|image1|

If you are a family with children, and are thinking of either moving to Costa Rica or coming for an extended stay, you may be wondering what to do about their education.

You might consider putting your children into the public school system, which can be difficult for them if they don’t already speak Spanish, but out of necessity, you will be amazed at how quickly they will learn Spanish.

There are many private schools in Costa Rica, many of which are bilingual, but they can be quite costly. The other alternative that some people consider is home schooling.

I am a home schooling mother of three children – Amy aged four, Mekaila aged 7 and Joshua aged ten, and have been doing so for the last three years. When we were thinking of moving to Costa Rica we came to the decision to home school for three main reasons.

• We were moving to Costa Rica with a specific budget and the cost of a private school would have stretched our budget a little too far.
• Our son is dyslexic and to put him in a Spanish public school would have been like throwing him in the deep end of a swimming pool.
• Finally, I had been thinking about and doing research on home schooling for quite a while and this was my chance to just jump in and do it.

Our son Joshua had previously spent two years in a private school in Canada. There were only ten students in his class but the teachers never understood why Joshua had problems with reading and writing.

It was my husband and I that did the research and eventually diagnosed our own son with dyslexia. If we hadn’t paid attention, our son could have continued for a few more years without learning and the school couldn’t or wouldn’t tell us anything!

After three years we have met some of the challenges and enjoyed many of the benefits of home schooling in Costa Rica.

We like to travel and see the country and for families that are coming for that specific reason, to study the ecology, there is no better way of doing it.

Costa Rica provides such diverse regions to study and with home schooling you are able to just pick up and move around at will.

Like most home schooling families have discovered before us, I found that the actual time spent during the day actually doing the formal schoolwork is minimal, the rest of the day is yours to go out, and learn about and explore Costa Rica. It is a beautiful place to study.

One of the drawbacks of not having my children in the school system here, is that they have not learned the Spanish language as quickly as they would have if they had spent all day with Costa Rican children.

There are ways to tackle this, one being to put them into the wide variety of outside classes that are available.

The biggest challenge for us has been the lack of books and curriculum in English. There are bookstores in San Jose but the bulk of the educational materials we use have been brought into Costa Rica, either by suitcase or by mail.

There are many families home schooling in many different parts of the country. There are also parent and child support groups which have been a great help to my children and myself.

We asked Roslyn a few questions:

HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT YOUR CHILDREN ARE LEARNING WHAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO LEARN?

There are many useful websites where you can find the information about different grade levels and what is expected. A lot of home schooler’s use set curriculums and carefully follow along with what is set out, though certainly not all families do so.

You will find a wide spectrum, from parents following a
very strict home schooling curriculum, where the day is set out with a
timetable. To what they call ‘unschooling’ where the family teaches the
child when the child is wanting to learn, leaving it up to the child’s
own curiosity.

One of the main goals for home schooling families, which seems common in all
the different teaching styles, is to teach the children how to teach
themselves. Because of this, when they do go to University they are usually more focused and can apply themselves better than the kids just coming out of high school.”

HOW DO YOU PREPARE THEM FOR FORMAL EXAMINATIONS?

Most schools have
entrance exams to determine what level of education your child has
received, Universities and Colleges certainly do.

In the US alone there are close to two million children being home schooled,
and it is increasing from 7-15% every year. Universities and Colleges
are well aware that many of the children coming in have been home
schooled.

Some of the Christian families work with very strict curriculum and give exams
regularly to their kids. I believe that last year, of the top 10 high
school students from all over New Zealand, 7 of them were home
schoolers.

This was passed on
to me by my sister in law and I have not verified it, but I think that
is about as ‘real’ as you can get, is it not?”

HOW DO YOU PREPARE THEM FOR FORMAL EXAMINATIONS?

Again it varies from family to family and child-to-child, depending on which way they approach home schooling. If they are a family
that studies with a set curriculum the kids are given regular exams.

