I have met (US and other) families in the Philippines and the Pacific
Islands who have home schooled out of necessity (lack of comprehensive
western education). We considered it while living in the Philippines for 8
years with 3 school age children but opted for an international school
(another story).

More recently I had friends who set off to the So. Pacific with a
preschooler, with plans to use the Calvet School course material. However,
prior to their departure, I observed that this child was going to be a hand
full. I hesitate to use the term "soiled" but IMHO, could have used a firm
hand in a structured school enviornment. The parents had yet to demonstrate
this "firm hand".

In the subsequent years I read many emails that express their frustration in
dealing with this childs schooling.. Since I haven't heard of this problems
in the last year, I'm assuming (if I should) that the problems have been
resolved.

Jeff, the age of your sons is not the ideal age for removing them from their
"good ole school days" routine and a great deal will depend upon how
excepting they are of your plans. And how involved. I know you have cruised
with them for the past couple of summers and can only assume that they
enjoyed this more than they might have enjoy the routine summer activities
back home.

Having met you a couple years ago, I was left with the impression that you
would make an excellent mentor and teacher and I have no doubt that all
would benefit from your proposed adventure.

Best regards (and hope to share a few anchorages this summer).

Steve
s/v Good Intentions

On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 17:24:32 UTC, "Steve" wrote:

I have met (US and other) families in the Philippines and the Pacific
Islands who have home schooled out of necessity (lack of comprehensive
western education). We considered it while living in the Philippines for 8
years with 3 school age children but opted for an international school
(another story).

Do tell...
Chris

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"Chris Lasdauskas" wrote in message
news:mPcurcJnILSl-pn2-WRHg7dJwntVU@localhost...
On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 17:24:32 UTC, "Steve" wrote:

I have met (US and other) families in the Philippines and the Pacific
Islands who have home schooled out of necessity (lack of comprehensive
western education). We considered it while living in the Philippines for
8
years with 3 school age children but opted for an international school
(another story).

Do tell...
Chris


Chris, if your referring to my last comment in this thread, here goes::

We enrolled 2 of our 3 sons in one of the international schools. The name
was Magellan's (unsure of spelling) International School. This would have
been in 1979, during Marshal Law, under Marcos..

The school bus picked up our children in the BF Homes sub-div. outside of
Makita. The first thing I noticed was an armed guard on the bus and was
somewhat surprised but not impressed.

Given sometime to consider the political situation, I realized that by
enrolling my children in an international school, with the children of
international public official and wealthy business people.. The guard was to
prevent possible hijacking of the bus and kidnapping of these children..
With only a single guard, I felt at most he might only start a gun battle
(with his one or two bullets) or at least, surrender the children to the
hijackers.

Although there were never any kidnapping attempts at this school I heard of
attempts at other schools where the children of wealthy family attended.

We moved out of Manila, to the rural province and enrolled them in a
Catholic school. Not the best quality education but a lot safer. When our
oldest son reached the age of 12 we moved him back to the states for
traditional schooling and the following year we all moved back.

Overall, the Philippines is a nice place and the people are wonderful but
life is too short and children need to be exposed to "both the East and
West", but not under the barrel of a gun.

How did my children do after a mixture of education and culture?? All were
high achievers in their high school years with various honors and awards.
One graduated from UCSD with a dual degrees (if that is the proper term),
another from San Fran. State followed by a Masters from Samuel Merritt and
the third from UC Berkley and a MMA from Syracuse U..

My experience and opinion, FWIW.

Steve
s/v Good Intentions

On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 17:03:41 UTC, "Steve" wrote:


but opted for an international school
(another story).

Do tell...
Chris


Chris, if your referring to my last comment in this thread, here goes::

We enrolled 2 of our 3 sons in one of the international schools. The name
was Magellan's (unsure of spelling) International School. This would have
been in 1979, during Marshal Law, under Marcos..

The school bus picked up our children in the BF Homes sub-div. outside of
Makita. The first thing I noticed was an armed guard on the bus and was
somewhat surprised but not impressed.

Who would be?

I teach in Jakarta, as you may be aware there have been some bombings
here over the last few years, including a grenade thrown in to the
Australian International School compound. Folowing this several of the
larger schools set up full security fences and paid the armed forces
to provide protection. Several of the parents moved their children
from those schools to ours because they didn't want their kids
educated surrounded by machine guns (and I mean machine guns, in
sand-bagged nests, not just automatic rifles). That aside, all schools
here have security guards to protect the kids from the perceived
threat of abduction - which does happen, but not as often as people
think. Any kid at a private school, not just international schools, is
a target as the parents are udoubtedly much richer than the general
populace. To give you an idea the 'minimum wage' in Jakarta is about
US$ 75 per month or US$900 per year (and many people earn way less
than that), this is supposed to support a husband wife and several
kids. Kids in our secondary school cost around 10 x that per year in
school fees (and that would be a pretty typical fee for the other
better 'internationally-foccused' private schools too, while the big
international schools are about US$ 13-15,000 per year), so the
kidnappers deduce that kids at these schools come from wealthy
families and they are an attractive target - one ransom could be 10 or
more years work....

My experience and opinion, FWIW.

Thanks, it was interesting and I'm glad your kids turned out well, and
hopefully happy!

Steve
s/v Good Intentions


Chris




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