Best-love-ever: How I Schooled My Children

Best-love-ever: How I Schooled My Children

Thanks to all of you who responded to my blog.

I have two teenage boys going to school in New York where I considered one of the toughest place on earth to live in. The youngest one comes home and talks to us in Spanish then switches over and talks like a Bangladeshi. He has the rare potential of being a very good actor. He is an A student whom you have to force to study his books.

Now you wondering how do I schooled my children. So I begin with last night. I let them know that a teacher role is only to guide the students to complete the curriculum for each class not to teach them everything in the text. Each student has a responsibility to study and learn everything in the text book.

When I was a kid for many years I went to school without owning a text book. Simply because my mother could not afford it. (My parents separated and once every two or three years I would see my dad for a few hours). If I wanted to read I had to borrow a book from a teacher and had to return it in a few minutes when the teacher was ready to teach. At Graham's Hall I got a book called the Student's Companion. I got to know the stuff in that book very quickly.

As I grow older I became a readerholic. Everything I could put my hands I read. Enid Blyton, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Louis L'amour, Sudden, J.T Edson, Allistair MaClean, Harlequins, Mills and Boons, Sydney Sheldon, and hundreds of series and other authors. When there was no electricity I read with candles late in the night. My sister and I fought over who should read the books first. My grandmother used to be enraged with me for locking myself up in a room reading my life away. Mind you in those days we did not own a television set. Only the wealthy did. My grandmother rediculed me for reading. She thought I was too quiet and my wife would "eye-pass" me. I felt my grandmother hated me. But sadly I did not had text from which to study until I entered High School. I will tell you more of my High School experience later on.

Anyway back to the issue of how I schooled my children. I reminded them that as a student at the seasoned age of twenty-eight years was when I burrowed some cash from my sister about $17,000 Guyana dollars (equivalent about US$122) and commence my journey of really studying. I studied my text without a teacher or lecturer. Labouring some days over 15 hours through my text in order to sit for my Professional exams for AAT and later on ACCA. When the University library closed at 6.00pm on Saturdays I would joined a few friends in Cummings Lodge Secondary School form 7.00 p.m. and studied till midnight. The security guards at the school use to harrass us and made it difficult for us to go into the school and study. They wanted us to provide them with a pass authorised by the headmaster. Anyway after midnight I had to tug my heavy halversack through a pitch dark school yard (pasture) where shadows loomed at you like hidden ghost ready to pounce on you. Sometimes in the dark I would bump into stray animals such a cow or horse. It scared the hell out of me!

The results I was successful in my exams.

I will tell you about my high school experience next.