How does Homeschooling Affect Children? Is homeschooling going to hurt your child or benefit your child? Homeschooling is debated by many parents throughout the United States. Many parents believe that they can do a better job than public schools because the can utilize the many different styles of homeschooling which may be better for their children. Homeschooling is a better option than public schooling because children can learn more about what interests them, parents are the primary influence to their children, the students are more independent, families have more free time, children learn more effectively with many options, and children get to wear their pajamas. One of the biggest benefits that is associated with homeschooling is that children learn more about what interests them. In public school children are forced to spend a certain amount of time on each subject. Because public school is so structured, children often lose their love of learning. This leaves many parents with this question, “Is there an alternative way to educate our children that will respect their happiness and individuality, and will foster their growing love for learning?” (McReynolds 36). Many parents are turning to homeschooling because then their children can pursue what interests them. If children …show more content…
Some parents want their children to experience the class atmosphere. While growing up, Grace Burton was very involved in two different co-op groups, Christian Family Educators (CFE) and Cornerstone. According to Burton, the CFE co-op group offered her many experiences and friends she would not have had if she attended public school. CFE offered many class opportunities such as Drama, Art, Choir, etc. Therefore, homeschooled children are not losing any opportunities when it comes to the “fun school”
According to Mary Griffith, author of the book The Homeschooling Handbook, the concept of homeschooling is nothing new to society. It is only in the past 150 years that public school system as we know it came into effect (Griffith, 1999). Prior to that, “…the family was the basis for social life…the home was where children learned what was necessary to function in their community” (1999). By the mid-1970s, there were barely any people practicing homeschooling (Ray, 2004). However, over the past twenty years there has been a resurgence in people choosing homeschooling (2004). There has been a 500 percent increase in homeschooling from the 1990-1991 school year to the 2002-2003 school year (2004). The National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) estimates “that between 1.7 and 2.1 million students were being homeschooled in the U.S., in every grade level from kindergarten through twelfth grade…Indications are that the growth rate is between 7 percent and 15 percent per year ” (2004).
Homeschooling is becoming more popular in today’s society then before. Homeschooling is teaching school subjects to one’s children at home (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). But is homeschooling the best way to educate children? Homeschooling can bring more positive outcomes versus public or private schooling. This is because homeschooling can bring many benefits such as family orientation, no worries about bullies, less exposure to bad influences like drugs. Also it has a good success rate, adaptable cost, and flexibility. Homeschooling will keep increasing year by year. According to Dr. Brian D. Ray about 2% to 8% per annum was the growth over the past few years. For these and many more reasons is why parents choose to home school their children.
Moreover, some families choose to Homeschool in order to screen their child’s curriculum to remove secularist views found in modern day public school curriculum (2002). Others have children with special needs or learning disabilities, so they choose to homeschool (Maaja, 1997). Ultimately, families are looking for what they believe is best for their children. And these families want to be actively involved in the education of their children. Homeschooling parents do not want strangers raising their children. They want to raise their children with freedom from government systems and institutions (Ray, 2000a).
Homeschooling offers students a more time efficient education that allows the student to focus on education in which is the sole purpose for school. Homeschooling also gives the teacher a thorough evaluation of a student’s strengths and weaknesses by visually seeing what subjects they excel in and what subjects they are weak in. At this point students can increase their individual progression in each subject. Homeschooling permits control of the environment a student learns in to retain the focus of the student. This will reduce the chances of drug usage, bullying, and violence. Samuel Blumenfeld said this on the importance of homeschooling “The home is a safe haven for the children in a world awash with drugs, sexually transmitted diseases, violence, and moral corruption” (Cindy Mur et al.76). When parents come to realize that the home is the safest place for their children, then will they act as Blumenfeld concludes “I look forward to the day when the public schools will be virtually empty not because we have abolished public education but because the parents will have abandoned it” (Cindy Mur et al.
However, although the outrage was reasonable, the concept of parents being just as educated as their students should be is not completely nonsensical. Structured and adequate homeschooling is like a chain reaction: how the material is being taught is just as important as what is being taught, which is just as important as who is teaching it. If any one of these three is weaker than the other, than the homeschooling suddenly becomes unstructured and, more likely than not, destined to fail. According to Heckman, "early childhood is the most relevant period across life span to promote the acquisition of cognitive skills." Cognitive psychology can give an inside look as to when and how to implement certain factors into a child 's education (Antonietti 477). The elements of this form of psychology state that students should be taught materials that "1. Develop an integrated structure of
Education is an amazing opportunity, no matter how one receives it. Since the beginning of the public-school system, homeschooling had become a dwindling sight, until the last 20 years or so. The stigma surrounding homeschooling is one that paints parents as intolerant and children as awkward and anti-social. Many are skeptic about homeschooling and want their children to experience life outside of the home through public or private school. While this is completely understandable, could homeschooling offer a better education and more future success than public schooling? Homeschooling produces better test scores and is more academically effective than public schooling.
