<&>Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English Version One <&>Copyright 1998 School of Linguistics & Applied Language Studies <&>Victoria University of Wellington <&>side two <&>1:00 and um oh perhaps if you tell me about your home schooling now i gather your children are home schooled <{><[>is that right yes <[>yes that's right yes <.>well well we've got five <.>children yes and um <.>w the <.>o um the oldest is fourteen and the youngest is nearly <.>four be four next month mm tut yeah they've um that's why i was bit late getting to the phone because they've been up since about six oclock doing all the things that they do <{><[>and um today's a holiday <[>mm what sort of things yes today's a holiday <{><[>what sort of things do they do <[>laughs well um one of my sons birthday today so <{1><[1>um he got up really early and he was was sitting in the sitting room and the other one got up um shona got up at er and made him breakfast she made scrambled eggs and toast and a cup of cocoa for him and <{2><[2>um <[1>mm <[2>oh that's nice yeah and then um tut the other one got up and um i bought some material that needs <&>2:00 preshrinking so he er tut i want to sew that up today so he <.>put washed that for me and they've been playing um making lego constructions in the lounge room tut then they brought <&>pronounced as bought me a cup of tea in bed and um i've been reading <.>the reading stories <,> um in bed <{><[>my holidays so i <.>like that's what i like to do something completely different and which i don't get a chance to read much <[>mm no you wouldn't <{><[>no <[>and um tut yeah and afterwards sort <.>of we've um done the dishes and um we'll probably have lunch soon um have a birthday lunch and um then <.>we'll i don't know what we'll do after that <{><[>laughs <[>laughs and what made you decide to home school your children oh well um tut i've always been um felt very strongly about being involved with their education mm and even um i <.>n i was never happy with what kindergarten offered um when my first one went to kindergarten i didn't like it at all was <&>3:00 very upset about it and um then er we went to live in samoa for um tut well it ended up nearly two years and even the education over <.>there system over there i didn't like that at all mm didn't like being separated from the children mm and i didn't like other people <,,> having <.>te telling my children things that i wanted to tell them mm and um yeah it was a real um tearing apart of my heart and i thought oh well this is the way life is word thousands of children go to school i mean millions <{><[>you know this is what normal people do but I didn't like it and then er we came back to new zealand and er life went on and my children actually didn't like um kindergarten either um shona used to sit in the teacher's office and tidy up her books and desk and things and the other one used to <.>f um scream all the way there and <,> and um tut cry when he came home so things like that <.>they <&>4:00 they weren't very happy either <.>so <[>mm mm then they went to school and sort of the same thing happened they used to cry going to school <.>and and i used to go down there and take part as a mother and er teachers used to say oh you know why don't you stay home sort of thing oh really? yeah so um tut and then er <.>l i heard about <.>diff people having different alternatives about their education and private tutors and private schools and country schools <.>and <,> and i thought oh i'll never be able to have anything like that and then um tut a friend of mine took her children to a um tut private school mm and i said how er fortunate she was because you know they were really um financially adequate to do that mm and i said <.>oh she said to me oh well something will turn up for you that will suit you and so i really sort of held that in my heart and at the <.>end during ninety eighty eight caroline peters um home schooling in <&>5:00 wellington she shifted to wellington there was a photograph of her in the paper with her children it was a contact newspaper mm and she had five kiddies <.>and sitting there telling us about home schooling and <.>sh and um tut i thought oh this is interesting <{><[>never heard about this before <[>mm mm and um i just went for <.>a about a year i sat on that and my husband said oh no you know i had been sick quite a lot tut different physical sicknesses and we had just had our last baby mm and um <,,> he said oh you know <.>you you can't do it you don't know anything about science or maths or um which is true and um i'd just had a baby and patience and all the rest of it and so um tut yeah we <.>just we prayed about it we <.>were being christians that's what we do and we prayed about it and um for a year and then at the end of ninety eighty eight everything just <&>6:00 seemed to snowball and um we just went from there we wrote a letter to the education department and <,> never looked back mm <{><[>so do they do correspondence lessons <[>that was <.>towards no um tut clears throat that was another thing we thought that cos we're <,> tut not that well off <{><[>i <.>thought we thought how on <.>earth <.>we we didn't have a television um <.>we you know we <.>didn't can't afford to buy books we always went to the library <[>mm mm and we thought oh how on earth are we gonna do this and we thought we have to have all the modern technology and that and caroline said to me you can teach <,> with the newspaper yeah and she showed me how to actually do that mm and i made my own little um storybooks and things mhm and um tut i have two friends who are <.