On the Australian Homeschoolers Yahoo Group I’ve been talking to Rosie about Centrelink income support. We’ve also found each other’s blogs and been reading and leaving comments. Thanks for your comments Rosie! It is encouraging to know that we’re not alone.

In reply to my post Home Educating, Youth Allowance And Centrelink, Rosie left the following comment, “

It’s amazing isn’t it that these policy problems relating to compulsory school ages, home education and Centrelink regulations are yet to be addressed in any systemic way by Centrelink?

I and other homeschoolers I know have been lobbying for some time to fix this issue with Centrelink and yet problems persist. I personally have found little to no support from the organisations who normally advocate for youth or welfare recipients. They don’t understand the issues and their responses appear to indicate to me that they don’t care either. So much for advocacy. I guess homeschoolers get a lot of practice at doing things themselves.

It appears to me that it depends on who deals with your claim for a Centrelink payment as to how it gets treated. I think different offices deal with issues differently. There seem to be differences from state to state too.

My sister asked me last night if there are any home education advocacy groups. I don’t know of any groups who advocate for home educators. Does anyone know of any such Australian groups? I’m thankful that our case turned out well, I hope that others can have such positive outcomes too.

Centrelink, home education, income support

These quotes are from Rosie at her blog Face Value

Many parents considering home schooling wonder how exactly to get started. Many parents, wondering if they are up to the task ask, “What exactly is the task anyway?” “Can I do this?” If you ever question your capacity to home school just ask yourself who or what taught your child prior to school. Make up a mental list. If you taught them to eat, to wash, to go to the toilet, to brush their teeth, to walk, to talk then you are indeed a great teacher already!!

There is no reason for the parent to mystify ‘academic’ subjects and treat them as a distinctly different phenomenon to other teaching tasks – they are not. As a teacher you become your child’s primary example of learning. Whatever you do with a positive outlook your child will do also. Therefore, whatever you teach your child is only within the limits and boundaries that you have placed upon yourself. Teaching should never be a one-way process. It should be a two-way exchange where each party brings something to the interaction and each party takes something away.

This is the crucial issue which I’ve wrestled with for many years. Could I teach my children? Me with my quirks, abilities and difficulties? I often hated school, struggled to learn to read and still just don’t “get” Maths. But I can teach my children because their learning isn’t limited to my knowledge! We learn together all the time and they often go on further and learn more than me. (Doug is teaching himself computer programming at the moment and is learning more about the very latest computers than I can keep up with.)

The other part of teaching my children which I wondered about when the children were younger was could I cope as a single parent, being single and spending nearly every moment of my day with my children without a break. I didn’t homeschool the children when they were younger partly because of this.

teaching, home education, children

Is there such a thing as blog etiquette? I’m still new to blogging and I definitely don’t spend the hours on it that I hear others do. I’m curious though, is there such a thing as committing blog suicide? What would a blogger have to do to commit blog suicide? Would people stop coming to their blog if they did it? That’s if anyone even reads their blog…….

If you search Technorati for blog etiquette all you get is a whole heap of people asking what the etiquette is for a first blog post or for blogs in general. Is blogging to new for blogetiquette?

As for blog snobbery I really don’t care, just as I don’t care for any other kind of snobbery! 🙂 I read that this is based on where a person’s blog is hosted. What does it matter where someone’s blog is?

blog etiquette, snobbery, blog suicide

Isn’t this a nice sight! Heaps of laptops having Ubuntu installed on them instead of Windows! 🙂 Itshare SA Inc provide computers for people on low incomes with Ubuntu pre-installed on them.

I’ve been getting computers from them for Teen Challenge training rooms, I also refer my students/clients who need computers to them too.

Ubuntu, Linux, laptops

Hi this is Jessica.

Today, we have been switching computers and adding bits. I’ve got my brother’s old computer and he’s got a new secondhand one. Mum bought a laptop last week and she’s giving a computer to her friend Gayle. We’ve rearranged our loungeroom where our computers are networked. The thing i hate about changing computers the most is that you hurt your fingers when pulling out power cords out of the computer. It doesn’t all work and go smoothly, like you just add bits and switch bits and it works but no, its got to be complicated doesn’t it. LOL. I took my two hard drives out of my old computer and put them in my new computer. I have Windows and Linux on my computer. Windows isn’t detecting the cdrom drive or ethernet controller and Linux is working perfectly.

I like computers because when they do work you get to play games and do work, so then it is fun and all your sore fingers and problems start to pay off and then its all worth it.

From Jessica

(Jessica’s running Ubuntu Hoary Hedgehog-Kylie)

girl tech, guest blogger, Microsoft, Linux

This isn’t the usual email stuff which gets sent around. These are from the Email Cash website. www.emailcash.com.au

Time Out
A mother had decided to use the time out chair method at home. On Sunday, after the time out chair was used a few times on Saturday, the child informed her that the chair was closed today.

Too Little
Recently my mother-in-law came over for a visit and brought with her my husband’s school photos. My young son of three was very curious to see where in the photo his daddy was. When grandma pointed him out, he was quick to respond with, “That’s not my daddy, he’s too little.”

Inventions
A friend of mine had a frustrating afternoon when the handset from her cordless phone went missing. After searching the house from top to bottom with her young son, he demanded “Why don’t they invent a phone that is attached to the wall so it can’t go missing?”

Horsing Around
When I was expecting my second child I asked my four year old son if he would like a baby brother or sister. His immediate reply was, “I want a horse.” Unfortunately I couldn’t accommodate him.

children, quotes