Start of homeschooling

How to make children sit down to learn at home? How do parents teach the upper grades? Won’t homeschoolers miss out on socializing? Will it affect his character and social skills? What if I start homeschooling my child after elementary school?

Homeschoolers are asked these questions all the time.

I wish I could provide a clear answer to these common questions homeschoolers have. There isn’t (simply because every home is different), though it’s probably safe to say there are some commonalities across the board. Also, there are no perfect situations, only opportunities. Parents who homeschool their own children hope and pray that their children will do well. The truth is that the journey has only just begun. Our homeschooled children are at different points and milestones along the way, and who they are or what they will become is just developing. So we are all a work in progress, both parents and their children, regarded as ‘saints’ by our heavenly Father, but saints in the making.

I think one of the biggest misconceptions about homeschooling is that it’s homeschooling. The image, therefore, is that of a conventional classroom now reduced but imported or adapted to the living room or kitchen table. Some parents have the idea that the one-on-one situation with the mother as guardian and the minor as the student is an attractive proposition because a) much attention will be paid to the student b) there will be much more Junior will be absorbed in the process of personal tutoring, and c) obviously, the potential for academic excellence is going to be very advanced.

Speaking as a former teenager, that’s about as much fun as a torture chamber. Why bother with homeschooling then? She might as well stay in a mainstream school.

It is possible that some families can educate at home in this way (to each their own) but this is not how I understand home education, nor is this how it is practiced in the homes of the majority, if not all the homeschoolers I know. My own home would certainly be dismissed as a haven for lazy bums; Parents who imagine homeschools to be a miniature academy populated by diligent children sitting at their desks studying will be sorely disappointed if they visit our home!

First, homeschooling is more than academic learning or formal scheduled study. It is to provide a child with a safe home to fully develop her potential. He’s equipping her for self-directed learning, training her to be resourceful and independent.

Seen in this way, the homeschooling parent is not considered a tutor but rather a facilitator. We are looking for balance. Life itself is a great classroom or laboratory for creativity, discovery, a safe place to learn from one’s mistakes. Mainstream schools, with their overemphasis on tests, books, and tuition, offer little time or space for self-discovery and imagination. The difference between a happy 4-year-old preschooler and an anxious, bored, school-going 7-year-old is staggering. Which is tragic considering how many great minds, inventors, and writers owe their greatness not to hours of heists but to playing and tinkering during their formative years as toddlers.

There are certainly periods of sitting down, but informal learning is an important part of a homeschooler’s education. Eventually, the parents’ role as facilitators for their children diminishes until personal involvement is no longer necessary or a primary concern. Instilling this attitude and perspective in a child when she is younger pays off when she gets older. Parents will quickly discover that their initial fear of not being able to teach the ‘difficult’ subjects becomes irrelevant because the homeschooled child will and often does outperform her tutor.

Pulling a child out of school at age 13 to homeschool is not uncommon, but some parents admit they have a hard time removing the teen from an entrenched lifestyle often dependent on peers. Many families are successful in ‘unschooling’ a child to home school, but it takes more effort as you are developing a new circle of friends at the same time as acquiring a new culture of learning.

Then there is the whole issue of learning styles and gender. Different children learn differently according to the multiple intelligences theory of Howard Gardner (among others) (Frames of Mind, 1983). Once again, boys are psychologically and developmentally different from girls. Given these variables, parents do their children a great disservice when their idea of ​​education is one size fits all. It isn’t and it isn’t. The great thing about homeschooling is that a child learns at her own pace and in her own style.

It should be clear by now that homeschooling is a radically different way of looking at learning. I often tell my friends that it is a completely new lifestyle that requires a drastic change in my expectations and value system. But what about socializing, people ask? Simple observation confirms that socialization in all its negative forms is precisely why our current schools and society are having so much trouble. The correct question should be, what kind of socialization do I want?

Homeschooling promotes positive socialization. It is isolation (as opposed to isolation) during a child’s most impressionable years. And contrary to popular myths about homeschooling, it takes place in a real world rather than an artificial one that is simply made up of children of the same age. In that unreal, walled-off world called ‘school’ with its sterile classrooms, children wear the same uniform, read the same books, acquire the same bad habits and prejudices, conditioned by a system that assesses their self-esteem based on the grades of the exams, and discourages anything but conformity. Urgh. Then there’s that persistent interrupt bell only Pavlov’s dog could love!

While this is going on, our homeschooled children read a variety of books, engage in community service, interact with people of different ages, build rafts and swim in the river, travel, climb Maxwell Hill alone, help out in the Zoo. , and participate in debates and mock trials. Of course, we families have to do it ourselves for all this to happen. But that’s where the fun lies! Above all, as parents, we have time to provide a stabilizing influence, an adult role model, to moderate and interpret life’s challenges against an agenda set by other parties, institutions, and vested interests.

Finally, I wish I could conclude that homeschooling is the answer to our educational and institutional ills. It is not. And it won’t be for everyone. Other families and children may do well following the conventional routes: national or private schools, international schools, or learning centers.

But those of us who have chosen to educate our children at home believe that it is the best way. It is more worth adopting a radical alternative that matches the values ​​we hold, including our love for God, which we hope to pass on to our children. We do this in the process of equipping them with the skills to engage the world with more than paper credentials. The research seems to be on our side, because homeschoolers are above the national average academically, integrate well into society, and aren’t afraid to march to the beat of a different drum.

Homeschooling is a long way from becoming mainstream, at least not in Malaysia where I come from. But things are changing and opportunities for tertiary education are already opening up. Technology and community resources are making homeschooling increasingly viable and accessible. So should you homeschool? Can you homeschool? The question our family would ask is, why not you?