One of our primary reasons for homeschooling our children was to give more time and focus on developing their character and to pass on our values to them.

But aside from that, I also wanted our children’s education to be relevant and engaging for them.

Is that possible? You might ask.

Isn’t it that school children should do their best to find the relevance of the lessons given to them by their teachers? Isn’t it a given that if something is included in the curriculum, it should be part of the lessons for the year? Do we really just accept the curriculum design given by the Department of Education or the school or the homeschool provider hook line and sinker even if the child is resisting some parts of it and is not engaged in some of the lessons?

Is it really possible to design your own curriculum that is based on what the child needs based on your observation as a parent and based on what are developmentally-appropriate for the child’s age? Is it possible to create a curriculum that is inspired and based on the child’s interests and pace?

IT IS POSSIBLE.

BUT you can only do this if you take the path less taken… even by homeschoolers.

HOMESCHOOL APPROACHES AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT

Yes, you can make your lessons child-centric. You can follow your child’s lead. You can customize your child’s curriculum such that not all subjects need to be in the same grade level. You can customize it so that in case your child has red flags in his developmental milestones, you can prioritize making time for these instead of the academic lessons.

We’ve been homeschooling our kids since birth. I have taught all my three children all the basic concepts. We started homeschooling more intentionally when my eldest son was two years old and was assessed to be potentially gifted. At that age, he has already learned what is being taught in regular schools until Kinder. I panicked and brought him to a developmental pediatrician.

I’m thankful that our developmental pediatrician is supportive of homeschooling. He encouraged me to provide my child with the materials he was ready to learn. We were advised not to hold him back. We were advised to support his need for his curiosities to be satisfied and to follow his lead.

I don’t believe in the principle BETTER LATE THAN EARLY. I also don’t believe in HURRYING THE CHILD.

I believe that if a child is ready, the parents and educators should provide the necessary environment and tools that the child needs to learn and to thrive.

Delaying or withholding from a child what he needs and wants can have negative consequences. These can be manifested in the child’s behavior. Children develop and learn at different paces. So, the best way to learn if a child is ready is to observe the child and to ask the child.

Some children become ready to read at 5 or 6 years old. Some become ready at an older age. Still, there are children who become ready and able to read even at 2 or 3 years old. Some, even younger.

Does that mean that the parents of those who are reading earlier than most typical children are pushing their kids? Does that mean that those parents with kids who learned to read at a much later age are negligent? Not necessarily.

I have learned that if a child is ready, he will make it clear. He will find ways. He will learn even with minimal help from the parents or educators. That has been my experience with my three children.

They showed their readiness in slightly different ways. But there is a common thread. They made it known to me. They showed signs like they were eager to read on their own even when they could not articulate the words yet. They asked questions. My youngest is now three years old. He started showing readiness at two years old. He would keep on asking me what letter is this and how to read this and that word. He demands answers. He asked for my help.

If you have that kind of child, would you say that it’s better to delay reading, son? Let’s just look at the pictures and ignore the letters and the words for now. Anyway, you are only two years old. I don’t want to be a pushy parent. Better yet, why don’t we just play?

Do you think that by doing that the parent is satisfying the needs of the child?

Thus, my number one advise to parents is to really spend ample time with their children and to observe them. Pay attention to them. Pay attention to what they are doing. Pay attention to their preferences and questions. The truth is that we learn a lot from observation. When we do this, we become experts with our children.

This has been my approach to homeschooling our three children. I start with my observations and from there I make a plan based on what I notice to be their needs and what they are interested in. I also consult what the Department of Education says we should cover in a particular year but it is not my main reference. My child is my main reference.

And even if I made a plan for the school year, I sometimes do not stick to it if my child, my student, is not responding positively to it. I find other ways, creative ways to teach it first or to present it to my children. I do my best to let them see the relevance of the lesson in their lives, in our family life and to their future. If these other ways do not work, I follow their lead again and present other topics which I think they would be interested and ready to learn.

Again, the curriculum should be designed with the end-user in mind. It should not be the child adjusting to the curriculum even if it is apparent that it is not helping the child learn.