Rivero, Lisa. The Homeschooling Option: How to Decide When It's Right for Your Family. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Print.
Their parents aren’t teachers, and just teach them what they want to teach them. Finally, they don’t get certain benefits offered by all public schools. All these reasons and many more, is why I think public schooling can be a better educational system than homeschooling. Firstly, a child’s youth is what molds them for their future, making friends and socializing during school is what helps them get an image, and a social group. This gives them a sense, of who they are, and what kind of people they will get along with in life.
In today’s American society, quality education is important for one to succeed. Without proper education, a person will find it extremely difficult to apply for college, a job, or to pursue his or her dream. Typically when Americans think of education, public education is the first to come to mind. Public education has been around for centuries and is provided to most children throughout the United States. Due to this fact, public education has been the go to education source for years. Though, this trend is slowly changing with many parents deciding to home school their children instead. Many factors are the cause for this issue, but the common arguments arise from a certain few. For students, public school provides many opportunities ranging from social connections, school sports, and the exposure to teachers who are experts in their fields. But homeschooling is often superior because it offers additional time for students to participate in various extracurricular activities and community service, allows for more individual attention, personal character development, and it offers less exposure to discrimination that is received in the public school environment.
As the population in public schools increase, the problems in these schools are also on the rise. These changes are leasing to the way parents are schooling their children. Many parents are leaning towards homeschooling as a solution to this problem. This increase in homeschooling can be directly related to an increase in school violence, the offering of a lack luster curriculum, and lack of student teacher interaction.
ABSTRACT: Homeschooling is a controversial topic among educators. The issues that follow a child throughout their educational and social lives, are elevated when a child has been home schooled. There is no social environment for the child to learn to develop basic social skills; most home schooling environments are made up of a child, perhaps accompanied by a sibling, and the parent teaching the information given. There is no room for a developed personality that is consistent with a child of equal age and grade in a normal schooling environment.
...l that it is a decision that a parent needs to make, based on what they feel are important standards for learning. Home schooling provides a more relaxed environment, with a one on one learning environment and a flexible schedule. It also provides a pace that is best for the child, an environment on areas children want to focus on as well as confident student who doesn¦Ðt have to deal with the feelings of others. However, it decreases the socialization of the child, less exposure to different ethnicities and a limited view of the real world. The parents probably do not have the knowledge they need to teach, there are more distractions to deal with and parents may not know how to teach. These ideas are serious to think about and only add to the controversial idea of home schooling.
Thesis Statement: Homeschooled students often achieve higher academic success and are more active in their communities than traditionally schooled students, due to a personalized approach to learning that emphasizes individuality.
The major reasons for homeschooling cited by two-thirds of the parents interviewed are concern about the school environment, dissatisfaction with the academic programs, and the desire for religious or moral instruction (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2004). Parents feel ...
Over the years I was plagued with questions about my homeschooling: “You mean you don’t go to school?” Or my favorite: “So you wake up whenever you want?”, both of which are good questions for this obscure child that doesn’t “go to school”. I was weird. Although I assumed this was simply the childish reaction, there was always part of me that dreaded the question, even from adults. Why had my parents chosen this for me? Religious reasons? Inferior public schooling? Really it boiled down to the belief that they could better tailor my education and develop a more creative and energetic mind in their children. Homeschooling was the difficult but sacrificial choice my parents made for my siblings and I, and we thank them for it. Although homeschooling seems to be gaining ground as a more acceptable and less obscure form of education than in previous years, the general public has yet to fully embrace it. One big battle is the debate over extracurricular activities offered by public schools and their policies regarding the inclusion of local homeschool children. Should they be allowed to take part in the school’s offerings, even if they don’t attend the school for classes? Extracurriculars can be an important part of a child’s development. Team sports, for example, offer lessons in fairness, teamwork, disappointment and even victory. Although perhaps some of these lessons aren’t considered necessities in the educational world, we can all agree these are beneficial lessons every child should have a chance to learn. Homeschooling is often considered a sub-par form of education when in reality it offers a full and rich educational experience that deserves similar rights to the publicly educated, including access to public school extracurr...