Homeschooling

I am a home maker and I am free to do things at my own pace, though, yes I do have to get things ready for my husband before he gets out to work early. So I am normally up early and finish my work by 8:30 am and then I am free to do what I want for the rest of the day.

And me being the person that I am, I refuse to sit at home all day long. I drag my kids who are 6 and 4 respectively out with me where ever I go, or rather they drag me out where ever they go!

This morning it was the children’s section of the library that I got dragged to. Ofcourse I didn’t realise it was a working day and kids that age were supposed to be in school. Did I tell you that my kids are being home schooled?

The librarian asked me why they weren’t in school and I said that they were being home schooled and she had a surprised look on her face. “Home schooling?” She said… “and what about the exams?” I had to laugh, the main reason I took them out of school was that I didn’t want the stress of exams.

I should mention something here, my 6 year old never stepped into a school till he was 3 and that is not the norm in India ofcourse, where kids the age 1.5 go to play school/ pre school , etc. He was fully potty trained at that stage and I wasn’t expecting any accidents in school. But he used to have accidents till he left school 3 years later. And then all of a sudden all the accidents stopped once we started home schooling. That shows how much stress my child would have gone through in school. One of the many reasons I chose home schooling, though I did not get too much support from home at first.

Now when I mention home schooling, many people are curious and ask me more and more information about that. Here is all the information I have on home schooling/unschooling. I hope it is of some use to someone.

The best place to look for homeschooling information in India is in the following three links

 

http://indiahomeschoolers.ning.com/

www.facebook.com/groups/indialearning/

http://homeschoolers.in/

The
following link has a virual school about which there was an article in The
Hindu - has plenty of work sheets and stuff, but I don't think it is up to
standards.

 

http://www.drjayasvirtualschool.in/courses.php

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-educationplus/campuses-in-the-sky/article4938469.ece

The
following link is for National Institute of Open Schooling - NIOS is recognised
world wide and accepts homeschoolers to do their exams for 10th and 12th.
Students can enroll themselves as external students in regular schools or
exclusive places available for homeschoolers for Lab facilities.

http://www.nios.ac.in/

Other
than this, there are many schools that accept children as external students
where students can attend the classes that they want to, use lab facilities,
join school trips, etc.

 

And
then there is a whole world of unschooling...

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/1758491/report-unschooling-children-from-conventional-education-systems

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-04-22/people/31379313_1_school-system-unschooling-method

http://familyrun.ning.com/group/indiaunschoolers

 

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/no-marks-for-attendance/1092277/0

If you need any specific information then let me know what is needed and I can write more on that! :D

I want…..

I have two very young kids aged 4 and 6 do one thing I get to hear at home often is “I want…”. I’ve slowly tried telling them that our home is a home where there is no “I want”. So now our wants have reduced over a period of time.

Initially it was always “I want dosa and not idli”, “I want this doll”, “I want to wear only this dress”, “I want to go to the park NOW”, etc… The list was endless.

Now it has not only reduced, they now have started saying, “Can I have a train toy Amma, instead of the skates I asked last week” Not only have the wants reduced, their negotiation skills and understanding of what is better than what has increased.

In the mean time I am yet to learn how to tackle a 40+ child’s “I want…” tantrum.

“I want you to have this ice cream….” My husband goes… Any amount of telling him that I do not want the ice cream doesn’t help. It is the same with everything “I want you to wear this jewellery…” “I want you to go and talk to that person…”, the list is endless If I stick to what I say he ends up feeling angry in the end. When is he going to understand that want something for himself is different, wanting to force something on others is totally not acceptable? I

With a father like this, when will my children learn about reducing their wants?

Janmashtami

Yesterday was Janmashtami and I was at a friend’s place. I do not celebrate festivals the way others do so it was an enlightening experience for me. For me festivals involve plenty of food, new clothes and having fun time with family and friends – nothing more!

In her home, every festival is celebrated the way it should be – according to her. She cleans up the house, cooks whatever particular food is made for that particular festival. She fasts all day long, offers the food to God and then eats it.

Yesterday was one such day. She was cooking all day long, a real lovely spread of food – only thing was that the food could not be eaten before being offered to God. The Puja was only in the evening and the three kids (two of mine (6 &4) and one of hers (4)) were restlessly running around the house looking for food. They weren’t happy with the regular fare that they got. They were seeing the special food being made and wanted to eat that… all of that! It was so difficult to explain to  my two that the food cooked and kept in the kitchen was not to be eaten till it was offered to God first. For me, children are God and if they go hungry no God is going to be happy. But she had a completely different opinion, so I could not say anything. She is a good person and she was feeling bad about not being able to give the food my children wanted, but she could not do anything about it. Her beliefs stopped her from doing what I would have thought would have been the right thing to do.

We all see God in different ways, for me God is in every human being and that is what I have taught my kids. If we cannot see God in each other then what use it is to pray to all the Gods on heaven and earth? But each person has a different opinion and I have no right to tell her that she is wrong or right.

Lesson learnt – Do not visit such people during festive days as it is embarrassing for them and for us too.