Friends,
I’m so exited to introduce a friend of mine, Jamie, who lives and home-schools in Turkey. Are you ever curious what it is like to live in another country, day in day out, the perks and the challenges? Read to find out…
Sofija: Tell us about your family.
Jamie:
My husband James and I are both originally from California. We got married 10 years ago and since then have been busy figuring out life on the other side of the world and having kids. We have four beautiful girls, Elise (7), Marie (5), Clara (3), and Pearl (4 mo). All of them were born here in Turkey.
2. What are you doing in Turkey? What do you like about living there, what makes it challenging?
James teaches English at a high school here in Turkey. It is an absolutely gorgeous country. If you’ve never visited, I highly recommend it. I don’t even know where to start answering the question about what I like about living here. There really are so many things! I love the fact that I can drive an hour and be at Gordion, where King Midas lived and is buried. I love that I can drive two hours and visit an ancient Hittite capitol. I love that I can see ancient Ephesus, Pergamum, and innumerable other interesting old sites. Actually, there is an archeological dig going on right behind the Chinese restaurant that is down the street from my house! Living in Turkey has made me fall in love with history. I used to live in a city called Kayseri. My friend there was homeschooling her boys (my oldest was only a baby then) and as she was looking at their history book it mentioned a Hittite city where archeologists had found a lot of things that let them know about that ancient civilization. She looked at her boys and said, “You know, I think this is about 20 minutes away from our house.” How amazing is that?! Aside from the amazing history, Turkey has delicious food, hospitable people, and cheap, fresh fruits and vegetables. Not only that, but every building in Turkey has a man who comes to your door to deliver fresh baked bread every morning, and take out your garbage every evening. I love that when we go on vacation we can drive to the Mediterranean and stay in an inexpensive hotel right on the beach. In fact just a few weeks ago there was a holiday so we took a few days of vacation. I was sitting on the nearly deserted beach, watching an amazing sunset over the Mediterranean while my kids played in the warm water, and eating a pomegranate that was grown right there. Can life really get much better?! I could go on, but I think you get the picture, and probably want to move here yourself!
Of course living in a foreign country comes along with a host of challenges as well. We have been here over eight years now, so it is feeling more and more like home, and so those challenges are getting less challenging as we get used to them. We spend hours and hours at the police station getting visas, there is always a huge stack of paperwork to do and no matter how much you prepare and do ahead of time something goes wrong. Banking, getting phone/internet/electricity/etc is a lot of work, especially as a foreigner. You can’t plan nearly as much into your day as you could in the US because it just takes longer. Another thing I just can’t get used to is the lack of planning. People don’t even seem to know the day school will start or get out until a week or two before it happens. You can put a lot of work into something and then no one will show up (even though people said they would come), or maybe far more people than you planned for will come. You just can’t tell. It’s not uncommon for someone to go visit a friend on a whim and then stay for two months! Turks are so nice, but also feel very free to give way too much advice and criticism (at least from an American perspective.) Every time I go outside I am told 1) I have too many kids. 2) They are not dressed nearly warm enough. 3) They are all going to get sick. 4) Any other random piece of very personal advice (for example, “Get your tubes tied,” or my personal favorite, “Your butt is big, you should lose some weight.” Another challenge is just the fact that it isn’t my culture. I think I will always feel a little distance from friends because our backgrounds are so very different.
3. Why did you decide to home-shool?
The schooling decision just kind of fell in our laps. Elise (our oldest) was doing part time Turkish school (at the private school where James teaches) and part time home school. Because she was so little I wasn’t too worried about making sure she learned absolutely everything – reading in English and basic math were my only goals for her first grade year (last year). I mostly wanted her to become more fluent in Turkish and to feel more a part of things. Being Americans and speaking English rather than Turkish in our home can often make my kids feel a kind of separation between themselves and the Turkish kids in our neighborhood. I don’t like that, and one of the ways I tried to prevent it was by sending Elise to Turkish school. This school year we were planning on sending her full time. It is a very good private school and teachers kids can go for free. Unfortunately they only have so many of those free slots and they were already full. The administration was also not open to the part time idea this school year, and the school just isn’t affordable for us, and so in the beginning of September our schooling plan fell through. We did not like the idea of sending her to the public school for various reasons and so I suddenly found myself homeschooling. Thankfully, I have always been open to homeschooling, so it wasn’t a big scary thing to me. In fact, aside from the whole idea of increasing fluency and using schooling as being more a part of the community, homeschooling would have been my first choice. Anyway, I started by looking up California’s second grade standards then looked up some other homeschool friendly stuff online, downloaded some books on my kindle, and away we went. It has been very enjoyable thus far. Elise and I are both learning a lot!
