Lately I
have been thinking to organise an after school activity for those children with
Italian as a mother tongue.
I involved couple friends who could help me in this adventure. We find a location in Oulu centre and it´s actually time to meet to organise what we are going to do.
These kids - between first and sixth grade - speak fluently Italian but their writing skills and their knowledge of specific and technical vocabulary is still missing. All of them are in Finnish school system.
My aim is to fill the gap between the Italian language skills and the knowledge provided by the Finnish school. In other words I want to try to teach these kids to write, read and use a specific vocabulary also in Italian.
Looking and surfing on internet, now that I am at home unemployed - has been my mainly activity. I found a lot of inspiration from web-pages that share activity and experiences in home schooling. The amount of material is massive!
I involved couple friends who could help me in this adventure. We find a location in Oulu centre and it´s actually time to meet to organise what we are going to do.
These kids - between first and sixth grade - speak fluently Italian but their writing skills and their knowledge of specific and technical vocabulary is still missing. All of them are in Finnish school system.
My aim is to fill the gap between the Italian language skills and the knowledge provided by the Finnish school. In other words I want to try to teach these kids to write, read and use a specific vocabulary also in Italian.
Looking and surfing on internet, now that I am at home unemployed - has been my mainly activity. I found a lot of inspiration from web-pages that share activity and experiences in home schooling. The amount of material is massive!
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Motivations regarded most important for homeschooling among parents in 2007. Source: 1.5 Million Homeschooled Students in the United States in 2007 Issue Brief from Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. December 2008. NCES 2009–030
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The
material´s amount material for resources and activities on line, as I said, is
huge. The home-schooling follow different paradigms and philosophy.
In Finland about 250 students are studying with the home-schooling system between 7 and 16 years of age. We can read from the HSLDA page that
In Finland about 250 students are studying with the home-schooling system between 7 and 16 years of age. We can read from the HSLDA page that
Homeschooling is legal and protected by both the Constitution and Finnish law. Education is governed by the Basic Education Act (628/1998). According to the Ministry of Education, there is no obligation to attend school in Finland, only the obligation to receive basic education. Compulsory education may be completed by studying at home. Authorities accept a parent’s right to homeschool but often deflate this right and in some cases misinterpret the law. The law gives a supervisory role to the local authorities.(from: https://hslda.org/hs/international/Finland/default.asp)
However, very few principals and municipalities know in details how the home schooling works and what is the burocracy behind them.
(The homeschooling Finnish Association give advices and asnwers of regular questions which I advice you to get a look if you understand finnish. See link at the end of this post).
However,
very few principals and municipalities know in details how home-schooling works
and what is the bureaucracy behind it.
(The home-schooling
Finnish Association, at which I advise you to take a look if you understand Finnish,
provides support and answers to regular questions. See link at the end of this
post).
Can every
parent become a teacher? How can they separate the parenting and the teacher
role? Is there any difference? Does it have to be a separation?
For a
parent, is the motivation enough or should they require a special training and
permission to do home-schooling?
How to
keep home-schooling effecting when the interaction and collaborative learning
is still one of the best way to learn?
How the
progress can be monitored?
Home-schooling
students might not shine for social skills and interaction and might suffer from
the lack of resources such as labs and materials which are limited at home. When
thinking about home schooling disadvantages related to the lack of socialisation
as well as the workload and commitment for the tutor/teacher/parent should be
considered. The parent should be properly prepared to answer to the child’s
questions on a specific matter. In addition to that, how big of a role the child’s
own will, taste and personal inclinations in learning during the whole time
play in the general picture of home-schooling?
I think
the importance of school as a social factor cannot be underestimated, but on
the other hand home-schooling and informal learning has potential. Home-schooling
can be a tailor-made system that doesn´t stress the most sensitive children.
There are many people who didn´t received any official training in what they do
best and they did received home-schooling education. The results of home-schooling
can be significantly better but so the schools system ones.
Summa
summarum: both systems have positives elements and it should occur to each and
every parent that "parenting" is also a kind of home-schooling. I
personally don´t believe that I could do better that the academic system could
do (in matter of resources, possibilities, interactions) but my son will have
the support from us - from me - when he will need also in the informal
learning.
I truly
believe that formal and informal learning can be used to support children in
growing up: together, the two aspects of learning could provide a wide range of
possibilities in exploring different themes/subjects.
If you want to know more about homeschooling(English)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling_international_status_and_statistics
http://www.parents.com/kids/education/home-schooling/what-is-homeschooling/
http://infed.org/mobi/informal-learning-home-education-and-homeschooling-home-schooling/
https://www.nheri.org/research/research-facts-on-homeschooling.html
In Finnish:
http://suomenkotiopettajat.fi/aloitan-kotiopetuksen/
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/oppiomaantahtiin/info
http://www.feeniks-koulu.fi/index.php?main=5&sub=2slang=fi
http://www.kotikoulu.net/
In Italian:
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istruzione_domiciliare
http://www.flcgil.it/rassegna-stampa/nazionale/repubblica-istruzione-in-proprio-all-estero-e-boom-e-l-italia-segue-l-esempio.flc
