3 November 2009

Repairing the ruins

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Education; Values.

It is interesting to note that while there is much talk about education being a necessary preparation for the labour market, no one in his right mind would suggest it’s the primary purpose of all education.

Take a look at what I picked up online:

“The purpose of education is to make the world a better place. Education then is about making good citizens, helping our young people to fulfill their potential and to make a meaningful contribution to our society.”

“It is my belief that it is the purpose of education to cultivate and facilitate the growth of children who will become human beings who are able to reason at high levels, to do what is right for themselves and their communities by putting their thoughts into action, and to have the ability to feel an appreciation for the arts and one another, as well as the beauty in the world around them.”

That last quote is a lot like what Socrates would say. Perhaps you might dismiss the dead philosopher as, erm, old school. But he would never approve of learning for knowledge’s sake, and certainly never as a means for material gain. Knowledge should be pursued because it teaches you how to live, promotes virtue and happiness, and leads to a moral life. Socrates’ disciple Plato learnt well; he echoed his master’s words by saying that the purpose of education was for beauty and goodness.

Regardless of how you feel about such noble aspirations, it doesn’t take long before someone comes along to burst your bubble. Get real, man. In this dog eat dog world, it’s every man for himself. Don’t you know the one with the most toys wins?

Don’t cynics just love saying this to your face?

Yet I find it intriguing that ethics and morality remain unquestionably the starting point for all education.

It’s not hard to see why R.C. Sproul Jr said in his thoughtful book ‘When You Rise Up’ that all ‘education is inherently religious‘. He quotes Robert Louis Dabney:

True education is, in one sense, a spiritual process. It is the nurture of the soul. Education is the nurture of a spirit that is rational and moral, in which conscience is the regulative and imperative faculty. The proper purpose of conscience, even in this world, is moral.

But God is the only Lord of the conscience; this soul is his miniature likeness. His will is the source of its obligations. Likeness to him is its perfection, and religion is the science of the soul’s relations to God. Let these statements be placed together, and the theological and educational processes appear so related they cannot be separated.

It is for this reason that the common sense of mankind has always invoked the guidance of the minister of religion in the education of youth……….Every line of true knowledge must find its completeness as it converges on God, just as every beam of daylight leads the eye to the sun.

In my previous post, I argued that the question of what you want your child to be comes before your education choice, whether homeschool or conventional school.  Figure this out, and then decide what’s the best route to get there. Sproul also quotes the poet Milton who wrote: “The end of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge, to love Him, to imitate Him, to be like Him.”

I happen to be in Milton’s corner here. I like the way he has articulated well a model for education that works for my family. And so we have embraced homeschool because we believe it offers our children the best opportunity to nurture soul and spirit holistically. By doing so, we believe they are better placed to love God, to imitate Him, and make a positive difference in our world.

What about you? What’s the reason for your education choice?

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29 October 2009

So why did you choose to homeschool?

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Education.

“So why did you choose to homeschool? Your children are normal….”

It is often supposed that unless there was some dire need for keeping a child at home, depriving a child of conventional schooling is unreasonable, and possibly even damaging. Why? Because  no parent could ever be sufficiently equipped or knowledgeable enough to do the stuff that school teachers are paid to do. More importantly, there are suspicions that weirdos who keep their kids at home risk turning out social misfits (a) whose sheltered upbringing leave them easy prey in our nasty, cruel world, and (b) who don’t have a clue how to socialize like normal human beings or fit nicely into society.

I have now come to the conclusion that people trip over these inevitable questions of qualification and socialization because of an unresolved tension. What is this tension? Firstly, a lot of parents hope schooling will effect transfer of knowledge (sometimes called education) so their children can get good jobs, jobs that offer prestige (and lots of money preferably). So they want to be sure that the ones educating their children have the right stuff. Hence the dirty looks when parents say they want to teach their children themselves. What audacity!

Secondly, these same people also believe education is to make kids socially adept, get along with all sorts of people in our pluralistic society. The only way a person can get ahead is when they’re properly schooled to possess the right EQ and IQ, and play according to the rules ordained by social convention and the dictates of cultural forces, say a lot of well-intentioned friends. You know, you’ve got to buy into society’s worldview and values in order to get something out of it. This is where the tension surfaces, but I’ll get there in a moment.