4. Is this accepted in Turkey? What are some of the reactions you get?
No, not at all. It is a completely foreign concept and completely unheard of. For the most part I’ve given up explaining how we’re educating our kids. No matter what I say, no one seems to understand. People don’t understand how I can get my kids to listen to me, do school work, etc. They also have a “leave it to the professionals” type of mindset here, for example, you don’t paint your own house, you hire a painter, you don’t teach your own kids, you let a trained teacher do it. Honestly I’m so sick of trying to explain that I now just say that Elise’s education is tied to the internet. It is true, as that is how I look up standards, download books onto my Kindle reader, and she uses Khan Academy online for a lot of her math work. It generally satisfies people far more than the idea of me teaching her. Of course if they ask further questions I’m happy to explain the nitty gritty of it, but I find the more I explain the more appalled they become. I’m pretty sure it is so far outside the box that they just can’t imagine it being in any way a good thing.
5. What are your challenges of schooling in a different country? Do you have a support sytstem?
The main challenge is with curriculum. Some of my friends are using Sonlight or other curriculums and have had huge problems getting it shipped here… they not only have to pay for the books, but also fork out an arm and a leg for shipping costs. Unfortunately all too often it gets stuck in customs. I know people who have paid $100 – $600 just to get the curriculum out of customs. It is really difficult and frustrating for many. I decided to bypass as much of that mess as possible by ordering nothing but a math curriculum (Excel), and using books I could download onto my kindle, the children’s books we have brought over or my parents have sent over the years, and the small library on the US Air Force base that a friend can sign me into. It isn’t ideal, but it works.
I have a great support system. My mom recently retired from many years of teaching, I use skype and talk with her several times a week. She is a huge encouragement and great at helping me with any questions I have. She also is happy to send me almost anything I think I need, which is great. I also know a couple of moms who homeschool here in Ankara. We all use very different systems, but it’s nice just to have those connections. Finally, there is a great online community for homeschoolers. I got a lot of my ideas for what books to read and what to teach by looking online. A friend recommended charlottemasonhelp.com and it has been a huge help to me.
6. Describe a typical day in your house.
Our typical day probably doesn’t look too different from your typical day, with exception of hearing the call to prayer five times a day, and speaking Turkish when we’re outside our home. We all wake up and get breakfast and James goes off to work. I try to get started on schooling anywhere between 8 and 9 am. I’m new at this so I’m still working out the kinks – what order to do the lessons in, how to balance schooling and taking care of the baby, etc. We keep at it on and off until we have lunch around noon and shortly after that we all walk about a block to a preschool where my three year old and five year old attend half of the day. We want them to be very strong in Turkish and not feel so much like outsiders and so our solution has been to do some Turkish schooling. We really like the preschool we chose. The teachers are very friendly and our kids are happy and making friends. The baby, Elise, and I go back home. I spend another hour to hour and a half with her finishing up whatever we didn’t get to in the morning (like I said, we’re still working out the kinks so some days it’s math, some days it’s me reading her history book aloud, some days it is reading some of the library books we checked out.) At three I put baby Pearl in the stroller and Elise and I take a 15 minute walk to a “kids club” where she will hang out until six. It is basically an after school day care type of place for kids to go, do their homework, and play until their parents get done with work and can come pick them up. We send Elise to ensure her to be in a Turkish environment regularly. We do have a playground nearby and in the past we just took her there all the time. Unfortunately she really does not feel comfortable making new friends and playing with kids, she loves playing alone making fairy houses in the bushes. I love this about her, but it has made it hard for her to get beyond the basics in Turkish, which has made it difficult for her to really embrace living here. The few Turkish friends who she feels really comfortable with aren’t available to hang out and play on a regular basis, so this year after our schooling plans fell through, we decided to put her in this after school program. Right now she’s doing what she can to boycott the idea by refusing to speak a word of Turkish to anyone while she’s there. I really don’t like that, but at the same time I kind of feel like this is just one of those things we have to be firm on and push through until she gets it. We’re still looking for other alternatives but thus far, this is the best thing we can find. It is a safe environment and she is getting used to it and I think she even sometimes enjoys herself (although she would never admit it!) After three, I sometimes take a walk with the baby, sometimes I go visit a friend or neighbor, sometimes I go to the market and do the grocery shopping, sometimes I plan lessons for an English Club I help teach on the weekends or for other programs I’m involved in. Living in a big city has it’s advantages and one of them is that I rarely have to use the car. I can do all of the above on foot, which I love. James picks up all the kids on his way home, between 5:30 and 6:00, then its dinner and bedtime. Sometimes we stay home in the evenings, sometimes we go visit someone, sometimes Elise and Marie go up the elevator (we live in a 10 floor building) to visit their friend Selin who lives on the 7th floor. James usually goes back out after the kids are in bed, for various meetings, or to work on some classes he is taking online.
