Category Archives: Home education

‘Heidi’ – an unschooling Classic? Part 2 – Learning to read

An important turning point in Heidi comes when in Chapter 10 “another grandmother” comes to visit Clara and Heidi in Frankfurt and shows Heidi a book: “For a moment or two she looked at it with brightening eyes, then the tears began to fall, and at last she burst into sobs. The grandmother looked at the pictureContinue reading “‘Heidi’ – an unschooling Classic? Part 2 – Learning to read”

‘Heidi’ – an unschooling classic?

There is a really interesting passage in Johanna Spyri’s Heidi where Heidi’s grandfather resists the great pressure that is put on him to send Heidi to school. “I am going to let her grow up and be happy among the goats and the birds; with them she is safe, and will learn nothing evil,” heContinue reading “‘Heidi’ – an unschooling classic?”

On Compost, Quarantine Homeschooling, and Home Education

On digging rich earth from the bottom of the compost heap the other day, I couldn’t help but think about education. I’d been working on my compost for a long time and now, at last, when the children wanted to plant vegetables, it was ready to do some good. The work I had put inContinue reading “On Compost, Quarantine Homeschooling, and Home Education”

Slow Education: an extract from ‘Out of the Classroom and Into the World’

A lecturer in the department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge once told me that the question she is most often asked is, “How long did it take you to learn Chinese?” Her reply to this unanswerable question was always “I don’t know, because I’m still learning.” Much the sameContinue reading “Slow Education: an extract from ‘Out of the Classroom and Into the World’”

Introducing a new reading group

Now that we have lots of time to read, I am pleased to introduce a new reading group that focuses on children’s books. In this first episode I introduce the group and our first book – Hilda van Stockum’s The Mitchells: Five for Victory. https://anchor.fm/roy-peachey0/embed/episodes/Introducing-a-childrens-book-club-ebnbj9/a-a1nvknb

What is the purpose of education?

In the preface to his great book, The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School, Neil Postman pointed out that in “in tracking what people have to say about schooling, I notice that most of the conversation is about means, rarely about ends. Should we privatize our schools? Should we have national standards ofContinue reading “What is the purpose of education?”