The Others

Up till now this blog has been about Jonty's home-schooling journey. Now I am making it about all three children, and their wider education, not just home schooling.

So here's a bit of background about my precious poppets:

Jonty is 6 and has attended Anubaan Suan Angun in Chiang Mai, been in a Thai Homeschool co-op in Chiang Mai, Thabile Nursery School in South Africa, an international school in Lampang, Benjamaat kindergarten, and is now in Arunothai school. 6 schools and he’s only 6!

Poor kid you might think. But no, he "graduated" 4th in his kindergarten class despite the disruptions and language disadvantage, and is doing very well at his new primary school. He actually enjoys school. Although his Thai was his weakest mark, he did win a gold medal in a Thai public speaking last year. His pre-school teacher advised me that his Thai was more than good enough to cope in a mainstream Thai primary school.

Nina (3) and Emily (4, almost 5) are in a small private kindergarten: Benjamaat Kindergarten. It is a separate kindergarten i.e. not attached to a primary school. Emily started there in Triam Anubaan (what I earlier referred to as Grade 0000 or something) and is now in Anubaan 2 (Grade 00).

Nina used to go to the nursery twice a week, but has now started Triam Anubaan where Emily began her Thai education. They go to school from 8h30 to 15h00 on Mon, Wed and Fri, and till 11h30 on Tues and Wed. On their half days I do some activities at home – English, free play, and creative crafts. I guess this is ‘homeschooling’, but it seems a bit extreme to me to call it that for such little children! Really, I'm just being Mom.

Jonty, Emily and Nina are all outgoing and sociable and they craved friendships with peers. We’d heard that children just “pick up” languages, but had seen no evidence of this and were concerned that if the kids did not speak Thai they would be disadvantaged socially.

So, our 2 main INITIAL reasons for sending our children to Thai school were (1) for socialisation and (2) to learn Thai.

Now that we’ve been in the system for a few years we realise that there are untold benefits – such as being more normal to our Thai friends (my life is far more similar to theirs now, they understand some my challenges and I understand more of theirs), being accepted and included in community events, and many contacts we’ve made through the parents and grandparents. It’s a very natural way to be part of society. Our children are also developing a very deep understanding of Thai culture and we’re learning from them.

We do realise though, that there ARE gaps in the Thai education system IF we want our children to cope in other western education systems at some point - which we do, seeing as we have to take Home Assignment every 4 years!

We constantly monitor what those gaps are and do our duty in filling them. We see this as our responsibility rather than a weakness in the school. Our thinking has changed in that we are doing local schooling and supplementing with homeschool, rather than homeschooling and supplementing with local school. Our children are as integrated as much as possible and compete on a fairly even footing with their peers.

Hard? Yes, but enormous blessings in this too.

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!

Term 3, Week 3

We've got a good routine going now. We do HS Monday to Friday from about 16h30 to 17h30. It gives Jonty an hour or so to relax after school and even though its "school" its also one-on-one time with me which is kind of precious when there are other kids in the house always trying to get my attention. Although certain parties ie. NINA and EMILY (not to mention names) do tend to interrupt us DESPITE the Dad in the house and strict instructions not to. Its frusrating because we can do our lessons in about 40 minutes if we are uninterrupted. But try telling that to a 3 year old (or an almost 43 year old)...

Anyway, we are staying on track very nicely with Maths and English. I am planning to do Humanities as a project during the Thai school holidays.

Sometimes I can see that Jonty is pretty tired, and I try to keep those days shorter. I still feel sorry for him - so little time to just be a boy.

Term 3

Well, term 2 is all over. Assessments all done, Jonty is doing well, and our tutor is giving amazing assistance and advice. She's a star. Like Jonty.

Now we're onto Term 3 with Maths and Science. As Thai school has started, we've had to find a new routine. Jonty gets home from school at 15h30, so I give him an hour to play and unwind, then I do about 45 minutes from 16h30 - 17h15. I manage to do an English and a Maths lesson in that time. The poor kid has supper at 17h30 then off to taekwondo at 17h50... evenings are such a rush.
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even though I feel sorry for him, I also know that he enjoys it. He's enjoying the maths (especially the games) and enjoying the English - cos he's good at it. He asks for MORE! I am managing to stay much calmer and as a result we're both enjoying it more. When he concentrates and focusses, he's brilliant. When he does not, I want to toss him and all the school work out the window.

Anyway, its just a temporary set-up because next week we are going to discuss doing his HS during school hours - I'd go in and teach there during his English class. This will free up his afternoons and I am really hoping the school/teachers will be open to it. He's had almost month to settle and things are going well. I think the time has come.

That's it for now.

Week 8

Done (well, for English and Maths anyway - Humanities can wait..).
Reports sent off.
On Track.

Week 7 over

Well, its been a good week. Jonty has done all his Maths and English for week 7. Next week we can do Week 8 which is another assessment week. I am still a bit behind with Humanities, but ... honestly ... not too worried. We can catch up some time.

I still get irritated when Jonty does not think. Do all home school parents experience this? Or am I just an old battle-axe???

I am getting wiser, I think, at what we do and what we select not to do. Looking forward to getting feedback again at the end of next week.

Jonty is reading a Roald Dahl book now, which is laugh-out-loud funny. So good for him!

What's up?

No blogging for a while because... well, there's been no home-schooling.

Yesterday I did a whole week of English lessons - in 1 hour, and the day before I did 3 Maths lessons (also one hour). Officially this should have taken 8 hours. Ha ha.

I think the trick to getting this all done is skimming through it all, then zoning in on areas which are problematic. All the lessons from this past week (Week 6) were non-problematic so we COULD go fast.

Jonty is reading like an absolute star. He is fully into Enid Blyton now.