One of the most stressful things I feel that parents go through, based on my experience, is the process of placing your child in an educational setting. And for so long here in the Philippines, there has only been one option - a brick and mortar school with a traditional system of classes, uniforms, and schedules.
Within the last 30 years though, there has been some movements on putting up alternative systems for children. Though not as widely accepted as traditional brick and mortar schools, progressive schools, playschools, special education schools, even homeschooling have been coming out of the woodwork. The teacher in me is extremely thrilled for this, though at the same time I am dismayed at how little options there are for parents who, like me, dislike the traditional system and want an alternative for their child.
R is getting older, and the search for progressive preschools has not been too difficult. There are plenty, at least as far as I know within the metropolis. But now that he's getting too big and too old for preschool, around the middle of last year we started looking for schools to place him for grade school.
And as if that task is not daunting enough for parents of neurotypical children, for children with special needs, it's even more complicated, and the options pool is even smaller.
So let me tell you how we went about it...