Now, governments the world over stand unabashedly by what their citizens want. Therefore all the talk about “equipping students with employable skills” and “equipping students with critical skills as the workforce of tomorrow”. In Malaysia, the government of the day is careful to point out that education is also to “inculcate national consciousness by promoting common ideals, values, aspirations and loyalties to foster national unity.”

Here’s the rub, the tension I was referring to.

A lot of parents want their kids to be independent, critical thinkers; they hope that at the end of all that schooling, their children will possess “critical skills” – not only to find lucrative employment, but perhaps the courage of character to shape the world in a positive way even. Like Einstein, Steve Jobs, or Mohammad Yunus.

But independent critical thinkers are not known to accept “common ideals, values, aspirations and loyalties to foster national unity.” They fly against the wind, take chances, defy typecast. They’re likely slow learners, late bloomers, high school dropouts, and anti-establishment to boot.

Because of this seemingly divergent views about what schooling ought to accomplish, we debate over who qualifies to teach, what to teach, what language is best, and how to teach our children. We’re arguing over what Neil Postman calls ‘engineering matters’ which are but questions about the best way to deliver school services.

Homeschool, like conventional schools are really a means to an end; they’re meant to take our children somewhere. Whether one chooses to educate a child at home or have her regimented in a school, the question to ask is, what is education for? Of course one can have several objectives (even conflicting ones), but don’t let them get in the way of what the overriding goal of education ought to be.

If such a question sounds too daunting, here’s another: what sort of person do you want your child to be? I know that’s not a question you can grade or is it an end that comes necessarily after some 12 years of learning. But it’s an essential starting point. As the Cheshire Cat told Alice at the fork in the road when she asked which way to take, “That depends a great deal on where you want to get to.”

Similarly, choosing homeschool or traditional schooling depends on what you want your child to grow up into. No cheating now. Don’t say, “It’s not my job to shape my child, education is supposed to be neutral – I just want to let her be her own person, find her own way.” The truth is, education is never neutral or agenda-free.

Then if you should choose to homeschool, you’ll be unfazed by detractors who question your sanity, or by circumstances that threaten to overwhelm. The road ahead may be inconvenient and demanding, even costly; but I promise it will be a rewarding one.

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23 July 2009

Why you should know Charlotte Mason

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Book Review; Education.

Charlotte Mason (1842 – 1923) was a British educator and a remarkable woman whose ideas were undoubtedly ahead of her time.  As the only child she was largely educated by her own mother who I believed,  influenced her advocacy for home education and to view children with greater respect than was fashionable then. She loved children, enjoyed them, and delighted in seeing them accepted as persons with a capacity to learn in ways adults denied them.

It has been said that her ideas would have been lost to us today if not for Susan Schaeffer Macauley who drew attention to Mason’s holistic ideals in Macauley’s own book, For the Children’s Sake. Incidentally Macauley’s book was my introduction to the Charlotte Mason method. ( Over 15 years ago, a US homeschooler I barely knew mailed me a copy of For the Children’s Sake after a brief email correspondence!)

Today Mason’s ideas and philosophy have become a major influence in the global homeschooling movement. I don’t think she started out to enact a programme for homeschool per se, but as an adjunct to children’s education – she was concerned how poorly children were raised and taught (either by their own mothers or governesses) that she began to put her own thoughts in writing.

In 1886, her book Home Education – which eventually grew into volumes! – was published with a prescient observation on education in the preface (“The educational outlook is rather misty and depressing…”) that it could almost have  come from our own newspapers.  She went on to write that,

[But] we have no unifying principle, no definite aim; in fact no philosophy of education. As a stream can rise no higher than its source, so it is probable that no educational effort can rise above the whole scheme of of thought that gives it birth; and perhaps this is the reason of all the fallings from us, vanishings, failures, and disappointments which mark our educational records.