7. What are your plans for the future in regard to schooling the kids?
I have no idea! I love the idea of continuing to homeschool them, but I also love the idea of being involved in the community more by having my children in the schools. Next year we will be in California for the school year and I really don’t know if I will homeschool or not. It’s just something we will continue to pray about and make decisions as the time comes.
Thank you, Jamie. I enjoyed learning about your life in Ankara. Especially your typical day. I’m forever curious how other mom’s organize their day. I had to laugh about the comments you are subjected to on the street. Would you believe that I get a lot of the same comments from my family when I go to Germany?
Friends what do you think about those field trips to Ancient Hittites ruins? That is pretty hard to top. Turkey has just moved up on my “places to go” list. Jamie didn’t mention that she is an artist. In the last picture you can see her doing Ebru with her daughter. This an Ottoman painting technique dating back to the 16oo’s.
I hope to do this again soon.
-Sofija
Photos were taken by Matthew Will- all rights reserved.
Teach Where You Live 
Thank you for this wonderful interview! This article put into words all my feelings and similar experiences, leaving me uplifted. I am an American married to a Turk and we live in Istanbul with our children. This is our first year homeschooling and our first year in Turkey. You have proven to me that we are not alone in this quest and I have taken your example to heart. Wonderful photography!
Thank you Amanda. Wishing you the best for your home-schooling journey.
My Turkish partner and myself (British) have been thinking about homeschooling our children in Istanbul where we live. However my partner has been told that it is illegal to homeschool here. How were you able to homeschool your children?
In some countries where home-schooling is illegal, Americans are still allowed to home-school. I know this is true for Germany. I am not sure if this applies for British citizens in Turkey. You might want to contact the British Homeschooling Legal Defense hslda.org/hs/international/UnitedKingdom/default.asp.
Hi.i live in Istanbul too,will you like to mail me as I will like to homeschool too and it’s kinda scary all alone.
My mail is roxanamaria0591@gmail.com
If they are not holding Turkish nationality, they can educate how they like but it is not legal for those with Turkish nationality.
-B-
Eselamun aleykum sister Amanda,
In searching of homeschooling in Turkey, we came across your name:))
Let us present our self: we are married (working from home) couple Meliha and Amir Al-Zubi, parents of three homeschooling/unschooling kids (Sinan (9), Reyhan (5) and Nura (2)), living in Bosnia.
For more than decade we are trying to promote Islamic values and Muslim heritage trough comics, books, animations, posters…to the kids (and adults as well:))
You can see some of our work on:
http://newmuslimkids.blogspot.com/
It’s so interesting that you came with your family from States to Istanbul to live and chose to homeschool your kids, inshallah.
We are so eager to hear some of your experiences , since as far as we know, HS/US is so unknown in Turkish society.
Anyway sister Amanda, selams to your family and hope hearing from you soon, inshallah,
Wasalam,
Meliha and her family
Alekum Selam sister.i would love to homeschool my girls too and teach them the Islam values as well. I will check up your blog.
Sakamun aleykum Meliha. How nice to find somebody in Bosnia. I would love to share my homeschooling with you as well. I also did some schooling in islamic education for my son. Inshallah I will be in Izmir this summer. So I will love to contact by email if you like.
