by Sun Bae
It’s occurred to me that I should have written this article as an introduction to how we got started in homeschooling way back with my first article in August 2009. This is the story of how we got started homeschooling. I hope that our own story below can resonate with those of you who are at the verge of embarking on this incredible journey…
A Medical Emergency
Serina, my wife, had twins who were born at 28 weeks – that’s 3 months premature compared to the usual 9 month gestation period. Babies born this early are known to be confronted with enormous developmental challenges, including potential for bleeding in the brain, eye-sight issues, gross and fine motor skills debilitation, and potential for permanent and serious digestive system issues. The twins were in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of our local hospital for 3 months. Born at 2 pounds each, our twins were one of the most fragile out of the entire NICU patients.
At the lowest point of our stay at NICU, the twins both contracted fungal infections, and our daughter was given a 50/50 chance of survival.
Two Miracles
There was a lot of hoping and praying that things would get better, but these acts seemed useless to the one-sided fight brewing between a fully aggressive germ against the undeveloped immune system of our babies. Ironically, it was when we wholly and spiritually accepted the reality that we may lose our children that things started to turn around. The doctors could not explain why, but for some reason, the infection levels were decreasing and soon disappeared – what was even weirder was the fact that the infection levels decreased and disappeared at the same rate and at the same time in both Lauren and Ryan. And with that battle won, both were soon released from NICU. Fortunately, there were no brain-bleeds, digestive issues or other physically debilitating problems when they were discharged.
We’re Not Unscathed
But as Lauren and Ryan were both going in for their regular checkups for ROP (retinopathy of prematurity – this is a condition in premature babies that can potentially lead to blindness), both were found to be in need of surgery to prevent loss of eye sight. And although it seemed that the operation was successful in Lauren, we were not as fortunate with Ryan. Specifically, Ryan had lost full sight of his right eye and had significant sight damage in his left eye (currently, Ryan can read at 18 sized font with his glasses).
Therefore, growing up, Ryan faced challenges that Lauren didn’t face. Although he grew up with the full passion and vigor of a baby boy (including that gene that seemingly turns off any sense of immediate danger), Ryan literally ran into objects (staircases, table tops, and most dangerous - corners of chairs) while playing and so we had to make sure he was supervised more than a fully-sighted toddler.
Our Great Mistake
However, despite his sight issues, Ryan (and Lauren) quickly picked up phonics and basic reading skills at a neighborhood academic center for pre-schoolers. And we thought that the major hurdle of succeeding in Kindergarten was largely behind us – if the kids could already read when they started Kindergarten, the rest should be a breeze…we could not have been more wrong, and the following illustrates our mistake.
Lauren and Ryan were enrolled in our local elementary school. We notified Ryan’s teacher of his sight issue and he was immediately referred to other support programs within the school system that could help with his sight problem. Serina signed the release on letting the school conduct assessments, and we both honestly thought these assessments were to assess his vision only. Things seemed to go well since the kids were telling us how they enjoyed school. However, about a month into Kindergarten, we got a call from the school to pick up Lauren for some reason we can’t remember. When Serina got to school, she saw Ryan at the school administration office, looking the most depressed as ever – he was hunched over on a chair, just not really moving at all. She went up to Ryan, thinking we would be happy to see her.
“Ryan, it’s mommy”, she called cheerfully, hoping he would cheer up.
He didn’t respond. He just sat there head down and hunched over. Serina asked the administrative staff what was going on with Ryan and they referred her to the school counselor. She had a meeting in which the school recommended Ryan to be placed in special education because, despite his above-peer academic standardized test results, Ryan always had a downward gaze and didn’t talk about things that boys that age usually liked to talk about (like baseball). These sorts of characteristics were symptomatic of autism.
Serina stated that she communicated to school counselors and his teacher both verbally and in writing even prior to enrolling Ryan that his downward gaze was a result of this eye condition, which made his eyes extremely sensitive to light (i.e., sunlight, indoor lights, etc.). This would also explain that he could not participate in sports where accurate vision played a critical role. Further, none of Ryan’s doctors had ever diagnosed him with any form of autism, so how was it that the school would be as audacious to label him with such a condition?
In the end, both of us knew in our hearts that placing Ryan in this school would be a serious mistake.
Pulling Out
The rest is history – Serina spoke to everyone she needed to in the school district and pulled Ryan out completely.
At this point, we were just relieved to have Ryan back and every time we think about what we made him go through, well it just pains me immensely that we allowed that. But after a while, it seemed apparent that his education, in whatever form, would need to occur soon. And so we started to look at alternatives.