In short, any educational enterprise must be founded on a philosophy that seeks to develop a whole person, to assist in “…the production of the latent good in that being, the dissipation of the latent evil, the preparation of the child to take his place in the world at his best, with every capacity for good that is in him developed into a power”.  As you can see, absent are the soul diminishing end of ’self-actualization,’ the flaccid leveling demanded of politics and ‘nation building,’ and the utilitarian anxiety of being properly equipped for the job market!

There’s so much online about Charlotte Mason and her methods and books , so I shall skip the details. Let me share a few things that influenced our family and the way we homeschooled.

The value of a stimulating atmosphere. By this she meant that we should never underestimate what a child picks up from the environment he is raised and taught in. The habits, the values, the priorities enunciated or displayed by parents and that surround a child are imbibed long before formal instruction takes root. She may not have used the term, but modern educators now refer to this atmosphere of influence as “socialization.”

And oh yes, Mason believed – and how she believed – in healthy unstructured play and nature walks and the outdoors. Lots of it, preferably in the mornings!  Read her books and you’ll see abundant references to art, music, dance, and a wholesome attitude to life and learning. If she can only see how our kindergartens have been reduced to exam factories, Mason would turn in her grave.

The importance of real books (or living books)and not twaddle. Mason disdained the way adults talked down to children and dumbed down books for their consumption. Workbooks, disjointed facts abridged into unstimulating textbooks were “twaddle” that dilute and weaken habits of mind and learning. “If a child talk twaddle, it is because his elders are in the habit of talking twaddle to him… On the whole children who grow up amongst their elders and are not provided with what are called children’s books at all, fare the better on what they are able to glean for themselves from the literature of grown-up people.”

The earth split, the clouds rolled away; I dare say, this twaddle comment marked a genuine turning point for my wife and I. More than anything else, it was this illumination that moved us away from textbooks, workbooks, etc,  and led us to subscribe to a literature-based system (Sonlight) for our family.

The significance of habit. Despite Mason’s belief in the innate goodness of a child, she had no illusion that children have no “self-compelling power.” The building of good habits – moral, mental, physical (she was also concerned about diet, exercise, and posture) – the efforts of training and discipline to give a child “control over his own nature” so that the acquired good will like growing muscles “take form according to the action required of them.” The easy philosophy that says, “It’s ok, he’s still young” or “Don’t worry, he will know better soon enough,” is the way to shipwreck as far as Mason was concerned.

As a homeschool parent, let me say the training of habits is by far the most challenging part of education. If you are reading this and if you are a homeschooler or thinking about home education, the fruit of your labour will be even sweeter if you pay attention to the inculcation of habits.

Now you can see why educators and homeschoolers should get acquainted with Charlotte Mason. It is wonderful that although she was a devout Christian, her education philosophy has found wide acceptance across religious and cultural barriers (Eg: Check out this Muslim group for Mason).  Her ideas moved a generation and continues to shape the modern home education movement today.

Note: Some of her references to race and civilisations were products of her era and therefore should not be held against her otherwise enlightened views.

Just a few links on Charlotte Mason:
Wikipedia
Simply Charlotte Mason – methods and curriculum
Who was Charlotte Mason? About Charlotte Mason’s methods and influence on homeschool
Charlotte Mason & Classical Education – a review on Mason’s views on classical education by Susan Wise Bauer
A Charlotte Mason Education – Homesite, and also read the article by Catherine Levison
Charlotte Mason Research & Supply Company Dean and Karen Andreola’s site

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28 May 2009

Ten mistakes that schools make

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Education; schooling.

Anyone who has ever sat through a normal class will immediately agree that what is taught is not the same as what is learnt. It’s such a simple principle, yet one of the most overlooked. The most colourful curricula and the most dedicated teacher do not guarantee that learning has taken place. I know that sounds so discouraging, especially to a homeschooling mom or dad who thinks that the right curriculum and a whole load of enthusiasm get the job done.

Consider this provocative list of top ten mistakes in education and you’ll see what I mean. I say provocative because it turns what a lot of people believe education is all about on its head, homeschoolers included. Although the author had in mind teaching structures in traditional schools, the list is just as relevant to parents who educate their children at home.

