Archive for January, 2010
19 January 2010
Start with love
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Homeschool Profile.
10-year old Ali is one lucky kid! He’s being taught at home by parents Harith Idris and Intan Shamsuddin who are one of the most dedicated homeschooling couples we’ve met. They’ve hosted and participated in homeschooling dialogues, arranged for cartoonist Dato Lat to visit a homeschoolers’ outdoor camp, and are great resource persons for unschoolers. Thoughtful and always cheerful, work from home (part-time) mom Intan has no qualms sharing with us the joy of educating her only son at home.
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Every homeschooling family has a story. What’s yours?
Ali was diagnosed as autistic at the age of 2. But that didn’t stop this numbskull of a mother (the poor boy!) from shopping for a kindy when ‘the time’ came. We spent the whole day going from one kindy to another and in the end decided to settle for one, enrolled, and paid the fees. As a good mummy would, this one stayed to watch from outside the class. I was horrified at how the teacher quickly instilled fear in the kids to obey her every word and completely ignored a boy who started pinching Ali. Without further ado, I pulled him out of class and insisted on my refund. Came straight home and thought hard (about 10 minutes or so), and ceremoniously announced to my hubby Harith: “I can’t stomach him going to school. We’ll just homeschool Ali”.
Just like that! How did your husband take it? Weren’t there objections from him or other family members?
Of course hubby just smiled and said, “Why not? I’m all for it!” And so began our homeschooling journey.
Objections from family? None at all! Harith and I have always been the ‘black sheep’ of our respective family, so doing something out of the norm was, well, more or less expected of us….and we were not about to let them down. We ARE so blessed 
Did you know what you were getting into when you decided to homeschool?
In the beginning it felt very scary with so many uncertainties. We were in uncharted waters here. One way we got around this was to read as much as we could on homeschooling……. books, internet articles. When I found out there ARE other homeschooling families in Malaysia, it was rather reassuring. As time went by, I knew for certain there’s no turning back. Homeschooling felt right, there’s just no other way, at least for us!
Tell us what’s your homeschool like – the things you do, the way you spend your time. What’s your role, and how does Harith fit into the picture?
This mummy tackles more or less the ‘academic’ stuff and daddy’s the one who takes him out to the playground and field trips. We began by teaching Ali how to read, using the phonics method. Somehow we managed to complete the program in just over a week! After that it was trip after trip to the book stores. And that’s the way it has been – English, (Japanese manga thrown in, plus a healthy treat of comics here and there), Science, and whatever subject, come what may, we just throw ourselves into it. Wonderful!
Arts and crafts also play an important role in Ali’s learning. Water colour is his favourite medium….endless paintings! If it isn’t a specific subject he’s painting, he would be experimenting by mixing colours until this mummy runs out of words to describe his colour mixes.
There’s no curriculum then?
No, we definitely don’t use any curriculum. For instance, with Math, we started with basic counting – not just on paper, but with everyday stuff that’s around us. Grocery shopping is good for math too! When the time came to learn multiplication (don’t ask me how I handled that), he mastered the 1 to 12 times table in a week! He’s now learning algebra, but with long hiatuses every now and then! Oh, and just recently, he has expressed interest in Chemistry. Yikes! We’re talking about a mummy who’s always been terrified of Chemistry, and now I’ll get to learn it all over again. What fun?!
I mean, why confine Math, Vocabulary, Spelling, etc, to the study table only? We’re always learning – while taking a bath or shower, rolling around in bed after reading a story book, etc. Of course, doing Science would mean experiments galore (and ultimately a messy home), but we’re easy with that.
But your son Ali is autistic. Doesn’t it make homeschool more challenging?
Friends and acquaintances were rather perplexed when they learn Ali was being homeschooled. There’s nothing wrong with your son, they would say. Homeschooling must be right then, I replied! Being able to learn at their own pace, surrounded by people who love and do not judge them, in surroundings where they feel safe and secure, help autistic children tremendously. That goes for ‘normal’ ones too!
Because autistic children get easily disturbed in unfamiliar and noisy surroundings, we did our best to avoid going to such places especially during the early years. Ali’s doing a lot better in recent years, primarily because he grew up in calm surroundings. Homeschooling allowed us to shield him and it had a relatively calming effect on him. I doubt this can be achieved in conventional schooling.
Indeed, I can’t imagine any school that could have offered Ali the kind of attention he’s getting.
More than that, homeschooling has allowed us to be intimately acquainted with Ali. He’s absolutely amazing and humorous. I love to hear him talk and recap whatever he’s read or watched. Some parents are quite baffled how we could spend so much time together without feeling stifled. I’ll say we are baffled how some parents can spend a good chunk of their day away from their children, come home and then tell their kids, ‘‘Sorry darlings, mummy just got back from a meeting and I am exhausted. Go do something to amuse yourself!”
What values have you sought to inculcate in the home as you raise and teach Ali?
As the years pass by, we have come to realize this: homeschooling is spiritual. Whatever it is about religion that is dished out by people ‘in the know’ have always been dry and meaningless. We have to start putting back the missing ingredients in lifeless religious rituals, and that’s what we’re all about.
What would you say to parents who want to homeschool?
I’ll tell them, you must start with the right intention, and continue to purify your intention as you go on the homeschooling journey. Start with LOVE – you can never go wrong with that. Homeschooling will also reveal ugly weaknesses in you. Just acknowledge them, embrace them. You will surely overcome them in time. Then everyone in the family will come out as winners- guaranteed! Cheers to homeschooling!
