I have been thinking about community. There are homeschool communities all over the local area. There is a bulletin board that advertises events that are coming up, but they are just the general things… To join one of the groups, you have to know someone. Occasionally, someone starts a new one with an enthusiastic florish – an email, a survey thing, etc. I don’t do Facebook, and I know there are events and groups there. These groups highlight for me one of the good things about school – the way you can’t (unless rich, of course) choose the other people. The parents and the children reflect the people of the area as you can’t exclude anyone due to different beliefs, religions, and theories on vaccination, for example. When your kid turns up and is disruptive, the school has to work out how to cope – rather than excluding by not being told about events, etc. A community can only reflect its membership, where the community is of only like-minded people, it is insular.

I wonder what sort of community that I want to belong to – do I want to belong even? Not being much of a joiner ‘n’ all. I have had the good fortune to live in some very small towns – one had a dairy (gone now), a school, many churches, and a home kill butchery (also gone), and that is it. I didn’t have to work on community as my family did it for me. Now I am the parent (a solo one, what’s more), and it is my job, especially as school has been ruled out. H doesn’t want to go to the homeschool events unless it is a topic she is interested in. She hates the idea of going somewhere with a desire to socialise. She has friends, she will hang out with them but she doesn’t see strangers as possible friends. The few homeschool events I went to highlighted both of our social awkwardness. You can not make someone join a community.

I was cleaning at a high school last year and it has one of those house things going – you belong to a house it has a colour and you are supposed to invest in it and develop school spirit.. for school sports days, that sort of thing. A way of attempting to develop community? To make children of different years have something in common? A community based on competitiveness. I remember that from my primary and high schools. I hated it, I knew it was ever so fake. Is it schools acknowledging they are too big to be one commuity? Fake communities do not work in any pertinant way.

There seems to be a public debate about people losing community and the negative effects of this. Including the negative effects on children. When our population of different locales was smaller, we did have a way of providing for each other – connecting our children with someone who needed a babysitter, etc.. At Everyone Out, not only do I know the kids, I helped someone I babysat since she was a baby to get a job there, and she is so awesome at it. Two of the staff I used to teach at one of the local schools (one is also the son of a friend) and they went to the same playcentre as my daughter. One of the volunteers was H’s brother, another someone I have known since she was a baby, and they are awesome… one of the volunteers started coming as a little kid and hasn’t left. She is also awesome. Some of the kids connect and organise play dates – homework. I feel connected to the Everyone Out community… and I am so happy watching the kids grow… Over the 6 years of Everyone Out, we are becoming a community – focused around a place. We have common goals that change depending on the players. We work together.

Now we want to start our own school/not school. How do we turn it from just a place with some people into a community that will have strength – opt in, diverse, real, and working together with a common goal.