Mistake #1: Schools act as if learning can be disassociated from doing.
There really is no learning without doing. There is the appearance of learning without doing when we ask children to memorize stuff. But adults know that they learn best on the job, from experience, by trying things out. Children learn best that way, too. If there is nothing to actually do in a subject area we want to teach children it may be the case that there really isn’t anything that children ought to learn in that subject area.

Mistake #2: Schools believe they have the job of assessment as part of their natural role.
Assessment is not the job of the schools. Products ought to be assessed by the buyer of those products, not the producer of those products. Let the schools do the best job they can and then let the buyer beware. Schools must concentrate on learning and teaching, not testing and comparing.

Mistake #3: Schools believe they have an obligation to create standard curricula.
Why should everyone know the same stuff? What a dull world it would be if everyone knew only the same material. Let children choose where they want to go, and with proper guidance they will choose well and create an alive and diverse society.

Mistake #4: Teachers believe they ought to tell students what they think it is important to know.
There isn’t all that much that it is important to know. There is a lot that it is important to know how to do, however. Teachers should help students figure out how to do stuff the students actually want to do.

Mistake #5: Schools believe instruction can be independent of motivation for actual use.
We really have to get over the idea that some stuff is just worth knowing even if you never do anything with it. Human memories happily erase stuff that has no purpose, so why try to fill up children’s heads with such stuff? Concentrate on figuring out why someone would ever want to know something before you teach it, and teach the reason, in a way that can be believed, at the same time.

Mistake #6: Schools believe studying is an important part of learning.
Practice is an important part of learning, not studying. Studying is a complete waste of time. No one ever remembers the stuff they cram into their heads the night before the exam, so why do it? Practice, on the other hand, makes perfect. But, you have to be practicing a skill that you actually want to know how to perform.

Mistake #7: Schools believe that grading according to age group is an intrinsic part of the organization of a school.
This is just a historical accident and it’s a terrible idea. Age-grouped grades are one of the principal sources of terror for children in school, because they are always feeling they are not as good as someone else or better than someone else, and so on. Such comparisons and other social problems caused by age-similar grades cause many a child to have terrible confidence problems. Allowing students to help those who are younger, on the other hand, works well for both parties.

Mistake #8: Schools believe children will accomplish things only by having grades to strive for.
Grades serve as motivation for some children, but not for all. Some children get very frustrated by the arbitrary use of power represented by grades and simply give up.

Mistake #9: Schools believe discipline is an inherent part of learning.
Old people especially believe this, probably because schools were seriously rigid and uptight in their day. The threat of a ruler across the head makes children anxious and quiet. It does not make them learn. It makes them afraid to fail, which is a different thing altogether.

Mistake #10: Schools believe students have a basic interest in learning whatever it is schools decide to teach to them.
What kid would choose learning mathematics over learning about animals, trucks, sports, or whatever? Is there one? Good. Then, teach him mathematics. Leave the other children alone.

The above was written by Dr Robert Schank, founder of Institute for the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University. If you want to be a better educator – whether you’re homeschooling or unschooling or teaching in a traditional school – you’ll want to pay his site Engines for Education a visit.

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12 May 2009

11 years in prison

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Education; Public Schooling.

While the MOE dithers on the English-for-Science-and-Math issue, our political scientist and columnist Umapagan Ampikaipakan wades into the debate with his latest post in the NST headlined, Master English by learning English, not others. He argues against the current arrangement and you can read what his counter proposal is. There is an undercurrent raging against English for Science and Math and there are similar sentiments shared by the ruling party UMNO. Well, all this flip-flopping is enough to drive parents up the wall.

However what’s emasculating the education system in the country goes beyond the language debate. Let Mr Ampikaipakan tell you what school was like for him. If it sounds familiar it’s because it is so true for so many of us. Indeed, it’s an indictment against every educator who believes schools are what our kids need:

But there is more to the problems that plague our education system than just the language in which we are taught. It is merely a distraction from all that really ails us. Our system is broken, in that it fails to educate our youth, let alone inspire them. We are shut up in our schools and in our colleges for years, and come out in the end with little else than a brief grasp of language and some memory of the thoughts of other men.

