When I was Young in the Mountains.

Before I go any further I'm going to have a grumble. Why upon hearing that you home educate your children do some people see it as their business to point out that your children are entitled to an education and that you are under a responsibility to provide it? Yeah, as if I haven't quite worked that one out for myself *sigh*.

Come on people! Is it really so inconceivable that some parents, having taken into account all the circumstance pertaining to their particular child, believe that home education is in their best interests? Must us home educating folk so often be looked upon with suspicion, as if we keep our children at home to make cups of coffee for us all day or for those times when the TV remote has run out of batteries?

I believe that this unhealthy suspicion is a symptom of the way in which children are very often treated in society now. There is a reason why people often wade in and suspect that children are not being treated with the care and respect they deserve - because very often they aren't. Problem is that suspicion and irritation sometimes ends up being directed at minority groups - such as home educators. These irrational suspicions, very often based upon incorrect information, are helpful to no one. Certainly not helpful for all the children out there who could benefit from questions being asked of their circumstances.

OK, now I've got that off my chest I can get onto the rest - education!

This week we have looked at a book called When I was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant. It is a FIAR text.



At this point I would usually write a couple of lines to say what it was about but despite having read it more than once I can't really say it was 'about' anything in particular. Certainly not one to put in my top ten. Having said that it did provide a good spring board for discussions about snakes, baptisms and weighing things. We read I Wonder Why Snakes Shed Their Skin by Amanda O'Neill, watched baptisms on Youtube and Hermione spent what felt like forever making charts detailing the weights of lots of household objects. So, although our chosen text wasn't up to much this week we were still quite industrious and discovered new things.