Homeschool Talk

Jeremy Yeo: Changing Your Homeschooling Paradigm

What is ‘Homeschool’?

My talk is a description of our homeschooling experience. It is not a prescription, nor am I suggesting that your homeschooling paradigm is ‘broken.’

‘Homeschool’ is a ‘vile’ word. It seems to suggest that you bring school into your home, and consequently, the time-table and the schedules as so often happens become a great source of frustration.

Homeschool is the furthest thing from school: Homeschooling suggests that wisdom, judgement and knowledge are not the sole property of politicians, bureaucrats and teachers etc.

Curriculum Issues

Think of a curriculum as nothing more than what it is - just an IDEA. For example, I use the interests of my boys to ‘teach’ them, and you’ll often hear us discussing Lego, horses, swimming, cycling, or soccer when we’re discussing math and science ideas as well as geography and history. Such a style or process gives the learner many chances to make connections across discipline, expand ideas and be a producer of knowledge, as opposed to merely being a passive consumer of information from packaged curricula. Knowledge is infinite; it has a ‘life of its own’ and cannot be ‘packaged’, so to speak.

Such a process helps prevent the curriculum from taking control of the teacher, helps the teacher remain cognizant of the learner’s interests. Learning of the durable and endearing kind happens when the learner is conditioned to ask questions. It happens when the learner is inspired - but not required - to ask questions.

I have no fixed curricula, schedules nor textbooks. The only thing that is ‘fixed’ is that we read aloud and will continue to do so even when my boys are in their teens. This is done because I believe good readers don’t automatically and naturally become good writers and communicators. Good readers read fast, skip words, even paragraphs and almost always ‘kill’ punctuation. And therefore good readers oftentimes do not get the rhythm of the language and an ‘imprint’ of reliably correct and sophisticated language patterns in their minds, which is another way to say that they read for entertainment and information and don’t hear the words in their heads. Reading aloud ‘forces’ them to listen and learn through their ears and not just their eyes (when they read on their own).

Reading out loud is one of many ways - it is certainly easy and cheap to do - to ‘imprint sophisticated language patterns’ in our children’s minds...all creative ideas for speech and writing can be said to be permutations and ‘mutations’ of previously learnt and ‘imprinted’ language patterns, in my opinion.

After all, you might agree that our children hear phrases such as... "What do you mean you don’t know where the eraser is?"..."Hurry up! We’re late!"..."Did you brush your teeth?" all day long, maybe even 24/7/365...this is not sophisticated language. I believe our children simply don’t hear and listen enough to well-constructed and sophisticated language patterns. If you are going to read aloud (again!), read material that you yourself enjoy. At this time, we are using Lemony Snicket’s ‘Series of Unfortunate Events’ 12 books as our read-aloud novels of choice. C. S. Lewis’s ‘Narnia’ might be a good choice for listeners even as young as five, in my opinion. By the way, C. S. Lewis was a homeschooler!

Read at a level above them; this broadens their vocabulary. Read with all the injection of emotion and drama you can muster; many chances will arise to allow you to discuss idioms, historical connotations, cultural expressions, and what have you! The benefits of reading aloud, I would say, applies equally to Mandarin and any other language.

Assessment Tests and Intelligence

I don’t believe that intelligence can be ‘measured’. It certainly cannot be measured in the same manner and with the same precision as when we measure weight or height. Tests, and by abstraction the letter or number grade, claim to measure some kind of intelligence, but they are merely ‘blunt’ instruments that, at best, measure a very narrow set of skills. Besides I am sure we know of many ‘intelligent’ people who do stupid things and many ‘stupid’ people who do very intelligent things.

Tests cannot measure commitment, initiative, imagination, irony, nuance, ethical reflection, good will and many more valuable behaviours and dispositions.

Make the distinction between the concept of ‘intelligence’ and ‘taking exams skills’. Let your child enjoy learning - but before your child has to sit for a test, practice taking the tests because this is a separate skill that can be learnt. Teach to the test, as they say.

Winston Churchill, who himself was homeschooled, hated exams. He is believed to have said, "I hate exams. They always ask me things I don’t know and have very little interest in knowing. I would have gladly told them all that I know and know well."

So-called IQ tests perform a disservice by narrowing the definition of a person’s intelligence. Joel Hildebrand (1882-1983), the late chemistry professor at University of California, Berkeley, said, "The invention of IQ does a great disservice to creativity in education." (In 1939, Hildebrand discovered that mixtures of oxygen and helium helped alleviate the ‘bends’ in 33 submarine officers of downed submarine USS Squalus).

Don’t let various tests and curricula control you. They can make you forget where you want to go.

Dr Kevin Tan: "A Personal Perspective"

Key Motivations for Homeschooling

We had some problems with the school system, in that there was too much testing and not enough teaching. While I do think that you do need to use tests to evaluate teaching now and then, testing too often can shatter a student’s confidence.

When a student is unable to score many passes in various tests, the system leads us to believe that there is something wrong with the student, when there is in fact something wrong with the teaching.

Similarly, while homework is important, I felt that my children were overloaded with homework. We were losing our children to the school system, and school was monopolising our lives.

Somehow there was this general mentality out there that ‘free time is no good’. We disagreed, and in fact, we wanted our children to have more free time.

We looked at various alternatives to the local school system, and finally agreed that homeschooling was the most viable option for us.

Beginning Homeschooling

• We didn’t do much in the first 6 months, but merely used it as decompression time.

• Our younger daughter had problems in primary one in that she had difficulty reading. So our primary focus was to spend time getting her literary skills up, getting the reading and comprehension basics right, so that self-learning sets in.