With the unschooled child, it is left much more up to the child to be
prepared if he/she wants to be. Many families fall somewhere in between the two. As far as the school needing to find out at what level the child is at.

An entrance exam is all that is needed. With nearly 2,000,000 home schoolers and the number increasing by 7- 15% every year, in the US alone, the schools are
becoming accustomed to them integrating back into the system.

WOULD YOU SAY YOUR CHILDREN ARE AS ‘SOCIABLE’ AS OTHER CHILDREN?

On the
socialization of home schooled kids, I can only speak with confidence
about my own. They are very sociable and get along well with just about
anybody of any age group.

One thing my kids certainly do far better than I ever did as a child, is to be able to converse well with adults. I believe this is to do with the fact that they spend much of there time with adults.

It is very common for home schooled, kids to be able to
interact with all age groups. In school I believe it tends to be that
the children play with their own grade level and rarely with the
younger ones.

The benefit of being at home is they don’t have to deal with all the peer pressure
that you find in schools. I doubt that all home schoolers are as
sociable but then again I don’t believe that all kids in regular
schools are as sociable either.

There are many that
just want to hide away and not be noticed in a big crowd. My children
have many friends which they play with regularly.”

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY YOUR CHILDREN ARE LEARNING FROM YOU THAT THEY WOULD NOT LEARN AT SCHOOL?

I believe that home
schooled kids learn more of the ‘real world’ at home. What they see
happening around them at home, is far more ‘real’ than being in a
school building most of the day.

A good example of this is a friend of ours who was
starting up a new business here in San Jose and 5 out of his 6 children
were helping to do what they could.

Whether it was setting up the store, reviewing paper work needed for bringing in shipments or just pricing items. This was a very real life experience that I don’t believe they would ever get if they were in school.

The wide range of education goes from the family business,
planning and helping to budget for the household, making bread, cooking
and sewing etc.

Family values are taught at home not at school. Where have family values gone in the last fifty years since more time
has been spent in school and less with the family at home?”

WHAT CAN A SCHOOL TEACH THEM THAT YOU CANNOT?

I don’t know what
they could teach my kids at school that I can’t teach them at home. At
school they can be made to feel that they are not important and many
children are made to feel as though they are stupid either by the
teachers, the children or both.

They are sometime
not taught to think for themselves. It is difficult for them not to
succumb to ‘social’ and ‘materialistic’ pressures where they begin to
think that what they wear to school is more important than who they
are.

They will invariably learn a lot of offensive language in the playground.

When I think about my years in school, it felt like ‘sentence.’ I felt as though I just had to do my time. My schooling
experience may have been different from most, however, there is no
doubt in my mind that had my mother taught me at home, I would have
come out of it a far richer and happier person.”

WHAT ABOUT THE HEALTH OF YOUR CHILDREN?

Are my children healthier than kids going to school? Absolutely!”

In the three years that we have been in Costa Rica we have only been to the doctor once with one child. Their diet may also have something to do with this.

We all eat a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables here, but without all the exposure to the many illnesses that float around the schools they just don’t get sick very often.”

HOW MANY OTHER FAMILIES DO YOU KNOW LIKE YOURS?

We have a home
school group of about fifteen families that meets weekly so we do know
quite a few other families that teach their children at home. There are
other home school groups purely for the parents.”

WOULD YOU DO IT AGAIN THE SAME WAY?

“The answer is ‘Absolutely!’ “Home schooling has given my husband and I the freedom to pursue interests with our children that we wouldn’t normally have
been able to do and, just as importantly, we have more input as to what
they are learning.”

For those of you who are interested in seeing if this
could be something worth considering for your children, here are some
websites for further information.

www.homeschool.com

www.nhen.org

www.home-ed-magazine.com

www.unschooling.org

www.homeschoolteens.net

For a Costa Rica Home School message board hscr@mariana.net

[custom_script adID=97]

Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.