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Homeschooling is Malaysia is catching on as a cheap alternative to international schooling. This is so wrong..
Homeschooling is a culture. There MUST be active involvement of parents. In my opinion, homeschooling a learner with learning difficulties is a just and fair alternative option. This is because learners with difficulties cannot cope with the rigour and pace of Asian academic environments where the focus is on how many A's a child scores. Even when schools offer learning support or claim to offer it, learners with difficulties never achieve their maximum potentials because very little is done to actually cater to their learning and educational needs. Parents gain the most from having their children with difficulties in a mainstream school! They gain the illusion that their child is normally functioning and in mainstream school.
Now, let me justify what I say.
When a learner is struggling in the mainstream system, they loose confidence, they loose friends, children are taught from a young age to pick their friends. Kids form cliques in school - the cool kids, the smart kids, and the kids in special education!! Learners with difficulties get excluded from group activities and social activities. They barely cope with the academic load and many mainstream teachers are not happy about making special allowances for one learner. As the demands increase the grades decrease, and now the learner starts to feel the gap in their abilities versus that of their peers.
IN a homeschool environment, typically, each child is allowed to progress at their own rate. Some centres also offer further tailoring of material and content to meet educational needs of learners with difficulties. Some even offer intervention for Cognitive skills alongside formal learning, and activities that help train gross motor skills, teach self control and exercise. One such provision is the one, I run, Sri Rafelsia. We have been successful with our programmes and our learners gained lost self esteem, learnt skills that they could not learn anywhere else and gained knowledge! BUT, the most important factor that separates Sri Rafelsia from the other provisions is that we keep the total enrolment to a maximum of 10 learners. We never take on more. HOMESCHOOL - the environment should resemble home - how many homes have 25 kids and 5 classrooms in built??
Homeschool can also benefit children whose aptitude lies in sports, music or other non academic area. While education is necessary and literacy and numeracy are pre requisites, some children are simply more inclined to focus on music or gymnastics or badminton! Again, homeschooling fits in beautifully for this purpose. It can be done at any time, tailored around training schedules and yet progress still made.
Homeschooling is a culture. There MUST be active involvement of parents. In my opinion, homeschooling a learner with learning difficulties is a just and fair alternative option. This is because learners with difficulties cannot cope with the rigour and pace of Asian academic environments where the focus is on how many A's a child scores. Even when schools offer learning support or claim to offer it, learners with difficulties never achieve their maximum potentials because very little is done to actually cater to their learning and educational needs. Parents gain the most from having their children with difficulties in a mainstream school! They gain the illusion that their child is normally functioning and in mainstream school.
Now, let me justify what I say.
When a learner is struggling in the mainstream system, they loose confidence, they loose friends, children are taught from a young age to pick their friends. Kids form cliques in school - the cool kids, the smart kids, and the kids in special education!! Learners with difficulties get excluded from group activities and social activities. They barely cope with the academic load and many mainstream teachers are not happy about making special allowances for one learner. As the demands increase the grades decrease, and now the learner starts to feel the gap in their abilities versus that of their peers.
IN a homeschool environment, typically, each child is allowed to progress at their own rate. Some centres also offer further tailoring of material and content to meet educational needs of learners with difficulties. Some even offer intervention for Cognitive skills alongside formal learning, and activities that help train gross motor skills, teach self control and exercise. One such provision is the one, I run, Sri Rafelsia. We have been successful with our programmes and our learners gained lost self esteem, learnt skills that they could not learn anywhere else and gained knowledge! BUT, the most important factor that separates Sri Rafelsia from the other provisions is that we keep the total enrolment to a maximum of 10 learners. We never take on more. HOMESCHOOL - the environment should resemble home - how many homes have 25 kids and 5 classrooms in built??
Homeschool can also benefit children whose aptitude lies in sports, music or other non academic area. While education is necessary and literacy and numeracy are pre requisites, some children are simply more inclined to focus on music or gymnastics or badminton! Again, homeschooling fits in beautifully for this purpose. It can be done at any time, tailored around training schedules and yet progress still made.
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