Home schooling

Home schooling around the world


Europe

In most countries of Europe it is legal to home school your child.



Austria

It is legal in all the 9 Austrian
provinces. It is not common, on the German languaged e-mail lists I
have been on I haven't met many, although there is a homeschooling
Yahoo group now. One of the requirements in some provinces
is that children follow the state curriculum and take an exam at the end of each school year.

weblinks (in German):
http://www.erziehung.at/haeuslicher_unterricht/index.php
http://www.diefreilerner.eu
http://www.zickler.net/homeschooling.htm
http://www.leben-ohne-schule.de/europa_oesterreich.html
http://leben-ohne-schule.jimdo.com/
http://jipli.free.fr/oesterreich



Yahoo group:
http://de/groups.yahoo.com/group/homeschooling_austria/



Belgium

Completely legal, usually with a yearly visit by a government official,
which is typically mainly about whether the children are socializing
enough and happy with being home schooled, not so much about their
educational achievements, although there are officially some rules to
that extent. I haven't heard of anyone who ended up with real problems
about the educational achievements on the various Dutch languaged
e-mail groups I am on.

Weblink (in Dutch):
http://www.thuisonderwijs.be/

and one in English

http://users.skynet.be/bcha/



Bulgaria

Illegal. Some special needs children get an exemption, but they will still have to follow the state curriculum.

Compulsory education age: 6-16



Cyprus

Illegal - penalties can be given.



Czech Republic

Five-year experimental federal law (began in 1999)
allows home education only ages 5-12.

No clue what things are at now.


Denmark
Legal. At present no further data


Finland

Legal

e-mail:Anne Lappalainen



France

Legal

Les enfants d'abord (since 1988) has been working very hard in France
to make things easier on parents who are home educating. It has become
a lot easier over the years. There are people who are also unschooling
there now. This was in the past not possible, parents had to following
the school curriculum.

Weblink:
http://www.lesenfantsdabord.org/eindex.html (English)
http://www.lesenfantsdabord.org/index.php (French)



Yahoo group:

http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/IEF_eu


Jean-Claude Verduyckt



Germany

Illegal, at the moment there is an exodus going
on of people leaving the country as children have been taken away from
their parents and other problems.

Educational age: 6-16
Weblink:
http://educatinggermany.7doves.com/



Greece

At present still illegal, although foreigners get
left alone usually. They are working on getting it legal though. No
clue where they are with this right now.

Hungaria
Legal, but uncommon. There is a "duty to learn", not to go to school. The parents have the right to choose the place of learning.
The parent can choose between schools (state or private), or to have its child be registered as "magantanulo", which means "private learner".
In practise, one has to be registered at a school, as a pupil who is attending, or who is private learner. It is the decision of the director, in which way he wants to verify the pupil is learning, mostly they choose exams.
The lawtext:
http://net.jogtar.hu/jr/gen/getdoc.cgi?docid=99300079.tv
Please copy and paste the above link, otherwise it doesn't seem to work.

Although the law is liberal, homeschooling uncommon. There are school directors, who don't know about it, or at least they don't like it. The reason for this is, that for private learners, the school is not obtaining any funding. For learners at school, they get a certain amount/pupil.


Italy

Legal, but uncommon. Parents have to report to the schools, as you will
have to enroll your child in the school, but then you keep them out and
educate yourself. Foreigners who are not familiar with it, can often
stay out of that system altogether. In case you cannot stay out of it,
it is good to go around the various local school and interview the
principal to get a feel on how the principal feels about home schooling
and pick the school of which the principal suits you best :-) The
principal has to handle your home schooling paperwork.

Unschooling is very difficult, after elementary school. In year 8 there
is an intense exam. Some children, who are not ready, can wait a year.

MSN board for English speakers:

http://communities.msn.com/HomeschoolingFamiliesinItaly

Italian christian home schooling website: http://www.utilecomune.com

Italian language Yahoo group: http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/scuolafamiliare



Ireland

Legal.

