Home Schooling

[Isha]

I need complete information about Home Schooling from experienced parents. How can I start, where can I find legitimate information, do schools accept home schooled kids later on, what's the syllabus, what about exams, grades etc. Thanks in advance.

[Isha]

No one on Forumosa is home schooling kids in Taiwan?

[Tempo Gain]

I searched the board using the search function, and then I searched the board with Google using site:forumosa.com "home school" -office, then changed home school to homeschool and tried some other variants. I found some posts in which people talked about it as a topic of discussion or something they planned to do in the future, or asked about it, but I was having trouble finding posts by someone who is actually currently homeschooling his or her children (that doesn't mean there are no such posts; it's quite possible I missed them).

In one thread someone asked about homeschooling, and one poster indicated having knowledge of the existence of a homeschooling network but didn't mention the name of it in the post. In case you have any questions for that poster, the post is here: http://forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.ph ... 0#p1421120

Some googling turned up the website of a homeschooling association (apparently an international one) with a page on Taiwan: http://www.hslda.org/hs/international/T ... efault.asp

Within that page there are a number of links. One of them is a link to a page on legislative progress that appears to have been made: http://www.hslda.org/hs/international/T ... 103160.asp

There's also a link to a Taiwan Today piece: http://www.taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem= ... CtNode=428 .

And there's a link to a Taipei Times piece (which may be a little outdated in terms of the law; I don't know because I just glanced at it): http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/ ... 2003470809

There's a Taiwan homeschooling Google group: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgr ... chool-intl

And there's an association called the Mujen Chinese Christian Home Educators’ Association: http://www.mujen.org.tw/index.php?optio ... Itemid=153

Hope this helps.

[tomthorne]

A nice idea that many people say they are going to do. However, I bet it's a bloody nightmare that few do in reality.

[housecat]

I have a friend who did this year before last. She's American and her daughter's father is Taiwanese. She was having trouble in school, so my friend decided to home school her.

Her daughter could not be homeschooled as a Taiwanese, so she took her out of the country and brought her back on her American passport, and got her an ARC. Even then, my friend had to write a years worth of lesson plans and submit them to the MOE for approval. She was required to get special tutoring for her child from teachers of Science and Math, and the MOE consented to allow her to teach her daughter English, arts, PE, and social studies courses.

In reality, her daughter didn't get much schooling at all for the year, other than Mandarin classes so that she could stay up to grade level if she ended up back in public school again--which she did.

My friend found that her daughter was very reluctant to take her seriously as a teacher and that it was exhausting to try and work al day and then force her daughter to study in the evenings. If my friend was sick or exhausted, or not up to the fight, class got delayed, or just dropped.

The good that came of the year was that they managed to bond closer as mother and child, and the daughter had a chance to mature some. Last year she was back in public school and she did much better.

It can be done, but it's a lot of work and can be very stressful.

Good luck, OP, if you're still looking for answers.

[asiababy]

Isha,

If you use facebook, join the "Learn@Home In Taiwan" group. This is co-ordinated by what I consider the most pro-active homeschooling family in Taiwan that I know. Dorota Wernik and Tim Chen have recently published a book about homeschooling in Taiwan, (in Chinese), they sometimes appear on TV talking about homeschooling in Taiwan, and they hold presentations and meetups for those interested (bilingual, posted on FB page). Their daughter recently made a documentary with two other homeschoolers about the difficulties she faces as a figure-skater in Taiwan, for local television:

[youTubeBB3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=47o4rJYdaFE[/youTubeBB3]

Here's a link to the book: http://www.books.com.tw/exep/prod/booksfile.php?item=0010542412

Here is the site they run (Taiwan Homeschool Advocates):http://www.homeschool.tw/ They run regular events such as outings to museums, educational tours, and playdates for homeschooled children. You can see the list and how to sign up (bilingual) here: http://2t.chen-wernik.net/

Hope that helps.

[housecat]

Those are some great resources, asiababy! Thanks for posting those. I know my post above sounds negative, but I didn't mean for it to. I'm actually a big of home schooling in some situations, and even in my friend's case, I think it was the right choice at the time. Her experience with the process wasn't very positive, but the outcome was; it just wasn't very academic. My point is, I related one person's experience, and it was the right choice for them at the time, but it was difficult.

I do know of someone else who home schooled some of her children through working with a Christian school in Taipei, and she seems to have had a much better time of it, with more positive, and more academic, results. Her children have also been schooled both at home and, at times, in the local schools.

[imlostinasia]

Isha, The resources and links provided by asiababy are really good. I think you also need to look at what you want to teach your kid. You do have to apply to the education department to do so, however. I believe one has to provide a curriculum for a year as well. I am still in the process of finding out what is needed. I do know that one has to register with a school in order to home school. It is not an easy thing to do at this late stage, but it is possible.

[Isha]

Thanks everyone for the information and links. I will soon look into it seriously and keep you posted.

[TaiwaneseStomach]

OP, I know that Morrison Academy has staff who support homeschooling families in their areas with curriculum support and library access. Not sure if they have partial classes for them too. I'm sure you can contact them for more info.