11 August 2009

The growth of homeschooling

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Alternative education; Homeschool.

The August 8-14 issue of The Economist has an article about the growth of homeschooling.  Once seen as a largely conservative movement (read ‘religious’), homeschool is fast attracting non-religious families who are just as unhappy with the state of US schools.  And not just because the internet is making homeschooling easier than ever for everyone, but also because President Obama may be far too liberal for a broad swath of Americans. Hmm. Read on.

KITCHEN-CLASSROOM CONSERVATIVES
Barack Obama could hasten the spread of educating children at home

THE first thing you notice about Karen Allen’s house is that it is spotless. Even in her teenage boys’ bedrooms, not a thing is out of place. And her boys, Thomas and Taylor, are polite and engaging. Your correspondent found himself being grilled about his travels by a boy who had clearly Googled him. In this household, every chance to learn something new is eagerly seized, explains Mrs Allen.

The Allens are home-schoolers. Instead of sending their children to a public (non-fee-paying) or private school, they teach them at home. They are far from alone. A generation ago, home-schooling was rare and, in many states, illegal. Now, according to the Department of Education, there are roughly 1.5m home-schooled students in America, a number that has doubled in a decade. That is about 3% of the school-age population. The National Home Education Research Institute puts the number even higher, at between 1.8m and 2.5m.

Why do people teach their children at home? Many of the earliest were hippies who thought public schools repressive and ungroovy. Now they are far more likely to be religious conservatives. At a public school, says Mrs Allen, her boys would get neither much individual attention nor any Christian instruction. At home they get plenty of both.

In a 2007 survey by the Department of Education, 88% of home-schooling parents said that their local public schools were unsafe, drug-ridden or unwholesome in some way. Some 73% complained of shoddy academic standards. And 83% said they wanted to instil religious or moral values in their children—a number that has risen from 72% in 2003.

[Read the rest here]

2 

18 June 2008

20 reasons to homeschool

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Homeschool.

I found this while I was surfing. Struck me that although Malaysian homeschoolers are a world away, the sentiments apply. Tells you what a global phenomenon homeschooling is and how similar we all are in so many ways! Click to enlarge view.

3 

25 October 2003

Homeschooling Bumps

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Homeschool.

A Pastor I had just been introduced to asked about our two boys. I said they were being homeschooled, and then asked if there were families like ours in his church. He caught me off-guard with a strongly worded reply: “I would never approve of homeschool in my church. We live in Malaysia and Christian children cannot afford to miss being a witness in a multicultural society.”

What do you say to elders and pastors who adopt an adversarial position on alternative education? To think that once upon a time, the issues bugging us as new homeschoolers were curricula, socialisation, and – gasp! – entry into local universities! After homeschooling into our 8thyear I realise now that there are quite a few things that one simply cannot anticipate. I am thankful however that I do not have an unsympathetic Pastor whose ‘Mission to the Nations’ exclude families like mine.

Here are a few more bumps on the road to homeschool bliss to watch out for. If your encounters are anything like the ones that follow, or if you have figured out a wise response, tell us about it. In the meantime, fasten your seatbelts!

The all-purpose playmate

Some people have the strangest notion that homeschool is equivalent to no-school. It explains why we get requests to baby-sit kids whose parents do not know how to handle nor amuse – usually when conventional school terms wind down, or after their exams are over. ”Can you drop Ethan and Elliot over at our place at 2 p.m.? Or would the boys prefer Jimmy to come by your place?”

Unfortunately, our kids have school even if the rest of the nation is enjoying one of its frequent breaks. Holidays are too plain boring for the ordinary school kids. You see, they have long forgotten what to do with themselves after being conditioned, examined, instructed, drilled, grilled and school-belled into submission. So, can our boys come over?

The resident comic relief

Sure we’re all part of Christ’s body, but to his peers in Sunday School, the homeschooler is funnybone and resident comic relief. Expect put-downs like, “Wah, you also can speak Malay-ah” or, “You homeschoolers so innocent-one, don’t know what’s a lesbian!” to spiteful name-calling like, “Dummy, never go to school don’t know anything one-lah.”

Though all parties involved usually plead innocence to any malice, it does get a bit grating. Depending on how armour-plated your homeschool child is, learning not to return tit-for-tat is an important lesson in character formation in your home curriculum if it isn’t already there. If nothing else, all this teasing makes for a message on verbal abuse: “That’s God telling you how your brother feels when you call him names!”

