Our Waldorf Homeschool Journey

Hi Everyone,

We’re so bogged down with moving and planning, that school has taken a bit of a back seat at the moment. We’ve chosen to take time off to set up our Homestead before Christmas. I don’t see this as a problem, for the following reason…

When I started Homeschooling Juliette she left school half way through Grade 2. I had her assessed purely to see where I needed to pick up and was told to go back to the 1st day of Grade 1, as the foundation stage had not been done. Yes, it was a huge shock! So in essence we’ve now done nearly 3 years work in 18 months. We haven’t quite finished Grade 3 but will pick up the last few lessons next year. Before we launch ourselves into Grade 4.

So from now on we’ll be learning through life experience until the start of the new year. So far we’ve been panning for Gold at gold reef city, she learnt about mining, South Africa’s riches. We’ve done an entire chunk of SA history at the Voortrekker monument.

I received an email the other day asking me what I do when the set work is completed and my child is still interested in the subject? Well I keep going until she feels that she is happy with the knowledge given to her.

At the Voortrekker Monument we learnt about the flight from the Cape to Pretoria, and then the Anglo Boer war. We stayed there until all our questions were answered. I learnt a stack. I was horrified at some things, for instance…did you know that the British set up concentration camps in which the Voortrekker, elderly (over 60), mothers and children were detained? Did you know that 26 000 people died in these camps? 22 000 of these were under 16 years of age.

This happened in our country and it’s been forgotten. We get so caught up in recent history, that we often forget our earliest history. As I stood there and read this to the children in the museum, the tears just rolled down my cheeks. Juliette just kept asking, “How can people do this to each other?”

Well, that’s when it brought back to me the importance of teaching history to our children. Only by remembering and learning from our past, be it 400 years ago or 50 years ago, can we make sure that these sort of atrocities do not happen again. Never forget. I’m not saying dwell on the past, but don’t dismiss it as unimportant. It’s not.

History isn’t just piles of dates and names we need to teach and our children remember, but so much more.

Our trip to the Voortrekker Monument, taught us gratitude for what we have. We are on the point of embarking on a new way of life, voluntary simplicity homesteading, which up until that day made me wonder if we weren’t going to find it hard. Then we experienced the way these people lived en route to Pretoria. Well, simplicity or not, we sure aren’t pioneers by any stretch of the imagination. To be so completely self sufficient that if you do not grow enough food then you die as you have nothing else to eat, it was absolutley incredible. What a strong, resourceful bunch of people they were. Why are they no longer celebrated?

We also learnt another lesson in compassion. Seeing the number of people who died, and the conditions they were kept under.

So again, please, please, please when buying your Homeschool Curriculum, make sure that there is a large dose of our history in it. If not, research it and teach SA History amongst all the other countries. This is our History. There are parts of it that we would like to forget, and they get brushed under the carpet. But it is so important that we never forget and teach our children their history.

If you are ever in Johannesburg then stop at the Voortrekker monument and take a couple of hours to visit the museum at the fort. The monument has an incredible mural that takes you through the Voortrekker history bit by bit. It’s huge and worth a visit. (Google it, I can’t remeber the address!)

The most important thing I learnt from that trip was the importance of teaching my kids their history, they deserve to know, everyone’s opinion of what has happened in our country and the rest of the countries on our planet. This is their planet they deserve the truth, not a watered down version written by one or two people, but everyones opnion.

Remember when teaching history…there are 2 sides to everything and the truth lies somewhere inbetween.

Blessings to you as you Homeschool. (Sorry for the long post, it started small and then I realised how important this subject was to me.)

S.xx

Filed under: Homeschool on October 10th, 2007