McEwan-Adkins Group - Commonly Asked Questions and Answers About Home Schooling

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Commonly Asked Questions and Answers About Home Schooling

Q. We talked all summer long about whether we should home school our eight and ten year old children this year. We had kind of a rough year with my son in fourth grade last year. But my husband and I couldn't make up our minds and we're back in public school, but my son is having some problems already. What do you think of home schooling?

A. This is a growing phenomenon and there are hundreds of families who are home schooling with great success. It sounds as if you may have made the right decision by deciding to stick with public school for the moment, since home schooling your children is a major commitment of time and energy, for at least one of the parents (and ideally both parents should be involved in the process). The best known home schooling family (and their children are now out of college) is the Colfax family whose sons have all enrolled at Harvard. Their "school" was a goat farm in California. Their curriculum was based on the homestead they built. The boys restored the land, planted gardens, and improved livestock—subjects not taught in any grade school I know. Their interest and expertise in the areas of biology, chemistry, and subsequently embryology and genetics grew out of their homestead project. Home schooling is perfect for the gifted student who is bored and irritated with the structure and rigidity of a system that prescribes when and how much learning each student will get. Children have time to pursue more special interests and hobbies since learning one-on-one is more efficient and more can be accomplished in a short time period. Home-schooled students frequently learn to use the community and its resources far more effectively than other children.

Here are some of the other advantages of home schooling:

Home schooling gives parents the freedom to educate according to their personal convictions, using materials that make sense to them, and employing methodologies that work with their children.
Home schooling often provides a better setting in which "late bloomers" and children with problems can flourish.
Home-schooled children learn to live with and love their sibling. They help each other with lessons and work on projects together. Moms of home-schooled students report that close bonds develop between brothers and sisters of different ages and interests, a rarity in many families where children spend more time with their age-mates from school than their families.
Parents who are concerned about the negative effects of peer pressure and the influence of a community without values can guide their child in the selection of friends and acquaintances.
A home-school setting is more like the real world. Home schoolers are quick to point out that the formal school setting is nothing like the "real world." Once children leave school, they rarely spend time exclusively with people their own age. They work and socialize with a variety of different age groups. Home schools whose parents structure the opportunities can be as comfortable helping with a brand-new baby as they can helping out at a local nursing home.
Parents who home-school their children definitely experience "quality time" with their children. There are many parents who do look upon twenty-four-hour-day, 365 day-a-year involvement with their children as more of a burden than a blessing. But for home-schooling parents, the opportunity to spend time getting to know their children as individuals is a prime advantage.
There is little or no competition in the home setting. The minute a child enters the formal school setting, the comparisons begin. On the first day of school I've watched kindergarten parents eyeing other children to see how their child measures up. They want their child to be first–after all, that's the American way. Teachers prepare charts to keep track of how many books students have read, how far they can count, and how many soup labels they contributed to the PTA fund-raising drive. There is competition on every hand. Students are measured, labeled, and sorted. While we all recognize that competition is part of an adult life, the young child who loses early and often in a highly competitive environment can have his self-esteem shattered. He may even give up.
Learning is the home setting is self-motivated rather than "lock-step" learning. While educators who work in institutionalized settings freely talk of "individualized learning" and enrichment," the fact remains that the text or curriculum and the students in the class influence what is taught and how it is taught. Rarely, if ever, do students and teachers enjoy the luxury of spending an entire day on a single project or assignment. Rarely does the student have the freedom to pursue his or her own interests without regard for "curriculum" or textbook."

As idyllic as home schooling can sound where described by an enthusiastic practitioner, there are disadvantages that must be considered before making the choice. Tune in next week for the "down-side" to setting up school at home.

Q. Last week we talked about some of the advantages of home schooling. But don't overlook the following disadvantages to this popular alternative to sending your child off to school each day.

