Fame!

Hey, we're famous (or should that be infamous...)

Thanks to Robert, our humble blog here has made it into his Kent Bloggers feature. We didn't make the radio piece that went with it - perhaps I sounded just too breathless (or soggy) having just got out of my sink hole...

Anyway, I think it was a great piece and I've enjoyed wandering around the other blogs that he mentioned.

I do hope, if anyone stops by via BBC Kent, that you stay and have a good browse through. If you are new to the whole idea of home education, you may find it useful to view our main website at www.ukhome-educators.co.uk. If you are in Kent, and interested in joining us, or learning more, you can use the feature on that site to contact us - or post a comment here and I'll try to answer your questions.

What with the Times article, and all the TV coverage this week (see my previous post), home education is definitely on the public agenda now. I hope this encourages a healthy and open investigation into how the school system is failing so many, as well as perhaps prompting parents to look afresh at the whole issue of parenting and how society today seems to force us into a particular route that maybe, just maybe, we might not want to go down..

My husband yesterday likened it to the Matrix film. I do hope you've seen it otherwise this reference could lose it's impact! Briefly, there is a bit towards the start of the film where the central character of the film, Neo, is presented with a choice by the mysterious character called Morpheus (named after the Greek god of dreams and sleep). When Morpheus and Neo meet, Morpheus offers Neo two pills. The red pill will answer the question "what is the Matrix?" (by removing him from it) and the blue pill simply for life to carry on as before. As Neo reaches for the red pill Morpheus warns Neo "Remember, all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more."

Roarke (my husband) said that the whole home education issue was like that. It is one thing to debate, discuss, or look into generally the issue of home education as an alternative to the school system. However, once you actually "take the red pill" and step into home ed, you truly see things from a different perspective. You start questioning so much that you took for granted and just, well, accepted before. It becomes an unravelling process (merrily mixing metaphors here!) where you keep coming across knotty issues that, once you deal with them, open up a whole new perspective.

We've found ourselves examining every aspect of our parenting, and then moving on to the whole issue of parenting in today's society - examining some fundamental assumptions that we realised we had. We might not be that average (ok, our friends think we are odd!) but we would never have classed ourselves as "alternative" lifestyle people (those Roarke was definitely a rebel in his younger days!). But now we find so much of the current political, social, economic and spiritual climate of our country quite frankly to leave a lot to be desired.

I found a site with an essay on this "matrix philosophy" issue and it's well worth a read - nothing to do with HE but this whole issue of whether or not to question the "status quo" in life.

Can I encourage anyone reading this, to "see how deep the rabbit hole goes" and take the "red pill" to find out more about the realities of home education?...