From Powell River to Guam
Our Homeschooling Journey
By Colleen Smith
Former Powell Riverite Colleen Smith and her husband Les began homeschooling in 1991. The family moved to Guam in 1995 and have homeschooled all of their four children. Here they share their homeschooling story.
In 1991 we began homeschooling our oldest son Kevin. By then, he had already spent two years in the public system.
Kevin was a bright, inquisitive child who taught himself to read by age three. By the time he entered Kindergarten, he was working his way through The Chronicles of Narnia.
He came home from that first day of school in a very foul mood. No one in his class could even read! How I wish I had known about homeschooling at that time.
The summer before Kevin entered Grade 2, I found out about the homeschooling laws in BC, and registered him as a homeschooled student. By then his younger brother joined our little one-room "home" school out at Lang Bay. When our third child was born in 1994, we decided to give school another try and enrolled the boys in public school. It was a good year for Kevin, but not so good for Adam. Adam was quiet and sensitive and had issues with noise and touch. School was too loud and disruptive for him and he'd often be found hiding under his desk trying to get away from the overload of sensory input.
In the spring of 1995, my husband got a call from his father to move to Guam and help his friend run a driving school there. He took our oldest son with him to scope out the job and within two months he called me and said, "Sell everything, we're moving to Guam."
It took me a few months to wrap up everything in Powell River and by July, I was on an airplane heading half way across the world with a six year old and nine month old in tow. Upon arrival in Guam, one of the first things we did was to look at the local school system. All one had to do was read the local newspaper to see that there was a lot of trouble. Schools were overcrowded and underfunded.
So, I searched out the homeschool association and found out about homeschooling laws on Guam. The law was simple - teach your children 170 days of the year for a minimum of three hours per day in the four basic subject areas: English, Math, Science and Social Studies.
And so our homeschooling in Guam adventure began. It's now been 15 years since we moved here and we've added two more children to our family. We have gone from working for a driving school to owning our own driving school business. In between both Les and I spent several years working at a private Christian School in both paid and voluntary positions as teachers, librarian, bookkeeper, secretary--whatever was needed. Our children benefited from our relationship with this school and Kevin graduated from Guam International Christian Academy. He spent a few years working as an IT tech for a local tourist company and then joined the US Air Force and is now stationed in California. Adam has written over seven CD's worth of music that we are currently working on getting published. Our children have been actively involved in all our various business ventures--snack shop, web design business, driving school and now our newest venture--a dive shop.
Our philosophy of homeschooling has changed over the years. Over time we have realized that schools do not teach to the individual, but to the masses. Our children are each unique and talented in their own way, and homeschooling has allowed them to flourish in their natural talents. Adam has his music. Stephanie, our 16 year old, is a writer and artist and we estimate she writes over 2000 words a day (in between working full time at our dive shop). Eric, 11, we hope will some day be a famous comic book writer. And Cassie, 8, is an artist as well. We encourage our children to pursue their artistic talents to their heart's content. And they learn the basics as well--reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic. They have learned about Canada through our trip back home last summer.
My mother still lives in Powell River and sends me clippings from Powell River Living to keep me in touch with old friends and their lives. We enjoy the warm weather of Guam and the opportunities that are here for us, but our hearts are still back in BC and our dream is to someday own a home in both parts of the world.
Homeschooling my kids has enabled me give them the best education possible while on the other side of the Pacific.