Searching for Answers
During some research, I came across homeschooling. I have to admit that homeschooling was something that we just recently heard of, and that kids of homeschooling acted “differently” than traditional academic kids (don’t ask us what “differently” meant, because that word was suggested to us by some friends who knew homeschooled children and thus, we had no clue as to what they were talking about). It was a pure coincidence that I came to Serina with the idea of homeschooling as a possible alternative for Ryan and that a local church was giving a lecture on homeschooling. Therefore, not knowing what to expect, we went to the meeting and discovered that homeschooled kids were indeed “different”.
You see, part of the lecture at the church involved about 3-4 homeschooled kids giving a quick presentation on a business idea that each had. The presentation was no longer than 2-3 minutes each, but what really intrigued us was that these group of kids were the most articulate, confident, and self-managed (read: minimal “sssh’s” or other form of parental coaching while on stage) set of kids we ever met. It was as if giving presentations to a group of 20 strangers + their parents was something they had done all their young lives (we’re talking ages 7-9 here).
And after we heard the customized curriculum that the children were exposed to (each were different to meet the needs of the child) and the flexible schedules AND locations that homeschooling could occur (anyone up for homeschooling in Italy while on vacation?), we were wondering, “why hadn’t we considered this for Ryan earlier?”
Epilogue
Shortly thereafter, we moved to Texas (not for homeschool reasons, but Texas does appear to be one of the states with the least restrictions on homeschooling) where we have started to homeschool Ryan and we’re taking it one step at a time – and just taking informal checks against the public school progress we notice that he is above level in reading, math, and a whole grade level higher in language arts, giving us assurance that we are not failing his education needs.
Right now, we are currently teaching Ryan with materials we created on our site as well as those found at teaching materials stores such as Lakeshore Learning and stuff on the Internet. At the same time, we are carefully reviewing formal curriculum that we will use going forward (more on that one later!) to give Ryan a more consistent learning experience. And yes, we have days when Ryan just doesn’t want to study or sometimes things come up where we don’t have the time to teach him within our expected schedule, but I believe these are all things that can be smoothed out as we become more knowledgeable about not only what, but how Ryan wants to learn.
So at this point, some of you may be wondering what happened to Lauren. In what would seem like a slap in the face, we actually decided to enroll her in public school – trust me, there is a method to the madness, which I’ll cover in a future article.
Stay tuned!
- Sun
It’s occurred to me that I should have written this article as an introduction to how we got started in homeschooling way back with my first article in August 2009. This is the story of how we got started homeschooling. I hope that our own story below can resonate with those of you who are at the verge of embarking on this incredible journey…
A Medical Emergency
Serina, my wife, had twins who were born at 28 weeks – that’s 3 months premature compared to the usual 9 month gestation period. Babies born this early are known to be confronted with enormous developmental challenges, including potential for bleeding in the brain, eye-sight issues, gross and fine motor skills debilitation, and potential for permanent and serious digestive system issues. The twins were in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of our local hospital for 3 months. Born at 2 pounds each, our twins were one of the most fragile out of the entire NICU patients.
At the lowest point of our stay at NICU, the twins both contracted fungal infections, and our daughter was given a 50/50 chance of survival.
Two Miracles
There was a lot of hoping and praying that things would get better, but these acts seemed useless to the one-sided fight brewing between a fully aggressive germ against the undeveloped immune system of our babies. Ironically, it was when we wholly and spiritually accepted the reality that we may lose our children that things started to turn around. The doctors could not explain why, but for some reason, the infection levels were decreasing and soon disappeared – what was even weirder was the fact that the infection levels decreased and disappeared at the same rate and at the same time in both Lauren and Ryan. And with that battle won, both were soon released from NICU. Fortunately, there were no brain-bleeds, digestive issues or other physically debilitating problems when they were discharged.
We’re Not Unscathed
But as Lauren and Ryan were both going in for their regular checkups for ROP (retinopathy of prematurity – this is a condition in premature babies that can potentially lead to blindness), both were found to be in need of surgery to prevent loss of eye sight. And although it seemed that the operation was successful in Lauren, we were not as fortunate with Ryan. Specifically, Ryan had lost full sight of his right eye and had significant sight damage in his left eye (currently, Ryan can read at 18 sized font with his glasses).
Therefore, growing up, Ryan faced challenges that Lauren didn’t face. Although he grew up with the full passion and vigor of a baby boy (including that gene that seemingly turns off any sense of immediate danger), Ryan literally ran into objects (staircases, table tops, and most dangerous - corners of chairs) while playing and so we had to make sure he was supervised more than a fully-sighted toddler.
Our Great Mistake
However, despite his sight issues, Ryan (and Lauren) quickly picked up phonics and basic reading skills at a neighborhood academic center for pre-schoolers. And we thought that the major hurdle of succeeding in Kindergarten was largely behind us – if the kids could already read when they started Kindergarten, the rest should be a breeze…we could not have been more wrong, and the following illustrates our mistake.