Weblink to the Irish home schoolers organisation:http://www.henireland.org/

Compulsory education age: 6-16



Luxemburg

illegal



Netherlands

Legal, but uncommon and sometimes difficult.

Officially illegal as soon as one has had their child in school the school year before school starts again.

When parents have not had their children in school yet, they can go for
an exemption based on religion. This means that there should not be any
school or their religion within reach. So parents have to come up with
an uncommon religion.

Once a child has been in school it is seen that the parents have made a
choice for a particular religion or lack there of in public schools and
it is not easy to change your mind on that.

This can result in court cases. Usually parents do end up having their
children home schooled, but it can take some money, work and stress.

weblink: http://www.lereninvrijheid.nl/index2.html

weblink for the national organisation: http://www.nvvto.nl

weblink: http://www.thuisonderwijs.net

http://www.thuisonderwijs.com

Compulsory education age: 5-18



Norway

Legal and on the increase, though still small.

Weblink: http://folk.uio.no/cbeck/OTH%20in%20English1.htm

e-mail: oth@bdd.no



Poland & Baltic States

Legal, but only when permission is granted



Portugal

Legal. The school system has problems and therefore they are happy to have children educated at home.

Russia
No data at present

Slovakia
No data at present



Spain

Legal. Protected under article 27, section 1 under the Spanish
constitution, however for some families things are made difficult.

weblink to national organisation: http://educacionlibre.org/inicimarc.htm (in Spanish - started in 2002)



Sweden

It is legal and there are rules which aren't always easy to take.
Sometimes parents have to get permission. Things differ per
municipality. It is very uncommon.

My Alternative to School (MATS) is the Swedish organisation.

E-mail: katarina.jadinge@translateit.pp.se

Postal address:

MATS

Katarina Jadinge,

Pl 2199,

370 10 Brakne-Hoby

SWEDEN



Switzerland

Legal in most cantons. Things are very
different per canton. It varies from being totally illegal in Ticino,
parents needing to have a teachers degree in Basel, to parents needing
a teacher to supervise them in Bern, to totally freedom in Aargau.

An overview of which canton has what requirements is here:

http://www.cruxmove.com/SwissHomeSchooling.htm (english)

however, this could potentially be out of date.
A list with all Cantons: http://www.cruxmove.com/kantonalSummary.html (english)

Weblink to homeschool association of Switzerland: http://www.homeschool.ch/en_index.html (english)

This is a weblink to a parents lobby for freedom of educational choice: http://www.elternlobby.ch/deutsch/ (german)

Forum in French and English: http://nyonweb.ch/homeschool/index.php?lng=en
weblink: http://www.leben-ohne-schule.de/europa_schweiz.html (german)

Compulsory educational age: 6-16



United Kingdom

Legal in England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland. Laws can
differ a big between the 4. In case exams will be done there are 2 ways
of going about it, one is the standard GCSE's & A-levels, the other
is going through the Asdan & Cope system.

The local education authority can be in contact with parents about
visits / reports, but when a child has not been in school before, they
are likely not to know about the family and will therefore not be in
contact, unless one gets reported in one way or the other.

National organisation weblink: http://www.education-otherwise.org

Mike Fortune-Wood:http://www.home-education.org.uk/

http://home-ed.info/

compulsory educational age: 6-16

Africa

Egypt

Ethiopia

Morrocco

Sudan

America's


Canada
Legal

Guatemala

Mexico

USA
Legal


Asia

Bangladesh

Birma

China

India

Indonesia

Japan

Malaysia

Pakistan

Phillipines

Sri Lanka

Taiwan

Thailand

Turkey



Australia & New Zealand

Australia
Legal

New Zealand
Legal

Please do contact me in case you have any additional information, additional weblinks, find that weblinks don't work, etc.
Thanks very much!
Diana

Burned school

Today I received the news that the school, which my oldest 2 have attended for several years has burned.
This school managed to get my oldest child from being able to read and write little words at the age of 5 to regress to being illiterate at the age of 10.
May I be happy about this?

