education is compulsory

Quite simply, our eldest (then 11) was asking if we could try home education - which was how we came to be having that conversation that night. As we talked, we started to realise that core values such as honesty, integrity, happiness, self-respect, trust and self-worth, were becoming of prime importance to us in our lives but were seemingly of decreasing importance in the school environment in comparison to the learning of more abstract and academically oriented subjects. Working as someone who helps adults to create greater present-moment awareness and 'uncreate' the negative conditioning of childhood, I now understand these core values to be a necessary part of any education. A happy, balanced individual is by definition 'rich' in life, regardless of wealth, status or 'education'. It is not what someone does that is important. It is who someone is - their sense of self. And Anna and Sophie's sense of self was beginning to be weakened in their school environment by the expectations and projections of teachers and by pressure from their peers to conform in ways that did not reflect their true selves.

Throughout this discussion, it became clearer to both of us that if we were really going to 'walk our talk' we needed to offer the girls the freedom to home-school (whatever that meant). I needed to trust that the development of my 'business' would fit in around my helping to meet the family's needs as opposed to the family's needs fitting in around my business. For me this meant a quantum shift in my life. I'm sure that many men and women in our work/money oriented society would understand that this is a scary step to take.