My background in Homeschooling

Hello everyone! My name is Kimberly Vinck and I am pleased to present to you my first ever alternative education and homeschooling blog! I will have several blogs on different topics coming soon, but for now, I want to share with you a little bit of who I am and how I got here.

Born on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao, I had atended the ISC (International School of Curacao) all through kindergarten. My parents, after a lot of researching, contemplating, and praying, decided that the best decision for my brother and me was to begin homeschooling. Among their strongest reasons for making this decision were: money (private school prices were too......well.....pricy), very iffy public school systems, and basically, the desire to step out of the box and do something different.

Mind you that this was in the early 90's, on a caribbean island where innovation was not exactly on the main menu of anyone at all at the time. Nevertheless, my parents were certain that this was the calling that God had placed on their hearts and, without hesitation (after months of prayer, haha) they took the plunge and brought us home.

After having gone through the homeschooling process, and now as a teacher trainer and alternative education consultant, I can only now comprehend how nerve-wracking that decision must have been, and every day that followed. My father, originally born in Colombia and raised on the island of Curaçao, at the time was a finance major and hotel industry teacher. My mom, a true born Aruban with a systems engineering degree from Jacksonville, Florida was working at a national bank, and was the one who made most of the household income at the time. The decision was then, that my dad would stay home and do the homeschooling, and mom would continue her full-time job. They would then switch tasks after my mom´s 9 to 5, and dad would teach his hotel industry students at our home office while mom stayed and hung out with us.The beauty of this deal was that, we were always with either one of our parents and we were....well.....happy.

The task, however, as noble as it may have seemed in the beginning, was daunting and, some days, I'm sure almost impossible. Dad was a happy-go-lucky, fun-loving innovative guy with lots of great ideas and ways to transform anything into a good time. This is why it wasn't theoretically difficult to turn learning into something that was really enjoyable for everyone. Mom, was the task-oriented go-getter who made sure we got things done right (at least right for her, lol).

When deciding on the right program or curriculum to follow, again, lots of prayer was involved. Although the decision was already made, there were still many details to be fine-tuned. For the curriculum, my parents wanted to make sure we were going to follow a Christian format. After some digging, they found the Alpha Omega Academy

. To this day, I am fully in love with this program, and since then, it has grown and evolved technologically to include several other online formats besides the basic books and hands on material. We also worked with Horizon specifically for Maths and my brother was the one who flourished with this program (I was more of a Language Arts girl).

Initially, we started with the core curriculum and then, once my dad got the hang of things (thanks to the 50 thousand-page teachers manual) and God's Holy Spirt, we were able to play around a little more outside the lesson plans. We added foreign languages such as Dutch to the mix (an important step since we were on a Dutch island), and other fun stuff such as music, a variety of sports and arts.

Now I think my dad had a lot of guts to do what he did in the times we were in. We had 2 - 3 visits from government agents saying that neighbours were concerned to see kids not going to school. Thankfully, we were fully prepared for all the questions these concerned agents might have had. They were very surprised at the variety of brain training material we had just for us as well as the lever of interest in every subject we were working on. After some time, they stopped coming by and eventually, because of a job opportunity for my mom, we moved to the sister island of Aruba.

By the time we moved, my brother and I were 11 and 12 years old. Since both my parents started working on this new project, we were basically doing independent study. Now, don't be concerned. At this point, we were already so used to researching, investigating and solving problems, it was very rare that we needed our teacher's help. However, whenever we did, he was there to help, despite the workload.

Since the age of 5, my parents had us in sports. For my brother it was Judo and Baseball, and for me it was Judo, gymnastics and synchronized swimming. After we moved to Aruba, I was focusing in synchronized swimming and began competing internationally representing my new home island. During this time, I was at an advantage since I could train more hours because of my flexible study schedule. Eventually, my sport took over and I was dedicating most of my time to preparing for Central and South American Championships as well as 2 worlds. I was picked to go to the Olympic Youth Camp in 2004 and, like any good teenager, I started to rebel against my parents.

After so much time at home, and now building a new family in sports, I was convinced I had to go back to a "normal" school.....boy did I regret that..... It took me some time to convince my parents but, eventually they gave in. I'm not sure if they purposefully put all their effort into finding a school that would teach us a lesson, or if I had beed so far away from this type of setting that I couldn't deal with it. I was used to learning to learn and understand, asking questions and getting my work done. The reality I had been confronted with at this new school did not allow me to do any of that. Teacher were more concerned with keeping students quiet and trying to get them to pay attention rather than getting any point across or even getting to teach something. I lasted about 4 month at this new school and eventually moved back to my dear sweet homeschooling program.

However, by this time I was already 16 years old and I was in 8th grade in some subjects, 10th grade in others and one in 11th grade. So, my dad decided to switch us to a different distance learning program designed to be completed in 2 years, fully accredited and focussed on graduating us from high-school. I eventually did graduate and I also retired from swimming at the age of 18.

All of this basically led me to taking several sports training certifications and starting my career as a synchro coach. Fast forwards a couple of years and now, I'm licensed in Bilingual Education from the El Bosque University in Bogotá, Colombia, a diploma in Teaching Spanish as a second language, another diploma in Sports Training for high-endurance athletes and a Masters in Psychopedagogy from the University of Barçelona (yes, this last one was online).

So, in conclusion, today I am training teachers and parents on the step-by-step processes involved in homeschooling, distance learning, independent learning and other types of alternative education methods from a pedagogical and psychopedagogical viewpoint (that was a mouthful).

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DURING THE PANDEMIC

At times like these (the Coronavirus quarantine), it seems that the world has gone crazy. Homeschooling parents are gaining more and more respect while traditional setting teachers are being challenged as their regular classes need to urgently be transformed into online formats. The Coronavirus has shaken up the traditional education system and is causing people to rethink the possibilities. At the same time, it seem that this same urgency has its darker side. In order to comply with the required workload, and somehow to justify the finances involved, some teacher seem to be making up activities that either do not comply with the objectives of the lesson plan, or they simply throw tons of homework to keep the students busy without really taking advantage of this opportunity. This has become known as "Digital unschooling".

It seems that many of todays traditional teachers are not equipped with the tools necessary to fulfil this task. However, this is a blessing in disguise. From a global perspective, one of two things may happen: 1) Teachers will settle and send sub-par homework to kids to occupy their time or 2) Teachers will challenge themselves and seek guidance in order to turn their classes into an online learning experience.

The education system itself is being shaken. After the dust has settled, there is a good chance that most if not all education systems will begin to restructure their plans, methods and methodologies into new and innovative strategies launching finally this antiquated structure into the future.

The fact is that, this pandemic has given the world the opportunity to innovate, challenge their creativity and create something new.

“In order to rise from its own ashes, a phoenix first must burn.”

―Octavia Butler

#homeschooling #distancelearning #Alternativeeducation