Upon first reading this I was infuriated that yet another judge could take away another of our individual freedoms and thereby create a larger burden on the majority.
Home schooling has been an acceptable practice for families not wanting to enroll their children in public schools since colonial days.
When I first heard of home schooling I thought it was a bad idea due mostly to my not understanding how parents, who most likely hated school themselves, can instill in their children the love of learning that makes teaching so much more rewarding. How are they motivated to give their child every benefit of education they deserve? They are setting their children up for failure!
I decided to learn what I can about home schooling to see how it works and how it compares to public education. Over my course of research and discovery I have learned that home schooling offers some unique benefits not found in public schools. I have learned that there is a system in place to ensure home schooled students maintain a comparable level of education with their peers in public schools.
My personal prejudices aside against the inefficiency and stagnation of creativity that takes place in public schools, I have learned that home schooling is superior to public education in some ways and not so much in others. Home schooling is not for everyone.
History of home schooling.
In colonial America, home schooling was naturally the only system of learning available, aside from on the job training, as it were, to learn what you need to survive. Formal classroom settings were slow in arriving. Most children were taught at home by their parents in their spare time between doing the everyday chores related to survival.
Education developed into religious training as many of the universities in the Ivy League were established to train ministers. Eventually, communities and states began to establish schools supported by government funds; however, these schools continued to have a very distinctive religious flavor as evidenced by the use of the New England Primer which was so popular at that time. In fact, the Catholic parochial school movement began in this country as a response to what Catholics perceived as the overt Protestant nature of the public schools.
By the late nineteenth century many communities felt that the state had a compelling interest to make sure that every child received an education so that they might be productive citizens. Others felt that requiring their children to go to a state sponsored school was eroding the authority of the parents by making the state the final authority rather than the parent. One by one states passed compulsory attendance laws, but public schools continued for some time to have a distinctly Christian character.
In the early 1960s, the United States Supreme Court issued a series of decisions that would dramatically change the face of public education in this county and set the stage for a return to home schooling. The U.S. Supreme Court declared that it was a violation of the Constitution to read the Bible, pray, or even post the Ten Commandments in a public school.
As a direct result of these changes, private Christian schools began to spring up all over the county. The proliferation of such schools was an attempt by parents to give their children an education integrated with the values that they held. Ten years later, the circle was completed as parents began to teach their own children at home.
Benefits of home schooling
Home schooling provides relief from the overcrowding that is inherent in public schools. The ratio of students to teacher is growing annually and is greater than ever. A parent, teaching several children at one time can afford more time per student than a public school teacher with as many as 50 students or more.
Overcrowding creates a stress not likely to be found in the home. Frustration felt at not getting the proper attention can lead to a student to give up on doing their best or, in the worse case, even trying. The feeling of being lost in the crowd stifles many students so that if they do get through high school and enter college, they are not as likely to fully participate in the education process and therefore society as a whole misses out on another possible brilliant contributor to our general well-being.
Due to the more relaxed and flexible atmosphere in the home, the extra attention given a student can lead that student to a greater appreciation of the educational process. They are allowed to more thoroughly savor the ability to learn, even though they don’t consciously realize it, the desire to learn is becoming ingrained in them. The process of new discovery is a heady experience that should never be restricted, it should be allowed to soar unfettered in order to open new avenues of discovery leading to new opportunities that will further encourage their inquisitive nature.
Areas of interest are more likely to be pursued without arbitrary rules set up for the purpose of crowd management, as is the public school setting.
Being home schooled strengthens the bonds between parent and child. Something that I personally feel is sorely missing in today’s society as this lack of familial bonding contributes directly to a host of society’s ills.
Remaining at home for longer hours reinforces valuable behavior and deemphasizes undesirable behavior in a natural manner.
Children don’t bring home as many illnesses when they aren’t exposed to the crowds of other school children.
Being at home allows children to see what adult life is about. They develop an interest in what adults do and how they interact with one another. This only serves to increase their curiosity in what is available for their future.
Drawbacks of public schooling
One myth is that socialization of children will suffer. On the contrary, the individual attention given a home schooler instills a sense of pride and the strength of individualism that allows the student to think and make decisions on their own without the peer pressure that is so evident in public schools. The cliquish behavior of school age kids tends to too often alienate others and interfere with education.
Public schools don’t recognize the difference between learning-disabled and learning-delayed. If a student is unable to maintain the level of education that their age dictates, according to public school guidelines, then the child is recommended for drug induced special-education for the learning disabled. School systems are the leading cause of Ritalin addled children.
This system tries to be everything to everyone. We are unfairly placing more and more responsibility on the public schoolteacher. Sex education, should be taught in the home. Responsibility for oneself should be taught in the home. Respect for one another and yourself should be taught in the home. A duty to your family and society as a whole should be taught at home. Religion should be taught in the home and at church. We have blurred the lines between teacher and parental responsibilities and far too many parents have welcomed shirking these important duties and putting them off onto the overburdened school teacher.
Children are forced to stay within their age group rather than move on along with their classmates. I.e., a fourth grader might be learning at a fifth grade level but must, due to age, stifle their learning in order to satisfy this archaic school system requirement. Likewise, too often a student who is falling behind his/her peers is pushed into the next grade level to make room for the next group. This process stigmatizes students to the point many give up on school or they resign themselves to being outcasts. We are doing a grave disservice to both of these students and society.
In forcing our children into the public arena at such an early age we are socializing them into peer dependency, a social cancer in which students lose family closeness and values and provide a precise breeding ground for drugs, ill-advised sex, etc. Many public schools acknowledge this.
Individual interests are squelched at the expense of a uniform rate of learning that produces a sameness, a vanilla-flavor of education.
Schools only teach children how to take tests. They memorize what they need to pass the next test and then throw it out to make room for the next list of items to memorize for the next test. Granted, some of this memorization sticks with the student but the experience becomes viewed as a waste of time and is so distasteful to some students that they drop out of school.
The artificial structure of the classroom setting, does not prepare the student for the real world where the demand to “think outside the box” creates frustration for those who have acclimated themselves to the classroom structure and expect real-life to match their expectations. We are setting them up for failure or to be relegated to that group of timid souls who never exercise their individualism and whose opinion will never be heard because, through peer pressure and fear of being laughed at, they were taught to never think for themselves. Welcome to middle-class America where the silent majority quietly and obediently perform their day-to-day functions as good little taxpaying, couch-sitting, television-watching, fast-food-eating, consumers who never get ahead because their individualism has been stifled by a public school system that told them they never will.
Our schools are overcrowded, the teachers are underpaid and have been handed the extra duty of being mommies and daddies to children who have not been properly taught in the home how to behave in public. Many of their efforts to teach are stifled by a top heavy and bloated administrative structure that spends way too much time and effort on politics than actual administration. There are outstanding teachers who put their students learning ahead of everything else, just as there are those who only go through the motions for a paycheck.
I come away from this research convinced that home schooling is by far superior to our public school system but only if the parent is educated enough to take the place of the public school teacher. Good intentions can get you only so far. If you don’t feel you can provide a better educational experience for your child, even with the safeguards that ensure your child is not left behind his/her peers, then please don’t get into this.
Home schooling is just one philosophy of teaching our children. Another is the Montessori method. Public school system includes Charter schools and Magnet schools. For more information see below.
Our children deserve, and our society deserves, to be well-educated so no matter which avenue you choose to educate your child please be involved to ensure they are getting a good education. Don’t just assume the teacher is doing everything possible.
About Montessori schools
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