http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/broken_home

Where does it mention grandparents in that? Barack Obama’s early life fits that definition exactly.

You cursed an entire demographic to a sad fate without even typing your prejudice into Google. Were you kidding us?

Ans: Parents need not pay any fees and textbooks are free, I believe all schools are computerised with state-of-the-art computer systems. Combined with the MSC (Multimedia Super Corridor) and SMART schools initiatives, our education system is one of the best in the region. The social and moral aspect are also well taken care of. Primary students are offered not more than one subject (Ugama, Moral, Sivik) that strengthen their strong moral and social values, I believe this is critical for a balanced society moving forward into 2020. Combined with physical education – this is about 30% of a primary student’s class time. This is excellent.

Our education system is quite unmatched really. Yes, I TRULY and HONESTLY believe Malaysia’s system offers the BEST for our children’s future. Our leader had foresight to design the best system for us – they also have the courage to make changes when they need to (eg BM – English – BM). Our leaders’ courage and responsiveness to change is critical and is a shining example for our children not to follow blindly [or] to just stay on one path only.

After all, where else can you find such a system. I am quite sure you cannot find such a system anywhere else on this planet – truly unique and special.

Homeschoolers and these so-called “alternative people” do not know what they are missing. Our schools are the BEST, do not doubt it!

But I think I will not exclusively home-school my (as yet nonexistent) children because I want them to learn about the politics of life. Schoolyards are harsh and full of life lessons.

I want them to know swear words and know how to pummel people, and then to have them develop the wisdom not to do it.

And a word about teaching children to be sensitive and forgiving, and not bringing them up like they’re going to be facing conflict all their lives… wouldn’t you say that parents can teach their kids that without homeschooling? Don’t people talk and play with their children, unless they home school them?

If you type your question into Google word for word, the first hit suggests Leonardo da Vinci.

Of course the world is broken, is has been for thousands of years. But to desensitize children to escalating harshness and pain in order to cope is not the solution.

The reason why we’ve been so messed up is because we keep looking to the patriarchal world view of handling conflicts – of raising barbarian warriors using might and force to have power over others so others do not have power over us. What if instead of desensitizing children and making them grow up, we allow them to bring forth their gifts to our world – to be loving, to be sensitive, to be forgiving.

We don’t need children to cope with our harsh world, we need children to grow up and neutralize it! And they will neutralize harshness with compassion and forgiveness, drawing from their memories of how it feels to be loved unconditionally, to be accepted and respected and listened to. Loved children will teach the world that it is possible to thrive without competing, to conquer with compassion and to heal with forgiveness.

If you cannot imagine this world of non-violence, forgiveness and love for yourself, know that it is possible for our little Sacred Warriors. Your opinion that they cannot cope is imaginary, you have never known the resilience and wisdom of a truly loved child and how they can handle harshness with compassion.

School is built as an Institution and we are well aware what Institutions do, right? They INSTITUTIONALISE; prisons, asylums, school.

Some parents think school is an authority children can run to if they were abused at home. Try for better values as communities, not more policing.

I have never understood the need to pay taxes to an institution to institutionalise our children to honour emblems and symbols, to surrender our autonomy and to curb their freedom and rights as children. The right to an education is not the same as an obligation to a miseducation.

Who in Malaysia today believes beyond a doubt that schooling TRULY gives a better future? With the speed of change these days who can predict beyond 2020? How can anyone be certain schools are preparing for that?

Well yes, homeschooled parents shape their children in their image. If God made us in His image and He asked us to go forth and prosper, I don’t see why we have to give up that right to make our children in our image (thus in the image of God). It’s like saying a faceless, collective army called Government can actually do a better job while in office than parents can in a lifetime. And judging from the sort of government we seem to have and the state of polarisation in our country, why in Hades would I want my child shaped through an institution in the government’s image!!

Re. ‘artificial environments’ it could be argued that our increasingly polarised education system is creating at the moment artificial environments for *all* our children which does not reflect the reality of our society. I would argue that this is a much more serious ‘problem’ than homeschooling, which does not affect many people and so far has not shown a tendency to divide our society along arbitrary lines.

Homeschooling may not be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in general, but its rise reflects the failure of our national education system to develop the potential of every child. Parents do not take their children out of school without good reason.

@Apologetic Parent: By a clear mile, homeschoolers are more world citizens compared to their schooled peers because they don’t spend a good part of their day institutionalized in a factory environment. The school is not the “external environment” where children learn to be “world citizens”, it’s everywhere beyond that – the world is their classroom.

“In school, where teachers need to ‘manage’ thirty students or more, ethics and the politics of power is left up, from our earliest and most vulnerable years, to the bullies and other young damaged psychopaths among our peers, to teach us in their grotesquely warped way. It is in every way a prison system.”

This system is what that beats the love of learning, the ability to self-manage, curiosity, imagination and critical thinking out of us.

We are indoctrinated from as early as 5 years old, to cede our time and freedom, to be prepared to wage slavery and obedience to authority. School teaches us everything but the ability to be self-sufficient in society. Interestingly enough, those who don’t agree with school in the early (or later years) often tend to make it further in life.

School is different from what the real world has to offer, with the exception of other classrooms. Often times, children can excel in school only to find themselves ‘lost’ in the real world. This disenchantment is a direct result of our schooling system’s modus operandi – to keep you small, manageable, compliant and dependent.

If more children were homeschooled (and there are many ways to do so), we would have a world of more producers than consumers, more public-serving than self-serving people. Homeschoolers are people who know who they are, how to live and how to make a living for themselves, which our world severely lacks.