Homeschooling, Education etc, pt 2
I blog about my view on Homescholing and Education sometime ago. My view on education and schooling can be rather radical for most people. I know many people in Malaysia cannot imagine not sending their children to school nor seeing themselves be the teachers. My doctor friends challenged us [me and Ann, the homeschool advocates. :-)]
” You went through the traditional schooling and you turned out fine, just like many of us, you can’t deny that mass schooling system had served us well”
Well, I know if you are reading this blog, you were doing fine in the mass schooling system, or at least you learned how to read in English through the system.:-)
But, do you know many who don’t? In my primary school, I have 93 classmates in two different classes. After six years of education, half didn’t continue schooling. After another three years, less than ten of us eventually went through high school, guess how many of us went to university?
Some of my classmates who dropped out of school were very successful today. They were not any less intelligent than any of us who spent years studying and studying, but the school system failed to give them an education that enable them to read a letter in English or any language for that matter. Though they are successful monetary wise today, they are so convinced that they were failures/losers in school, instead of thinking that the school system had failed them.
So many parents today either “have” to send their children to private tutors or have to spend equal amount of time stressing over supervising their children’ school work at home. Which make me wonder, even homeschoolers don’t spend that much time doing school. You can imagine the stress for some children who starts school at 5.45 a.m (got to go out early, traffic jam) and don’t come home till 7.30p.m. Even in small town like Malacca, this is a norm nowadays, which worries me.
Since the children go to school for inhumanly long hours and spent long hours doing school work at home, do we even need surveys to find out that our children are over stressed and even 9 years old have suicidal thoughts? Ask anyone who is into counseling and mental health business, you will hear the gory and the not so glorified stories of children who were not able to cope with the stress, exactly opposite of what you usually read about the straight As students after the public exam’s results were announced.
Something is seriously wrong when children have to do school work at school and do school work at home. In my opinion, school work is for school time, family should do family stuff together. Spending time as a family doesn’t have to be a vacation at Caribbean villa rentals, it can be just a read aloud session every night or a picnic on weekends. When family time is spent yelling at children who didn’t want to do homework, no wonder our teenagers think parents do not understand them.
Filed under Education, Parenting |
2 Responses to “Homeschooling, Education etc, pt 2”
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Or the children think they are not loved.
Children are not formed with a cookie cutter. Parents have to recognize what is best for the child and try and let them rise. Some can do in mass schools. Other need home schooling. No one should scold a parent for “their” decision.
I dare not take the unconventional step to fully homeschool my children. I’m very much of the stress, the strict and no sense competitiveness in school environment, but really I dare not take the leap.
Just have to remind myself not to add on more stress in my children.