For 11 years, I, too, was held captive, cold irons bound, in the claustrophobic confines of the Kurikulum Bersepadu. My dreams tortured by the spectre of Afonso de Albuquerque. His disembodied head, muttering in Portuguese, insisting, over and over again, that his name is in fact pronounced: “Al-Buh-Kur-Kee”.

I can barely call to mind all the things I was taught in school. I remember being bored. It is the one compelling memory of those days. I remember being bored and I remember being sweaty.

I remember being cooped up in a little room with rickety chairs and a squeaky ceiling fan. I remember 44 other people. I don’t remember their names or their faces but I remember their smells. I remember that cleaning the blackboard after class would give me an asthma attack.

I would sneak storybooks into school, hiding them between textbooks, in those small spaces underneath those rotten wooden desks. I would read them, surreptitiously, while the rest of the class struggled with the base six number system. They were my only escape. The only way I could endure my sentence. Year after year, with no early reprieve for good behaviour.

I remember being taught to pass exams. I remember being taught the importance of the almighty “A”. I remember being taught to memorise facts. I remember being taught. I do not remember learning. I do not remember having to think. I do not remember why.

It is an unfortunate truth, but our education system gives birth to drones. Human computers that are able to regurgitate, with great efficiency and accuracy, everything that has been fed to them. And little else.

Therein lies our greatest failing.

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7 May 2009

Reasons to homeschool

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Education; Values.

Homeschool isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but there are so many good reasons to educate your child at home. I recently came across a site that carried a post titled, 100 Reasons to Homeschool. What started as a list back in 2007/08 continues to grow.

What’s interesting for me was discovering that a lot of reasons to homeschool went beyond academic achievements, keeping up with the Joneses. I can relate to that. Now there’s the other component that’s often missed – the development of values and character in one’s child, the joy of being there to see him learn, and simply enjoying a child’s growing up years. Sure, every parent wants their children to succeed academically, but academic success alone does not a complete person make.

It was Roosevelt who said, “To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” Values and character development may be taught, but mostly they are caught. Homeschool provides a safe place for parents to model values and intentionally make this the center of our education enterprise.

Back to the list. Here are some reasons that struck a chord with me. I’m using the numbering as they originally appear on the post:

1. You do not have to live up to the expectations of others.

4. Plenty of time to follow their passions.

6. I can be my kid’s biggest influence, not peers or teachers that may have different values than our family.

7. Homeschooled children are able to think, explore and discuss topics in ways not possible in a classroom setting.

10. Break up the day any way you desire and make it fit the attention soan of your child.

12. If you have a little boy who needs to jump up and down on a couch while he is doing math, he can do so.

13. Far fewer worldly/negative influences penetrate your children at an early age when homeschooling.

14. Avoid your child being given educational labels.

15. Your child’s achievements, advancements or academic pursuits need not be limited by age or grade.

30. We don’t have to wake up super early to be somewhere by a certain time everyday!

31. You can teach to each child’s learning style, thereby encouraging their strengths and improving their weaknesses.

33. You teach them how to learn and how to study, not just how to get through the next test. And, unlike the ps (public school) which teach this in a one-semester course called “Study Skills”, you teach it all year round…..giving them lots of practice.

34. Field trips, field trips, and MORE FIELD TRIPS!!

35. Real world experience, going to the grocery stores and bank constitute a math lesson, gazing at stars on a beautiful summer night and seeing bats inhabit our bat house is science. The list is endless!

50. The best for me… seeing the proverbial Light Bulb going off while teaching long division for a week in a row and my ds (dear son) saying Oh I get it now….and knowing I did that…I gave him that lightbulb moment.

104. Having children that are proud of who they are, and are comfortable in their own skin, so are true to themselves as a person.

106. They learn early on that only they are responsible for their education, actions, behaviour, and reactions. It’s up to them to choose the path they wish to follow, but they know that they have a hand to hold if they need it and a willing ear and heart for support and listening. They know they are never alone in any of the journeys.