• Parents often had their insecurities, and it is too easy to blame the Ministry of Education.

Considering Homeschooling

As you ponder over the issue of whether to homeschool, consider whether:

• You want to invest the time. Homeschooling involves investing a lot of time. You must want to spend the time to do it.
• Do you have the substance to be able to homeschool?
• How do you know where your children stand? Do you need to assess them?

With regards to assessing a child, this depends on whether your child is college-bound or more practically-inclined. Every child is different. For example, our eldest daughter would probably like to go to college - she enjoys reading, and learns well by reading. On the other hand, our younger daughter learns by watching - thank goodness we did not ban her from watching TV because much of what she knows today comes from National Geographic, Animal Planet.

Also remember the concept of multiple intelligences - Look beyond the concept of intelligence as simply having 8 A1’s in the ‘O-‘Level exams.

We do make assessments from time to time. This helps us answer the question, "Where do we want to go from here?"

Homeschooling Myths

Myth #1: Parents make bad teachers.

• This is not true. Teachers have no significant advantage over parents when it comes to teaching. After all, the training teachers go through equips them to teach 40, not one or two students at a time!
• On the contrary, parents make the best teachers. Remember, parents are the child’s first teachers - they teach their children how to dress, brush their teeth. Children learn best by following their parents.

Myth #2: Homeschooled children have no social life.

• Apart from being homeschooled, our children take part in other classes such as swimming. There they meet other children and make friends.
• There is a difference between networking and socialising. Networking has to do with the number of people you know. In school you are able to network so you know a lot of people. Socialising is the ability to make friends. School provides an artificial environment for socialising, in that those of the same age are grouped together. In the real world, socialising takes place across age barriers.

Myth #3: Homeschooled children do not know how to compete because they are too relaxed.

• Some children are innately competitive regardless of where you put them.
• When children are homeschooled, you can teach them the difference between healthy and unhealthy competition.

Benefits of Homeschooling

• Social Skills

  Our children work and learn in a real environment. They follow us around and mix with people of all ages. These are real skills, life skills.

• Family Life

  Homeschooling has enabled us to remain close to our children. And our children can also relate and converse with us at an adult level.

• Develop a Love for Learning

  Homeschooling has allowed our children to learn while being propelled by their own interests.

Questions and Answers

How do you decide what things your children need to know?

Kevin: We base it on what you need to know to survive - how to read, write, talk, discuss. Therefore we want our children to master one language, and be able to do basic math. We take it to a basic level but we also make sure we do it well. We also outsource a lot of things - if you don’t know it, find someone else who does. For example, the Singapore Science Institute has many interesting sources. There are many possible options for outsourcing out there.

Jeremy: Personally, I am more focused on ‘HOW’ my sons think, much less so on ‘WHAT’ they think. When I ‘teach’, I try to avoid subject divisions; subjects are administrative categories. A question such as ‘How do you sustain life in plants?’ is not a biology question alone; it is equally a chemistry one, a physics question, even a geography one and quite possibly a philosophical one too...which is to say that knowledge is infinite and dynamic...besides, at the primary level, for the PSLE let us say, all that is required are really very basic skills of counting, adding, multiplying, re-ordering, re-grouping, substituting...and English is used as our medium of instruction...so reading and some comprehension skills are needed to get our heads around some basic ideas to be learnt in so-called Math and Science and English. Again, ‘HOW’ my sons think is far more important than ‘WHAT’ they think; taking care of ‘how’ they think will give them many ‘tools’ to tackle any ‘topic’ in the future.

How do you intend to reintegrate your children into the mainstream?

Jeremy: Understand what the bureaucracy wants. If it needs you to take a test, then practise for the test by doing past tests. Depending on which school you want your child to attend eventually, find one which has vacancies and have your child practise taking tests for the school’s assessment needs. Used more often in other countries - and I am not sure if it will work here - a portfolio of your child’s work might be a useful supplement to any test you are required to take.

Is homeschooling expensive?

Jeremy: It doesn’t have to be. It really depends on one’s paradigm. Even families whose children attend mainstream school end up incurring huge costs from additional tuition fees and enrichment classes, not to mention transport costs, materials costs and what about costs to emotional capital and psychic capital? Also, one of the most expensive resource money can buy is actually yours: TIME. Besides, there are many ideas from the internet that are ‘free’, many learning activities available are truly free, save for internet access and say, bus fare...keep in mind that at the primary level, it is all very basic reading and writing and counting skills...I don’t think one needs expensive stationery, textbooks, props, hardware, software, nice premises...to learn.

Kevin: There is also a difference between homeschooling and hothousing. Some parents believe in cramming their children’s lives with all kinds of courses and information. It depends on your ultimate goal.

Some of us want to homeschool to tailor learning to best suit our child. Do you worry about your child’s ability to cope with bureaucratic structures and adversity in the future?

Kevin: It is an issue that concerns us, so in our case we do impose certain non-negotiables. For example, if a child has asked us for piano lessons, then practising the piano and seeing the piano lessons through would be a non-negotiable.

Jeremy: No, because as they are older, they will have more resources to deal with such situations…in some sense, it relates back to ‘how’ they think and not ‘what’ they think that is really important, meaning that, as they mature with more real-world experiences, I believe their mental resilience will commensurate. I have no idea what my sons will be called to do; I am speculating that whatever it is – whether it is fighting a real war, business deals, or matters of spirituality - they will need ‘strong’ writing and communicating skills coupled with that ‘how’ of thinking, and not ‘what’ of thinking to overcome any adversity in the future.