I have and a nine year old son named Miguel who’s been conventionally schooled at Bradford Christian School since nursery. Each passing year, we see very little progression in his academics but moreover, he is growing very frustrated due to the teachers’ lack of attention to his needs, peer pressure and fast-paced teaching. His relatively low grades are evident of these frustrations and we can justifiable see why.

We’ve heard of homeschooling before and in fact, I have considered homeschooling my son when he was still in pre-school but fears has held us back from doing so until I met a group of homeschooling parents here in Cebu. They say the “proof is in the pudding” so I deliberately met and talked not only to the parents but their kids as well – I was convinced! Homeschooling will be.

Fully aware of the challenges of that awaits us as parents, considering that both me and my wife are pretty much ‘hand-on’ business people, nothing can put us off more than our love for our children and what is best for their education. We believe homeschooling is the best way to raise up a child. Sacrifices has to be made if we want something good to come out of our family despite the fact that it is more of a challenge to the parents than to the child. I always keep in mind that parenting cannot be done in autopilot mode but an active and conscious effort is what is required.

For an action to last, it must be founded on sound motives. Below are the list of motives we have for considering homeschooling.

1. The most effective way to learn

“The world is our classroom”. Whoever coined that wise phrase must surely be homeschooled no doubt. Homeschooling, by in large, adopts the learning methodology called, Experiential Learning. Experiential Learning is the process of making meaning from direct life experiences [1]. Learning things through experiences not only makes it more engaging to the learner but more significant as well. Having said that, education should neither be limited only to the availability of resources provided by schools nor confined to the four walls of the classrooms. Let the world provide the resources and experience be the teacher.

2. Engaging as it is fun

Homeschool learning and retention is made more engaging to learners through diverse interactions in a fun way. Some important elements though should never be neglected such as providing immediate feedback and varying the types of content to be given.[2] Some creative examples in making learning fun is by going to museums when teaching history or making interesting projects when applying laws of Physics.

3. Strengthens parent-child relationship

Cohesion between the child (learner) and the parent begins with the amount of time given. Homeschooling a child provide the best avenue to nurture relationships and “accommodate higher levels of adaptability and cohesion than population of families whose children are more conventionally schooled”. [3]

4. Balanced and holistic development

No one understands the child more than the parents themselves. Essentially every parent knows the right balance of learning suited for each unique child. This can be identified by knowing the strengths and weaknesses and customizing curriculum in accordance to the child’s learning styles. A balanced learning includes the following areas: Intellectual, Emotional, Psychological, Social, Spiritual and Physical aspects of human development.

5. Better social framework

It takes a village to raise a child.

– African Proverb

The top concern among parents when considering homeschooling is social development. On the contrary, homeschooling provide an even better social framework than that of the conventional school where parents can choose, monitor and control the social environment where the child will grow up to. Reasearch also shows that homeschoolers are more actively involved in civic and social affairs than their conventionally schooled counterparts[4]. To make up for the lack of social interactions, homeschooling parents setup homeschool cooperative where all homeschooling children (and their parents) gather up for social activities like sports fests, family picnics, field trips, physical education and others more. The very core of a better social framework is the quality of people our children interact with on a regular basis and not on the quantity.

6. Protection of belief system (Principles, Philosophies, and Faith)

The one thing I closely safe guard my children from are the negative influences from peers particularly on issues of values and faith. They may have been taught good morals and proper conduct however, actions from peers has the significant influence on our children. Children naturally blends in well to peer groups and that may sometimes mean acceptance of some negative values from others in the effort to conform.

Since social framework in homeschooling is confined to the parents’ choosing, the family’s core values, belief systems and habits are are not compromised by others not sharing the same principles as yours. Homeschooling defends children from negative influences from peers until they become independent and able to discern right from wrong.

7. Promote healthy lifestyle

After a long days work from school, my children has to stay up sometimes very late to finish their assignments. The following day, they go to school like zombies because of lack of sleep. Undue pressure from conventional schools nowadays are pushing are children too hard to the brink that normal physical and psychological functions are seriously affected like: obesity and depression. A healthy lifestyle mean a good balance of everything without disregard to overall well-being of our children.

8. Applicability over Labels

Labels, such as grades, is a double edged sword. Grades are used as metrics to assess achievement or as a form of incentive in performance of a certain task. It is a generally accepted ‘currency’ by society that is redeemable with honors or a promise of better future employment opportunities. However, grades also become a scale of student’s value or general self worth in society that translates to lower self-esteem and, in some cases, lead to depression.

