Who knew, that when we made the choice to homeschool we were making the choice to 'walk on the other side'? It was a simple decision based on the best possible circumstances for educating our children. I feel the same. I think I look the same (ok, I have put on a few kilos!). But honestly, you'd think we automatically became part of a an alien race! Doing things differently to the norms of society is risky! Its costly too! And this too has been a huge learning curve for me!
We homeschooled for the 5 and a half years we lived in Cyprus. We knew very well that homeschooling was illegal for Cypriots, but there are no hard and fast rules with regard to foreigners. So, because neither Dieter or I are Cypriot, we could homeschool without getting into trouble with the government. The problem in Cyprus is that those in power handle foreigners who homeschool based on the circumstance of the moment. We had no problem, for example, receiving our monthly child allowance even though the rule is that a school certificate must be presented for each schooling child. Our local mukhtar (village leader) signed a form to attest to the fact that our children lived with us, and our allowance was paid out. We generally flew 'below the radar', staying out of trouble and making most of our noise when schools were out!
Home Schooling was made legal in South Africa in 2004. The new ANC government made it legal - I had no idea! So now we live in a country where it is perfectly legal to home-school, which is wonderful! Its been great to see the support groups for homeschooling actively addressing issues of importance. Just recently, a notice was published in our local newspaper by the Western Cape Education Department which was clearly aimed at harassing home schooling families and an attempt to dissuade those who are contemplating home schooling. Now one would think that a law abiding citizen could follow a directive issued by a government department in the newspaper, but it was unnerving to see how unconstitutional and illegal the demands on parents were! I'm so grateful for the folk at the Pestalozzi Trust, the Home-school Association and other homeschooling families who communicate on various forums who have exposed these issues and given us some solid perspective. (I recently wrote a letter to our local editor to share some of these insights with her! )
It doesn't matter how legal home-schooling is or where in the world one is, we (and our friends) often meet with huge resistance. If its not in the minds of the people, its in the minds of the lawmakers! And it keeps us on our toes!
We're enjoying homeschooling here in George! We're so blessed to have a lovely library that has LOTS of ENGLISH books we can use and the children take out LOTS of books every week! (And because we homeschool we're entitled to take out extra books, yeah!) We're so blessed to have made friends with such wonderful people - they've opened their hearts, homes and lives to us and have helped us settle so easily. We're so grateful to the family who are lending their Sonlight books to us so that we can easily continue with the programme we were following (and our exciting studies of the Eastern Hemisphere!). We're also so thankful for our generous friends in Cyprus who have lent us their Singapore Math textbooks! We're set up and ready to go! Thank you Lord for your provision and setting our boundaries in pleasant places!
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