Burning

One evening last week we ended up burning paper napkins, we experimented a bit with it, like one piece was burnt while it was just plain folded open and in a single layer, that was going really fast, one big woosh and gone.
Another piece was burnt folded, slower.
Another piece was unfolded, but rolled in a big cigar, that took a bit of time.
The longest took the piece that was folded and rolled up in a cigar, that was very compact and really took quite a bit of time.
Afterwards we discussed the hows, why's and what's to that whole process, including how the oxygen reaches better when not compact and all that stuff.

Chicken :-)

A few days ago I was going to make a chicken broth. I prefer using chickens with the feet on for that as that gives more nutrients in the broth. So I got myself one and asked my partner to please cut it up a bit, so I could put it in the pan, otherwise the chicken was going to be too big to put in, and we do not need to see the feet sticking out all the time *g*.
Then he invited the kids to have a look at the chicken and a feel. So they came and were interested. The chicken got fairly well dissected on its way to the pan, some stuff was given to the dog, other pieces ended up going to really little pieces to see what was muscle tissue, what was fat tissue, what is bones, where are bones, why is the chest bone so different than a human chest bone. The works. It was really interesting and even our 5yo was totally fascinated by the chicken.

Wonderful blog post

Today I read a post from someone else's blog. It was a post by the son of the woman who's blog it is.
He has been to school for 1 year, after having been unschooled before.

Here is the link: unschool versus school

Have fun reading, I sure did. It actually did take some of my concerns away :-)

Education in the woods

Yesterday a friend of mine came over. She is very knowledgeable about plants that you can eat and stuff. She actually teaches it. We went into the woods near our house to have a walk there and see what there is to eat out there, there was quite a bit that you can eat or work with.
Clover flowers - in your salad
Stinging nettle - new tips of leaves in your salad, tea from the older leaves, use the older leaves as spinach, use the branches to make rope of.
Black berry - eat the fruit, eat the young leave tips, make tea out of the older leaves.
Duizendblad - eat the leaves in your salad, use them on wounds.
Dandelion leaves - in your salad
Bilberry's - eat the berries
Goat's willow - make things with the branches
Prickly coconut smelling bushes - flowers you can make wine of and put in your salad, they taste like coconut, but they have to be prickly.
Pine - the bark was used to extend rye & spelt flour by the vikings, like they do with soya now. I think I prefer the pine bark.
Birch - the sap can be used to make a nice wine of - tap the tree for 2 weeks in the end of march, no longer, coz that can damage the tree. Use the sap to make wine with. The pink colour of the bark has also been used as dye.

She also talked about quite some stuff that wasn't supposed to be in our woods, as they aren't native and are wrecking the soil or something like that.
Rhodondendron - comes from Asia and wrecks the soil
Hypericum - comes from Japan.

We talked about the grey squirrel, as that is a native to the US and outnumbering the UK native brown squirrel.
Furthermore we talked about rabbits, came with the vikings for food.
And hares, came with the Romans for food.
Neither of them native here basically. In the meantime they sort of are though.
The vikings used to use rabbits like we do chickens now, which are actually also not native, they come from Asia.

The kids enjoyed the talking very much, it was quite hands on, we tasted various things and found most of it tasting quite alright. The berries were all very good!

Viking Dork Normansson

Today we visited the museum to have a talk with Viking Dork Normansson. This was very nice, we had a great time. Its a very nice guy who re-enacts the viking and he is quite a good replica.

Adolf Hitler on BBC Exclusiv on Vox

This evening we are watching an episode of BBC Exclusiv on Vox.
Its very interesting, as its a historical piece on Adolf Hitler and the people who tried to kill him over the years of his ruling.
The people who wanted to kill him and how they ended if, if they did.

Flint knapping

Today we went to the museum in Camberley - the Surrey Heath Museum.
There was an exhibition organised where you could see flint knapping being performed by Karl Lee. This was extremely interesting, as he really showed us how several stone age time tools were made. He also made the tools with the tools that they used back then.

