*important: the discussion is a casual talk between me and my mama, and i want to share it with you guys.

Recently we were talking about my son who is going to school this june for the first time, except that he took a summer class for reading program 2 years ago. We were just talking about how life is becoming so difficult and parents wanting to send their kids to private schools until my mama mentioned about not to send my son to formal education.

I paused for a while, then I asked her, "What do you mean?" She told me, "You can teach your child. You can buy him books, you have the internet, and you have so much time to do that." I laughed, of course, that was my first reaction.

This is not to offend the teachers here in this forum, but we know that in some schools, education is really poor especially in public schools. Btw, I'm sending my son to a public school. So the idea came up with "parents who wanted to send their son to a private school and making sure they get a good education."

These are the points we talked about:
-for those parents who can teach their kids, they can teach their kids at home following the lessons given to their age.
-a child who is not been enrolled in formal education doesnt mean illiterate.
-when it comes to socializing people, which I think, is far more important, instead of sending the kid to school, he can join workshops and other activities not academic.
-to get an hs diploma, let him take PEP test, then send him to college.

i wont mention other things we've talked about. but when i brought this thing up to my mother-in-law, i was surprised. she even said we can do that. she said she knows several couples who've done this & their kids are successful.

at the back of my mind, i was thinking, "yeah, why not?" until now, im not sure if my mama was serious about it. but as i've mentioned, i'm sending the boy to school this june. the kid will learn of course, the way i did, and most of us have done. no matter how poor the facilities, or how boring the teacher is, i know he'd learn, and we'll help him. CONTEMPORARY WINS!!!

Hi schwatz,

To educate one's child is a natural right of the parents. Even our Constitution recognizes this; compulsory elementary education is designed to "complement", not supplant, "the natural right of the parents to rear their children" (Section 2(2), Article XIV)

The main problem (and its greatest advantage, at the same time) with homeschooling is the need for one of the parents to really focus on the education of the child. Thus, this is OK if one of the parents is a full-time parent while the other earns for the family. With the kind of economy we have at this time, that might be a challenge. Only very few families can really afford that.

BTW, what made you decide to enroll your son in a traditional school instead?

thank you islesv for such insights. and it's nice to be back in this room.

as i've mentioned, i enrolled my son in a public school, in grade 1.

we are running a small business here in our place... though we are hands-on with our entrep activities, we enjoy the luxury of time that we have rather than going to a company as an employee. but there are also days that we need to do things more focused on the business than the kids at home. plus our yaya is going home to their province cause she had spent more than a year with us. i'm not sure if she's coming back or how soon will i get her replacement.

the school is one block away from our store so the trouble of fetching him is less. private school is not an option for us right now, because we are also experiencing financial struggles. and above all, my husband doesn't agree with home schooling. haha.

thanks again. and i hope to read more from this forum...

Just a note: there are also some private schools which do not give you your money's worth.

very interesting topic. i have the same dilemma as you do, schatz. my husband is afraid that homeschooling our son will turn him into an underachiever since there is less pressure to finish a book in a year and things can be learned at our child's pace, etc. So what I do is even if we send him to a "montessori" (pun intended), I also spend time with him doing after school activities. For example, when his class talks about the alphabet (at second grade!!! imagine how pointless that is for a child who has mastered his phonetics four years ago!), i would show him the origin of the alphabet as well as how he can write his name using another alphabet e.g. phoenician or hieroglyphics to make the same topic interesting.

Islesv, would you know how much it would cost to put up an authentic Montessori school? So far I like their curriculum (based on my research, not on the practice in my son's school) and I admire the way Abbas Orchard nurtures the students' curiosity and creativity.