RELATED POSTS: Other homeschool families we have profiled:
According to his ability
Character is tops in this homeschool
Living, loving, learning, unschooling
The Soons take it free and easy
Ice-skating homeschoolers
13 January 2010
Who’s minding our child minders?
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Child Development.
With all the talk about expanding preschool enrolment in the country is anyone asking what’s being done about the danger of child abuse and how to keep these centres safe? While the growing numbers of reported child abuse did not necessarily take place in kindergartens and playschools, recent news of an alleged sex offender operating a kindy raised alarm.
In Malaysia the thriving business of kindergartens, playschools, and daycare for kids provide an invaluable service catering to young parents whose busy careers leave little time for junior. The Child Care Centre Act regulates this army of childminders although kindergartens and nurseries operated by the Education Ministry are governed by a different Act.
Since its implementation, this provision requires home-based centres that receive less than 10 children and any institution that has more than 10 children to be registered before they are allowed to operate. Unfortunately enforcement is so lax and the need so great few parents suspect their children may be left in the care of strangers in unregistered centers. A report in The Nutgraph looks at the cabinet-approved Child Protection Policy (CPP) rolled out in July 2009 and examines how implementation falls short of its intentions:
Notwithstanding the government’s efforts, PH Wong (child advocate and Childline Malaysia project director) says a large number of childcare centres and kindergartens are still not registered with the authorities. She says the number of registered centres has almost halved from five years ago. This means that many children are attending unregistered centres.
And even for registered centres, there is no formal accreditation. “We have been pushing for a national quality accreditation system for early childhood centres for more than 10 years, but that has not been implemented yet,” says PH Wong, (child advocate and Childline Malaysia project director).
(United Nations Children’s Fund representative to Malaysia) Youssouf Omar says that parents and guardians must play their part and ensure they do not put children in situations where they could be at risk.
“Parents and guardians should be proactive and ask to check the centre’s licence, as well as ask whether it has a formal child protection policy. In addition, [they must also be] aware of changes in children’s behaviour and look out for signs that the children may not be well protected or cared for in the centre,” explains Youssouf.
By requesting to see a centre’s child protection policy, he says it would create a demand for such policies. “By boycotting places that are not registered, parents can influence the practices of childcare centres and kindergartens,” he adds.
Read the whole story here.
For a brief write-up about kindergarten licensing procedure go here.
12 January 2010
The first days of spring
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: College/University.
19-year old Ethan left for the US a few days ago, closing a chapter on his somewhat eclectic homeschool to begin a new chapter studying in a university in Texas. Never mind that some folks scoffed that the uni in question wasn’t a ‘recognized’ one (okay, it isn’t Ivy League). As his parents we were a bundle of mixed emotions – incredibly delighted, a mite apprehensive, pretty bowled over, fairly amazed, deeply grateful – but mainly happy for Ethan, that his unconventional ‘schooling’ did not get in the way of his education. 38 hours, 4 planes, 1 wrong airport, and a visit to Walmart later, he writes about starting out as a regular student for the first time in his life.
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TOMORROW I BEGIN MY FIRST SEMESTER in Hardin-Simmons University. I’ll be coming in smack in the middle of the academic year. There won’t be an official orientation for me since, well, it’s just not worth it. I’ll have to play catch-up in a game altogether unfamiliar to me. I do not have my books. I do not have my schedule. I do not even have the key card to my dorm (and have had to rely on the kindness of strangers). This is because everything – everything – will only open tomorrow. Someone in my dorm promised to show me where to get the necessary first thing in the morning. Still. Oh god.
The months preceding that letter of acceptance from Hardin-Simmons were frustrating, confusing months. I wandered in the desert for 40 years when it came to sending out college applications. A major hurdle was the fact that I’d never been to school before. I had loads of interesting things like book reviews published in the newspapers, piano exam certificates, public speaking awards, extra-curricula portfolios – that sort of thing – but colleges wanted more. They wanted to see GPAs, transcripts, high school finishing certificates that they recognized. I was on the verge of fabricating my GPA when I grasped at the first straw I could find. I went to Eli360, a Christian college rep agency. Eli360 represents more than 50 private universities across the United States. The list of options was narrow because of my qualified lack of qualifications.
Hardin-Simmons was the first to accept me. I could speculate on and on why Hardin-Simmons accepted me even when I didn’t have a GPA. It might have something to do with Eli360’s president speaking to the university on my behalf. It might have something to do with the recommendations my friends wrote. It might have something to do with the person reflected in my application packet. Or it might have something to do with the slumping economy and the need for easy cash. It’s possible Hardin-Simmons may not be the only university in the world to accept me, but I don’t and didn’t care. I took it.
I received a partial scholarship from Hardin-Simmons based on my SAT score. A better SAT score would mean a better scholarship, so I took the SAT again. I studied for it this time and, to my surprise, scored higher for math than for writing. I’m now eligible for a better scholarship that would cover about one third of my fees. This I’ve decided to take as a promising omen.
I’m here for a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences. The sort of degree that nobody really understands because Liberal Arts students don’t really understand it either. Ah, perfect. But to give you a better idea of what this might mean, my classes this semester will be:
College Algebra
Intro to the Visual Arts
American Government
Freshmen Writing I
Intro to Psychology
The weeks leading to my date of departure were full of farewells. The people who showed up at the airport to see me off made it a little harder to leave because I could see how much I’d be leaving behind. Kuala Lumpur. Singapore. Moscow. Houston. Fort Worth. Abilene, Texas. I’m here. And I’m not done yet. In a matter of hours I’ll discover what it means to go to class.
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(Photo: Ethan (R), in a rare pose with younger brother Elliot in KLIA) Follow Ethan’s blog here.