As I started on my quest for knowledge about homeschooling, I had these questions that I wanted to be answered:
1.) Is homeschooling legal in the Philippines? Are there schools that offer this program here?
2.) What about the curriculum? How do I know what to teach my child?
3.) I'm not a teacher. I don't have any ideas how to make lessons plans. Am I qualified to teach my child?
4.) What about socialization? Will keeping my child at home not stunt her growth emotionally?
5.) Will my child be as good or even better than other school-based students? And these are the answers that I gleaned from talking to different homeschool families:
1.) There are some schools that offer homeschooling to families and are accredited with the DepEd. To name a few: The Master's Academy, The Living Heritage Academy, Victory Christian School, Angelicum has a distance learning department. These are just a few that I know of, Currently, there are more schools offering this. However, there are some families who are not satisfied with the current curriculum offerings and decide to take the plunge and not enroll their kids in a school. The benefits of this is that you, the parent-teacher, gets to decide and design the best way to teach your children. The downside to this (for me) is that your child won't have school records. In this case, you will have to contact the DepEd and have your child take the test that shows what level the child has reached.
2.) The first school where I enrolled my child to already had a fixed curriculum that we parents purchase. The curriculum is module-based and comes with a complete Teacher's Guide. I suppose that if you're new at this, it's good to have a structure to follow. The school also administers quarterly exams to students but quizzes are administered by the Parent-Teacher at home. My child did well here during the first year but I decided to pull her out during the 2nd year because we had difficulty following the schedule of that school. They basically were also new at this and I think that DepEd required them to follow the same schedule as the Public and Private Schools.
3.) As for teaching qualifications, I was very encouraged to hear from most of the pioneering families that as long as the mother was committed and had the passion to educate her child/children, a degree in Education was not necessary. If you purchase a complete curriculum, all the lesson plans have already been done for you and it's just a matter of following them. However, as is my experience and the experience of other families, the longer you homeschool, the more you will learn of the best way to educate your child/children. Many families that have been homeschooling for some time mix their curriculum. They learn how their children learn best and match the curriculum to their styles. There is a wealth of information on different methods of homeschooling and the various curriculum on the internet. I'll stop at this point because I want this to be an easy read and will post more later on.
