Realist,
I completely agree with your posts, though I feel sorry for those like Maxiumus, who seem to regard school as some type of communist plot against society from the anals of Carl Marx. As Realist stated bullying is a part of life, if you do not learn to cope with it in a school situation, you will not be prepared for life in general, as I found out, the hard way.

Students at risk of being on the wrong end of bullying can learn self confidence as I did, from a course of self defence at any PCYC.
the loss of social interaction with their piers can be devastating when they reach adulthood, while I appreciate the love that drives parents to home school their children, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Not a scholar myself, this is only my opinion derived from 50 years of life, but I would ask anyone who intends home schooling their children to weight both pro's and con's before adopting this action, of course everyone's situation is different, and I recognise that, however for the sake of the child's life [whole life] please think long and hard. Children are our future.

TonyC,

I have never defended the draft or the party that released it. What I am trying to do is help the Home Education Lobby, come on girls lets get to the nitty gritty.

Your actions are counter productive and are playing into the hands of the predictable “we consulted widely” media release from the ministers office. Or have you given up the fight already and now see the minister as an enemy. Remember it is the Departments Bill not the ministers so it will not matter who is elected it will eventually become policy.

What regulations do you want? Tell the minister, you may only have until Monday for this exposure draft but it needs to go to the final bill and be debated in parliament. It then will not be implemented for another year. Get in the ear of your MP’s

So you probably have about six months to put together a coherent logical argument to the new authority about what YOU want. All I have heard is sycophantic rants about rights and freedom and democracy.

Put some guidelines together, basic home education principles that you can get the new authority to agree to and get an in principle agreement that regulations for home education will follow your stated principles.

You cannot fight your fight by accusing ministers of being sneaky, you need to be sneakier that her. Plan your future agenda and stick to it.

You have won the fight for home education to be a legitimate education choice, now move on to stating what you want. Or is this the problem, you don’t know what you want or the only thing you want is to be left alone.

I understand that the fact that you choose to home educate probably means you are very independent thinkers and that finding agreement between a “broad church” may be difficult. But that is your next challenge.

Welcome to the real world where the only way to win your fight is to work with the system not abuse its spokeswoman.

Shonga,
School is not the only place where socialisation can happen.
Studies show that home educated children are very well socialised, often better than their schooled peers. Many home educators socialise in large groups several times a week. Additionally most home educated children are actively involved in their local communities. Many do sport, art, dancing, drama etc. They mix with a large variety of people every day. Home education provides for rich and varied socialisation.

Shonga, there is much information regarding home education, it may be an idea for you to research the topic further so you have a better understanding. Home education is a legitimate educational option which millions of people around the world choose. It is not a case of a ‘few’ disgruntled parents thumbing their noses at the education system. In the United States there are over a million home educators. Home education has become mainstream there, and acknowledged as a bona fide educational choice.

School does not hold the exclusive rights to education or socialisation.

Sterotypes do not help us and are inaccurate. Home Educators are not 'hippies' as a general rule, nor are the majority of us unusually 'religious'. We have a broad spectrum of home educators: conservatives and hippies, religious and athiest, political and a-political, highly educated and high school educated. Isn't this what we see in the broader community?

The home ed group I have been involved in had an 85% rate of non religious members with a broad range of ideas and belief systems which are embraced for their diversity. We accept each other for who we are, as we understand our common ground and the need for variety to stimulate learning. Some groups have higher components of different groups, but the fact is still the same, some areas have higher concentrations of certain 'stereotypes' too. Consider the population of Footscray. Let's stop trying to brand people and realise that in our own way we are all doing what we think best for our families, whether they are in school or home educated.

Up until now, the education department has been avoiding giving us enough information to allow our voice to be heard. Quite frankly, had we gone to the media early in the year at the first 'whiff' of education changes that may or may not include us, we would have been branded as 'hysterical conspiracy theorists'. So we asked instead and they told us that it is yet to be written and when the draft is released we would have a chance to respond. Now that we finally have been given a little of the information we have been seeking all along, we are left with an unworkable timeframe at a convenient period for the department to prevent any public debate. To be continued...

Yes, we need to mount a defence. Yes, we need to get out there and make ourselves heard. We are doing our best but are finding ministerial doors shut till February and are getting bland responses with no content from the Minister of education. She keeps reciting that the legislation is all about 'consistency' but refusing to give any details or to even consider drafting a concept prior to the legislation being passed sometime this year. It really seems that we are getting stonewalled and quite frankly, we need the particulars to mount an effective fight.

I am not against registration and I am happy to carry the burden of proof, should the department choose to investigate out of fears for the educational welfare of my children. However, I am against being forced to register and submit to undisclosed regulations.

Let's take the circumstance of the anti sedition laws in Australia. The government was forced to submit to a review process and to give details of the proposed regulation prior to it being accepted (after some amendments). Our MP's forced this because they felt it could constitute a severe breach of personal liberty and allow unreasonable governmental control. Much as the timeframe was forced and the general public had little opportunity for a fair response, at least the MP's protected us as best they could. We have not even been able to get to our MP’s to ask for help.

How is this issue any different? It makes one feel that the government is perhaps a little two faced where liberties are concerned if it will only affect the minority and not their voting majority.

Nicola,
Your point is taken, however 2 points if I may;

1. Large gatherings a few times per week sound a bit like reproducing a school atmosphere, I may have the wrong slant?
2. Because a million Yanks do it doesn't make it a good option, look at their society in general, I think I would home school if I had the misfortune to live there also.

Again please don't get me wrong I am not trying to degrade the practise, only understand the motivation for doing so. Home schooling is certainly preferable in my eyes to some of the lunatic religious schools such as A.O.G. schools [Assembly of God - Calvary Christian Colleges]. I met a lady today who lived on a remote farm and did her education by school of the air, and she socialises well, my socialisation concerns allayed.