Homeschooling Journey Part 1

Homeschooling Journey Part 1

A few years back, the whole idea of homeschooling came into my mind as I left full-time church ministry to focus on fathering my son in his foundation years. I attended a number of homeschooling seminars and joined a couple of homeschooling co-ed groups’ activities. After engaging with the children, teens and young adults who were homeschooled, I was convinced that homeschooling is a powerful way of educating a child in character and important values. These homeschooling children and youths displayed maturity and social skills that are beyond their peers. Some think that homeschooling results in poor social skills. It is, in fact, on the contrary. That is a backward thinking. Many of the homeschooling kids can hold a conversation really well as they are used to interacting with people of different ages.

Fast forward to 2019... my wife, who is also a trained teacher with many years of experience, began to come into agreement with what I think about homeschooling. Now she is convicted about it.

The phrase that has been stuck in my mind is this, “Homeschooling is extended parenting.” It’s a beautiful thing to homeschool, because the child will spend more time with the parents than the school, and be built up in his foundational values and identity, before he is sent out into the world to face the challenges.

This has not been an easy decision. It takes a lot out of our comfort zone to decide on homeschooling. While some have a lot of support at home as well as finances to jump into homeschooling without much thoughts, we don’t fall into that category. My wife will need to quit her teaching job to stay at home.

It is way easier and comfortable to send J to Primary school. It makes life much more convenient for my wife and me. However, living a life with purpose is never about choosing what is comfortable. Faith is about stepping out of the familiar and stable boat into the uncharted waters, where there is uncertainty, discomfort and the unknown, so that we can place our trust in the certainty of God who is also our true Comforter. The journey of homeschooling is not going to be easy, but we have decided to choose what is beneficial for our son instead of our own comfort.

I really appreciate my wife for taking yet another journey of faith with me (we have always been quite different from the mainstream) and for making a huge sacrifice —— she cannot be allowed to go back to teach in MOE school after she resigns.

Applying for homeschooling hasn’t been smooth-sailing. We faced some challenges from ‘you-know-who’. They have been trying to dissuade us from applying for it. In fact, they refused to give us the application form when we requested for it. To move out of mainstream puts you in the minority and that is definitely not advised nor encouraged in our nation. However, we have long decided to pursue the kingdom of God regardlessly, and this includes education. You just cannot compartmentalize Christianity. It is either all or none.

Through the phone interviews, we were told that we MUST register J for Primary One, before the homeschooling application form can be released to us. (Later, we found out from the homeschooling community that this is not true!)

Given that we had no choice, we went ahead to apply for Northland Primary, one of the top two schools in Yishun. We don’t believe in ‘pulling strings’ to get into a school or doing parents’ volunteers, because the motive of the latter is usually not that you want to genuinely serve, but that you just want a vacancy in the school for your child. Anyway, this is just our personal conviction.

Before the result was out, we found out that out of 80 over vacancies for Phase 2C (the last phase for a child to apply into primary school during registration period), there were close to 300 applications for Northland. My wife did a check and discovered that apart from Northland and Nan Chiau (Sengkang), no other school in SG has such high ratio of applicants to vacancies.

Does that mean that this is an open door from God? Well, it is not necessary true. There is another realm at work to open a few doors for you if you don’t remain immovable. What is good can stop you from what is God.

We decided to give this golden opportunity a miss, so that we can continue to pursue what is better for J. Finally, after a couple of phone interviews with the ‘you-know-who’, they released the homeschooling application form to us.

There are still various hurdles to cross before we can begin homeschooling officially. Please pray with us that we will get the approval. In recent two years, the criteria have changed and become tougher than the past.

We only have one life on this side of eternity. Hence, we need to steward it and make the most impact for the kingdom, and it has to start from the family.

I’m sharing and will be sharing this whole journey of homeschooling (and this is only the beginning) so that those who are in similar shoes and situations can be encouraged as well as to go after what God has put in your hearts concerning homeschooling. It is never too late to do it. Jesus!