A. Some disadvantages:

Public pressure from friends, family, and neighbors. Pressure will likely come from family and friends who will question your motives, your ability to cope with the situation, and in some cases your sanity. As a home-schooler, be prepared to spend a lot of time explaining and defending what you do to other people. An education official I spoke with who monitors home-schoolers says his office frequently receives calls from neighbors of home-schoolers. "They're complaining about kids playing outside in the middle of the day," he reports. His office is obligated to investigate complaints which are usually unfounded. "One parent teaching one child can accomplish more in three hours than one teacher teaching thirty kids in six hours," he adds. "It's not unreasonable that a home-schooled child will have a little more recess time. But most people just don't understand that."
Lack of social contact with peers. While this is the most oft-mentioned disadvantage of home-schooling, most home-schooling parents I talk to are aware of the problem and are doing an admirable job of compensating. Many belong to parent networks that provide social opportunities for children. These events do not take place without much planning and organization on the part of committed individuals, however. Parents must pay for teachers and meeting places. As enriching as these various activities may be, they may not provide that "special friend" that parents hope their children will have because of the limited number of children at any grade level. And your child may not have the opportunity to develop that friendship on his or her own, away from the structure and watchful eye of mom or dad.
Sheltered, potentially over-protected environment. This is precisely the kind of environment that many home-schooling parents want for their children. But there are others who find the confinement of home unnecessarily restrictive. If your children will ultimately transfer to a conventional school setting, they need to be prepared for such traumatic events as showering in the locker room, playing team sports in the gym, and eating in the school lunch room.
Much time, organization, and commitment needed by parent. If you've mastered the skills of organization and time management, than this disadvantage will not bother you. If you want to do a good job, your work as a home-schooling parent will consume almost all of your time and energy. You will be tired at the end of each day and if you're not prepared for hard work, don't take on home schooling.
Lack of objectivity about your child. We all think our children are perfect. And it's very difficult to be objective about them. One of the benefits of sending them out in the world is the opportunity they have to practice their social skills away from the watchful parental eye and get feedback that is honest and real about who they are and how they're doing. All children need a little fine tuning and usually mom and dad don't have the objectivity to do that. The home-schooled child can get so completely enmeshed with his mother that this fine tuning may never take place.
Parental sacrifice. The total parental commitment that is needed to make home schooling work means that mom (or dad) will have to put most of her/his her own personal life on hold. The home-schoolers with whom I talk seem to have time for little else but home schooling. The movement is still too young to determine what effect this will have on the later emotional and psychological adjustment of the women involved, but care must be taken by the home-teacher to develop a healthy personal life with friends and activities apart from home schooling.
Parents may make faulty educational decisions about their children from ignorance or misunderstanding. While avid home-schoolers can get defensive if their credentials for teaching are questioned, in some cases, they need to seek out the opinions of experts. One mother I talked with said, "If only I'd realized that what my daughter needed was a totally different approach to reading instruction." She finally consulted a reading specialist, but only after she and her daughter were both totally frustrated.
Lack of interaction in discussion and group work with other students. While many critics of home-schooling mention lack of social interaction as one of the key disadvantages, this problem can be solved quite easily through a variety of avenues–church, Scouts, park district and community groups, public library activities, and neighborhood playmates. Discussion and group work that takes place in a formal way in the classroom not only helps students learn social skills, but helps them gain a better understanding of the subject matter. Parents can compensate for this disadvantage by becoming learners along with their children. The home-schooling philosophy and curriculum that consists solely of a student working his way through individualized learning packets with little or no discussion and interaction will result in the worst kind of rote learning.
Lack of access to special programs (computers, band chorus, foreign language, athletics and science labs). This is a critical problem, particularly for students in junior high and high school. Serious home-schoolers need to be ready to spend money on books, encyclopedias, reference materials, magazines, laboratory equipment, computers, art supplies, and even musical instruments. Many parents budget substantial amounts of money for their program each year as home-schoolers need to pay for every outside service their children receives.
Fewer organizational involvement opportunities for parents. One home-schooler with whom I spoke, a former public school teacher, spoke somewhat wistfully about missing out on the PTA. "I always thought that someday I would be the PTA president and be a room mother for my kids. I've missed that." She also mentioned feeling left out of the neighborhood camaraderie when parents gather to talk about school and their kids.
Parent stress and burnout. Let's face it. Kids are demanding and sometimes even exasperating. Moms who send their kids off to school have some time to themselves. One mom home-schooled her four daughters for one year. They were in 7th, 5th, 3rd, and kindergarten. "My kids really loved it, but I burned out. I was with them night and day," she said. Her husband's job took him away from home on many evenings and she was trying to do everything on her own. Common problems that home-school parents face are lack of success, personality conflicts with children, pressure from friends and family, poor organization, and lack of teaching skills.