Recently I learned to identify a Scots Pine, which, apparently, is Scotland’s national tree.

I have always had a fairly basic knowledge of trees generally but after moving from almost tree-less Shetland to tree-full Aberdeenshire, I’m slowly learning to recognise a variety of them.

I kept hearing about the ‘Scots Pine’ (in nature books and on some of our Home Ed walks), but couldn’t begin to distinguish it from other pine trees (I mean, don’t they all pretty much look the same?). There was no way I could identify its features and certainly couldn’t pick a Scots Pine out from a load of other pine trees when I saw them all clumped together in woodland.

I just didn’t know what I was looking for.

Well, that has all changed! About a month ago, a Wise Old Tree Loving person explained to me that, firstly, the Scots Pine has what looks like tufts of pine needles on their branches opposed to straight needles that are evenly spread out. The other major thing to look out for is a rough bark which has an orangy-red colour to it which is more noticable the further up the trunk you look. Basically – tufts of pine and reddish rough bark = a Scots Pine. Who knew? Well, now, ME! It’s very satisfying.

The funny thing is though, I am now seeing Scots Pine everywhere. Like, EVERYWHERE. It’s been under my nose the entire one and a half years I’ve lived here but I simply hadn’t known how to recognise it. Even on my street!

I just didn’t understand what I was seeing.

It reminded me of how I felt before I started to learn about play and its role in a child’s development.

You see it had seemed to me – and I think this is still true of most people – that play was basically all the same… Children having fun, messing around, getting their energy out and then, afterwards, hopefully they can settle down to something useful and purposeful and educational (like reading, writing, maths – those sorts of noble pursuits). Sure, play is healthy for children but just in a sort of general way. I knew it was good, but couldn’t quite pin down why or what it was doing. Kinda like me and pine trees – they’re all trees, all very pretty – what more is there to say?

But, the truth is, when you start to understand what is really happening to children when they play and when you are able to identify the areas of their development that are being built as they slide/ build lego/ splash/ colour/ craft (ad. infinitum), your eyes are opened to another world.

For example, jumping in puddles is, above all, A Lot Of Fun.

But it is also developing physical strength, balance and coordination as you propel your body up and down with gleeful force. It’s developing the social skills of not bumping into your pals as they jump and it’s developing communication skills as you excitedly exclaim and talk with your friends and grownups! It’s helping children to take risks where they might be nervous…but they see someone else having fun…so they take a jump too and they build confidence. It is developing a connection with nature. It’s fulfilling that child’s sensory needs. This small snapshot of a child’s day is developing so much within them…

Once you arm yourself with the knowledge of child development and play, you start to understand what you are seeing.

You’re still just watching kids play. But you are actually seeing learning in all it’s glorious fullness.

And you see it EVERYWHERE.

It’s interesting, too, to consider that children will play all day long if we let them! Imagine the development by the end of each day. We couldn’t teach them more efficiently if we tried.

Children are unstoppable learning machines. And play is a child’s inbuilt mechanism for them to develop and learn. They ARE learning the whole time they are playing. Right under our noses. Secretly developing away in a hundred different ways, through their play, all the time.

But, the thing is, you’ll only see it if you know what you’re looking for.

One thing I’ve been thinking a lot about recently is the phrase ‘connecting the dots’. I’ve been thinking about this particularly in relation to the inexplicable way that learning and understanding come together over time. About the need to allow children to connect different aspects of learning at their own pace and in their own way.

Being explicitly taught things by other people can, at the right time, be good and meaningful but I have come to believe that too much of being-taught-things-formally squeezes out (and also ignores) a child’s in-built drive to play and wonder and discover for themselves. It leaves them less time to connect the dots of life and learning in their own minds, through all the ways they interact with the world, and often leaves children only understanding ‘learning’ as something that happens to them, not by them.

I mean, you can just be told that connecting 2×1 Lego bricks with the tiny circular ones can make a cool bendy Lego wall OR you can discover it by spending hours experimenting, testing and creating. This way, you can really experience the feel and weight and effects of the bricks. You can understand the mechanics of building in ways that merely being ‘taught’ would never allow. You can discover truly creative new concepts and techniques. This learning is deep and rich.

And learning this way undeniably needs a lot of undirected space and time.

