Before I post, let me first apologize for not updating this journey regularly.
Things have been a bit busy lately and with that, I have also realized that consistent blogging is not an easy job. Having said that, I am back now and hope to keep on adding our experiences during this journey.
While I was away, our homeschooling journey with Mish continues. We always look for resources and any help or guidance that we can get from our fellow parents. Nothing is stupid, trivial, or too naïve for us to seek help, suggestions, or guidance. We also keep looking for online resources. A lot of blogs, articles, and stories help us. So while browsing, one thing that is always there – is a question – Why Homeschool?
It’s there. In our casual conversations with other parents or sometimes on the internet forums, chats, question-answer sites. Everywhere. Staring right in our faces in its many different forms and types. Sometimes it’s the first question or most of the time as a follow-up question to the others. Or sometimes it is stealthily lurking as an undertone to many interesting and downright callous comments and questions. In whatever form it is asked, it’s perpetually present. All subtle queries eventually point towards the same question – Why Homeschool your child? And some more adventurous parents (a few of them on the brink of being insensitive or plain stupid) add their unsolicited advice with the question before even allowing us to respond or reply.
Even after all this, I consider this a very valid question. And as simple as it may sound like a query, the answer, unfortunately, is not. How I wish I could explain Why Homeschool? as simple as 1+1 = 2 or like a reply to “What is your name?” In our interactions with a lot of people, most of them, if not all, think there must be something wrong with our son, that’s why we are homeschooling him. So now their inferences oscillate between both – us being totally out of our minds and our son being developmentally disabled (“ Any Mental/Behavioral problems? ” they ask).
There is a reason we are homeschooling Mishu. It is not that my wife or I took this arbitrary decision not to send him to school. No. Homeschooling Mish is a conscious decision, overlaid with a lot of thought, reasoning, arguments, discussions, analyses, skepticism, apprehensions, and difficulties. We were scared! I remember the nights we used to keep on discussing this till dawn. It was a risky and difficult decision, but the benefits were huge. We Prayed and finally took a plunge. And you will agree with us when I would share Mishu’s progress here.
My wife is a teacher. She owns a preschool. She has never worked in any other field than the education domain throughout her life. She, for me, has matchless experience in the education field amongst her peers and other individuals in the same field that I know of. And if she said this is what we need to do for Mish’s education – I do.
Most parents are not that blessed in this department. They have the painstaking task of researching online, in forums, in homeschooling groups to reach a decision. But they do. And based on our interactions with the larger group. I listed 10 reasons why some parents opt for homeschooling their children.
Feel free to email me if you have any queries