A Malaysian Christian homeschooling group that I belong to started a discussion about this and asked everyone's opinion on whether are we measuring up to the standard? Do we need to measure up? Etc.
My question is why should it be a BIG surprise that some of the homeschoolers failed to measure up? Are we operating on the presumption that homeschooler is academically better than those attending national school? Is that why we homeschool our kids?
Maybe that is the reason some people, but not me.
I have never thought I am a better teacher than those who are academically trained. I did not choose to homeschool Den because I think I can teach her better than a kindergarten.
I choose to homeschool her because I want her to build a strong foundation in God. For knowing God is the beginning of wisdom. I want her to be wise instead of knowledgeable.
I choose to homeschool because I want to help her build up good attitudes and habits that can last her for life:
- Love for books
- Thirst for knowledge
- Self motivate
- Perseverance
There is always pressure from those around you, everyone seems to think since you choose to homeschool it must be because homeschooling is better than normal school, so your kid must be better than others, that kind of crab.
I have to admit from time to time, I will compare too. Is she doing better (academic-wise) than those who go to school? But very quickly, I will give myself a mental shack. That's not why I choose to homeschool. Come on, if I choose to send her to school, she would have learned to read by now. Instead, we are struggling together with phonic (but loving it!).
If I fell into the trap of trying to keep up academically, I will start to worry about maybe I need to teach her this, maybe I need to teach her that and slowly and slowly, homeschooling will just be another smaller scale school.
Please don't get me wrong, I have no problem if she can keep up academically, but never at the expand of losing focus on the important things.
When you focus on faith and character building, then you would not mind so much about not meeting the academic targets, missing lessons, etc. A day out with friends is a good day for learning too. At the same time, you got to withstand the heat too. Your kid might be slower academically.
It is easier said than done. If not for the support of ST, I will never begin this journey. I have to tell myself again and again, what I am doing now is planting a huge tree. The root need to be buried really really deep and one day, it will become a big tree that lasts for a long long time. My hope and my prayer.
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