting into university and if you don't achieve them then it's over for that path and you have to do a different degree.

A physio friend recently told me that she thought she'd failed to get into her physio degree because the year before you'd needed a 99 ATAR score to get in and she'd gotten 97, despite all the hours and work she'd put in. She cried nearly all day when she got her results. As it happened she did get the university offer with this score, but it demonstrates just how much pressure is put on students in the school system and they are not told that there are actually a variety of other ways to get onto the course they want. Perhaps it's because school's reputations are based on the scores that their students get, so they want them to strive for the highest scores they can.

My eldest didn't want to go back into the school system to get into university and thankfully we already knew from other homeschooling families that there were other entry pathways. We made inquiries and were told that she could do a specific maths course offered by the university to get into most of the science degrees, so we started doing that. Unfortunately, it became harder and harder to get hold of the contacts for the marking and by the time she finished the course they'd decided it would no longer be a pathway to anything. So she ended up having to wait until she'd turned 18 and take the STAT (Special Tertiary Admissions Test) adult entry pathway. In some states you need to be 21 to be able to enter university this way.

My youngest wasn't sure what she wanted to do and wasn't sure she wanted to go to university either. She's more of a hands on learner than an academic learner. However, my husband wasn't keen on the idea of her reaching school leaving age without any "formal" qualification, so he wanted her to at least get a SACE qualification. While my eldest could have handled school for this, my youngest wouldn't have, so we decided to do it online through a place called Inventorium. It was recommended by another homeschooling parent and was supposed to be more fun and child led than normal Open Access learning.

And thus the journey started

The idea of Inventorium is that students can gain their certificates working on the things that they enjoy and are good at and the teachers would enter this work in a way that would cover all the task requirements. It should have been a fairly relaxed approach and she didn't need an ATAR so it was just a standard certificate she was working towards. If she then wanted to go into university at a later point there are still pathways even without an ATAR. For example you can start a degree like art, take on a unit required for the degree you actually want to do, then do a course swap after the first semester.

To start with things with Inventorium seemed like they really were being done with a more informal approach through the website, but it soon became apparent that this wasn't enough to satisfy certain compulsory areas. Basic maths was straight forward, but English still had all the essay requirements and when we reached other stage 2 subjects it was pretty much a case of forget about what the student wants to do, they might be able to choose the direction of the topic, but then you need to learn how to present everything in a specific way for marking and moderation. If you don't present it correctly with the correct wording that they want to see, then it doesn't matter how capable you are at the subject, you will be failed.

The teacher even admitted that for many of the assignments students will pretty much have to make things up to fit the requirements that they are looking for. So it seems like the highest grades in school are actuality achieved by the ones that are best at hoop jumping and lying. You can't meet the requirements within the limitations of a student without filling in the gaps this way. It feels like integrity is just not encouraged any more, in fact the opposite is encouraged (which would actually explain a lot about managers in the workplaces these days...).

The subject that almost broke my daughter was Creative Arts at stage 2 level. She thought she'd finally be able to have some control of what she wanted to do, but because she wasn't presenting it properly she basically got told that this wasn't her strong suit. It turned out that for about 80% of the assignment they actually want to see research, then only about 20% of it was the student demonstrating their art and ability. This could have been explained much better by the teacher, but she wasn't really experienced in this area herself and she end up passing her own stress about looming deadlines onto my daughter.

There were lots of conversations after this about how while art and techniques can be taught to an extent it's really not something that you can test for with an exam, because it's so subjective. This is likely why they've devised an approach to try and bring it into a form where they can mark it impartially, but it actually ends up undermining the confidence of many creative people. It's not just these types of talents that are undermined by the examination system, but they will continue to try and devise ways to give you certificates in a range of subjects, not just because it's money coming in to pay for the education system, but because we now have employers that want to see those certificates, even for jobs that don't need qualifications.