It needs time that isn’t spent being taught by someone, but also that isn’t being occupied by activities and people. It is surprising how intentional you have to get to give children space and time to just be! To play and tinker and potter. But if we don’t, these beautiful moments of self discovery and inner connection of dots just won’t happen.

The truth is, no one can make you learn. That is something entirely down to the inner workings of your mind.

Someone can tell you information, explain something to you or show you something, but that may or may not result in you learning anything. Likewise, you can learn an awful lot, in different ways, without anyone else being present at all. Whether learning takes place or not has less to do with the ‘teacher’ or the new information being presented to you, and more to do with what is happening in the brain of the learner.

It was a good few years ago I heard a particularly jarring quote by the late author and educator, John Holt. It rang around my head for weeks. It was simply this:

‘Learning is not the product of teaching. Learning is the product of the activity of learners.“

Think about that for a moment. Learning is not the product of teaching?

This hugely challenged my thinking.

But, after much thought and reflection, I recognised the truth of this statement. And it had a significant impact on me! Learning is not the preserve of teachers and educators and schools and universities. Learning is not the product of teaching. Learning happens in the brain of the learner – in so many ways, in so many places and from interacting with so many different types of people. ‘Teaching’ is simply one way that may help learning happen. Why are we obsessed with elevating this one way?

This quote really gave me new eyes with which to see all the ways in which my children are learning and all the way they are ‘connecting dots’ in their heads. It has been a game changer!

The reality is that when things converge at the right time, new information or an experience resonates with a load of other previous thoughts, understanding and experiences of a learner and *BOOM*, a little neuropathway is developed in the brain and physical new connections are made. Learning happens. Understanding expands. A skill is mastered or moved on. Development unfurls a little more. Dots are connected and it’s meaningful to the child because it is personal.

In fact when we give children the time and space to discover and explore by themselves, we empower them. They were curious and so they experimented. They had a thought and wondered and then clarified something in their minds. They failed, then tried again.

It’s a joyous process. It’s energising. It builds confidence to wonder and discover, to connect dots – to learn all by yourself (or maybe with friends!).

When your child has noticed or achieved something and they are desperate to show you, ‘Look, Mum!’ or ‘Come and see this, Dad!’ – it’s because something has connected with them and they are literally learning. That child is energised and excited. Their brain is at work. Learning and discovery and accomplishment and development are happening! Make sure you notice!

Teaching has it’s place (at times). But what also has it’s place is the space and time that is essential for children to play and create and wonder… and learn…as and when it happens for them.

Let’s give our children more of that.

One of the reasons I blog is because I love to write. I’ve always loved writing whether that’s in my diary, or fictional stories or blog posts.

But I also blog because I have a lot of things to say. On some subjects I probably know what I’m talking about and on others, it’s just completely my subjective personal opinion.

And I am aware that there are so many opinions flying around these days and so much information hitting us all in the face with social media and parenting books and political commentry….it just never ends.

Which makes me think, why blog MORE words and MORE thoughts and MORE stuff for all the already over information-ed readers to absorb? (Assuming there are readers, of course…)

And it’s because of this.

I still hear people having problems with school. I hear people with their children having problems with school. I hear people feeling their children aren’t learning fast enough, or they’re too fidgety, or they struggle with homework. Perhaps the spark of creativity and interest isn’t there anymore. Perhaps the child is a ‘school refuser’. And whatever the problem is, it is often put down to the child.

But what if it’s not the child?

Children’s lives are dominated by school. So if school is not a good experience, it dominates life.

I desperately want everyone to hear and understand the fact that school is a made up thing.

Grades are made up. Curriculums are made up. Benchmarks are made up. Timetables are made up. The whole thing is a massive construct made up by people not that long ago. We have bought into it (most of us without even thinking) and we now barely even recognise that a child can learn and grow and thrive in a life without school. We can’t even conceive of a child spending their childhood without it. And yet many people have found their children thrive when they are free to learn out with that system. They don’t even need their parent to be a qualified teacher or have a university degree.

These are such freeing facts for both the adults and children that school doesn’t work for.

And so, while this blog is about my thoughts on and experiences of home education in general, my Christian faith, nature and play – my underlying, fervent desire for this blog is that all these posts will serve to reassure and encourage parents.

