Should we consider Homeschooling?

Before we had kids my wife, Ankie used to teach Sunday school. In her class there was a girl whose parents decided on homeschooling.  At the time I never thought I would consider it as an option for our future children;  like many other things we thought we would never do or consider doing before we had kids.  But now, homeschooling is starting to look more and more attractive.

My biggest concern about homeschooling has always been the lack of social interaction with the outside world.  But in the last year I have come to challenge many axioms I previously thought unquestionable.

So far we love our time in Fernie. I think it is highly probable that we will travel significantly for a long time.  This will only be possible if we find a way to get the kids through school. Moving school every 6 months or year does not sound like a viable option.  You also have school years that do not match to most of the northern hemisphere.

Should we consider homeschooling? Kids love the painting in Eunice’s school in Fernie

A few months ago I read James Dobson’s ‘Bringing up boys’.  I don’t want to go into detail, but let’s just say he is a big proponent of homeschooling, mostly for religious reasons.  This was the first time I started considering homeschooling.  The one argument he offered was that team sport offer a great alternative for kids to learn about social interaction.

While reading Hacker and Painters by Paul Graham, I found more reasons to try and explore homeschooling.  In the first chapter ‘Why Nerds are unpopular’ Graham gives his description of the American schooling system.  He makes a very interesting comparison between school and prison.  I have to say he makes a compelling argument.

Since we have been in Fernie, Eunice, our nanny, made a tremendous effort to stimulate the kids. She has found great online resources.  The results has been amazing, they are learning more and more English words, started reading and writing the alphabet and number and started to enjoy drawing and creative activities every day and they love it.

So our plan is to start doing some detailed research on homeschooling and learn if it is a viable alternative for us.

What do you think? Should we consider homeschooling? Give your comments below:

Tips for teaching kids to ski

One of the great benefits of being here for the whole season is that we can teach Christopher (4) and Sarika (2) to ski. We knew Christopher would be fine, but we were not really sure if you could get a 2 year old to ski. There is a day care center here in Fernie, but they only allow kids to take ski lessons from 3 years old.

So when we had the De Jager’s (Friends from South Africa) over for a visit, we decided to send Christopher and Diane (3) to the day care for 5 days to see if they can get the hang of skiing. They loved it. The 3 hours they spent there were divided into 1 hour ski, hour play inside and then again 1 hour ski.

Christopher (4 years old) starting to turn on his own – Tips for teaching kids to ski

Seeing that Christopher was getting better really fast we decided to try and teach Sarika (2) ourselves. Here is some tips for teaching kids to ski from our experience:

1)      You can do it yourself

Sarika is not there yet, but it has turned out much easier than I was expecting to get her smiling down the bunny slope! She is progressing every time we go up there, and I expect she will go up a chair lift with us before the end of the holiday. You can definitely do this without the help of a ski school or day care.

2)      Keep warm

The first and most important thing is to make sure the kids are warm. If they are cold it turns into an unpleasant experience for everybody. Their hands seem to be one of the most important things to keep warm, so make sure you get decent waterproof gloves that prevents from snow getting in, by overlapping the sleeve. The full body suites we got them also worked like a charm. I would recommend them highly! (Got them from Mountain Equipment Co-op in Calgary)

3)      Equipment

We didn’t want to spend a fortune on the ski equipment for the kids, especially for Sarika (2) since we were not even sure that she was going to get the hang of it. We could not really find a rental option for her, but we found great shop with second hand equipment in town. We were able to get everything we needed for less than $150 for Sarika.

4)      Short burst

We found that the kids learned best and enjoyed it most in short bursts of 30 – 60 min. So we would go skiing in the morning and then go pick up the kids after their afternoon nap and then head back to the mountain. Between 1500 and 1600 is usually really quite on the carpet lift (mini moose).

5)      Harness

The first time we took Sarika we didn’t take the harness with. She really struggled, she could understand what to do, every time we try and help, she would completely relax and collapse. So the next time we took the harness and pointed her down the mountain and she took it right away. It also helped her to learn to shift her weight to turn by pulling one side. It was worth the money to get one of those.

Sarika (2 years old) smiling all the way down!  – Tips for teaching kids to ski

6)      Tie the ski tips together

Sarika also struggled to keep the tips of her skis close together. We saw some of the other kids with a little attachment that kept the toes of the skis together. After visiting every ski shop in town, I eventually found some at the ski shop on the hill. They work well and made it much easier for her.

7)      French fries – Pizza

The first day Christopher came back from day care he kept saying French fries – pizza, French fries – pizza. We didn’t understand what he was on about, but then he explained the ski instructor had told them to make French fries   Skis parallel and Pizza – skis in a wedge. Sarika didn’t get it immediately on the snow, but once somebody went in front of her and showed her how to do French fries and pizza she started to copy quickly.

There you go, I hope these tips for teaching kids to ski come in handy when you need to get yours on the mountain.

What was the turning point?

I’m not sure where the turning point was, but boy I’m glad it turned!

Justinus has been a busy bee since I’ve known him, always two or three things to do at any one time.  I think he is just too intelligent; he can’t help himself, maybe a bit hyperactive too!  Ask him anything about almost everything, especially sport stats;  his knowledge really baffles me sometimes.  He is a man with a plan, always optimistic and doing whatever it takes to make a success; that fact instantly attracted me to him when we first met.  So, I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me when he got to travel a lot, mostly for work and studies; there was a lot to be done!

