Best Posts in Thread: Thinking of moving

Sports is not a substitute for the Military but lays a foundation.
as JV High School Football is to Pro Football, Pro Football is to the Military.
or
Riding your Big Wheel around the neighborhood is to riding a motorcycle in Dumaguete.

Sports and the military both help form foundation skills but at different levels.

 

I don't know that most schools anywhere in the world teach you real world skills which might help land a job. The exception MIGHT be vocational classes. Even 4 year universities in the US mostly don't teach skills which might lead to a job. Community colleges are more geared for job skills because they are loaded with vocational classes.

Math isn't needed beyond basic arithmetic. Science isn't important beyond knowing the world isn't flat and that evolution is a thing. Of all the areas of knowledge, history is probably among the most important, just so you know where we came from. If I could pick one area to excel in and ditch the rest, I would pick communication. Reading comprehension and writing in English. There are other areas of communication which are important (public speaking, conversation, etc) but those aren't taught much in school.

Even if you disagree with me on things like Math, the schools don't teach these subjects right. They way they teach it turns the learning into a battle of grinding out calculations with ever-more rules, patterns and symbols added to the list of considerations. Math is much like programming (which is something I know). Get the right insight into the right essentials and everything else is downhill. You can get courses which teach this off YouTube.

I think kids would be better off just reading non-textbooks. There are lots of books which show the beauty of math which can teach you what Calculus (as an example) is really meant for rather than grinding out textbook solutions. There are the same for sciences. And of course history.

I don't know much about home-schooling but I think I would get my child about a half-dozen books across subjects and require that he/she spend some time reading through the day. The child can pick any book. If one books goes lightly read relative to the others, then replace that book with another related book. As a book is finished, add another in its place. This is the same way I read. If I'm bored with a book, then I'll quit reading it and I try to have a handful of books that I'm reading at any given time so that I can jump between them as my interest swings.

I would do the same with projects. Art, music, science and whatever else. Put together a collection of a half-dozen projects and have some time during the day for projects. The child could pick any project. Unpopular projects get thrown out to be replaced with something different.

I would then setup tutoring for subjects like English grammar, writing, conversational skills and some exercises to apply some of the things learned in the books. This could be applied math, science or maybe a hodge-podge just to work on critical thinking (another hugely important thing). Music education would likely require an instructor.

Perhaps none of us really know what a good education is. We have our ideas simply from what we did as children. We look at the Philippines doing the same thing we did but worse and assume that the education is crap. But maybe we should consider that the education we received was crap as well.

And I don't think home schooling would be as difficult as we might think. The child could probably do much of it alone. Unfortunately, this would remove the social element, which isn't always a bad thing. A child should learn how to focus and work alone as well as working in a group. Perhaps you could come up with group activities with parents of other children.

By the time the child gets to like 14, he/she would be getting to be old enough to direct his/her own education and direction in life. Personally, I thought my last two years in school were like a holding period and pointless. I would have rather had the option to go to a vocational school or university.

 

Did you checked the Foundation University in Dumaguete? According to my infos I have l, do they have also elementary and high school.

 

If you have children then please understand that education here is totally useless.... my step-daughter age 15 is at the equivalent Western standard of about age 10. The teachers are poor and they have no idea how to teach or set appropriate work; they only know how to play games. Classes can be a very wide age range, so a girl age 15 can be in a class with boys (men) age 30 or more and be expected to change her clothes in the classroom (while male teacher is there also!). The best educational value teacher seems able to find from Saint Valentines Day is to give the children hearts and tell them to give them to 'friends' in the class.... I call this a dating show and encourages dating between these children when my aim is to get my child to focus on education and not boyfriends. It also gives the older boys/men a chance to try their luck with the younger girls in a 'seemingly' innocent way. When the parent has to fight against low moral standards within the schools of a so-called 'religious county' then there is something very wrong.

 

It may be helpful for you to read as much of the informative forum history as you can digest. Realize the membership is international and there are positive and negative views. Good luck.