An Introduction

Hello! Thank you for your interest in Another Way to Learn? and for taking the time to read more about it. Our level of anticipation and wonder is increasing as its launch approaches and I hope yours is too!

I’m Molly and I had the honour of writing the introduction and conclusion to this fabulous book. In keeping with the beginning of both those chapters I’m tapping away at this in an outdoor space; I’m watching the girls wild swim in Lake Windermere, the biggest lake in England. Meanwhile, my husband and our adult sons are walking a mountain range which includes the highest mountain in England. This is the beauty of home education. My flask of tea is somewhat tepid, but my determination to play my part in protecting our freedom to home educate and encourage those who do so becomes ever fiercer as the pressure on us increases.

Over the next couple of months, we will be finding out a little more about each of the book’s contributors and why they came to be writing their particular chapter. I’m always curious about the story behind the story. I wonder what conversations, books, relationships or experiences culminated in the book I have in my hands at the time. Another Way to Learn? truly is a team project and I love the melody of the different voices as they harmonise together to discover the beauty of home education. Amazingly it has taken only eighteen months from first scribblings to a finished script. However, it took seven years to get to the initial scribbling stage and a number of significant prompts.

Some while ago our family listened to Bandersnatch (Pavlak Glyer, 2015) the story of the ‘Inklings’ writing group of which Lewis and Tolkien were a part. As the author gradually brought to light the many different letters, diary entries and other communications of the group, it became evident that the finished novels known and loved by so many of us were very much shaped by the group as a whole, as they read aloud and discussed them chapter by chapter in a small Oxford pub. This desire for collaboration and awakened confidence in its effectiveness, soaked a seed which had been lying dormant for some years.

Whilst in hospital with our youngest daughter several years previously, I had read a copy of Making the Right Impression (Richards 2007) written by a group of UK home educators. At around the same time I was intent on breathing fresh life into our home education through a number of home educating books which had winged their way to us from the States. Out of these two reading experiences, the seed of a new UK multi-authored book was formed.

Another Way to Learn? truly is a group project. Whilst we have not been able to ponder life and share our modest writings over a drink in the pub each week, ideas have sparked, concepts have consolidated and friendships have formed as we’ve tapped away over the airwaves. The end product is a book which I hope and pray will both encourage and inspire you.  I’m so grateful to all the authors who have opened their hearts, shared their wisdom and experience and given their time to bring the seed of an idea through to fruition. I find fresh wisdom, practical tips and warm affirmation each time I read it.

We are both excited and humbled as we watch this book reach into the hearts and hearths of many incredible families who are taking up the call to educate their children at home. We pray it comes to you with a blessing and speaks many words of encouragement as you boldly and beautifully lay the foundations of the next generation.

Molly x

Molly Ashton is an enthusiastic advocate for home education with a passion to encourage others on this journey. She and her husband have four children, two by birth and two by adoption. Through both professional and personal experience, she has insight into the challenges of parenting children with additional needs. She co-hosts Mended Teacups a UK home-education podcast, blogs at Mothering Through the Seasons and has authored The Kite’s Tale - A Story of Adoption. She is rooted in the beauty and rhythms of the countryside in which she and her family live in their ongoing quest towards self-sufficiency.