home schooling
Home Schooling Pros and Cons
Mike Jerry
Mike Jerry
Home schooling is perceived differently depending on your point of view. The homeschooling advantage is the ability to keep children safe, develop a personalized homeschooling curriculum, and enjoy a flexible schedule. The homeschooling disadvantage is that parents must not work outside of the home so potential income is lost, children miss out on opportunities for socialization, and there are questions about the quality of the homeschooling curriculum. Parents need to weigh the arguments on both sides and decide what is best for their child.
The image of home schooling has typically been that of the fundamental agoraphobic, too scared to let their children mix with the other children at public schools. Recent years have tempered that a great deal. New home schooling curricula has been introduced, providing a clearer path of learning, and there have been so many success stories of students that come from home school environments.
Meanwhile the state of public schooling in America has gone downhill drastically; resulting in poorer and poorer scores on standardized tests, gangs and violence on the rise, and the rash in the late 90's of school shootings, all contribute to the waning confidence in public education.
Better Learning at Home
Many parents are finding a better and more personalized home schooling curriculum and giving their children a more effective education at home. Children of home schooling parents achieve many of the perfect scores on standardized tests. Many of these parents looked at it as an alternative to expensive private schools -- the side benefit of a student teacher ratio that no school could afford to match may only play a small role in the equation. In general, more of the parents cite the more relaxed learning atmosphere they can create at home. All the other things public schools bring, like the stress to fit in, isn't a distraction for home schooled students.
The Internet has also brought home schooling into the digital age. More than just a learning aid, home schooling online improves the general state of education as it can step in to help in areas the parent may themselves feel deficient. It can also answer the biggest argument against home schooling; the lack of socialization. By working together, both the teachers and the students get to interact breaking the isolation associated with fundamentalist Christian home schooling.
Many Still Don't Trust Home Schooling.
With all these benefits, why wouldn't more parents choose this route? There are several answers to this. Many parents simply don't have the time. In more and more families, both parents have to work just to make ends meet. For these families, home schooling is simply impossible.
The loss of income is just too great. Others look to the supposed gaps in the education, and feel that specialty lessons like some sort of home schooling driver education, are lacking. In short, it just isn't for everyone. Each family must decide whether public, private or home schooling is best for their own children.
Meanwhile the state of public schooling in America has gone downhill drastically; resulting in poorer and poorer scores on standardized tests, gangs and violence on the rise, and the rash in the late 90's of school shootings, all contribute to the waning confidence in public education.
Better Learning at Home
Many parents are finding a better and more personalized home schooling curriculum and giving their children a more effective education at home. Children of home schooling parents achieve many of the perfect scores on standardized tests. Many of these parents looked at it as an alternative to expensive private schools -- the side benefit of a student teacher ratio that no school could afford to match may only play a small role in the equation. In general, more of the parents cite the more relaxed learning atmosphere they can create at home. All the other things public schools bring, like the stress to fit in, isn't a distraction for home schooled students.
The Internet has also brought home schooling into the digital age. More than just a learning aid, home schooling online improves the general state of education as it can step in to help in areas the parent may themselves feel deficient. It can also answer the biggest argument against home schooling; the lack of socialization. By working together, both the teachers and the students get to interact breaking the isolation associated with fundamentalist Christian home schooling.
Many Still Don't Trust Home Schooling.
With all these benefits, why wouldn't more parents choose this route? There are several answers to this. Many parents simply don't have the time. In more and more families, both parents have to work just to make ends meet. For these families, home schooling is simply impossible.
The loss of income is just too great. Others look to the supposed gaps in the education, and feel that specialty lessons like some sort of home schooling driver education, are lacking. In short, it just isn't for everyone. Each family must decide whether public, private or home schooling is best for their own children.
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