In 2014, my child’s mother and I made a decision that drew head-shaking from many friends and relatives: we took our child out of school to participate in non-school-based experimental education (homeschooling, for short).
When we made this decision, my child was still young. The people around us all reacted in similar ways: “Are you sure?” “What about getting into a good school later?” “Won’t he become disconnected from society?”
Some were more polite, putting it more tactfully. Others said it straight out: “Aren’t you being too idealistic?”
I don’t blame them. Because within Taiwan’s social context, “leaving school” itself carries a whiff of rebellion. As if you were rejecting the path everyone else has walked.
But my motivation was actually quite practical. As an entrepreneur, I face the frontier of industry transformation every day. I see the environment reshaping the definition of work, see globalization changing the landscape of competition, see the half-life of knowledge growing ever shorter. Then I look back at institutional education—of the things it spends twelve years teaching children, what percentage will still be useful ten years later?
The gap was too large for me to pretend not to see.
Tearing Off the Romantic Label
But let me make one thing clear first: homeschooling is no utopia.
The narratives about homeschooling online are often far too romantic. “Letting children freely explore their talents,” “learning in nature,” “innovative education that breaks free from frameworks”—these sound beautiful, but if you actually step inside, you find a reality full of grey areas. Including the conflicts of communicating with your child.
After several years on this path, I’ve distilled a few reflections (note: this was written in 2016).
Homeschooling is accompaniment, not outsourcing. You can’t hand money to an institution or consultant and then expect them to take care of your child’s education for you. That’s not essentially different from sending your child to school. Homeschooling demands deep parental involvement—not the kind of involvement that means supervising homework, but thinking together about “what should we learn today,” “why learn this,” and “what does this learning mean for his future.”
Homeschooling is not a shortcut to academic success. If deep down you still subscribe to credentialism—good school, good degree, good job—then staying within the system is the smarter choice. Because the rules of the institutional game are designed for academic advancement, and in that game, children inside the system always have home-field advantage. Homeschooling can offer a lot, but “efficiently obtaining a diploma” is not among them.
Homeschooling is co-founding a startup. This is the metaphor I use most often. You and your child are “running” an educational venture together; the product is the curriculum, and the user is your child. You have to do market research (understanding your child’s interests and abilities), develop the product (designing the learning content), conduct user testing (observing your child’s reactions and growth), and continuously iterate (adjusting direction based on feedback).
And just like a startup, the uncertainty is extremely high. Legislation passing doesn’t mean the system is complete. A good homeschooling community that exists today may dissolve tomorrow. You think you’ve found a good direction for learning, only to discover six months later that your child’s interests have taken a complete turn.
Choosing homeschooling is a reflection on industrial civilization and capitalist life. It is not a choice of methodology, but a choice of philosophy. You choose to believe: education is not just about helping a child “succeed” within an existing system, but about enabling him, in a constantly changing world, to “have the ability to define for himself what success means.”
Incompetent Adults
The hardest thing to deal with on the homeschooling path is not curriculum design, not learning progress—it’s people.
Specifically, incompetent educators.
On one occasion, my child took part in an overseas learning project run by a homeschooling community. He spent a great deal of time planning the itinerary, doing his research, and preparing materials. In the end, the teacher leading the group took his planning for commercial use without ever asking for his consent.
My child was furious. It was the first time he had encountered an adult with authority over him doing something he felt was wrong. His reaction was: “This is so unfair!”
I completely agreed with him. It really was unfair.
But this was also an educational opportunity. An educational opportunity that would almost never arise within institutional education.
Gentle, Courteous Resistance
I said to my child: You feel it’s unfair—good. Your anger is justified. But what do you plan to do next?
You could sulk, cursing that teacher a hundred times in your head. You could complain to friends, letting everyone know how awful he is. You could pretend nothing happened and tell yourself, “Forget it, harmony above all.”
Or, you could do something harder but more valuable: organize your thoughts clearly, and then go tell him—gently, courteously, but firmly.
The last option was the one I encouraged. I helped him organize the materials, war-gamed possible conversation scenarios with him, and thought through how to respond if the other person pushed back.
This process took several days. It took more time than the homework of any academic subject.
In the end, he summoned the courage to go talk to the teacher. The force with which he delivered it was probably only a third of what we’d rehearsed. But he said it. In his own words, he expressed his own position.
In that moment, I felt this was ten thousand times more important than scoring a hundred on a test.
The Muscle of Resistance
In “Emotions Are Not a Private Matter,” I discussed how EQ isn’t something you train alone—it requires group interaction. Likewise, “resistance” isn’t something you’re born knowing how to do—it’s a muscle that needs practice.
Many adults, by the time they’re thirty or forty, still choose to swallow it when they encounter unfairness. Not because they think fairness doesn’t matter, but because they’ve never practiced how to voice dissent. From childhood onward, what institutional education taught them was: be obedient, cooperate, don’t get into conflict with the teacher, don’t disagree with your boss.
“Harmony above all” is a virtue in Taiwanese culture. But if the price of “harmony” is suppressing all dissenting opinions and tolerating all unfairness, then “harmony” is no longer harmony—it’s a synonym for oppression.
What I hope my child learns is not “perpetual peace,” but “the ability to resist gently and courteously when resistance is needed.”
Gentle, because the goal isn’t to harm the other person but to express oneself. Courteous, because respect is mutual, even when the other person doesn’t respect you. But firm, because if you believe something is wrong, you have a responsibility to say so.
This ability has more opportunities to be practiced in homeschooling. Because the homeschooling environment itself is full of uncertainty—you’ll meet good teachers and you’ll meet terrible ones. You’ll find communities that support you, and you’ll also encounter unfair treatment. Every such encounter is an opportunity to practice.
Education Without Standard Answers
After all these years on the homeschooling path, my greatest realization is this: education has no standard answers.
Institutional education has its strengths: clear structure, stable resources, broad social networks. Homeschooling has its value: high flexibility, great depth, and being closer to “learning for the sake of understanding” rather than “learning for the sake of exams.”
But whichever path you take, the core question is the same: what kind of person do you want to cultivate?
If the answer is “a person who can get good grades within an existing system,” then institutional education is enough.
If the answer is “a person who, in an uncertain world, can judge for himself, choose for himself, and bear the consequences for himself”—then whether inside or outside the system, you need to deliberately create opportunities for your child to face real friction.
Homeschooling is only one such way. What matters is not the form, but whether, within that form, you’ve brought “the real world” into your child’s learning.
Including the uncomfortable parts. Including incompetent adults. Including unfair treatment. Including the moments when you need to stand up and say “no.”
The muscle of resistance, like running, needs practice. And the best time to practice is not after growing up—it’s now.
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