The kid who wasn’t there

Beware the conscientious Sunday School teacher or youth leader. He/She is likely to belabour the importance of passing exams, studying hard to get a good job, etc, besides the constant diversions into fervent prayers for jittery UPSR students and others whose monthly school tests hang like the sword of Damocles over their future careers. The homeschooler, alas, is supposed to take all this in his stride since it’s not the class’ fault that he’s so weird. Who wants to know if a homeschooler has any educational need too?

The lone stranger

After awhile, a homeschooler begins to really, really feel like Nemo. Not that he likes being a clownfish to begin with, but he realises that there’s not many people he can have a mutually satisfying friendship with.

Thanks to Mom and Dad, the home educated kid is alternately too mature for his age (so stand-offish one!) or too kiddish for his church peers (what, still play RISK-ah?). Besides who wants to know about the books he’s reading, the Latin he’s learning, the number of times he has to mop the floor per week, the Homeschool Support Group field trip he’s back from, or the scary SAT test that’s looming ahead?

The expedient substitute

The number of school tests, holidays, extra-curricular activities or tuition plays havoc with the church worship roster. “Elliot, can replace me or not this Sunday? Got test-ah next week.”

In case you think it’s the lot of homeschoolers to be the convenient stand-in (since they do not go to school), their Mom doesn’t have it any easier too. The homeschool Mom (since she doesn’t ‘work’) is thought to have lots of time to spare, so can she help with this chore, or that errand please?

The unintentional rebel

Well, not exactly, but a homeschooler has his off days too. Like the human being that he is, a kid is as lazy as he dares to be. He knows, oh he knows what the whole homeschool scene is about, but can’t he just ‘lepak’ awhile? On the other hand, what’s the big deal about studying at home anyway? The other kids do cool things in regular schools – uniform brigades, parades, interschool competitions, football, meet interesting friends, etc.

Hmm, a homeschooler who wants to go back to the grind that is conventional school! It’s not as unusual as you think, but it’s enough to make any parent fast and pray for a solution. Do not underestimate the memory of meat, fish and cucumbers in Egypt, particularly if your homeschooler was pulled out of the neighbourhood school late in life (and who still can’t understand why he has to do this for his parents’ sake).

The black sheep of the flock

Temperature in church takes a slight dip – suddenly mothers don’t know what to talk about when they’re with you. Your Cell Group members try to be polite, but they are truly and deeply concerned that your son isn’t in school. “Are you sure you can do it, this homeschool thing?” Your CG leader is incredulous, convinced you’ve been misinformed by an overzealous homeschool advocate. He knows you’ve never been to college, and may not have considered the obvious limitation of your grey matter. “Sammor, you have 4 children and one more on the way? How your financial?”

Of course no one has officially broken fellowship with you, but brace yourself: here comes Mrs Chinniah whose three super-achieving children have had a sterling record in Sekolah Menengah St Michael’s, and two are on their way to their Masters, sans homeschool!

Meanwhile, back on the road…

In the world out there and in the community we call Church, the lessons all of us have to learn are the same: how to count others better than ourselves, and how to be merciful in the manner that God has shown us mercy. Let me end by mixing my metaphors and refer to a title of Warren Wiersbe’s books (unrelated to homeschool by the way): The Bumps Are What We Climb On. That, homeschoolers, is the stuff of real life.

0 

1 December 2000

So you’ve decided to homeschool

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: FAQ; Homeschool.

So you’ve decided to homeschool. Yippee! How are you going to tell a 6 year-old child he’s not going to school with Timothy and Charmaine (Hooray!) and all the other kids his age in Sunday School? After the yippees and hoorays die down, you might want to share these pointers with him:

1. Mom and Dad want you to learn in a different way Mom and Dad chose homeschool because we want you to have an education that is ‘holistic.’ Okay, that’s a new word, a big word. That’s English Vocabulary 101 for starters. We can’t promise if you’ll end up a walking dictionary, but if we work hard at it, you’ll be giving Auntie Mun Ri a run for the money at Boggles (and Scrabble) when we’re through!

Anyway, ‘holistic’ as we understand it means learning and growing beyond head knowledge. We pay attention to the heart and spirit too. The heart needs to grow in love and passion for the things of God and the world He’s created; the spirit needs to come alive in a living, personal relationship with Jesus our Lord and Saviour. Homeschool lets us – your parents – do all these things without unnecessary distractions and unwholesome influences.

You might wonder why we didn’t think to ask you for an opinion seeing you’re the interested party. Here’s why: we’re bigger and taller than you. So we can see further, across the fence, to what lies on the other side.

Besides, school isn’t what it’s cut out to be these days. Friends like Mrs. Joseph and Auntie Cheong can’t agree if school is more a tuna factory or a battlefield when talking about the troubles their kids go through. One thing they’re sure about is headaches: it seems school is giving their kids headaches and their headaches are giving the two aunties the same.