*To reassure the weary school parent that there is another way, if they want or need it.
*To share, from my own reading and experience, what will help children thrive.
*To help separate our understanding of learning from schooling.
*To cheer parents on in loving and caring for their children.
*To be a warm, calm place on the internet where issues around childhood and home education can be gently mulled over.

That’s it! Ha! Easy peasy.

Now, if I could just figure out how to load all my photos to these blog posts….

The truth is that home education is just simply a different way of living as a family.

It’s a different way of educating the children and young people in your care.

A home educating parent isn’t especially inspirational, they don’t always have ‘the patience of a saint’ and they don’t need medals (I’m often told these sorts of things when someone finds out we home educate).

Home educating families, generally, are just like everyone else. We have good days and bad days. Happy times and more dysfunctional times. We have moments of utter passion and pride in the path we’ve chosen and then deep doubts when things feel tough and there are bumps along the road. We reach moments of difficulty and then work hard to get ourselves out of it. We are often problem solving our way through life, just like everyone else, and then rejoice in all the golden moments when they come!

Life is rarely linear – a calm, steady line of events, emotions and experiences. It comes in waves. Achievements, good memories, strong relational connections with our children and spouse…and then come the harder times. Miscommunication and disconnect, struggling to pull things together, being overwhelmed with all the life balls that need juggled. These happen in most families, I’m pretty sure. And it happens in home educating ones just like it does with families who send their children to school.

I don’t like social media (although I spend more time on it than I care to admit…)

I hate the shininess of it all.

I really hate it especially on days where things have been hard work in our home educating family. And today has been such a day.

Who wants to look at beautiful mothers showing annoying filtered shots of their children doing really expensive curriculums or running barefoot through cornfields or making macramé wall hangings when you’ve just had a stinging argument with your child, your house feels suffocating and everything is horribly dysfunctional?

I think it’s good to acknowledge that we don’t home educate to be pretty or prefect or inspirational.

We do it because it’s right for our families. It’s right for our children.

That’s it.

Everyone will have different reasons. But, for a family to actively go against the huge pressure that there is to put their children into the school system, it has to be because they have strong reasons or strongly held values to do so.

For some, our children just do not fit the national education system as it stands. For some, we want our children to grow in a different environment than a typical school setting. For some, there will be ideological reasons. For some, it will stem from a different understanding of how children learn and what education should look like. For some, their children’s needs were not met at school. For some, school became a toxic and detrimental place for their children to be. For some, it stems from a desire for a freedom to live life outside the 9-5 of standard work and educational institutions.

I would love everyone to realise that school is simply one option, and home education is every bit as much a valid one. I wish the Nursery staff would say (in the year before compulsory education age), ‘So, is Timmy/FiFi/ Maximillian going to be home educated or are you signing him up for school?’ I would love folks to know that you don’t have to be super organised or efficient or a teacher or Einstein to home educate your child. It is genuinely for ‘normal’ people too!

So I encourage you, if school isn’t working for your child, or if a life of home education (in all the variety of ways that can look) feels like it would really be a good fit for your family – go for it! You absolutely can do it. I believe in you! Ha!

Home education is simply families helping their children thrive and grow without a school in the middle of it all. Just continuing what you did for the first five years. In fact your child grows and thrives and learns not only as part of your family, but as part of your community and the wider world. It’s wonderfully diverse and wonderfully individual, it’s genuinely challenging but also genuinely freeing. And really, honestly, anyone who is committed to nurturing their child can absolutely do it.

Go for it.

The way that my husband and I provide an education for our two children is by creating an environment where they thrive. That’s the aim, anyway!

We don’t actually do lessons with them in a conventional sense. There is never ‘an hour of maths’ or ‘spelling’. There isn’t designated ‘ERIC time’ (Everyone Reading In Class) where they have to read. There aren’t projects on the go. We don’t have a curriculum that we follow.

But there is a tonne of learning happening all the time in lots of different ways.

Today, as I was driving in the car with my two in back, it occurred to me just how much of this learning simply happens through conversations.

As we pulled out from the session my kids had attended that morning, one was chatting away and the other had picked up a Beano annual from about 1997 (one from my childhood that seems to permanently reside in the car nowadays).

As we drove along questions came thick and fast from the back.

