why we love home ed #3

No beginning, no end, just life.

We were walking home from the bus stop after gymnastics yesterday and a neighbour was putting up his external Christmas lights, we did the usual hello, how are you thing, and then he asked "do they break up from school on Friday?" so I said "I have no idea, they don't go to school - we home educate". He then asked "oh, so are you finishing on Friday then?!" and to be honest I didn't know how to phrase my answer so I just said "well, we just kind of finish whenever we want to - it's very flexible."

In truth though, the answer is "no". We won't be "finishing" on Friday for Christmas. We won't be "finishing" for Christmas at all. We won't be "finishing" for easter or summer either. We won't be starting or finishing according to arbitrary dates because why would we? You don't decide to stop living for a while just because it happens to be the last week in September, or the month of March, or a Tuesday. Life goes on all the time, and life is education, so education goes on all the time as well. In the next 2 weeks I expect we will be: socialising with friends and family; eating meals with large groups of people; gift giving and receiving; reading and writing; playing outside and inside...all of which carry their own learning curves which continue regardless of what holiday may or may not be going on at the time.

I would guess that what he meant was will I finish "teaching"? In which case the answer is still "no", because there is no "teaching" in the sense that it is usually applied (like in a school), and because simply parenting (which is a more fundamental kind of teaching) never ends, and generally does not get to stop for time off.

I love that we can move from one thing to another as we choose to, and that things do not have to finish because of pesky seasonal holidays or weekends or bedtimes. I love that we can look at what is going on around us and use it as inspiration. I love that just by living we are all learning, together.