>in teaching in regular schools and they gave me a loan of books mm and we just went from there i've got so much stuff now i've got what i call my freezer full of ideas i've <.>got i've <{><[>got <.>so so i've just made my own equipment and my own um tut <&>7:00 bought books along the years and i've actually just <.>bought the first brand new book that i bought was last year it was a form four maths book <[>mm mhm whereas all the other books i've had are a second hand or um borrowed from other home schoolers <.>or mm so you're actually um even home schooling your secondary school boy yes <{1><[1>mm <.>that's it's easier as they get on because the idea is to um <,> make them <.>in you know train them to be independent <{2><[2>and to be resourceful themselves <[1>mm <[2>yes yes and to <.>h so they all actually work on their own I just make their plan <{><[>i <.>h and i even <.>i include THEM in the planning <[>mm mm um i ask them what things they want to study and how we go about it and so on and then um we're supposed to use the curriculum education department curriculum as a guide which i do mm and um <,,> and so we um we just go from there <&>8:00 i'm still not so hot on science <.>and still not my favourite subject but we <.>get we do quite a lot of biology and um tut natural science rather than the chemistry and the physics word i guess that's where my you know weakness is mm but <.>ma i don't know what will happen next year um we just take one year at a time yes <.>i i <.>just i'm full of admiration for what you're doing but it seems to me you're doing it such a hard way i mean <{1><[1>the correspondence school at least would give you the prescriptions that you should be following and it sets everything out so that they're very easy <.>to to follow <{2><[2>voc <[1>well it IS <[2>yeah well the um tut most of the stuff that's available is expensive we just haven't got the money to <{><[>pay word <[>you mean you have to PAY for the correspondence <{><[>school <[>yes do you um <.>they <.>corre education department were very angry when <.>i i first started home schooling um it was about five or six years <.>o old by that stage within new zealand mm <.>pr probably <.>be well lots of others but <&>9:00 they weren't sort of <,> very public mm and um <.>tha the education department were very angry with us and <{1><[1><.>the people in auckland um who er have been lobbying the government side of it and there's a lot of home schoolers are still very angry with the education word <{2><[2>the government and all that but now they um tut when the last government was elected they um is it lockwood smith <{3><[3>word he um is giving an allowance to the parents of children who are being home schooled and <.>that for us it comes out to about two thousand three hundred dollars a year <[1>yes i know about that mm <[2>mm <[3>yes mm and that's given purely to me it's called an allowance and i can do whatever i like <{><[>with it and um so <.>we've but the um correspondence school is um very expensive for a secondary student form three <[>mm mm mm for one subject a year it's seventeen hundred dollars is it mm good gracious so they made it inaccessible for us yes? <&>10:00 but there's some home schoolers who do use it don't pay for it but they get it through medical or <{><[>psychological services <[>right yes because I used to work there and i KNOW some people um did get home schooling but um i don't know what the rules are and maybe yes i <{><[>didn't realise this <[>well <.>apparently the ones that <.>u use it for medical reasons um the children aren't capable of keeping up to <.>the the deadline or <.>the the pressure of um getting assignments done mm they er children that need to have lots of space and <.>i <.>without well I <.>n <.>i I'M doing correspondence typing for myself which costs eighty five dollars a year mm and <.>i i word that's got a two week deadline on each thing which i don't keep mm but um tut <.>the <.>the like i was saying <.>the the people who um who DO use correspondence school find that that THAT pressure of meeting a deadline is incredible um <,,> um <{1><[1>obstacle in their children's education so they er er they give it away and they do their <{2><[2>own programme <[1>yes <&>11:00 <[2>mm mm so much flexibility <.>and and <.>open openness that we can have mm but <.>a there's also lots of christian programmes that are available too which have their own um flaws like there's the ace which is <{1><[1>called um accelerated christian education word that uses the um tut multiple <.>ans <.>choice answer <{2><[2>way <[1>mm <[2>mm yes it's very rigid isn't it it's nothing like the sort of thing <{><[>you'd be offering <[>no no well um <.>i've when the inspector came out to visit us the first time she was um <.>i with the five children we started at the top with damion and by the time we got down to the third one she said oh i've seen enough you know and they <{><[>said oh i wanted to show you all MY stuff too <[>mm mm and um she was just SO impressed she was just OVER awed by what we had and we got a excellent report mm and um same <.>with i don't know what i do that's any different to anyone else everyone's got their own styles and own um tut ways of <&>12:00 teaching them but um we do a lot of things with the family i think that could be something <.>u <.>un unbeknown to myself <.>i we do do a lot of things toGETher <&>12:10