2. Everyday will be like an adventure Learning is like a trip into a foreign country: full of fascinating sights, beguiling smells and curious languages. You meet strange people with even stranger customs, and streets with impossibly weird names.

But when you are a homeschooler, learning takes on an added dimension – you’re not on the same tour bus as other kids your age! Did Mum and Dad forget to buy the ticket? Nope, they just think it’s much better to see places at their own pace and on their own terms. (Remember how it was when we last travelled in a tour group – all rush, rush and touristy info in mangled syntax? Absolutely no fun)

Do your parents know what they are doing? Er, not all the time. Though they think they know where they’re heading.

Like Abraham who uprooted himself from his comfortable home in the city of Ur for a promised land that only God knows where, we’re living out this wild but wonderful adventure one day at a time. And you know what? God will be with us all the way. For good measure, we’ll be clinging to His hand real tight.

3. Your parents are going to be your tour guides Although Mum and Dad are the teachers at home, our job is really to ‘guide’ you through your daily school lessons. We’re like tourist guides leading you to new places of adventure; but you have to make the discoveries yourself. For instance, if you don’t know the meaning of a word, Mum will point you to a dictionary – but you flip the pages and look it up. Don’t know what’s the capital of South Africa? Dad might give you a couple of hints, but you’ll have to pull out the atlas and check it out yourself.

Oh yes, there’s one other thing: we’re not anywhere near Einstein’s stratospheric IQ. Mum isn’t blessed with Solomon’s wisdom, while Dad thinks attaining Job’s patience is beyond him. Sorry. Although we’re the ones with the street map, we (as in you our child, and us your parents) are in this thing together. Honestly, it’s a new experience for us too. So we’ll have to work together. We’ll have to help one another every time we run into a cul-de-sac, or miss a turn.

4. Homeschool is not another name for no-school You’re not going to be bussed to school like Hussein or Chee Seng next door. You won’t have uniforms to put on. And because Mum and Dad have bad memories about screeching school bells, you’ll be spared of that. But we’ll have school. Kind of. There’ll be lessons, homework, and assignments even. (If you behave yourself, maybe we won’t freak you out with exams and surprise tests – not just yet, anyway).

First, we’ll sit down and work out a timetable – some sort of schedule that fits everyone’s biorhythm, and Mum’s wash day too. Most of all it will be age-appropriate of course. Mercifully, there won’t be 6-hour stretches of interminable cramming daily. (Don’t you just pity your poor Std Three cousin Ivan?

Sometimes we play, other times we study. When school begins, play time stops. Studying for most parts means following that timetable we’re talking about. We will expect reading and writing assignments to be completed. What is important is to work as hard at studying as you do at playing. The neat thing is, sometimes learning comes disguised as play too!

5. Life is going to be one BIG living textbook Mum and dad will be adding new subjects to your homeschool curriculum as we go along. Like Economics, and extrapolating the cost of a kilogram’s worth of tomatoes. Or Domestic Science, which could include anything from the exacting science of pancake making, to the mind-expanding challenge of serving up a perfect half-boiled egg.

Helping Mum hang out the laundry will teach you new things like evaporation, cloud formation, and our prickly tropical weather condition. At the risk of spiritualizing, Jesus’ question to Nicodemus about where the wind blows will become a little more meaningful when you watch clothes dance in the afternoon breeze.

Dad on the other hand will introduce you to nuts and bolts stuff. Drilling holes, sawing timber, changing lightbulbs. And how not to smash your fingers when hammering nails. You’ll get a chance to peer under the hood of the family car too. And guess what? We’ll even let you have the phone number to the nearest workshop, access to which is a lesson in humility – especially since Dad can’t tell the difference between carburetor and radiator to save his life.

6. People will shake their heads, but don’t mind them Finally, you have to know that some of our friends and relations will think us ‘weird’ to be homeschooling. Now and then, there’ll be strange looks, odd questions and awkward silence. Ah, well. When that happens, always remember that there’s nothing a sense of humour cannot handle. Tell them Mom was going to register you in a regular school, but no one would take you because you flunked kindergarten! Haha.

Short of dazzling our friendly inquisitors with a brilliant discourse on Paul’s letter to the Romans or a brief history of Temujin and the Mongol Empire (I wish!) just tell them what you really do in homeschool. No, it’s not cool putting others down to make yourself look good. Let them know what a great time we have doing school and how much we thank God for the privilege. Really, it’s okay to be different as long as we know we’re in the middle of God’s will. As you grow older, you’ll see it’s the safest place to be in the whole wide world.

6