Salamun aleykum
Melek
Can you please please contact me ? I am moving to turkey in July to Izmir, and worried if I could start homeschooling my 9 year old. I would love to talk to you or email whatever you prefer about this.
Melek11us@yahoo.com
Thanks in advance.
I found this fantastic blog and would like to thank you for sharing this information. In fact we are living in Turkey too for now almost 8 years and have two children, however our situation is a bit difficult: we are from Germany, my husband is turkish born in Germany and I am originally from Latvia, moved to Germany with 12 and am living now in Turkey. I love the country, however it’s difficult with people around here, we are living in a small village not far away from Marmaris, Söğüt, and we have the homeschooling philosophy. Our son is 7 and we started with his education already very early, with 4 he started with ABC and now with 7 he speaks 4 languages: german, turkish fluent, english and russian a conversational. Now I have a question: how do you keep the problems of the turkish authorities away as we have got now a problem with the community here, they want to force us to send Cedric to the public school what is absolutely not acceptable for us. We are thinking of going to court as Cedric has no school obligation here in Turkey as he is german citizen, however in Germany there is a resticted school obligation and now we found ourselves in a kind of vicious circle. I would very much like to hear your thought guys, suggestions, feedback and hope that we can support each other to raise our children to happy, responsible, compassioned and humane individuals for the better future.
Peace and Love
Ella, Cem, Cedric Lee & Sühelya Nur
bellasmirnova@hotmail.de
Salam Ella, as far as I know, the home schooling is illegal in Germany. Ofcourse you know better. So thee is a big chance you might have a problem, but Lets pray inshallah you wont have it. Please tell the other people there that You only are doing distance education through a German school in Germany. And you wont stay here permenently. Their school is in Germany and you didnt want to change language and curriculum, something like that. I dont know if you can try this.
Hi Ella, Meleks comment looks correct to me. At your local registration office you can change yours and your sons primary address as Germany.As a foreigner you and your children can have Turkish address as secondary and abroad as main without any affect on your social rights like visa, medicals and so on (at least this is what we know). Worst comes, you can always revoke Turkish citizenship of your child, no harm will be done over long term especially for boys in regards to future military service :(.
Hi Sofia, I loved your web page so much, thank you for sharing your experiences 🙂 Is there a way to message you online? Thanks, Zed.
We are an American homeschool family planning to move to Turkey soon and would love to make contact and get more information. number3of15@mail.com
Which city will you be moving to, Carissa? I am currently living in Izmir as a Turkish citizen, but there’s a big possibility i will move to Istanbul next year. You can contact me any time.
My contact address: eceercan91@hotmail.com
Cheers!
Hi Sofija, Thanks for sharing this wonderful article. I am from Canada and a homeschooler for almost 4 years. We are Canadian and Turkish citizens at the same time..I wonder if i can use my Canadian citizenship and continue our wonderful homeschooling journey in Turkey? I tried to contact so many places, they have no idea, do know anything about this? thanks a lot SEHER
merhaba, Kanada’nin neresinden? bende dusunuyorum, bilgilendirirseniz sevinirim, tesekkurler
Türkiye’de homeschooling yasal değil. Ama Canadian citizenship kullanarak Türkiye’de homeschooling yapmaya devam edebilirsiniz. Fakat çocuklarınızın Türkiyede bir üniversitede okumasını istiyorsanız lise diploması (high school gpa olmadığı için) almadıkları için herhangi bir Türk üniversitesine private university bile olsa kayıt olmaları mümkün olmayacaktır.
Hi.i love the way you live here & I know what you mean about people giving unwanted advice.
Congrats on all the kids & homeschooling too!
Are you still in turkey now?
Hello Seher and. Roxana, Please lets contact each other. I am moving To Turkey from Canada as well. I will continue to homeschooling using his citizenship. I would love to hear from you.
My mail is roxanamaria0591@gmail.com
So I have registered my grade.9 to be to Vlc (virtual learning centre) online highschool. I have also wrote a letter to the board of education that my kids will be homeschooled in turkey and they responded with an acceptance letter. I will take these things to turkey and use as a proof that they are getting education. Let’s say the turkish education ministry didn’t accept, you can take them out of turkish citizenship for sometime and continue your homeschooling as Canadian. As a foreigner it is easier. I wil be in konya, a conservative city I hope everything will be okay for all homeschoolers. Peace to all…seher
Inshallah everything is going to be great with you Seher. What you suggested made sense to me as well. I think there are ways to get out of system. Your child is older than mine. Mine is in grade 4. we are registered with SIDES. And it goes really good.they will send everything to us to Turkey. I am not even worrying about mailing. So that made it really easy.
