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๐งต Thread (32 tweets)

๐ง alright, a thread about my experience as a homeschooler. don't expect it to finish in one, because it is literally my life story. buckle up. we're going back to the start of it all, a year before my birth, the magical year of 2000. https://t.co/rf3spC5vvD

my homeschooling journey started before i was born. the year 2000 was when my parents decided to get married, and one of the thing that they agreed on even before marriage was the fact that they wanted to find another way to teach their children outside of school

at this point they didn't know the name homeschooled. keep in mind it was 2000 in Indonesia, just two years after a big revolution, so while the internet exist most of the information that they got was primarily from books and their own thoughts. https://t.co/PzIm4nanZP

they just have a strong feeling that there are ways to teach their children in another way that doesn't have to be through the god awful public education. the reason for this comes from differing places, but they agreed that they aren't putting their children through school

my dad's reason was that he felt that the public education system have become too much like a factory. a factory with input of children and output of "functioning adults". he feels that so many of the good individual characteristics of children is being squashed under the system.

and it's not as if the two of them had problems with school. they both excel in them, with dad always being number one in the school and while mum had problems with attendance (due to her being interested in other stuff), academically she's always on the top of her school

honestly? i don't know. i was homeschooled my whole life, you wanna know the entirety of my life story? i wrote about some of it in a book i wrote titled "Pembelajar Mandiri" or Self Directed Learner, but it's in indonesian so i'll share tidbits here :3 https://t.co/u1Mu8u3itZ

by homeschooling i'm talking about me not being enrolled in an education system. some call this unschooling, some called it homeschooling, i'm not one to fuss about this distinction since i've always felt that i was ALL OF THEM at the same time so ยฏ\_(ใ)_/ยฏ

i spend my time learning what ever it is that i am interested in at the moment. i learned everything from programming, design, 3d modelling, video editing, philosophy, architecture, philosophy, spirituality, cooking, basketball, dancing, and so much more.

now... these are the things that i REMEMBERED. because, cmon. it's hard to remember all the things you learned ini the last 18 years especially when none of it felt like learning to me. it was just me going through my business, doing what felt right at the moment.

my parents always jokingly felt pissed by me not feeling like i ever learned anything, because i did learn things, i just don't think it as learning. i think it as PLAYING. though in order for me to feel that way they had to prepare a whole bunch of stuff and am grateful to them

take for example, learning english. i never felt like i learned how to speak and write english. i just INTUITIVELY KNEW. but... it's my second language, and from my parent's point of view it certainly was NOT something that i just knew.

while, in actuality they had given me both english and indonesian books that i had to read everyday, flash cards that we used to practice, and i had cable tv with d***ey channel and pla**ouse d***ey where i could listen to english everyday.

and this is evident in basically most of my journey as a homeschooler. never felt like i learned anything, because learning is just part of life. you don't remember every meal you eat right? same here. but they do stick with me. i did learn stuff.

for more of the day to day stuff, it'll have to wait until i can go back to my house to pick up my book because i genuinely don't remember it off the top of my head. you can prompt me, and ask about a specific part and i'll recite it perfectly. but unprompted? just part of life

this thread was prompted by another thread about formative trauma and how maybe i should write a bit about MY formative trauma, or maybe my LACK of formative trauma https://t.co/BcyummQrOr

one of the main issues that comes up when talking about homeschoolers is the fear that the child will lack the ability to socialize like *normal human beings*. look, if to socialize with normal human beings require me to be mentally scarred for life i prefer not to do that thx.

"it takes a village to raise a child" is truly important here, as we aren't using the formalized institutionalized village to raise our child. here's some picture of my time as a homeschooler. i wasn't alone, i had a village to raise me. https://t.co/NuM4MFdf0D


now, i have to preface that the "village" wasn't something that magically showed up one day no. it was something that my parents built up, starting from mailing lists (rmember that?), to play dates, to physical meetups, to camping, to being the village that raises me.

ill have to ask my parents when they started the mailing list but iirc it was around 2004(?), and they only started the community at around 2011. it takes time to build up trust, and it's probably one of the reason i 100% believe the "ingroup" can become something truly special.


@imperialauditor hmm! i think the older i am the less time i spent with parents, so maybe at age 7-12 it was around 40:60 (alone/others), then 12-15 it shifted to 60:40, and at 15-18 it went to 90:10. then again i wasn't one to have a lot of tutors, so that covers club activities etc aswell.

on how my parents handle if i ever got into an "addicting" hedonic treadmill https://t.co/aEVbDTEBaC

@bubbleteaPhD ooh, yeah a couple times actually! they reacted by asking me reason on why i'm doing it, and then nudging me to try and do something with that addictive stuff e.g. i was addicted to the gaming side of youtube so they said ok i can watch youtube as long as i make a write up on it

@imperialauditor hmm! i think the older i am the less time i spent with parents, so maybe at age 7-12 it was around 40:60 (alone/others), then 12-15 it shifted to 60:40, and at 15-18 it went to 90:10. then again i wasn't one to have a lot of tutors, so that covers club activities etc aswell.