Face the facts, homeschooling is NOT for everyone. It means less free time for the parents and less income for the family. It is a challenge jumping over hoops the local and national educational school boards insists upon to give us a harder time.
When you declare your intentions publicly, you will have family members, friends, and neighbors who will look at you like you are the worst monster in the world because they have preconceived ideas about homeschooling which are mostly wrong or misleading.
There would not be such a massive cry for people wanting the homeschool option IF the public schools were acceptable. Most parents are tired of a watered down educational system.
We are not saying that all teachers in public schools are bad nor that the intentions are not best, but good intentions are not good enough for our children.
This is basically about WHY people homeschooling. It doesn't matter what YOUR personal position is about homeschooling, but this is ONLY about what others who are ACTUALLY doing it ARE experiencing and why they do it.
Homeschooling may or may not be right for your children or family situation. Just because one advocates homeschool does not mean they believe everyone should also do the same. Many will also agree there are some who do homeschool for the wrong reasons that have no business being a teacher.
For the rest of us who choose to homeschool, we have our own reasons. You can read about all the opinions, but please don't accept them as something that will fit into your life. Your circumstances may be different.
FACT: There is a serious lack of teachers in the public school systems.
Instead of welcoming the assistance of mothers and fathers wanting to take some of the burden by educating their kids at home, we get called names implying we are bad parents. How is it any better to send our children to a classroom where there are far too many kids fighting for the teacher's attention?
Large classrooms tend to lose those who are too far ahead of other classmates and those who are too far behind fall through the cracks completely.
Not everyone homeschooling is doing so for religious reasons. Most of us, including the religious, simply want our children to have a more hands on education with more attention to the needs of the individual child. That is something a public school is not able to do.
FACT: There is not enough money in most school systems to pay the qualified teachers let alone special projects. Even programs such as art and music have had to take massive cuts.
In a homeschool, we do not have to consult a school board to apply for funds or permission to take the kids on an educational field trip, perform a special experiment, or participate in community activities. When we come to a point in our lessons where we feel the need to interject a project, we simply do it. Try that in a public school!
FACT: Public schools are NOT God-centered!
And a public school should not be! There are far too many religions to represent. If they had to cater to everyone's religious or nonreligious beliefs, there would be no time to teach the actual lessons.
Those who are at home for religious reasons often are tired of the abuse their kids must go through in a public system that will not tolerate them needing to exercise their First Amendment right to pray and/or read religious material.
As long as the parents believe their children need more of their God in the lives of their children, it just will not happen in a public school setting.
This is not to say that ALL they teach is God, only that their methods are more God-centered which is a totally different thing!
FACT: Although public schools must observe policies to keep religion out of the schools, the religion topics are forced upon children against their will anyway.
While the majority of the country claims to be Christian [although most in those numbers are so in name only] there are other types of religions among the kids as well as those who practice no religion, are agnostic or atheist. Often these kids are subjected to ridicule by those of the major religion in that school.
On the playground, those who are different can be taunted, ridiculed, or just preached at by the other kids. We parents send our children to school with the values we give them and most of us do not appreciate group pressure used upon our children to get them to change.
Every year there are students encouraged to push the issue of the separation of church and state within their schools. They may start out by doing something like starting a prayer out loud at a school game or at lunchtime. Eventually it gets regular and all in attendance are EXPECTED to fall in line.
Unfortunately, they are not sensitive to others who do not follow their faith and find this "in your face" religious observance offensive. [And trust me, there are some who find this type of thing which should be private and personal as offensive as broadcasting your sex life in detail in public.]
FACT: Being different in a public school hinders a student's full potential.
Kids can be cruel. They learn this form of intolerance from their parents and pass it on to other kids. When a kid is brought up to be an independent thinker and do their own thing, kids see an easy target. Public schools are all about conformity. If you do your own thing or think for yourself, you are not encouraged by your teachers and tormented by your classmates.
Some of the parents who homeschool do so because they want children who WILL think for themselves. A kid who is not as likely to do something just because everyone else is doing it. A kid who is more likely to do the right thing.
Independent thinkers are more prone to come up with new and revolutionary ideas which will change the world for the better.
FACT: Public schools mostly teach the learning by rote method.
Learning by rote is where you study a few facts and memorize them word for word in order to take a test. You may or may not remember the lesson when you move to the next level, but at least you passed the test.
Learning by rote is a great way to start with the basics, but a student needs to do more than learning by rote in order to actually learn. They need to personalize it and give it a meaning for that lesson to stick.
For example, a child can learn the entire multiplication table by rote, but unless they can actually visualize it and the tables mean something, they will always need to think long and hard or use a calculator as an adult.
If a child is taught how and why the lesson is important to them and how it will be useful to them in the future, the lesson will be more effective. Public schools do not have the time and resources to do this with each student. They are on a set schedule to get the lesson done by a certain time. A good student will get the hang of learning by rote long enough to pass a test. Other students will fall behind and become hopelessly lost as the lessons continue.
FACT: Time and time again, the biggest argument critics have about homeschooling is the socialization issue.
This is so far from the truth! My biggest criticism about public schooling is why should one be social when trying to learn? There is a time and place for everything, but that lesson should not be learned in the classroom.
The whole social structure of popular versus unpopular kids is what starts the school violence. One group of kids sees a kid who is different and they view as weak assume it is okay to pick on him/her constantly. Soon, more kids start. What kind of lesson is that for a kid during a time when they should be paying attention to the blackboard?
If you think this kind of assualt on children is just on the playground or between classes, you are sadly mistaken. