ABU DHABI // The way 12-year-old Maher Noueihed sees it, he’s the envy of his peers.
“They say, I wish I was home schooled,” he said of the kids he meets who are his age.
The young American hasn’t attended a traditional bricks and mortar school since kindergarten.
His academic learning is done in the comfort of his home. His teacher is his mother, Laura Noueihed.
His classmates are his younger brother and sister. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Ask him about his experience in kindergarten and he answers flatly: “I didn’t like it at all.
“It was a big classroom and I was way ahead of my class.
“The teacher never accommodated me. But here, my mother knows what I’m doing and she can accommodate me.”
A Columbia University graduate, Mrs Noueihed left a successful media job in the United States to become a full-time teacher to her children, and hasn’t looked back since.
“It is a lot of work,” Mrs Noueihed said. “It is and it isn’t. It’s a way of life.”
There’s nothing predictable about home schooling – the curriculum can change at any time throughout the year, depending on the child’s needs.
But generally speaking, the Noueiheds’ mornings are usually dedicated to academic lessons.
After lunch, they take part in a variety of different activities, usually involving other home-schooled children, ranging from weekly ice-skating sessions to volunteering.
“My kids have volunteered at a pet shelter – playing with dogs, cleaning out cages – that sort of thing; they volunteered with Labour of Love, collecting care-package items for labourers around Ramadan,” said Mrs Noueihed.
“We also volunteer once a year as a group at EMEG, Emirates marine environmental group. We do beach clean-up there. We do mangrove planting.
“The fact that we’re living in the UAE – that in itself, and the fact they’re not tethered to a school schedule, means we have so much more free time to explore the country that we live in, to explore the customs, to make friends.”
rpennington@thenational.ae
