Home-Schooling

Home education has become a preferred option for a growing number of families nowadays. It is a fact that prior to the introduction of Universal education in the 19th century, home-schooling was the way to go about in teaching children. The type of children being home schooled can generally be divided into two groups, those who have never been enrolled in school and those who were withdrawn by their parents.

It is important to note that there are different reasons why parents would choose to home educated their children. Some are for practical reason, like if the mother’s and father’s work requires that the family move from one place or another.

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Putting the children in a public school under such conditions would only put stress on the kids and the problem of instability of learning and relations. In another perspective, it becomes the choice of parents to not place their kids under an educational institution.

It is either the family holds certain religious or moral beliefs, or perhaps a conviction that public schools will not be able to address the needs of their children. Today, we shall focus on the convictions held by home schooling parents that schools imbibes a sense of indoctrination and exists within a system that is flawed in itself.

 A lot of arguments have been raised regarding the choice of parents to teach their children at home rather than send them off to school. This paper aims to respond to the negative connotations ascribed to home-schooling, in reference to the article written by a home schooling father named Mark Leeming which served as his rebuttal to the claim that children taught at home by their parents and/or carers miss a lot of benefits from public schools.

One of the main reasons a family would chooses to educate their children at home, according to Leeming is in order to teach them of the fundamentals.

I believe that when he spoke of this, he was referring to the basic foundations of a child that are not restricted to textbook know-how’s. Public schools tend to overlook the significance of the little details a child has to learn in order to make it in the “real world” as the author would put it.

Further, in providing home education, parents are able to render lessons that they deem their children to need, and even equip the latter with certain tools that would be helpful for them to grow up as upright individuals. Another way of looking at this is that a child has certain potentials that may go unnoticed and thus undeveloped in a classroom setting.

When a child is edified at home, the parent in the role of the teacher is keen to observe the weaknesses and strengths of his/her student. In such a way that she may be quick to address the aspects of learning his/her child might have difficulty with.

In the same sense, a one-on-one ratio of parent to student relations, would allow the earlier mentioned to formulate the appropriate approach that would target the personality and ability of the student, thus rendering it more effective than a classroom setting where a generalized standard is being administered risking an oversight of the differences

Secondly, Leeming purports that the system of public education indoctrinates the beliefs a structure holds without realizing that instead of the claim that it provides haven for ideas, it is actually dogmatic, and is in fact vulnerable to educating children to be narrow minded individuals.

In defense of this claim, we shall see that each class one takes has a certain prescription of what can and cannot be taught. Those who claim that home schooled become isolated and thus intolerant of social diversity are in fact using a boomerang argument.

What do I mean by this? Simple, in their insistence of their so-called progressive measures and system of education they are in fact caught up in a single path of thinking.

A home schooled child is as much exposed to the views of others; it does not necessarily follow the views of their parents. It seems that people lose sense of the fact that there is still the media and the internet. This means, that a child even if he does learn most of the school subjects at home are still exposed to the diversity of opinion out there.

In truth, there is a greater chance that a child who learns things at home can be more open than the next kid enrolled in the public school. In such a way that she is not taught to dismissed a view of the world immediately, unlike in the classroom wherein she is told of what is acceptable from the unreasonable.

We could see that a child at home learning through her parents and the internet, plus of course the media, with be trained in self-critical thinking. She or he would grow up informed and knowing things as she deems fit to know, not as told by other people also automatons to the system.

What exist in schools are left-to-center views, and refusal to ascribe to such thinking is deemed as being intolerant. The truth is, political correctness is being used too much even at the point of not revealing what’s real for the sake of being politically correct.

Classrooms share a view of social issues in such a way as to teach children tolerance, when in fact there comes a point that they would have to take sides.

Home schooling is not cheap; in fact parents have to carry the burden of buying the textbooks, exercise manuals, and other instructional materials. They do so in order to provide their children with everything they need so as not to be left behind by their peers.

It is not the case that if children are home schooled they would be aloft, isolated, and low self-esteemed individuals. Actually, for Leeming, this is one of the reasons they decided not to bring their child to school.

The peer pressure as well as the lack of attention to the learning style appropriate for a child may lead to low self-esteem. In my opinion also, children who are home schooled are not that different from other kids. They are still exposed to the various sides of societies. They can still develop connections with others; have friends, even outside of school.

Some may argue that home education is incomplete and lacks certain interactions needed to raise a well-rounded adult. However, we must first ask what makes an upright citizen? If we would take a look, the exposures to societal adherence and acceptance in the schools today aren’t exactly what you’d call positive.

There are instances wherein values are instilled only within the four corners of the class, (and this I must note, are linear values wherein no other perspective is offered as an alternative), outside we see these so-called values being set aside, i.e. playground politics.

In a home-schooling setting, a lot of methods can be employed in order to guarantee that a child who receive the type of learning most likely to help him or her to become a morally upright, well-learned individual.

Things that may be taken for granted in an educational institution like, as Leeming placed it, recycling, is a practice that ought to be inculcated but instead schools tend to preach and forget.

If we would really want to look at the objective grounds, then perhaps we ought to refer to statistics, where it states that home-schooled children tend to attain higher scores than mainstream schooled kids.

“The main advantage of home education is one-to-one teaching, which allows parents to adapt to their children’s individual learning needs. Children of all ages are educated at home, some going on to take General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) or other examinations. In general, academic achievement compares favorably with school.”

(Encarta, 2005)

As we have seen there is no good reason to believe that home schooling is a less propitious alternative to public schools. In fact if taken under the light, it seems that home education offers a type of learning wherein holistic development is more possibly attained.

Reference:

___, Home Education, In Encarta Encyclopedia, premium ed. 2005, Redmond: Microsoft Corporation, 2004

Mark Leeming, Article: Home-Schooling has Advantages, Shannonville, June 21, 2007

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