A Learning Naturally Curriculum for my Adolescent Son

by Beverley Paine

A few years ago I brainstormed a list of objectives I'd like my son, Roger, to achieve in his early adolescence. As time went by I realised these reflected a longer growth and development time frame, and added some more objectives as the need arose. It forms a pretty basic curriculum, covering many life skills. To this we added interest generated activities, some that he came up with and ones we developed as a family. These included solar technology, computer upgrade and repairs, modelling using LEGO, medieval weapons, astronomy, circus skills, South Australian historyand many others. A highschool equivalent curriculum for home education doesn't have to follow what schools do very closely. Covering the basics is essential and can be worked out using common sense. I did use the National Curriculum Guidelines in places to help me develop this, and to ensure that I was covering similar material and skills over time.

Basic First Aid, including CPR
Nutrition
•  What is good diet for me?
•  Why do I eat the food I do?
•  How healthy is "healthy" food?
•  Where does my food come from?
•  Additives to foods - how are foods processed?
•  What's my opinion on genetic engineering and food?
Getting Involved in Community Organisations
•  Trees For Life
•  Landcare
•  Local Exchange Trading System
•  Meals on Wheels (and other Senior Citizens Organisations)
•  Sport and Recreation
•  Wildlife/Conservation
•  Overseas Aid/ Human Rights
•  Health Promotion
•  Youth Issues
•  Arts
Visit Local Council, Parliament
•  Understand meeting formats and processes, decision making, planning and development locally
•  How and why rules are made, and do they work
•  How does this all affect me?
•  Do kids have any power, rights, how do they assert them if they do?
Understanding of different cultural practices in Australia
•  Especially related to current affairs, eg visit by Delai Lama
•  Ways in which different Australians practice and celebrate cultural heritage, eg visit exhibitions, celebrations, places of religious worship (with respect)
•  Look into historical causes of wars, etc, around the world - changing borders, politics, greed, religious, resource hoarding
•  form some opinions based on fact about Australia 's multicultural identity, population control, immigration policies
Positive thinking practice
Personal empowerment/ assertiveness training
Regular exercise program, recreation and sport
Conflict resolution strategies
Recognising and managing own stress levels and understanding causative
factors
Camping and survival skills - bushcraft
Cooking for different occasions, different groups of people
•  Balanced, appropriate menus
•  Preparation, clearing away
•  Budgeting
•  Shopping
Maintenance of clothes
•  Basic sewing skills
•  Laundry
•  Shoe care
Telephone skills
•  Answering and making (all types of calls)
•  Emergency calls
•  Information accessing (consumer, information services, businesses, operator)
•  using the White and Yellow pages
Staying safe in the community
Peer pressure to conform
Unwanted attention
Invasion of privacy
Safety in the home and environment
Make a useful piece of furniture, a kid's toy - using wood/metal/plastics/fibre
•  Safe use of tools
•  Care of tools
•  Including power tools
Media awareness
•  Reading the "bottom line" - how what I am watching, reading, listening too is trying to sell me an idea or message and is it true or true for me or true for all people?
•  The techniques used to "sell" ideas , Opinions and products (mass manipulation and control through technology and images, small bytes of information repeated, etc)
•  What do I want, what do I need - really?
How has the environment I live in changed - recent past, 50 years, 150 years, 1000 years, 10,000 years, 500 million years?
•  What do I think about this?
•  How is this environment different from others I know (visit and compare)?
•  What is it like in other countries
•  How does landscape (and climate) affect how people use the land
•  How are "borders" of countries determined
•  is colonisation a good/bad thing - is it happening in the world now, where, who were the first colonisers
•  What other species of life "colonise" and What effect does this have on the local flora and fauna
Gardening - make a garden
•  Use of plants (food, building, fibre, fuel, aesthetics, etc)
•  Wild foods, traditional uses across cultures (Aboriginal, herbal remedies)
•  Use of plants and indigenous plants in the area
•  Become involved in a conservation effort (why, how, where, effectiveness, responsibility)
•  Grow own food, including harvest, care, composting, chemicals, treatment (storage, preservation)
•  Become a Trees For Life grower
Start recycling and reduce consumption.
Do some simple science experiments in biology, physics, chemistry
•  Visit Investigator Science Centre, Museum, Natural History Centre
•  Start a natural history collection - identify and label, sort and classify (shells, fossils, bones, rocks, pressed plants)
Experiment with clay - raku firing (figures, sculpture, wind chimes, wall plaques, plates, pots, tiles)
Make something or things to sell at a LETS market stall
•  Organise your own stall at a local market
•  Organise a joint stall at another LETS region market
Become involved in writing for local publications - newspapers, local newsletters, magazines, youth publications
•  Letters to the editor
•  Responses to articles
•  What is good and bad in the area, how things could be better for kids
•  Creative writing - own poems, short stories, illustrations, puzzles, cartoons, etc
Begin car maintenance
•  Wheel changing
•  Oil and water
•  Basic repairs
•  Trouble shooting
•  Pull bits of engine, car to pieces and rebuild
•  Use of tools, including power tools
•  Visit a mechanics shop
•  Use of petrol/gas bowser
•  Car cleaning and care
Open a bank account
Organise home weekly budget for family or yearly one for self
Write personal an business letters
Filling our all sorts of forms
Personal journal on a regular basis
Dream journal writing
Keep own calendar
Demonstrate (and practice) proficiency in basic maths functions (plus, minus, divide, multiply) to four digits, including decimals
•  Times table, fractions and decimals
•  Using calculator
•  Be able to estimate with reasonable accuracy
•  practice in real life mental calculations (shopping, cooking, making things)
•  Accurate conversion in measurements (weight, capacity, length - eg. metres to kilometres)
•  Use spacial terms (geometric) to describe things (spherical, angle, parallel, etc)
•  Be able to draw to scale
•  read charts, graphs (weather, statistics, in media)
•  Read and interpret timetables
•  Read maps, flow charts
Devise ways to manage own time - stay on task, finish things, avoid distractions, making and meeting contracts and agreements to do things in a time frame - finding out what it is I really want to do
Understand what is happening to the adolescent body
•  How it affects moods and therefore relationships
•  How can we understand the hormonal effect to maintain harmonious relations (diet, activity, meditation, relaxation, understanding body rhythms and cycles, need for solitude and privacy)
•  What do I need to feel good and comfortable about physical changes?
Health and Safety around drugs, alcohol, tobacco, chemicals, food addictions - why? (disease and hazards)
Be able to use computers and technology in the local and other libraries to access information and resources
Use dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedias, atlases (and other maps)