Every day is an opportunity to home-school children

Every day is an opportunity to home-school children

What you need to know:

Two weeks into the countrywide teachers’ strike and no end in sight got me thinking about how much children are going to miss.

Two weeks into the countrywide teachers’ strike and no end in sight got me thinking about how much children are going to miss. This, especially, bearing in mind how little time these children have compared to the amount of work they have to do in class.
Already with the uninterrupted term, the poor souls are packed with hours in classrooms and even more hours doing homework, some even doze off as they do the work.
A child sitting home with nothing to do is an unpleasant sight for any parent. This, I assume, besides the moral obligation, is the reason why many parents spend a fortune to send their children to expensive schools and even during holidays, spend heavily on programmes such as boot camps.

What now for these children in public schools who are home against theirs and their parents’ wishes?
Proponents for home-schooling have mentioned a number of advantages, key among which is the affordability.
In 2010, Daily Monitor interviewed Jackie Kikonyogo who home-schools her four children. Confidence was the value she looked at most when she decided to home-school them.
She said when she looked at her relatives who had been home-schooled, they were not the “usual shy and timid children”.

It is my general observation that children who spend a lot of time with the parents have an air about them that spells different from the others.
They speak their mind and are not afraid of being wrong, possibly because they have been taught that being wrong is not such a bad thing, after all. It is a learning process.

Then again, does home-schooling have to be scheduled? Must one wait until schools are closed, teachers are on strike or their children are not gaining much from their school to start home-schooling?
One of the oldest adages goes, “Charity begins at home,” it is my belief, therefore, that parents are the first teachers and indeed pundits have written that most of the child’s learning process begins at home.
For this reason, situations such as the current prolonged holiday should only serve to allow parents a little more time to complete the never ending ‘home-schooling’ syllabus with their children. Teach that child a thing or two about their culture or how to iron their own clothes or fix the bulb.

Moments children spend interacting with their parents are priceless and they are permanently imprinted on the children’s minds.
More permanent than all the learning and cram work that happens in the classrooms.

**Mike Ssegawa returns next week.