So I just finished an exciting Montessori training certificate program for 3-6 years children with Montessori Center Ghana a product of Early Years Company Ltd. Ghana and I’m very excited.
The program confirmed a lot of things about child care that I had been battling with. How much freedom is ok for the child? How do you teach your child to be independent and to care for him/herself? How do you empathise with the child so he or she doesn’t have to resort to emotional blackmail but to learn to communicate appropriately? The summary of all the discussion for me was parents and care givers must focus on equipping the child with what he/she will need to aid his/her development. An understanding of the child’s sensitive periods: when they have a strong desire, drive , to achieve some developmental milestone was very insightful. The environment is, thus, very key in making the child who he or she has been created by God to be. I was totally awed.
With this knowledge I have become extremely excited about homeschooling my daughter who is 15 months old. Now some arguments have been raised in favor of this move. I have dreams of starting a school at some point in time in my life so I believe this is a great opportunity for me to build experience. Well, what better occasion than with my own child and later children ;). Apart from the fact that it has become extremely expensive to take your child to preschool in Ghana the quality of education is really not standardised and the ones that are close to my expectations are way – out – there in price. I can use the same amount to get great materials for my daughter at home and I always reuse for her siblings later. Finally I give myself the opportunity to bond with her on deeper levels and prepare her for life which is just great for her as she grows older and life begins to happen.
Arguments against it are major but we’ll see. The first on the list is I need another source of income to buffer this decision. Buying materials for learning is very important on that list. I can manage making some of the things myself but I still believe I have to get some things and that is the headache. The second is a venue. My residence is out of the question; let’s say ‘it’s just complicated’. Lool. I have help so that point is cancelled. Every other point is not as solid for me as the ones above so I’ll pass. 😉
Now if I chance on a place where I’m assured of an enabling environment within my budget I might consider but I’m really game for homeschooling and I pray I do it and excel at it to attract other parents.
I’m out 😉
Momsee Diaries 
I sense that your ability to train or homeschool your child is what makes this a dilemma. Most parents in Ghana today may not have the skill or interest to make it a dilemma. What makes this more interesting is that as an entrepreneur, this sounds like a colleague’s early thought process.
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Hmmm. Very interesting!!!
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I have ever thought about homeschooling my kid (i plan on having one, don’t tell) from creche to university, just because i don’t trust the institutions that may even claim they are certified by the National Accreditation Board. Politics would keep dictating how many years my kid would spend in SHS, now they cannot even complete the syllables and if they do, it is rushed and the students just chew pass and forget.
Who better to teach my kids than myself? I always hold the thought that in the next 10-20 years traditional classrooms and education would cease though they still would be relevant for some other purposes. Then, the world would belong to those Autodidacts who are willing and prepared to learn. And although the internet holds true to negativity it still is one great tool for learning. I cannot begin to quantify the amount of knowledge i have acquired just by googling stuff and as much i like history, checking wikipedia.
Condoleezza Rice recalled her experiences of homeschooling with her mother in her book Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family. “My mother decided to take a year’s leave from teaching to coach me in preparation for the exam. Years later when the home-schooling movement became more visible, I belatedly realized that I had been a part of it, if only in an ad hoc way. Mother was very systematic about my school day. We’d get up and see Daddy off to work and then start ‘school.’ She ordered the first and second grade texts in math, science and reading and took me through them in a very rigorous fashion. I’d take tests every week to chart our progress. This flexible schedule also allowed time to practice piano, and as a result, I advanced significantly during this time.”
Other famous and transformational leaders who were homeschooled include Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Carnegie, Albert Einstein, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alexander Graham Bel, Thomas Edison, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Florence Nightingale, Venus and Serena Williams and many others and in Ghana our own Adwoa Safo Kantanka.
In conclusion, You are entirely in the right direction for wanting to homeschool your child(ren). It is better to invest monies you would pay to these institution in hiring quality tutors for your kids at home. In school they are just taught to write exams rather than teaching them to apply their knowledge in practice to the problems their communities face. We (African parents) must begin thinking in this direction.
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Wow!!! Thanks. You’ve been thinking about this for a while isn’t it?
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