He explained to us that in some area's people who do flint knapping will use more modern tools, but he doesn't think the replica's made that way are real replica's.
Karl is an experimental archeologist. Therefore he makes replica's. There aren't many people in the world anymore who can do. Some people like the Aboriginals in Australia still do it, they didn't stop doing it. This is really cool, they are still doing it the authentic way there.
In the US there are only a handful of Native Americans left doing it as unfortunately their culture is slowly but carefully dying out. Which is a pity. Languages dying out as well, its such a shame, our planet was so rich in a big variety of cultures and languages and there is so much gone. Just like animals and plants, so much gone.

What we also discussed was the film Dances with wolves, as its a very educational film. It shows a lot of things very well and pretty accurate historically.
The next thing we discussed was the attitude of the white people back then towards the natives. They first tried to kill them all, but when the natives proved to be too clever they resorted to other measures, trying to kill all their food. This is also pretty clear in Dances with wolves as you can see in the film how the white people killed a load of buffalo's just for their hide and tongue, with no respect for animal, earth or fellow human being.
Its pretty rude if you ask me, to do what happened. The natives were friendly, fed the white people, invited them into their homes, next thing, the white people just take their homes.
Pretty sick minds were around then I would say.

The other thing that was really interesting that Karl had to say was that back in the stone age times people knew lots and lots more about which plants people could eat and which plants were good ad medicine. These days we eat such an incredibly small amount of plants, compared to the people back then.

What he also told us, was that people didn't get much older than about 30. I wonder about that, as I have read bits and pieces here and there where people state that girls have never started their periods sooner than now, so how could that be then, coz the kids that the people get have to grow up before they can take care of themselves.
So if periods didn't start until 16 to 18, and they would die at 30, their kids would be like 12 or so. Doesn't fully add up to me, so I have to look into that a lot more.
The other bit is that their diet was much much healthier than ours, so if we get as old as we get, how come they died so young. They did have good hygiene contrary to medieval times.
That is a topic for some time soon, coz the kids were also very interested in that.

I think this was really super cool. He explained so much to the kids, they could ask away, the kids enjoyed it tremendously. I also think he enjoyed their interest in it all. He talked about how people lived and hunted and everything that had something to do with that. Really great.

And then lateron I ran into the following article which really says it all.

The title is:

The Objective of Education Is Learning, Not Teaching

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2032

Have a read, I really enjoyed reading the article.

Next week we will go the museum to talk to someone who knows tons about vikings and who re-enacts them. I think that is pretty cool as well.

Play dough

Cooked.

2 cups of plain flour
1 cup of salt
2 cups of water
2 tbsp of oil
2 teasp of cream of tartar
Food colouring

Put flour, salt and cream of tartar into a saucepan and mix. Add water, oil and, if wanted, colouring. Mix then cook over a low heat stirring continuously, until the dough is a
very lumpy consistency and isn't runny.
Turn out and knead, adding colouring if not added before. Beware it is very
hot.
Store in a plastic bag or plastic container.

Papier-Mache Paste

1 cup water
1/4 cup flour
5 cups lightly boiling water
Large saucepan

Mix flour into 1 cup water until mixture is thin and runny. Stir this mixture into lightly boiling water. Gently boil and stir 2-3 minutes. Cool before using.

Paste

Cooking paste:

1/2 cup flour
cold water
saucepan
food colouring (optional)

Add cold water to flour until mixture is as thick as cream.
Simmer and stir in saucepan for 5 minutes.
Add a few drops of food coloring, if desired.
This wet, messy paste takes a while to dry.

Non cooking paste:

Bowl
1/2 cup flour
Water
Salt

In bowl, mix flour with enough water to make a mixture that's gooey, but not runny.
Add a pinch of salt; stir

glue

2 cups flour
1 cup cold water
1 cup hot water
Mix well. Put in a glue type bottle and allow to sit for one hour.

