Homeschooling Conference 2014

I and my husband just attended Educating For Life Homeschooling Conference last September 6 in Bayanihan Center and I was amazed by numerous people that are so passionate about home schooling.  The conference was organized by Unilab, TheLearning Basket, Manila Workshops and supported by HAPI or the Homeschool Association of thePhilippine Island.

Keynote speaker Irma Chua, who is a mom of six, shared her experience doing homeschooling in the Philippines for about 20 years. Haven’t you realized it yet? Home education is a lifestyle! It is the learning and bonding process that makes our family experience worth dying for togetherJ. 

Big Daddy Jake, Dennis Poliquit, also shared his experience being a homeschooling dad of his two twins. My favorite mommy blogger Tina Rodriguez of Truly Rich Mom shared her wisdom too! 

Formal Homeschooling in the Future

Honestly, I am more on “unschooling” Little DC right now. We do not  have a homeschool provider and we don't follow a formal curriculum. All our activities are play-based and based on my son's interest. I am not an expert and even after the conference, I still have a lot of questions in mind. 

My only problem with formal homeschooling is the formal curriculum and my problem with the formal curriculum is “irrelevance”. There are a lot of topics that I have to teach which for me is not needed for my son’s future. Please correct me if i'm wrong but if I continue with unschooling method and only teach based on my son’s interest, he won’t get any diploma right? I have this kind of dilemma and I still need more time to ponder and evaluate what I need to teach my son.  

Parents should learn to explore viable options for their kids. It may be scary at first, but, all it takes to homeschool (I think) is just time management and PASSION (and may I add Patience! A lot of it!). I truly believe that it is something to keep and develop here in the Philippines, especially now that sending a child to school is getting more expensive.

The event is very inspiring but I wish DepEd would have participated by giving us insights on how to properly organize our home education sessions. (Or maybe DepEd was there but i didn't pay attention coz i was busy shopping books and cds at The Learning Basket?  haha!) 

Parents need a very detailed or a technical guide about home education. Being a newbie, I sometimes find it frustrating to go reading from blog to blog just to search the instructions from DepEd. These questions still remain in my mind

1.   Where do we get the instructions online that come from DepEd?

2.   Where can we get a cheaper resource or materials?

3.   How do we get a good “customized” curriculum that won’t put us in a dilemma later on when we enroll our kids to college?

4.   If I choose to homeschool independently, where can I get the right support? What I mean by this is communicating with the right authority here in the Philippines, not just forums where interpretation totally differs at times.

For me, homeschooling is not a matter of trial and error. This decision must be taken seriously because it involves the lives and future of our children. When you decide to homeschool, you must be passionate about it. It is a decision which requires your commitment to continue your purpose with confidence. Good thing that the speakers were so good in helping us understand what homeschooling is all about.

P.S. We are trying to raise good children who will be the future of our country. Why is it that home education is not getting as much support as the private schools? What do we need to do to set up this system? I need your thoughts teacher mommies. Until we meet again in the next conference!

Before Five In A Row

I am a very relaxed teacher mommy. I homeschool (unschool) Little DC everyday in "petiks-mode". Right now I only depend on his time. Everything that we do is learning to him. We do not rely on a structured curriculum or a planned activity. We learn through play, but I always make it a point to read and sing to him every morning and evening. I refuse to call that a structure but a religious routine ever since he was inside my tummy. I am happy that Little DC loves books and learning for him has always been filled with excitement and enthusiasm. Right now we are using Before Five In A Row (BFIAR) books bought from Rainbow Resource for our daily reading ritual. As much as possible, we try to associate or connect our activities that day with the book. My style is, we do not plan the activities out or as written in the BFIAR curriculum, we just go with the flow based on my son's interest that day and try to connect its relevance to the book. So happy that Little DC loves his BFIAR books already. Sometimes he would ask me to read 5 different books in a day. 

I Teach My Son the Other Way – Talk to Strangers

I know you must be wondering why I let my Little DC talk to strangers. Not talking to people you don’t know is not all about safety. It is about how you can teach your child about communicating politely with others and using common sense when there is danger or not. How could my child learn how to prevent danger when he himself cannot tell danger from ordinary events?

(Photo Credit: http://www.narrativecommunications.com/)

Trusting my son’s perceptions

Not all strangers are bad. Who else will they turn to if they're lost and need help and there's no policeman around? Teaching our children when it's appropriate to talk to strangers and when it's not, could make our children more confident in discriminating bad people in the society. This keeps him safer rather than not knowing at all anything about how the mind of strangers who are bad work. Seriously, if you observe your child, they tend to do what they think they should do and not what you say they should do. We should not argue with what they think is right. I always let experience provide the lesson. We cannot over rule their judgment. We are here to guide without making them feel inconvenient.

 Photo Credit: Julia Passamani http://www.chicagonow.com/

Talking to strangers doesn't mean he should go with the stranger

Little DC’s communication and comprehension skills made him smart and confident in expressing what he feels about other people and towards any event. 

Here are some of our advice to him:

Photo Credit: Diane http://hotdiggetyblog.com/parenting-tip-what-is-the-secret-word/

• There's no big guy or girl who would ask for a toddler's help except me and daddy, so never give help to big guys and girls you don't know. 

• You can talk to people you don't know but never go with them. 

• Run if somebody offers you candies, lollipops, popcorn, sandwich, hotdog, balloons, toys and anything from people you don't know 

• If you are lost, look for a policeman or manong guard. If there are no people in uniform around, look for a lola or a lady who has a child and ask them. 

There is a big difference in the sequence of events. If you are talking about safety, I am confident Little DC could say "no" politely (or maybe rudely). If he is being forced to go with a stranger, then he should make a scene at once to catch the attention of the other adults around. We are actually role playing and practicing shouting "HELP!!!" inside the house already.

Learning how the world behaves

Teaching how to differentiate between threatening situations and how to respond to it makes more sense than not to let them talk with strangers. Evaluating based on instincts could make them safer than just not talking at all. Children are compliant by nature, but I do not want Little DC to lose common sense. I would feel better if I can raise a child who fights than raise a meek one whom the world can abuse later. Every day life is a fight and Little DC is on it. He is strong and getting smarter each day. This is one good way to develop logical and analytical thinking skills – talk to strangers!

What moms think about themselves vs. What their kids think.

This awesome video by Elevation Church has a group of mothers talk about how they think they're doing as moms and their shortcomings as parents. Then they get to find out exactly what their kids think of them as mothers. 

Okay mommies, make sure you grab some tissues before you watch this. 

(video from http://www.wimp.com/momskids/)