Choices choices choices

We use Thai school for our children's eduction. I don’t for one moment claim that Thai schools are the best option for every missionary family in Thailand, but our family has used them and have had fairly good experience, otherwise we would not continue to use them.

This is our choice. Doesn't make it right or wrong. Makes it ours!

None of us can be sure that we are right – in fact I think we need to let go of the idea that we can be sure that we know what is right for our children in every circumstance. What’s right for one family is not right for the next. What’s right for the first child in a family may not be right for the second. What’s right for this year, may not be right for next year. What’s right for this term, may not be right for next term.

So what are the choices?

We have 4 basic options in terms of schooling our children : local day schools, international schools, boarding school, homeschooling, and then all sorts of various combinations of those. All of these are good. One option will be better for one child one time, and another option will work another time. There is NOT only one way to educate a child.

I admit that before we had kids we were not thinking of local schools (or boarding school). We always thought we’d homeschool. My view was the local schools were inferior that we’d be doing our children a disservice by sending them to local Thai schools. One of the books I read before coming out, a good book that many new missionaries read, it bluntly stated: “One option that is seldom suitable is national school.” It is “not recommended”, the “standards – even if high - don’t match the home country”, “the children will absorb the cultural values of the host country” and it makes reentry difficult. Sounded terrible. And listening to some colleagues talk about their experiences, it sounded WORSE. No, I would not subject my beloved children to that!

Then reality strikes...

For little ones boarding school is not really an option, so that leaves us with homeschooling. But for homeschooling to work, the mother must be able to teach and see this as her calling, the child must relate well to mother in a student-teacher setting, there must be playmates from one own’s culture, and the possibility of joint activities with other kids (according to the experts these kids should be from the same culture, but I would have settled for ANY kids!). While the first three criteria were present, we felt that we were sadly lacking in the last two.

And so we changed our thinking and sent our kids to Thai school. Things have changed.

The book that I quoted from was written over 15 years ago. Things have changed. We are living in a far more global world and we have incredible resources that can support us in whatever decision we make.

So, for now, Jonty is in P. 1 (sort of equivalent to Year 1, Grade 1), Emily is in Anubaan 2 at a Kindergarten which is Grade 00, and Nina is in Preparation for Anubaan which would be Grade 0000 if there were such a thing.

I don't know if we've made the right choice or the best choice, but what I do know is that God loves these children and no matter what we do, he holds them in his hands and is with them every moment of their lives. Despite us!