Hiya!
First of all I really loved your post, thanks for sharing. I am a Turkish citizen, working as computer engineer in Izmir. I’m not married and have no kids. But I totally support the idea of homeschooling. I guess most people see homeschooling as a way of exposing their religious beliefs to their kids since public schools are not effective at this topic. However my reason is totally different. I would love my kids (if i will have any) to be homeschooled since i think schools limit kids’ creativity. What i recommend you to check out Eric Demaine’s (Prof of cs department at MIT)) life story, who was also homeschooled. http://erikdemaine.org/
I hope that the idea of homeschooling will be strongly accepted in Turkey soon.
Thank you for your kind encouragement. It is always nice to hear when home-schooling is supported by society at large. I hope more and more people will work on making it legal in countries like Turkey. I checked on the professor’s bio- pretty impressive! Thanks for sharing.
Thank you. I can gladly help with people who are planning to live and homeschool their kids in Izmir/Turkey. My e-mail; eceercan91@hotmail.com . You can also find me on Fb and Linkdin. Please do not hesitate to contact me.
Hi everyone,
now i am in Turkey with 6 of my 7 kids. 2 of my kids using VLC (Virtual Learning Centre ) for grade 9 and 12, Unbelievable effective program. Here in Konya Turkey, since my kids are Turkish citizens , they have to go to school so for now one goes to grade 1 and the other in kindergarten to learn Turkish. however i am following them really close, anytime i can terminate their Turkish citizenship and continue homeschooling. so you can go around the systems easily. Also they are not very strict following up kids who are not going school here, if they catch you there is i think $7 fine…anyway if you are here and need help, please do get in touch with me. take care…
Salaam all, I hope this message reaches you all well. My name’s Lindsey and I’m an American Muslim convert, married to a Syrian-American (Muslim convert also) and mother to two young children, ages 2 & 4. My husband and I are considering moving to Turkey, as it seems to be a good marriage of a modern society that I’m accustomed to but with an Islamic influence which is so important to us. I’m studying to become a Nutritionist & plan to one day publish books on children’s health, as well as Islamic books for children. In Turkey I have found the private schools to be so expensive so I will likely homeschool. I could really use some help with learning more about Turkey before we visit this March. I will email you all, or you can email me at GrafikArt18@yahoo.com. Jazak Allah khirun.
Hi Lindsey,
First of all welcome to the society. I’m a Turkish citizen and currently living, working as computer engineer at the same time doing my masters in Turkey. I don’t have any kids nor married, since support the idea of homeschooling and doing my best to make homeschooling legal in my country, I joined this group. Public schools and private schools here are really mess, inefficient in many ways. So the best idea is homeschooling your kids. You can email me at eceercan91@hotmail.com anytime you like. Good luck with your new life in Turkey.
Hi Lindsay , are you also the same Lindsay contacted me through Turkey central? I cant get into my account so thats why I couldnt answer you,.
I would love to hear from you and also share my experineces, also thank to SEHER, for the follow up and suggestions, believe me ladies, everything we send her makes a difference in someones life,,,so lets keep in touch
My email is melek11us@yahoo.com
Forgive my typing, I meant ” thanks to Seher”. ,,,, and also “I meant everything we sent here”……
Please,if anyone can give me more info if homeschooling is available in Bosnia.? We live in America…my kids are born here but we will be moving to Bosnia to live for probably couple of years and I was wondering if I can homeschool my kids in Bosnia.”?
Thanks
Alma, i am so sorry for my late reply. Bosnia is a beutiful country, my family is from there. I don’t think home-schooling is leagal there, but if you or your husband are American citizens you might be able to school your children. I would contact the Homeschool Defense League http://www.hslda.org they might have some answers.
If anyone is at all interested in homeschooling in Turkey please contact me through email at atikaa@hotmail.com. There is a huge amount of homeschoolers now in Turkey and a facebook group too https://www.facebook.com/groups/284223371785094/ .