One of my challenges in parenting gifted children (yes, all of them show signs of giftedness and the older two were already assessed) is that they are very strong-willed. Old school approach to education of making them obey and do the drills do not work. They resist that. They question things and authority. They naturally challenge the norm. They have their own agenda on what they want to learn and do and they will certainly assert themselves.

Therefore, if I insist to teach them based on what is required by the Department of Education and I insist that they do their lessons the way I was schooled many years ago in a regular private school, it will be a BATTLE OF THE WILLS DAILY FOR MANY HOURS in our household.

It would be frustrating for all of us.

But because my husband and I chose the road less taken even by homeschoolers, that is we are independent homeschoolers and we practice child-centric and interest-led approaches to learning, our battle of the wills are lesser. 😉 Not zero, because as I have mentioned, they have their own agenda even as babies and they make their stand known in ways they could.

It has also been a rewarding and relatively relaxed way to educate them. What is surprising is that even though we were using these gentle and respectful approaches towards our children, they are not behind their peers in most subjects. They know more than enough of what is needed for them to function in their family and bigger community. They may not know all that is required by the Department of Education for each grade level but what is relevant to our day-to-day life, our family life and what they aspire to be in the future, they have basic competencies for these already.

I am really grateful that I had decades of experience in people development and curriculum or program design as an HR professional. I had been training and developing people and helping companies recruit, train, promote and manage the performance of their employees through the use of competencies. We had been using these to do succession planning in the workplace. We had been using this to assess the readiness of employees to take on bigger responsibilities and to bridge the gap between what is current performance and desired performance. I am so grateful that I get to apply these same principles in educating/homeschooling my children.

Because of my background, I get to make our lessons relevant to their current and future needs.

For example, my eldest child dreams of becoming a concert pianist. He also dreams of becoming an author like me. But he also wants to become an illustrator.

So, aside from identifying core competencies that I want him and his younger brothers to have, I also include in our program or curriculum the development of his functional competencies in music theory and playing the piano. We include lots of opportunities for him to simply have time to write his ideas and draw. As early as now, since we already know his strengths and natural inclinations and passion, we have started honing his skills. But more importantly, we are spending time developing core competencies like grit, communication skills, integrity and other-orientedness.

How do we know if he is really learning, our son applies what he learns to real-life situations. His life daily is his test. How he relates to his family members and the people around him whom he interacts with, how he plays the songs that he learns on the piano, how he serves in the daily and Sunday Masses, those situations test him whether he has learned or not. the same is true for our younger children.

True learning is tested in daily life or real-life situations, tasks or projects. Not so much on paper.

 

I believe that we have been successful so far in our homeschool because we are already reaping some of the rewards of our investment in their education.

Our children are showing competence in many areas that we planned and envisioned them to be competent. At their age, they are confident and possess the values that we want them to have.

HOMESCHOOL WORKSHOP FOR PARENTS

If these approaches to your child’s education resonate with you, I invite you to join my upcoming workshop titled HOMESCHOOLING TO BUILD COMPETENCIES on June 23, 2018 from 1-5 PM at Playworks-Aguirre Campus in Makati. This approach will help your children better prepare for their future job, career or business because you are able to make their education more relevant.

We have limited slots for this workshop and I might not run for it this year because I will be busy launching a new children’s book. But because I really want to help my fellow parents and make a difference in the lives of our future generation of learners, I’m conducting this workshop this month. I encourage you to register right away if you think that attending this workshop will help you. You may register here.

Also, we are blessed to have the support of our sponsors, including AXA insurance who is giving FREE TERM INSURANCE to the FIRST 10 PARENTS who will register and confirm their slot by paying the registration fee.

If you want to read more details about this workshop, you may click this link that will lead you to our event page. The workshop outline can be found there as well as the registration fees.

Are you interested to homeschool your child/children as well? Are you homeschooling for the first time? Are you homeschooling independently this year? Are you homeschooling with a provider that has an open curriculum? This workshop is for you! See you on June 23!

P.S. If you want to see what we do daily, follow me on Instagram. I share many of what we do through that platform. My IG handle is teresadumadag.