9. Best preparation for leadership roles

Unless you wanted your child to be a mere mediocre employee in the future, then conventional schooling probably is the right program. Homeschooled kids are exposed to socialization with diverse age groups in a wider community. This encourages them to be more involved in youth, civic, church or sports organizations; teaches children to manage variable, and sometimes difficult, situations and people; and leads to see adults, rather than peers, as role models.[5]

10. Diverse learning opportunities

Parents always wanted something more for their children specially when it comes to education. My instructions are not limited only to the curriculum set by the school but by what my child wanted to learn more. A case in point: my son Miguel, while still at age nine, loves to tinker on electronic toys and electrical appliances at home. Knowing his deep interest and curiosity, my wife and I bought him a basic electronic kit on E-bay for him to learn on and grow his interest more. What I am saying is there are still more creative things that our child can learn outside the highly structured system of conventional schools. Things that are more essential in life than working on mathematical algorithms that prove less practical in solving real life problems.

Notice I did not consider cost as a motive and hopefully it will not be yours as well. While it is true that homeschooling is relatively affordable, never homeschool your children solely on the grounds of saving money. This is a wrong motive and may prove detrimental to your child’s learning and could become costly in the long run.

I remembered one time when my daughter, Mariel, asked my help on Math. Dividing numbers doesn’t make sense to her more particularly when trying to understand the series of steps to derive at the right answer. Math isn’t one of my strongest suits either and as I can recall I had great difficulty doing division myself as a kid. To help my daughter, I devised a modified yet a simpler method of doing short and even long divisions. We both tested my new method against the conventional method and both did have the same answer every time. Of course, I had to make her understand the concept of division first before we went on to proceed with the new methodology. My daughter was so ecstatic knowing there is a better and creative way of doing Division. No doubt, she was all ready and excited to take the Math exam the following day.

The following day, as I picked the kids from school, I see my daughter’s stern look from far away as I approach her. She doesn’t seem to be all that happy at all and, you guess it right, she failed the Math test.  “Why did you fail? Did you miss out something?” I asked. “I got all the answers right but the teacher wouldn’t accept how I DERIVED them!” as she replied with anger and disappointment.

PERSONAL THOUGHTS:

As a computer programmer, I learned that there are multitudes of ways to come up with a single objective. As they always say: “There are many ways to skin a cat”. Life is also like that, we face countless options to achieve our goals and we take only those options (be it the shorter way or longer) that make sense to us. If things don’t make sense, we then devise creative ways to make it so. Because of this (creativity), humans discover or invent new wonders that make our lives a little easier.

In schools (particularly where my daughter is currently studying), attention to creative processes should be the utmost priority instead on focusing too much of highly structured teaching methodologies and procedures. Creative thinking can only be achieved through openness in unstructured environment.

This is my only son, Miguel. I still felt somewhat guilty for what I said to my son last night. I shouldn’t have made such a joke and swear it wouldn’t happen again. We were just having the usual evening fun in my bedroom when I said a real bad joke. The conversation went something like this:

Me – “Miguel, don’t call me dad. Just call me ‘kuya’ (big brother) instead”

Miguel – “You’re not my ‘kuya’. You’re my dad! Why would I call you one?”

Me – “Because I am not your dad (I jokingly said), so just call me ‘kuya’.”

Miguel - He suddenly was mesmerized to what i just said and reasoned out. “That’s not true!”

Me – “It is (still waiting how he would react) look at yourself. Do we look alike? Do I have a beautiful almond eyes like yours? Do I have a fairer complexion like yours? We definitely do not look look alike”

After that he paused a while, kept really quiet, turned his back on me and drooped his head. He remained like that for a good ten minutes – feeling sorry and quiet.

Knowing what I said was wrong, I slowly approached him and said:

Me – “Miguel, you don’t think I’m serious right? I was just teasing you. It was just a joke.”

Miguel – Still unmoved and remained quiet.

When it was time for my wife to get in and prepare to sleep, he found Miguel quietly weeping. She came over and said what went wrong. Almost immediately, he cried aloud and poured his heart out. I was shocked and felt really bad for what I did.

Miguel – “Mom, dad said a really bad joke!”

My wife shot a stern gaze at me and returned to him.

Wife – “It was just meant to be a joke.”

Miguel – “Yes, but seems like it was real!” And cried some more.

Somehow, we were able to convince him that night that it doesn’t mean anything and that I was sorry for the things I’ve said. I gave him a reassuring hug and kissed him goodnight.

Lesson Learned: Never make adult jokes on kids, most specially jokes about paternity.