That’s how I’d describe myself.  I went to school, did exams, got good GCSEs and mediocre A-Levels.  But most of my education took place at home, within our family.  I can recall relatively little of what I learnt in school ie. what I memorised to pass my exams.  On the other hand, the topics I had an extra-curricular interest in, that I was given the opportunity to explore outside of school, I remember huge amounts about.  The biggest example would be the history of the Tudor period:

We had a video of Anne of the Thousand Days at home.  I watched it over and over and over again.  I loved it.  I wanted to be Anne Boleyn.  I wanted to wear her dresses; curtsey in them.  My Mum used to take us to Hampton Court (when it didn’t cost an arm and a leg to get in!) very frequently; we sometimes travelled up to see the Tower of London.  I remember having a Choose Your Own Adventure book (remember those?) about the Tudor period that I read over and over again.  I learnt the order of Henry VIII’s wives and what became of them.  All this I learnt outside of school.  I started (but didn’t continue) collecting a children’s history magazine series that came with a cassette recording about two children who travelled back in time.  I remember the salient parts of Elizabeth I’s speech during the time of the Spanish Armada because of listening to that tape.  As I grew older, my Mum introduced me to the Jean Plaidy books, which I also devoured.  I fell in love with the whole idea of Tudor times, but mostly the clothes the gentry wore, the beautiful, flowing gowns and headdresses.  While I was at university, I used my spare time looking at websites about Tudor history and about Tudor costumes - the idea of wearing Tudor clothes was something that had always excited me.  From the internet, and from friends I made via the internet (some of whom have been attending Kentwell for years), I taught myself the skills I needed to create an intire gentry-woman’s Tudor gown from scratch.  Totally authentically (except for machine sewing!) - I even made a smock and a corset.  It wasn’t perfect, but it was beautiful to me - and I could wear it! 

I’m digressing slightly from my original topic.  The point is that I learnt all this because my Mum educated us at home, even though she sent us to school.  She took an interest in our lives; she took our interests seriously; she took us to places we were interested in; read to us; played with us; conversed with us; bought us things she thought we’d find interesting.  I don’t think I was harmed by being in school but I do think it was a complete waste of time.  My Mum is wonderful and amazing and I am not criticising her in anyway when I say that, when you think what I learnt about just one of the things I was interested in during the time I wasn’t in school, just think what I might have achieved if I hadn’t had to attend school at all!  I didn’t meet my Dh at school.  I’ve been out of nursing for too long to get a job without doing a return to practice course - a course that is running hardly anywhere in the country because we have (get this!!) too many nurses - so my degree is pretty useless.  I’ve forgotten most of what I learnt at A-Level (physics, French and German), although I guess I’d pick up the languages quickly again if I had to - still, I suppose I’d learn them pretty quickly from scratch if I had to anyway!  I didn’t need any exams to do my diploma.  The job I’m doing now I could have done whether or not I’d done any of the exams I’ve done in my life and I’m loving it.  It’s not a living, but I don’t have time to earn a living - my current career is child-rearing.  I won’t go into detail about my Dh’s life but he would have quite easily managed without going to school as well and is in a good career with good pay and good prospects and didn’t need any of his qualifications to do it.  His passions are bass guitar; triathlon; juggling/poi etc. - none of which he learnt in school.

I don’t intend to waste any of my children’s childhood by making them spend it in classrooms.  If they spent the whole school day just playing or watching tv they could easily be just as ok as I am.  If they spend it following up interests and being part of life, then they’ll be much better off than I am.  So, am I worried about HE not being the right choice?  No.  From what I’ve read, the conversations I’ve had with adults about their time in school, my own experience, and the experiences of other parents with schooled and HE’d children, I think that, if parents are engaged with their children, enjoy being around them and providing opportunities to discover new interests and follow up old ones, school can be summed up as being, at worst, harmful and at best, a waste of time.

Edited to clarify:  I don’t think that HE will mean the children don’t waste time…I also don’t mean that they would learn nothing in school.  What I mean is that if HE children did nothing at all for 6 hours every day, 5 days a week, they may well not be any worse off than most schooled children and that there is little they can learn in school that they wouldn’t learn more easily at home…from my own experience