I’ve been thinking very seriously about homeschooling the children. Today I bumped into my friend Maggie and her family and her 11 year old son told me that he was smarter before he started school. His mom and I agreed on that sentiment. 
There was a quote by this famous guy and I can’t for the life of me remember at this hour who and what, that said something about how the more education one had, the more narrow one’s mind. I gotta look that up.
The point of education is to inspire a child to learn, to love learning. If he or she ends up hating a particular subject, then it is most likely that the teacher had failed to inspire learning but instead caused the opposite, which is very unfortunate. It happened to me and I went to a supposedly good (but not too academically inclined) mission school. One teacher called us stupid and our form teacher even told the class we would never end up in junior college (most did, by the way).
Fortunately for me, once I left school, I began to love learning again. I’d scour through books on physics and mathematics and wish I understood them better, thanks to wonderful general science authors like Paul Davies who made complex concepts easier for the layperson to understand. I want the kids to love learning. Once they do, they have it set. They will teach themselves whatever they are interested in and no teacher in the world can ruin that for them.
Where to start? I really have no idea. I don’t personally know anyone who homeschools and I read somewhere in the local paper that homeschooled children are placed on a lower priority than schooled children should they wish to enter secondary school. Basically they’d have to score a lot higher than the usual requirement.
Then there is online homeschooling.
There is always the option to homeschool online. Pick up a curriculum and follow it. Utilise a Global student network. How hard can it be to teach it to the children, at their own pace? Teach the kids on the go, like I do now, with some activity books instead of sitting in a classroom. Teach them biology at the zoo or physics at the Science Centre. It would be an inspiring thought.
Mephala is a strange and rather interesting 
August 18th, 2009 at 9:47 am
I thought about homeschooling a lot, too. Think I opted out of that idea in the end because I didn’t have enough confidence in myself to teach Gavin. It’s one thing to teach him stuff during the early years, but seems quite daunting to have to teach him the more complicated subjects later on.
But you are right, I discovered I loved learning after I left school. In school it was the pressure of passing tests and being marked for what you knew that made it a miserable experience.
Read a book by Glenn Doman on early childhood education and he said as much – it’s the vigorous testing in schools that put us off learning. Children love to learn – it’s part of their curious nature – but it’s the testing to see what they have learned that eventually kills their joy of it. Unfortunately, that’s what schools do – test kids to see what they don’t know.
August 18th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Interesting… it’s not illegal to homeschool in Malaysia, but you must get MOE approval… Wonder how difficult that will be?
August 19th, 2009 at 2:01 am
Something worth exploring for sure.
I try to teach Wolf a little of everything every day. A bit of science, a little math, some English and Mandarin.
Guess I’ll have to read up more soon.
August 20th, 2009 at 9:14 am
Yeah… but hubby’s already put his foot down on it. Wants Gavin to go to “regular” school… Sigh. Doesn’t mean I stop teaching him stuff at home though.