Lauren and Ryan were enrolled in our local elementary school. We notified Ryan’s teacher of his sight issue and he was immediately referred to other support programs within the school system that could help with his sight problem. Serina signed the release on letting the school conduct assessments, and we both honestly thought these assessments were to assess his vision only. Things seemed to go well since the kids were telling us how they enjoyed school. However, about a month into Kindergarten, we got a call from the school to pick up Lauren for some reason we can’t remember. When Serina got to school, she saw Ryan at the school administration office, looking the most depressed as ever – he was hunched over on a chair, just not really moving at all. She went up to Ryan, thinking we would be happy to see her.
“Ryan, it’s mommy”, she called cheerfully, hoping he would cheer up.
He didn’t respond. He just sat there head down and hunched over. Serina asked the administrative staff what was going on with Ryan and they referred her to the school counselor. She had a meeting in which the school recommended Ryan to be placed in special education because, despite his above-peer academic standardized test results, Ryan always had a downward gaze and didn’t talk about things that boys that age usually liked to talk about (like baseball). These sorts of characteristics were symptomatic of autism.
Serina stated that she communicated to school counselors and his teacher both verbally and in writing even prior to enrolling Ryan that his downward gaze was a result of this eye condition, which made his eyes extremely sensitive to light (i.e., sunlight, indoor lights, etc.). This would also explain that he could not participate in sports where accurate vision played a critical role. Further, none of Ryan’s doctors had ever diagnosed him with any form of autism, so how was it that the school would be as audacious to label him with such a condition?
In the end, both of us knew in our hearts that placing Ryan in this school would be a serious mistake.
Pulling Out
The rest is history – Serina spoke to everyone she needed to in the school district and pulled Ryan out completely.
At this point, we were just relieved to have Ryan back and every time we think about what we made him go through, well it just pains me immensely that we allowed that. But after a while, it seemed apparent that his education, in whatever form, would need to occur soon. And so we started to look at alternatives.
Searching for Answers
During some research, I came across homeschooling. I have to admit that homeschooling was something that we just recently heard of, and that kids of homeschooling acted “differently” than traditional academic kids (don’t ask us what “differently” meant, because that word was suggested to us by some friends who knew homeschooled children and thus, we had no clue as to what they were talking about). It was a pure coincidence that I came to Serina with the idea of homeschooling as a possible alternative for Ryan and that a local church was giving a lecture on homeschooling. Therefore, not knowing what to expect, we went to the meeting and discovered that homeschooled kids were indeed “different”.
You see, part of the lecture at the church involved about 3-4 homeschooled kids giving a quick presentation on a business idea that each had. The presentation was no longer than 2-3 minutes each, but what really intrigued us was that these group of kids were the most articulate, confident, and self-managed (read: minimal “sssh’s” or other form of parental coaching while on stage) set of kids we ever met. It was as if giving presentations to a group of 20 strangers + their parents was something they had done all their young lives (we’re talking ages 7-9 here).
And after we heard the customized curriculum that the children were exposed to (each were different to meet the needs of the child) and the flexible schedules AND locations that homeschooling could occur (anyone up for homeschooling in Italy while on vacation?), we were wondering, “why hadn’t we considered this for Ryan earlier?”
Epilogue
Shortly thereafter, we moved to Texas (not for homeschool reasons, but Texas does appear to be one of the states with the least restrictions on homeschooling) where we have started to homeschool Ryan and we’re taking it one step at a time – and just taking informal checks against the public school progress we notice that he is above level in reading, math, and a whole grade level higher in language arts, giving us assurance that we are not failing his education needs.
Right now, we are currently teaching Ryan with materials we created on our site as well as those found at teaching materials stores such as Lakeshore Learning and stuff on the Internet. At the same time, we are carefully reviewing formal curriculum that we will use going forward (more on that one later!) to give Ryan a more consistent learning experience. And yes, we have days when Ryan just doesn’t want to study or sometimes things come up where we don’t have the time to teach him within our expected schedule, but I believe these are all things that can be smoothed out as we become more knowledgeable about not only what, but how Ryan wants to learn.
So at this point, some of you may be wondering what happened to Lauren. In what would seem like a slap in the face, we actually decided to enroll her in public school – trust me, there is a method to the madness, which I’ll cover in a future article.
Stay tuned!
- Sun
Sun Bae is the father of twins and has been homeschooling ever since they could talk.
He is also the creator of ProntoLessons, a website that offers a homeschool curriculum in American history for kids ages 6-8.
Specifically, his website includes 37 lessons that cover the immigration history of the American people; why they left their homes, what challenges they faced when they arrived to the U.S., and the contributions that they gave to our great nation.
The lessons are 100% scripted, which are perfect for homeschool educators who may not have had too much experience teaching in a more "formal" setting. Also, the lessons, intended as a 37-week full school year curriculum, is offered free to families who choose to use them.
Contact Sun by visiting ProntoLessons at http://www.prontolessons.com.