‘What’s a busker?’, my son asked. ‘Say that again, I didn’t hear,’ I said, listening carefully this time. ‘What’s a busker? B-U-S-K-E-R?’ ‘Oh, that’s a person who plays music on the street and folks can drop money for them in a tin or a hat’. ‘Oh, okay, thanks’. Next question. ‘What’s a trilby hat?’. I explained, then checked, ‘Does that make sense in the story?’. ‘Yeah, yeah it does.’ Then, ‘What’s a gramophone?’ and next, ‘And what’s a ‘pedestrain’?’ ‘A pedestrain?’ I question. ‘Can you spell that for me?’ ‘P-E-D-E-S-T-R-I-A-N.’ ‘Aaaaah, a pedestrian – that’s people the are walking around streets. You have vehicles and then you have the people – the pedestrians.’

You get the picture. Purely from a 90s comic annual, my son and I discussed words (many linking to history) and put them in context, spelling out when necessary over the course of about 10 minutes. They were meaningful in the stories he was enjoying. They were useful to him. He had just banked about 6 or 7 new words into his brain and understanding, stored away for whenever they would crop up in life again.

Then my daughter pipes up. There’s someone who she found difficult today. We talked about it. I said I was actually very impressed at how kind I’ve seen her be with friends who I could tell she was finding tricky. We talked about how one precious little friend of ours has had a lot of hard things to deal with in life. How actually the behaviour that my daughter didn’t like was because this friend is dealing with a lot of big feelings and hasn’t worked out how to control those big feelings yet. It’s still not easy but how it helps to be extra kind and patient when we know someone is having a hard time. We pondered of this whole conundrum together for a few minutes.

This is meaningful stuff. Words and their meanings, in context. A growing enjoyment of stories and reading. Thoughtful discussion over friendships, how to navigate our own feelings and others. How to empathise with others.

These are golden moments.

This is learning. Proper, real learning.

It’s education.

And this spanned, probably, 20 minutes in a random car journey. But conversations like these are invaluable in terms of how they -little by little -move the children on in their development and thinking.

This is why I find myself drawn to unschooling.

The growth of understanding, knowledge, skills and development happens in life as it is lived. When children engage with the world and the world engages with them, they grow. Random words in interesting books, conversations about tricky situations with friends – these are examples of the way real life opens up opportunities for growth and learning.

This stuff cannot be scheduled or pre-planned or assessed. It is organic and it responds to where the child is at in that moment and what they are experiencing. Children’s brains are always curious, they’re always ticking. They are constantly discovering new concepts, asking big questions and pushing themselves forward. They bounce off of all the things their lives are full of – resources, experiences, people, places – and they navigate and process it all with their adults ready to support and guide where needed.

When learning stops being a solid thing that fits into subjects and timetables and textbooks, and starts being the accumulative growth of a whole little (or not so little) person interacting with the world around them, in a million different ways, not only is it freeing for both the child and their grown up but it has so many golden moments along the way.

And in all honesty, it’s just a very wonderful process be a part of.

The name of this blog – ’round the kitchen table’ – refers to my parents kitchen table. It’s where I have sat, over the years, into the wee hours of the morning, chatting about everything and nothing, mug of tea in hand, teapot filled and re-filled, with friends and family.

It was – and still is – a place of connection, encouragement, discussion, comfort, challenge and growth. And a lot of love too. A place that was safe to mull over the big and the little things in life.

I hope this blog is a bit like that table. A place where thoughts are shared, experiences reflected on and a place to be encouraged.

Those chats and times shared round my childhood kitchen table really formed me as a person. And all the life experiences and interactions I have continue to do so. This blog is just an extension of that. Helping me grow, figure stuff out and change how I live because of it.

Mainly posts will be around the subject of home education/ unschooling, play, nature and my Christian faith. These are the areas of life my mind constantly wanders back to and I often find parts of one reflected in the others. Life is full of joy but can also be tricky. Building friendships and community, being a parent, home educating – these pursuits are so worthwhile but also properly hard at times! I also find being a follower of Jesus wonderful but challenging too. We need each other in these endeavours and my hope is that this is a blog that uplifts whoever stops by.

Oh, and another thing about my parents kitchen table – everyone was welcome. Same goes here.

Pour yourself a cuppa and pull up a chair! The kettle is always on.