From teacher to student

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“Oh, so you were a teacher before you became a Mum?”


“You must have a teaching degree, right?”


“Which university did you go to?”

If you’re a home educating Mum you’ve probably heard these statements or almost identical ones at least a hundred times – I know I have.

The questioner’s face falls into a sort of bewildered disappointment as I reply in the negative. I’m “just a Mum” after all, so my choice to educate my children at home does not seem legitimate to the average person.

Is a university education always all it cracked up to be? If an individual spends 4 years and thousands of dollars at university in order to become a teacher, does that mean they are a great teacher? Does it mean they know everything and are capable of passing that knowledge on to each child who walks through their classroom door? Certainly, in my experience (all 13 years of it in state schools) that has been far from true.

I don’t consider myself to be smart. I have a lot of skills and a few God given talents, but have always been just average when it comes to academics. I’m pretty poor at maths. I’m OK in English. Science is not my forte. And history, well I just find it really hard to retain all that information.

I went to university to do a Bachelor of Early Childhood. I left after 8 months. I hated it. It was boring, confusing, annoying – like a slightly older version of high school and I had had enough of that. I couldn’t stand being taught to care for a child that was only viewed as a child, with predictable thought patterns and behaviour, completely ignoring the beautifully created individuality of each child as a person.

Why I am I telling you all this? Because my IQ or ability to perform academically have nothing to do with my aptitude for home educating my children. I don’t consider myself a teacher. I do consider myself a student. I learn alongside my children, we share knowledge, we pool our skills and most of all, we enjoy each other’s company, living this wonderful life together!

So you see, an institutional qualification is not necessary to home educate successfully. Much more important is a strong faith, a big heart and a huge smile!