A New Year, A New Path For Mike

A new year brings with it opportunities for us to start something different.

For our eldest son, Mike, he started on something boldly different for his education.

My wife, Mike and myself collectively made a decision to pull him out of the public school system after the end of his secondary 3 education last year.

After 9 years of trying to cope with the regime of school work and examinations, it came to a point at the end of last year that we all concluded that the public school system was just not working out for Mike.

He was thoroughly unhappy with his academic studies even though he enjoyed his CCAs such as going for the outward bound course, performing at the National Day Parade and even gain a level of success emceeing during school events.

Studying had become a chore for him with little understanding of its purpose beyond passing the examinations. School in his own word had become a “prison” to him.

Bottom-line, Mike had hit-a-wall with his studies despite all-out efforts and exhausting all helps we could give to him over the years. 

During the final week of October 2013, I was attending a T Harv Eker Millionaire Mindset Workshop organized by Success Resources. On the second evening, as I listened to the presentation on the mindset that one should have in achieving success in life (and not just about making money), it dawned on me that there are many important life skills that are just not sufficiently taught in school. Investing and money management skill is just one of them. And, there are also other paths besides the public education route for an individual to be educated.

For some reasons, I decided there and then that my wife and I should seriously reconsider an educational option for Mike which we had explored for him when he was about 3-4 years old: homeschooling. 

What unfolded from then on was rather interesting. Looking back, we can only construe that God had connected the dots together for us.

In August last year, I had networked with a nice gentleman at my workplace during a company event. We continued to keep in touch afterwards and I later came to learn that his daughter was being homeschooled.

So that second evening at the workshop that I was attending, I sent him a message asking for details about the homeschooling system that his daughter was pursuing. He immediately connected me to his church friend, a mother of 3 homeschooled children, whom he felt could explained the system to me better.

Since I was busy with paying attention at the workshop (gotta take care of my own education too!), I messaged my wife to speak with this mother about homeschooling as a option for Mike.

“Coincidentally”, a thought had crossed my wife’s mind that very same day: “there could be other pathways for Mike and homeschooling was one possibility.” We had not seriously discussed about homeschooling for quite a while.  Needless-to-say, she was pleasantly surprised by my message. 

The two ladies spoke over the phone that night and about 45 minutes into the conversation, both ladies then realized that they actually knew each other as they had been colleagues (working in the church that my wife and I attend) 15 years ago!

Another remarkable realization was that the US-based homeschooling system that all their children are using, Accelerated Christian Education (ACE), was the same system that my wife and I had previously considered for Mike when he was 3-4 years old.

In a nutshell, after reviewing the ACE materials together with Mike, getting Mike to speak with the eldest of the 3 homeschooled children, discussion with Mike’s school Principal and teacher about his situation in school (which would need another blog post for another time), a dinner conversation with my ex-colleague from the US (who was visiting Singapore at the time we were considering) whose 6 kids are all being home-schooled, talking with my colleague who was homeschooled using the same system and ofcourse prayers, we made the decision to let Mike take the road-less-traveled path of being homeschooled.

Mike has since started on the programme after returning from our family holiday in Malaysia in late December. He has been making steady progress with a jointly agreed daily timetable which includes time for exercise, meeting with friends, hobbies as well as pursuing his 8-months long theater workshop (again, another blog post required).

So school uniform for Mike now is T-shirt and shorts (not unlike home-based entrepreneurs!) and classroom is now our family dining area.

Taking this decision has not been easy to say the least. It’s unconventional whether in the US or even more so in the paper-chase mad Singapore context. The pressure to conform to social normal and expectations is strong.  For a start, my own father and in-laws are probably still clueless about how a boy in Singapore today can stay away from school and not take the national examinations. 

But yet I have since realized that there is actually quite an active and well connected homeschooling community in Singapore. In fact, there are children who started homeschooling since pre-kindergarten and these kids have never had a day of public institutionalized schooling.

It has taken almost twelve years for us to come to this decision for Mike since we first explore the system. Even though I had always been somewhat of a non-conformist and even maverick since I was a kid, I was not ready to take this less-traveled route for Mike previously. After all, this is my son’s education in a country where many parents would not think twice about paying large sums of money to ensure that their child gain top grades in the national examinations.

Yet, my wife and I finally decided that this path would likely better benefit Mike.

It was Albert Einstein who said: ” Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” We had to take a different course of action.

What’s reassuring is to look back at how God had engineering the sequence of events and brought the right people into our path making the right conversations and at the perfect timing.

Indeed, “in his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9) And, “He has made everything beautiful in its time…” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

Don’t get me wrong, I am not about to propose that every parents should therefore pull their children out of school and be homeschooled.

Every child is unique and bestowed with different talents and learning styles.

I believe that in spite of the challenges in our ever-evolving public education system, many children can thrive in the system and we still do have a very robust public system with passionate educators. The fact of the matter is that many have benefited from our public schools and gone on to contribute to society tremendously.

At the same time, we have since come to know of parents who are totally convinced by the homeschooling system for a variety of reasons. I hope to have the opportunities to interview them through this blog. For our other two boys, we will decide which route will better suite them according to their bent after their PSLE examinations.

Mike is excited about this new journey that he is taking and is not looking back. Beside the core subjects that he will have to study, he will also have the freedom to choose to study subjects that he will love and can do well in.

With the more flexible timing, he will be able to pursue his acting passion. I can now expose him to other life changing events and experiences that he would otherwise not have the time to do so.

My ex-colleague whose 6 kids are homeschooled told us that it will likely be difficult at first for new starters and probably take up to a year or so to get the pieces together.

But we have been blessed with great advice and support so far.