Home education styles

There are a number of education styles that fit specifically with home education. I've always said that there are as many styles of home education as there are children being home educated styles of education vary even within individual families as the needs of each child are met. It's so diverse and changing that I have rarely found a home educator who can truly define their style. 

The main styles of home education are as follows:

Structured

This is what most people who don't home educate imagine a home to look like. It's as close to school as anyone can imagine. Often families use purchased curriculum materials to follow this approach as it makes like much easier although there is so much online now, that with time and effort, most materials can be sourced relatively cheaply or even for free. Timetables are develpoed, work is balanced and often curriculum based, sometimes with externally marked assignments. Sometimes tutors are used to help assist with learning certain subjects. It's often the style that's reported in newspapers and installs fear into lots of parents as they imagine the rigour of just getting a piece of homework done. 

Autonomous/Unschooling

Tthis is often seen as the opposite of structure. This system relies on following the interests of individual children. There are rarely structured learning times, it's flexible and adaptable to the needs of everyone in the family. There is little about this system that can be associated with the way schools work, hence the American term of Unschooling.  To people who don't understand it, it can be seen as lazy or not doing anything much at all. Often there is no paper trail to speak of. Either paper based work is not done, or not kept. It can be distrusted and heavily criticised as it's so far outside the norm. 

Semi Structured

As you can probably imagine, this is a bit of middle ground. There's some structure involved in the day, parents encourage children to do some things that they feel are important whilst trying to encourage some autonomy with regards to topics covered. It is where lots of home educators place themselves in regards to the provision for their children. 

So, where are we? I think we've been all of them at some point or another. I like to think of our home education like a tidal flow. It comes and it goes. Sometimes it suits us to just trust the children and let it flow, sometimes I like to encourage the development of certain skills, sometimes I simply just insist that certain things are done.  

Right now, I'd class myself as a structured Unschooler. Not something you might imagine given the descriptions above and not really semi structured as we're not half imposed structure and the other half autonomous. Yet, I class myself as that because the children themselves have requested the structure and routine. They want to learn and develop new skills. They're happy knowing that their tray of work with individualised tasks are waiting for them in the morning. They're seeing their own progress  and as I get better at it, the tasks are becoming more varied and interesting. I'm loving it too. I feel like we're all in control and that we're all starting to reach for our potential.