Mary Kenny: Home plus school equals well educated children

[Admin]

Another very positive home ed 'outcome' with no interference from the Irish state.

Mary Kenny: Home plus school equals well educated children

Rosita, who I knew in the 1970s as a radical revolutionary-feminist: Rosita, whose recently republished 1974 novel Fathers Come First is a chronicle of the mixed-up youthful confusions of that era, and in particular an indictment of the ghastly, backward education imparted by a convent school education: the very same Rosita raised her two children alone in the wilds of the Wicklow countryside, and never sent them to school (except briefly, or when they had to sit an exam.)

And the result? Her daughter Chupi is just about the most articulate, poised, clever, well-read and accomplished young woman of 30 - running her own jewellery design business - that it's possible to meet. Her son Luke is a well-balanced and successful film-maker.

If this is the outcome of home-schooling, why doesn't everyone do it?

 

[judybanks]

It's possible that Rosita was lucky in having two exceptionally bright children. Chupi virtually taught herself. "She just went into Eason's, got down the books, and started learning." The child lapped up mathematics, and the adult Chupi has now taught her husband, Brian, how to do all kinds of maths - he had the disadvantage of being sent to a school.