It's been a while since our last post.
In 2018, we spent three weeks of the winter break in my hometown --- mainly to visit family and check out some prospects with a little traveling on the side. What really happened was the first and the last one mostly.
P was able to travel with M all the way to El Nido. He was able to try paddling on a kayak (which he wouldn't be able to do if he was with his Dad), endure a long bus ride with family members throwing up in the bus, survive a few weeks with lousy internet, get holed up in an airconditioned room just to avoid the heat, meet a friend at a mall to watch a movie, and do hospital duties as little as he can since it's really a stretch out of his comfort zone.
Real life beyond the books and the four sides of a screen are what you call alternative learning. It can be a little more expensive but I seriously want him to be able to experience it. It left a big dent on my wallet but that is outweighed with what intangible things we had gained.
The 2nd year of MS simply passed by, with highs and lows on his test and grades on papers, not to mention, a disappointing phone call from his teacher, all wrapped up in 2018.
This year's winter break is being spent with catching up with Maths, Korean History and adding extra work on basic programming language Python along with a few other skills online with the help of his D. I've almost signed myself done with being the academic teacher/mom at this point.
It is also around this time that a Korean drama on the overzealous education culture has become popular that has left Korean parents thinking (if not talking about it.) Nonetheless, I seriously doubt that it will make a dent on how things are nowadays when it comes to the Korean youth's education. We leave the basic academic education that they get from the Korean public school system and try to fill in some gaps with what we can afford. Thankfully, English is not included in our case.
Now, if I can only teach my son to improve his writing abilities, presentation skills and get interested in sciences, I will be a happy teacher/mom.
