Who we are

We are a joint family comprising of my parents-in-laws, my husband and our 8 year old son, Aniket. We live in Bangalore, India.

Aniket  is intellectually gifted, highly sensitive, extremely creative, with interests in science and math. He did not fare well in school because he does not do well with repetitive tasks and also because he did not identify with the teaching style. He responded by being distracted, uninterested, unwilling to write and finish tasks. As days passed he also started showing behaviour problems all of which impeded his learning and skill acquisition.

At 7 Aniket could read or write 2 years below his peer level and was struggling in school. But at home his effort was sincere and he was deeply interested in learning new things. But he did not show the same interest in finishing school work even at home.

He is very self motivated and couldn’t understand why he is being weighed with his peers, why is it  important to practice several times what he already knows, why is learning any subject, constrained to tightly time managed capsules of 45 minutes each etc.

By this time I had given up my career in IT and spent about 4 years researching on learning difficulties and giftedness. I also did a 1 year diploma to get a grasp on the subject. However I realised that Aniket did not need any of the techniques if he was learning something that was self driven.

Journey into homeschooling

I had researched a lot on the internet and conversed through email with many homeschoolers around the world. I got an impression that this was a good way to learn while being able to retain my child’s creativity and intelligence. I also joined the homeschoolers online group in India and met a few homeschoolers for clarifications.

In 2007, we decided to take 2 weeks off from school and try to learn at home. Aniket was very motivated once the stress of school and the need to match up with others was removed. His true potential came out in leaps and bounds and his thirst for knowledge was unquenchable.

We never went back to school after that. Within a year Aniket learnt to read by himself and now reads above age level, his grasp on the concepts he learns, is excellent, he spends a lot of time creating and applying the science concepts he notices in his environment.

He is now a happy, fun loving, ever-learning, confident child.

Legal Implications

There is no rule as such to legalise homeschooling, every state has its own rules with regard to schooling but homeschooled children can pretty much join regular schools any time they wish. If they would want to continue with homeschooling then they can complete their high school ( 10th grade) from a the National Open school. The certificates from this organisation can be used all over the country to join colleges for courses thereafter.

Family acceptance

Our family is very supportive of homeschooling. Infact we are supportive of each other and give each individual space and freedom to grow. We initially had some friction with the extended family but Aniket’s progress has left us all speechless. Our friends have also slowly started accepting us the way we are... though some of them would like to think that this is a temporary fad and we will send him to school one day for sure.

Societal acceptance

Response from the society, almost every time is a mix of surprise, worry, admiration and of course a zillion questions! We have some people coming up and “empathising with Aniket”, questioning him to “check” if I am doing a good job, trying to make him “understand” what he is missing out, asking me to “learn” parenting and stress management so I don’t feel traditional schooling is stressful, giving us a “bleak future concept” to enable us to understand how Aniket will fare badly in social situations in the future etc.

But we also have many people who totally agree with what we are doing, they are amazed to see Aniket’s positivity, knowledge and interpersonal skills. They congratulate us, and applaud us for the courage. Many wish they could do it and many more ask us how to go about it.

A homeschooling day with my family!

We have a structured unstructured way of schooling! We follow a broad outline of the curriculum suitable for 8-10 year olds keeping in mind, the guidelines outlined by the Indian Education board. Within that framework for English, Science, Social Sciences etc we have provided Aniket the text books which are for reference only. He mostly reads them as story books. We follow age and level appropriate workbooks for Math, Spelling and Grammar on which we work for an hour every day. This is simply because firstly English is not our native language and secondly because Aniket loves reading. The preparatory work that he does with these work books gives him a thorough understanding of what he is reading.

We are early risers. Its Anikets duty to wake up at 5 .45 am and wake me and his grandparents up. While we wash up and get ready Aniket bathes, dresses, offers prayers to god which includes blowing the conch! He then has India’s best traditional medicine for immunity – a gooseberry squash and some jaggery . After this he helps about with some chores like tidying up the living room, his study table etc, bringing flowers for worship, feeding our pet tortoise etc.

After this he has a glass of milk and he is ready to start his study by 8 am. He is free to pick up anything that he likes . He mostly follows a schedule which he updates every month or so. This month it is Math, Spelling, Grammar. After this he is free to spend the day the way he likes.

Most children would be at a loss with so much unstructured time on hand. It’s the other way round with Aniket- he never has enough time! For science, we learn a lot from the environment. Aniket uses this free unstructured time to spend outdoors and indoors with a variety of material that he can use to experiment. We have also provided him with reference books like encyclopaedias, science dictionaries etc which he refers to. Other children around him are surprised to see him use these books as his text books.

We watch TV for about an hour in the afternoon. At night we watch TV for 30 minutes as a family... At present it’s a mythological series on Krishna.

I work as a special educator/counsellor helping children with learning difficulties, gifted children, homeschoolers etc. . I work out of home.  Aniket spends a part of his afternoon and evenings with these children, their parents and their siblings. This has given him a lot of opportunity for socializing. He also plays outside with his friends for about 3 hours every evening.

Aniket also spends time with his dad and grandfather in the evenings fine-tuning the projects he has worked on during the day.

Aniket then reads for about an hour until 10 pm and then he goes to bed!

Leisure

Weekends, we do not study with any books. A lot of time is spent as a family doing chores, shopping for groceries, visiting friends homes, watching movies etc.  We also spend a lot of time on projects for our home like gardening, carpentry, lighting etc..

Material that we use

Our tool of learning is basically Mother Nature! So we do not use many educational materials. Aniket has a Lego set, that a friend gifted. He is particularly fond of it. He is also fond of the science kits that you get for electricity, magnetism, etc. We use work books from Scholastic, they are pretty good. Right now Aniket loves Enid Blyton books.

Looking back...

I wish I had known home schooling before we started sending Aniket to formal school! I also didn’t know that after a while children learn to take the onus of their learning. I was very stressed if I will be able to give the entire day to him. Now I fret because he doesn’t need me at all except for about 10 – 15 minutes!