Go ahead and check out the list here at the BabyCenter Community. And read the comments too (although the latest ones have veered into other issues). If you have more reasons to homeschool, you can add your own here.

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1 September 2008

Do schools kill creativity?

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Education; schooling.

If you have not visited the TED website before, please do. TED means Technology, Entertainment, Design – an annual conference that attempts to provoke and inspire by bringing together some of the world’s most influential thinkers and performers. There’s a lot that’s fascinating, and certainly, a lot more that won’t necessarily go down well with everyone. But there’s so much that are provocative in the best ways.

Here’s a talk by Sir Ken Robinson that’s simply titled, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” Now with a title like this, you wonder if there’s something that might resonate with homeschoolers.

Sir Ken argues that we’re living in a world where our definition of intelligence has shifted, and where paper degrees do not mean as much as they used to. He tells his audience that intelligence is (a) diverse – multi-facetted and varied, (b) dynamic – interactive, and (c) distinct – creative (“Creativity is having original ideas that have value”).  And creativity is sadly neglected in our schools today, to the detriment of society. Check out Sir Ken.

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2 May 2005

Books that influenced

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Books; Education.

I am looking back at early influences that might have moved me towards my current understanding of schooling and education. Back when I was a secondary student – maybe 16 or 17, I had two pretty progressive teachers: Mr Lee taught English, while Miss Pillai taught literature.

Miss Pillai was strident in her political views and occasionally ran into trouble with the authorities, but she made us understand that literature wasn’t just words and stories, but ideas that shaped society.

Mr Lee who was more laidback, lent me books. Like Herbert Kohl’s 36 Children, John Holt’s How Children Learn, and Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society. Lee and Pillay were a couple who shared a modest apartment not far from the school they taught in.

Those paperbacks packed a wallop. I don’t think I understood fully what these authors were saying, much less grasped how radical these books were then in the mid-70s. I don’t think I understood how influential these men’s ideas were -not knowing any better – but I was utterly sold on their arguments. They were questioning conventional wisdom about schools, how kids learn, how process and substance were two different things, and yep, they certainly made me ask the same questions although I couldn’t see how anyone could beat the system.

In some ways, you could say these early ideas made it easier for me to ‘deschool’ and homeschool my own kids when the time came. Since then there have been other books, but that’s a story for another time.

What early influences led you to homeschool?

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25 April 2005

End of Education

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Books; Education.

There are many ways to look at education since it encompasses processes (how we learn) and formal knowledge (what we learn), but what is it all for? The late Neil Postman in his book End of Education said the purpose of education is to provide moral guidance, a sense of continuity, explanations of the past, clarity to the present, and hope for the future. It’s certainly well put but as it is all too clear, more education does not a better world make.

To be fair Postman does give suggestions to actively connect thought and deed, knowledge and service, so that society gains from education. But to do that, he proposed we rescue schools from their deplorable state with a complete overhaul, which is as likely as a goose laying a golden egg.

The 9th century Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi who introduced Medieval Europe to arithmatic and algebra (from the Arabic al-jabru) called the latter ”the science of restoration and balancing.” I’d like to think it’s a definition that clues us in on what’s the point in any education – if I may be allowed to extrapolate from his thought. Learning is more than acquiring knowledge or mastering a skill. To quote Dewey, it’s not preparation for life, because learning is life itself. And life expresses itself not just passively in our being, but also in our doing, which must include that which brings restoration and balance in a world tainted by the Fall.

Jesus who came not to be served but to serve went about teaching and doing good, so the Gospels tell us. In his letter to the Ephesians Paul said that the Church of God has been amply gifted with teachers,pastors, and prophets to equip His people for works of service . And to Timothy, Paul said that the Bible was given to equip God’s people for good work.

The impulse behind all learning is to know God and His work in creation and history. We glorify Him when our learning finds expression in service to others. It was the great reformer Martin Luther who once wrote that God does not need our good works, but other people do. Life-long learning for a life of service. Makes sense to me. Now can anyone help Ethan make sense of algebra?

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21 February 2005

Homework and Homeschool

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Education; Values.

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