Having fun in Rotary Park in Fernie, BC, Canada

We were married almost 10 years, when I fell pregnant with our first child.  We were living in Pretoria then, and decided to move closer to Durban, where Justinus spent about 70% of his time (the rest were spent on MBA).  We moved our house content in the 8th month of my pregnancy and if it weren’t for Maria Thonga’s help, we would’ve struggled indeed!  Christopher was born in December 2008, and luckily the birth was over the holidays, so we got to spend a great deal of time together.  At 2 weeks old, we took the journey to Umdloti with my parents.  My dad drove 1630km in 3 consecutive days, to make the round trip.  At 27 days, after frustrating troubleshooting and receiving well intentioned advice, Christopher was eventually diagnosed with pyloric stenosis.  He had to get a laparoscopic operation to open up the narrowing between his stomach and the small intestine.  Justinus was at MBA classes in Johannesburg, and if it weren’t for my mother, persistent not to leave our side even on the sister’s demand, I don’t know how I would’ve made it through the ordeal.

Living in Umdloti was very lonely for me; though it was a very special time with Christopher.  Fortunately when Justinus went to Johannesburg for MBA, his folks made an effort visiting me or I went with to Pretoria.  After 6 months we moved back to Pretoria.  Travelling locally and internationally continued, but we had a better support system in Pretoria, and I got a job with an incredible boss.

I fell pregnant with our second child and Sarika was born in October 2010.  We moved January 2011 and went on a skiing holiday in February.  Sarika was only 4 months old!  Justinus knew that if he would’ve asked for my opinion I’d said no, thus it was a birthday surprise!  We thoroughly enjoyed the holiday while the kids stayed with our parents.  .Justinus flew more than 100 times in 2011, he missed us a lot and missed out on the kids.

In January 2012, we went for a drive and Justinus told me of his new plan.  He was thinking of leaving the company that he had helped to expand through hard work and sacrifice for the past 11 years. He did a great job in developing the company, and I am very proud of him.  It seemed that he was weighing up the effort of working so hard and missing out on family life.  We knew that all the hard work was a sacrifice for the family, but it seemed that he was wondering if this sacrifice was worth it.

Early March 2012 was the end of an era.  Justinus was home, spending lots of time with us, started exercising, losing weight, eating healthier etc.  We are loving it!  And now, 2013?  We are spending the ski season in Fernie, Canada!  What a story the kids will tell?!  My dad taught me how to ski when I was 2 and 4 respectively!  He is part of my life and chose to tell a better story at the end of his!  I thank grandparents for their love and support, God for His grace and that He created man with a free will to choose!  I am so glad about the choices Justinus has made and know that he will make a success of anything he touches in the years to come.

When is the next turning point?

Corruption and Monopolies

I am busy reading a very interesting book by Paul Graham from Y Combinator. It is a collection of essay’s that he combined into a book titled: Hackers and Painters. Two of the chapters has inevitability forced me to think about my own and the general thinking in South Africa (and most of the third world) around creating wealth.

He write specifically on ‘How to Make Wealth’ which is aimed at showing that startups create wealth through significant increase in productivity and solving hard problems. This is more aimed at individuals. But in the next essay ‘Mind the Gap’ he discusses the impact for society at large. He makes some very interesting points.

He gives three reasons people tend to treat the skill of making money differently to other skills:

1)      A misleading model of Wealth that most of us learned as children. Of which the basic premise is that the ‘PIE’ is limited and the more somebody else gets the less I get.

2)      The ‘dishonest’ or rather ‘disreputable’ way most wealth, until recently (as in a 100-200 years ago) has been accumulated. Before the rise of a middle class in Europe and the industrial revolutions most wealth was attained by inheritance or force.

3)      The idea that great variation in income is bad for society

Now we have many complex problems in South Africa. Could it be a start to examine the way we see the gap between rich and poor?  There are many arguments on both sides of the Rich and Poor gap that hold water.  For instance: how some of the wealth was accumulated through the consequences of Apartheid.

This seems to go back to his second premise above. That wealth that has or appears to have been obtained through dishonest or disreputable means leads to problems.  Therefore corruption and monopolies have no place in our society.  The better our society gets at ridding itself of them the better.

New found Friendship

It is amazing how much can change in a year, and how quickly something that usually takes forever can come together. How long does it take form a great friendship?

While I was still at Private Property I would often meet with other people in the industry.  While I was playing golf one day with a friend from school he mentioned that another guy, Gert van der Walt, who went to school with us, was a co-founder/owner at myroof.co.za.

That sounded like a great excuse to get in contact with Gert again.  After a few phone calls I got his number and we arranged to have breakfast.  There I met Jano, Gert’s business partner for the first time.  For about a year we would have a breakfast meetings every now and then.  To make a long story short, after I left Private Property and had some time on my hands, Jano and I started playing squash.  He then got me kicking and screaming onto a mountain bike and the rest as they say is history.

Our families started to spend time together and from the first braai, our wives and kids got along very well.  Although Jano’s first introduction to Monopoly Deal card game turned into disastrous defeat, we started spending more time together.  Once we decided to come to Fernie we said they should come and visit.  I’m not sure if I was really expected them to say yes, since we had known each other for only about 3 months by then.

In an epic display of new found friendship, Jano booked airplane tickets late one evening not long after we did. From then on, no one in either family could wait for the holiday to come.  On the way to Fernie, between the cries of exhausted children Jano and I discussed what it would take to make this the best holiday ever!

New found Friendship: Adriaanse, De Jagers and Eunice (the super nanny) on the last day of the Epic Holiday!

Then as I dropped them at the Calgary airport again after 3 weeks, we agreed:  This was the Best Holiday EVER!  I still don’t really know how we managed to become such great friends in only 6 months.  It could be because we are both technology junkies, or maybe that we are/were both in web business. It could also be because our wives and kids get along like a house on fire.

Whatever it is, I hope this new found friendship can make many more best holidays EVER!