Homeschool "Ate" (ah-teh)

For Filipino homeschoolers out there: The Living Saints Homeschool Support and Tutorial Center is your ultimate Catholic homeschool support center. We offer tutorials for those who are homeschooling, consultation, curriculum help and recommendations, field trips and assistance to homeschools.

Homeschool Support Program

Our Homeschool Support Program package is a complete homeschool assistance service! Those who avail of this program can drop in at our center on any day of the week, Mondays through Fridays, to avail of tutorial assistance. Our goal is to provide a common learning center environment for homeschoolers. This program includes all of our services: catechism/Sacrament preparation, tutorials, PE activities, field trips and lesson planning.

We also offer our services individually:

• Catechism and Sacrament preparation for Grades 1-2 (This is FREE for those who avail of our complete homeschool support program!)
• Small group tutoring in academics (Math, Language Arts, Science, Social Studies)
• PE activities
• Field Trips
• Lesson planning and Teach-At-Home consultation

Please do call our Center at 723-6609 for information. You may also email: living.saints.tutorial at gmail dot com. God bless!

We have a new Living Saints Homeschool Support and Tutorial Center in Cebu. Located in the suburbs of Lahug, a residential district in Cebu, the new center is spacious and homey as well!

Reception area: Coaches and reading material for waiting parents, kids and guests to the center. Communal prayers are said here, and it is also used for meetings.

Common Study Area. If you want to find a place to just to study and do your academic work quietly, then this study area is ideal. Students can also use the Internet connection available here. The bookshelf on the other end stores study aids such as dictionaries, thesauruses, textbooks and reference materials.

The Meeting and Faculty Area is where students can meet with tutors to do tests and get work graded or corrected. It’s located in the middle of the center, and is also equipped with computers for doing online tests and exams.
Study Rooms. Homeschoolers and tutors who want more privacy for one-to-one tutorials may use the study rooms available. There are three rooms in the center: (1) Primary Kids (those in elementary levels), (2) Senior Kids (those in middle school), and (3) Teens (those in high school levels). Each Study Room is supervised by a Head Teacher who oversees all small study sessions.

For more information on our new Living Saints Homeschool Support Center as well as how to enroll in one of the tutorials, please email: living.saints.tutorial@gmail.com.

And so I’ve entered into the marrieds arena. Yipee! After three years of courtship, my ex-boyfriend and I tied the knot just this April of 2008. Incidentally, he was also homeschooled as I was.

What’s next on my mind? As a homeschool advocate, I’m pro-life and pro-kid, and so definitely the openness to having a child of my own is an exciting new chapter I’m entering into. In all my years as a mentor/tutor/counselor/I’ll-be-here-for-you "ate", I never thought that one day I’d be in a place to have kids of my own. It’s all unfolding, very realistically now. Very real questions are flitting about in my mind daily: When will it happen? When will I get pregnant? What will my child look like? Will I homeschool him or her? What am I thinking; can I be a mom?!?!

For the record, I am thrilled about the idea.

Thank You, Lord.

I attended the 1st Philippine Homeschool Conference last Oct 13, 2007 at the CCF Auditorium. For a while, I was astounded at the faithfulness of Our Lord: there were so many homeschoolers there that, for a time, I just had to drink it all in. It was amazing! After feeling virtually alone during my homeschooled days back in the early 1990s, seeing a whole auditorium brimming over with homeschoolers was a grand sight to see, and even a testament of God’s wonderful work.

The talks during the day were absolutely freeing for me. Being a natural learner from the start, I’ve always been sort of against the academics-oriented approach to education of most Filipinos. Listening to Mrs. Barb West (whom I spoke with over the phone just some months ago) and Brad Voeller just confirmed what was in my heart with regard to homeschooling: It is founded solely and will remain steadfast only on the Word of God. This freed me, seeing as we’ve always been a Biblical family. Every year, we’ve had a tradition of seeking our "message for the year" from the Lord, and we do this by praying and opening up our Bibles to a Scripture that the Holy Spirit reveals to us.

Going back to my message this year, 2007, I see such potential for God’s work, especially in my homeschool advocacy:

"…for it is the seedtime of peace: the vine shall yield its fruit, the land shall bear its crops, and the heavens shall give their dew; all these things I will have the remnant of the people possess. Just as you were a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you that you may be a blessing; do not fear, but let your hands be strong." (Zec. 8:13-14)

Let me take this apart…

"The seedtime"
I believe that, in terms of the homeschool movement, our time has come. The "seedtime", in agricultural terms, is

• any time of new development
• the time during which seeds should be planted

I believe this part of the passage refers to the "seeds" that homeschoolers have sown through the years: pioneer homeschoolers, those brave enough to ford the "unchartered waters" of home education, those gutsy enough to latch on to the crusade. In time, the seed will grow…

"The vine"
The "vine" is the outcome of the seed that was planted, nurtured and cultivated. As evidenced by last Saturday’s conference, the seed of homeschooling has yielded fruit indeed: There were over 500 of us homeschool advocated represented at the conference! WOW! And the land is indeed "bearing its crops" as we can see from the "success stories" of homeschoolers such as Betty Sy, Barb West, Brad Voeller, and many more.

"No longer a curse…"
I believe that, after the conference, God’s mandate for us is to keep our heads high. We used to be seen as oddballs who deserved whatever socially-inept children we had raised along the homeschool philosophy. Early on (such as in my own homeschooled days), we were the subject of family controversy, the topic of grandparents’ hushed conferences and the cause of many a raised eyebrow. Years later,  as evidenced by the conference, we’re no longer "a curse" as we were once thought to be (when other cynics would remark, "Homeschool? Aren’t you worried about his socialization?"). We are a "blessing" because we have shown to be a strong, driving and passionate force!

"Do not fear. Let your hands be strong."
As a former homeschooled student and now a working adult with a passion for home education, I continue to hope for the vision of a strong, homeschooling movement in our country. The conference, for me, is an answered prayer, after more than ten years since I graduated high school through homeschool! I can only look forward to more blessings ahead.

We are the hands and feet of homeschooling. As a powerful force, we can do no less but to stand strong and continue to blaze the trail.