h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Home Education - A615791
Author: Joe the Dragon - U181974

I found this really useful and it can be quite hard to come across things on Home Education.

Hi Pinwheel Pearl

Since Joe the Dragon seems to have left the building, are you offering to take this under your wing and do more work on it, possibly including implementing suggestions made here? Or were you maybe hoping that someone else seeing it here might be inspired to do that?

Bels

I'm being home educated at the moment so don't mind contributing. How do I go about doing that.

Hi all

Is it true that you only legally have to be taught maths and english?

I've always been told that you have to do Science, I.T and another language. Could be wrong though.

Here's a good link for the entry and for you, Pinwheel Pearl:

http://www.education-otherwise.org/.

I have friends who home educate and Education Otherwise (EO) is a great source of help and inspiration.

I'm sure I've posted this elsewhere before. But hey...

I was home educated until I was 7, when I choose to go to school, (because I was lonely). I don't really think I learnt anything I didn't know already until I got to secondary school - with the exception of adding fractions which my Dad didn't know how to do.
All we did at primary school was reading and writing really, with a bit of maths thrown in, though that was just arthimatic, not algrebra or anything useful..(okay okay I was the child who liked algebra)

A couple of usefull computer related links for home educators.

http://schoolforge.net/ is trying to provide open source software for schools, so there might be some good stuff available there to help.

also, the debian linux distribution is trying to produce debian junior (see http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-jr/ ) which aims to be a complete linux sytem designed to be suitable for children.

The gnu encyclopedia might help at http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia

Hi all,

I think this is going to need substantial changes before it's ready for the edited guide, as it's a bit of a polemic at the moment. I don't know very much about it personally, but I'm sure there are more objections than are listed here. I'm sure that socialisation must be much more of a problem than is admitted, and this entry would be stronger for taking on problems and suggesting solutions rather than denying their existence.

It's also worth making the point that not everyone can home educate -think what would happen if everybody did? I'd like to see an edited guide entry on this important subject (well done for finding it, and thanks for recommending it, btw! , but this needs more work.

I don't agree that school is always and automatically a bad thing and doomed to failure. I don't think that parents should feel guilty for sending their children to school. If some parents don't want that, then fine, but I think this article goes way too far!

eg.
"Once one has seen through the farce of education at school, it becomes clear that children deserve something better."

Eh?????

I *would* be very pleased to see a re-worked version of this in the edited guide, though. It could either be as a more balanced piece of writing (school isn't for everyone, fine, but it's surely wrong to call it a farce....), or as a personal experience piece.

Best wishes

Otto

Does this mean I need to send it to the Flea Market and pick it up from there or write a new entry? Help, I am very new to this.

I think it does need to be in the Flea Market for you to pick it up and run with it. I have asked the Editors to look into this - we'll see what they say.

Thankyou, I don't know if I'm coming or going today!