Both are articles pointing to alternative career options.

For someone (that would be me) who has worked with children diagnosed with learning needs, alternative career options is an area where a lot of untapped resources and skills are waiting to be found.

Even if the Filipino culture including parenting, thrives on being dependent with caregivers working and handling the nitty-gritty of childcare, I firmly believe that children should be taught to be able to do things for themselves. This is where the concept of honing skills geared toward independence is shaped.

There is a limit on how much hovering parents can do for their children.

Sure, these children have special needs and they need to be guided accordingly but there are those who can be allowed to “fly and spread their wings”. This is precisely the reason why they have intervention programs: to allow them to be able to develop their potentials.

Regarding alternative career options, I think what some parents feel about this is that they feel “downgraded” when their children do not end up like the professionals that they are.

There are those who scoff at people who have chosen an alternative career rather than the “norm”.

Why push someone with special needs to go to “traditional ” school when he/she can enroll in an online university? I know of someone who successfully completed an online nursing  degree. There are those who go the traditional way, facing all the bumps, humps and hurdles that come with it.

I sometimes ask why do doctor parents want their children to be like them? Can’t the children decide what they like to do and what they like to be when they grow up?

I admit I am guilty of this ‘”alternative career option” idea when I heard myself ask “what? naging photographer siya?” about a child prodigy who was “packaged” with so much potential in a TV ad years ago When I saw the portfolio online, I was taken aback with the creativity in the photos. The giftedness in this person definitely showed.

No job is too big or too small for someone who has dignity in what he/she is doing.

Graduates of colleges and universities are getting  ready to face “the real world.”

High school graduates on the other hand, are hopeful that they have chosen the right career options.

Amidst the jubilation of course, there are those who can’t celebrate this milestone. Yet. I know three of them, and they are candidates for high school graduation. All three took entrance exams to prestigious universities but passed none.

Disheartening of course, not only to them who are just starting to build dreams, but to their parents too, who, despite this setback, are still by their side, cheering them, encouraging them and telling them that all is not lost.

As a parent and a teacher, I know this is extremely difficult to accept for this setback reflects back to them too.

But as I have explained to a case conference a few days ago, career options are not limited to being a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant or maybe even getting a criminal justice degree.

There are several career options that they can look to, do things that they are capable of doing, things that they feel happy to do. When that happens, no one can tell them that they are not successful. Success is relative and personal preferences dictate how we measure success, not through the standards set by others.

As I have written before, whatever it is that (our) children want to achieve, we should guide them towards more reachable goals.

A lot of professionals in this country are working overseas. Yes, these professionals teach, build structures, take care of the sick and the elderly as well as take care of other people’s children in foreign countries.

These kababayans are all over the world from New Zealand and Australia, other Asian countries,  to the Middle East to Europe to the Americas while others do New York job search.

As a parent and a teacher, I ask myself: Who are left to teach the children?

Truth is, this is one of the reasons why we homeschool, apart from the fact that we only pay half of how much we would when the children are enrolled in regular school.

photohunt

*kababayan = fellow country men

]]> http://teacherjulie.com/2010/03/05/where-are-the-teachers/feed/ 16 http://teacherjulie.com/2010/02/11/social-gaming-as-educational-tools/ http://teacherjulie.com/2010/02/11/social-gaming-as-educational-tools/#comments Thu, 11 Feb 2010 11:08:04 +0000 teacherjulie http://teacherjulie.com/?p=4837 I read this article entitled How Social Gaming is Improving Education.

I agree with most of the points raised in the article. Learning about difficult concepts through interactive means is one of my “tools of the trade” when it comes to homeschooling my two younger children.

We have watched videos of blooming flowers, a spacecraft lifting off, looked at the photos of the different planets and learned about different historical places to visit in the country, among others.

Not only that, my youngest daughter learned to draw difficult figures otherwise not (normally) possible for children her age. Oh, she can now play difficult songs using her recorder whereas a few weeks ago, she was learning three-note songs

Thanks YouTube for having drawing and music teachers who are oh-so-patient.

The son, on the other hand is becoming more savvy with money matters, budgeting and calculating how much he will earn through his Cafe World. We have incorporated budgeting and mentally calculating how much we will pay when we check out items at the supermarket. He loves statistics which is a key factor with some of the game he loves playing with.

Despite these electronically-attached and internet-based learning, they still managed to play with things that are unplugged. Once a week ( i know, this should be more frequent) we de-stress by running.

And yes, we read books too, especially since they are required to do oral book report for the English subject.

Yes, we are running out of books to read as of the moment.

Tags: social gaming, internet, leaarning with internet, homeschooling

As a matter of fact, my son just asked me this question the other day: “How come jigsaw puzzle pieces are bigger for children and very small for adults? Is  it because the picture is more difficult for puzzles with 500 pieces that if big pieces are used it would be a huge, huge jigsaw puzzle?”

We laughed about it. I even joked, yes, a 500 or 1000 piece with big jigsaw pieces would be very big and would over the entire garage floor!

I have observed that there is a renewed interest in doing  jigsaw puzzles with a thousand pieces (or more) where the details are rather intricate and complicated. Families are doing these, as well as friends. The puzzle sits on a special table or a corner of the house, undisturbed except for time used to work on it.

I think, online activities took away the fun from doing these things. I may have a impose a weekday in this household where no one will turn on the computer and that includes me. Difficult to do but I may have to be firm about this.

Play does not just entail giving them high-end toys and gadgets. Play entails a lot of self-expression, using things that are there in  new and innovate ways, doing explorations and experimentation, allowing them to think openly on things that are “normal”

If you are the kind of parent who fear for your child’s safety, be there to guide them as they explore their surroundings.

• Let them play with dirt, you can wash it off later.
• Let them create with play-doh, you can wash their hands afterward.
• Let them help in the kitchen, they will learn about a lot of things there. The mess can be dealt with afterward with them helping out.
• Let them lie down on floor tiles and do floor time play with manipulatives like Lego bricks, blocks and toy cars. Let them build their own cities using materials that they made themselves.
• Let them do arts and crafts.
• Let them pick flowers, run after butterflies, catch bugs, dig soil and feel the leaves of the plants.
• Let them jump on rain puddles (not flood).

In other words, let them experience the joys of how it is to be a child. It will be a joy for you too to discover how it is to be a child again