Glue
3/4 cup water
2 tablespoons corn syrup
1 teaspoons white vinegar
1/2 cup cornstarch
3/4 cup cold water

Mix water, syrup and vinegar in small saucepan. Bring to a rolling boil. In small bowl, mix cornstarch and cold water. Add this mixture slowly to first mixture. Stir constantly. Let stand overnight before using.

Windtalkers

Last night we watched the film Windtalkers. This is about a piece of history that I wasn't taught anything about in school.
It was mentioned that there was war in Japan as well during WWII, but the main focus was Europe.
Therefore I found it quite important that the girls watched it with us, even though it was not for their age. It was very interesting to see how the Navajo language was used to make sure the Japanese didn't understand.
What was furthermore very striking was that Ben, one of the Navajo speakers explained how in missionary school he was not allowed to speak Navajo and therefore ended up chained to the heater for 2 days and then in WWII he had to speak Navajo to help his country.
Some of the racist bits were also very clear and educational.
Hope others will watch it as well.

Legoland continues

We have annual passes to Legoland this year. Its one of those places that I am not a fan of but all kids seem to love. So therefore we did it for one year on Tesco vouchers. So, we have them, we go in and of course the whole world of Legoland is plastic, didn't expect it to be different. But it did make me wonder what the carbon foot print of Legoland is. Doubt its a good one.
But then we found out that while thinking that we could go into everything and do everything with annual passes, that was a dream. There is sooooo much that you need to pay for still. I do have a problem with that. You pay entrance fee, which is high and then you still need to pay for quite a few things. That just bugs me.
I wonder if I am the only one.
The kids have enjoyed quite a few trips and we have done quite some things there which are linked to our education, like looking at all the houses built there, checking out the water flows and stuff like that, anything is educational I found out.

As Sandra Dodd also said, everything is educational. She used Blue Suede Shoes by Elvis Presley and yes, totally educational.
How are shoes made, where does suede come from, what treatments does it need to get blue, etc. etc.
Its just wonderful to take that path with your children. I love it. And its a way of life, not a chore.

Tales of the green lands

Recently we bought the DVD of this former TV-series. It is about life on a local farm in the times of James I, around 1620.
There are some historian and archeologists living like they did in those times.
It is very interesting to watch. Very educational.
One of the really very interesting things is how the celebrate christmas for 12 days.
Furthermore how they used almost every piece of a butchered animal.
The building of the animal shed to give them shelter for the winter is also wonderful.
We have watched it several times now and it keeps bringing us new things that we can discuss.

Conversions

The kids and I found a very nice conversions website about all kinds of measurements. Old ones and new ones. Its a great resource to use with explaining things and helping them understand measurements.
Give it a try! Here is the link.

Weights and Measures, Metric Conversions

Shopping at the museum

On 18 May there was an exhibition which drew on material across from our area to illustrate what we bought and where we bought it. On show are a wide range of objects displayed in replica reconstructed shop windows, with an old fashioned shop-counter scene as the centrepiece, complemented by a wealth of local photographs and reminiscences. A good chance for some retail therapy without spending money!
The children got to see the weights used back then, and the got the chance to buy some sweets with old money, they loved it.

Legoland

Heading off to go there today, more on it later.

Behaviourism crap

Today I was watching some educational tv programs on the BBC and found that they are totally into making children participate in a way that is fitting with the behaviourism style of psychology.
And as I have been reading a lot of stuff from Alfie Kohn, which made total sense to me.
Therefore I got totally annoyed with the "well done!" type of comments and the "when you had the answer right, give yourself a shiny"
This is soooo encredibly counter productive when it comes to educating people that it completely ticked me off. I have seriously wondered if we should just totally ban tv in our house. On the other hand there are quite some things on tv/dvd/video that are very educational.
But I do want to minimise the behavioursm influence in our house as its totally not working.
And that goes for human kind as a whole to be honest. Its absolutely no wonder children in school aren't performing well or people in jobs. Its scary how something so wrong can have such a huge influence in our world.