Reasons for Home-Schooling
While some parents may fear a home-schooled child would lack academic success, studies show otherwise.
Articles within this series
Academic Reasons
While some parents choose to teach at home to promote positive socialization, others make the decision for academic reasons. Any teacher will agree that the smaller the class size, the more learning takes place. The one-on-one tutoring atmosphere is the healthiest, most productive and most progressive atmosphere for a student's academic success.
Take a look at some famous home-schooled students: Andrew Carnegie, Charlie Chaplin, Agatha Christie, Winston Churchill, Charles Dickens, Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Florence Nightingale, Woodrow Wilson and the Wright brothers.
People ask how parents--especially parents with little or no post-secondary education--can teach children every discipline available to public school students. Although I have my degree in English, am I qualified to teach math or science to my kids? My wife has a business administration degree; is she able to teach the language arts? With sufficient information and dedication to the task, we certainly are.
Even if parents do not have an abundance of academic training themselves, they can find solutions to fill the gaps. For example, many home schools will team up with other home schools to exchange skills. I traded skills with another home school family by going to their house once a week to teach English to three of their sons. In return, their mom taught algebra to my two oldest daughters.
Most communities today have enrichment classes students can sign up for much like college students sign up for electives. Here in Colorado Springs, the High Plains Christian Home Educators support group has hired a full-time administrator who coordinates 60 classes for over 200 students. Cooperatives such as this are becoming more popular as home schooling grows.
But education is more than individual academic courses — more than teaching what the teacher knows or training students in a particular skill. It is actually passing on a worldview. Separating the disciplines — as if English had nothing to do with math, and science was unrelated to civics — promotes a fragmented vision of true education.
A wise man once said, "A good teacher teaches himself out of a job." When I taught English in the public schools, I was not merely repeating what I learned in college; I was teaching students to love and passionately engage in the language arts. And when I taught, I integrated all disciplines — history, science, social studies, even math — into my lessons. Treating any learning discipline as separate from others misrepresents real life. Real life is interdisciplinary, and home-school instruction lends itself to a cross-disciplinary approach.
Students have the freedom to pursue their interests and strengths. They also receive the attention needed to improve skills in their more difficult learning areas. Pat Farenga explains the benefits of solitary reflection: "Children, like adults, need time to be alone to think, to muse, to read freely, to daydream, to be creative, to form a self independent of the barrage of mass culture." Granting such a time presents a struggle in traditional schools, but home schools allow such freedom.
Family Reasons
Home-school parents see their role as the single most important responsibility they carry. The family helps to build strong minds and healthy personalities.
Along with strengthening the family and setting firm foundations for kids, home-school parents discover some personal pluses. Wendy and I are now much closer to our kids, more in touch with their needs and feelings. Alicia and Alissa attended public school through first- and third-grade respectively until I completed college and Wendy returned home from full-time work (to unpaid full-time work).
While Alicia's grades were excellent, she needed to be home for security's sake. Alissa, on the other hand, loved the social contact at school but struggled in basic writing and reading skills. Wendy and I noticed positive changes immediately in Alicia's esteem and Alissa's academics. They both become more confident. I can only accredit this improvement to the loving and affirming atmosphere of the family.
Religious Reasons
It is no secret that public schools have not taken religion seriously. Fear of church and state laws keep some schools from even mentioning the influence of religion in American life. Instead of recognizing religion as part of our culture, civil liberties organizations have fought hard in the courts to make religion illegal in the classroom.
This has been too bad. With the exclusion of religion many parents have felt compelled to go elsewhere — even to their own homes — to teach their children basic moral and religious truths to provide a well-rounded and liberal education.
Teaching our kids at home frees us to handle religious questions and spiritual training without worrying about public school issues. While some districts restrict the discussion of religious influence in history, literature and science, home schools can incorporate the impact of spiritual beliefs into all curricula.
Mutual Respect
Home schooling is being recognized by professional educators and by society as a reasonable educational option for families. Some public schools and private schools have formed alliances with home education groups and have adopted programs that suit the home education lifestyle.
Home schooling is not so much a rebellion against public schools as it is a choice made on social, academic, family and religious grounds. As educators and home schoolers get to know one another, we will see that we share many of the same goals for our children.