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HOME SCHOOL
Home schooling (also called home education and sometimes spelled home schooling) is the education of children at home and in the community, in contrast to education in an institution such as a public or parochial school. It’s a sort of home resource school. In the United States, home schooling is the focus of a substantial minority movement among parents who wish to provide their children with a custom or more complete education which they feel is unattainable in most public or even private schools.
Home schooling motivations
Proponents of home education invoke parental responsibility and the classical liberal arguments for personal freedom from government intrusion. Few proponents advocate that homeschooling should be the dominant educational policy. Most home schooling advocates are wary of the established educational institutions for various reasons. Some are religious conservatives who see non-religious education as contrary to their moral or religious systems. Others feel that they can more effectively tailor a home school curriculum to suit an individual student’s academic strengths and weaknesses, especially those with learning disabilities. Still others feel that the negative social pressures of schools (such as bullying, drugs, crime, and other school-related problems) are detrimental to a child’s proper development.
Options which make home schooling attractive to some families also include:
• Allowing a longer exploratory play-oriented childhood, encouraging the development of rich imagination and pre-academic skills which can foster later academic success
• The flexibility of the education schedule allows each student to work at his own pace, enjoy family vacations, and integrate outside activities or current events with subjects they are studying.
• Religion, ethics, and character topics not included in public school curriculums can be freely taught.
• Non-traditional curriculums and unusual subjects such as Latin and Greek can be taught.
• Geography, art and music curriculum can be enhanced.
• Money management and business topics may be taught and integrated with a family business.
Home schooling may have a financial impact on families. In addition to having to purchase school supplies and curriculum materials, a home schooler’s parent(s) often cut back or refrain from employment outside the home in order to supervise the child’s education. This may have long-term career consequences as well. However, many home schooling parents say that one unique benefit is the additional time they get to spend with their children.
Home school Community resources
Homeschoolers take advantage of educational programs at community resources like museums, athletic clubs, churches, and other. High-school level home school-students often take classes at community colleges.
Social development
A common concern voiced about home schooled children is they lack the social interaction with peers that a school environment provides. Many home schooling families address these concerns by joining numerous organizations, including independent study programs and specialized enrichment groups for PE, Art, Music, and Debate. Most are also active in community groups. Home schooled children generally socialize with other children the same way that school children do: outside of school, via personal visits and through sports teams, clubs and religious groups.
ERIC, the Education Resources Information Center of the U.S. government, has published multiple articles on home schooling. Here's an excerpt from one which examined several studies on home school socialization:
"According to the findings, children who were schooled at home 'gained the necessary skills, knowledge, and attitudes needed to function in society...at a rate similar to that of conventionally schooled children.'
"The researcher found no difference in the self concept of children in the two groups. Stough maintains that 'insofar as self concept is a reflector of socialization, it would appear that few home-schooled children are socially deprived, and that there may be sufficient evidence to indicate that some home-schooled children have a higher self concept than conventionally schooled children.'"
Proponents argue further that the social environment of schools:
• eradicates individuality and creativity.
• sinks to the standards of the lowest common denominator
• involves bullying, drug use, early sexuality, defiance, criminality, materialism, and eating disorders.
and that socialization in the wider community:
• leads them to use adults as role models rather than peers
• better prepares them for real life
• encourages them to be more involved in youth organizations, church organizations, and sports
• helps them develop an independent understanding of themselves and their role in the world, with the freedom to reject or approve conventional values without the risk of ridicule.
Opponents of home schooling offer the following criticisms concerning socialization, pointing out that not all home schooling families participate extensively in community activities:
• Interaction with peers and different social groups is essential to learning to live in society.
• Schools are a unique environment that provides students with necessary social networking skills that help them succeed in the workplace and in the politics of high-level business. Real life includes school as well.
• Homeschoolers tend to live in an insulated world where they aren't exposed to a variety of ideas, which can prevent any personal growth and independence later on in life.
• If children are insulated from unpleasant social situations, then they will be left unprepared when they are inevitably left to make their own way in the world. Children should be allowed to live and learn from their mistakes rather than sheltered from reality.
Some persons oppose homeschooling because they fear that children in such homes could be trapped into a cult-like atmosphere and raised entirely without a view of the larger social world. These persons say that there is a pronounced risk that religious or social extremism could be taught to children in the sheltered environment of a home school.
Legal Defense Association
Defends and protects the constitutional right of parents.
www.hslda.org
Homeschool World
Official site of Practical Homeschooling Magazine .
www.home-school.com
Homeschool.com
Resource guide offering newsletter and online courses.
www.homeschool.com
 Students.net Homepage  Back to Student School
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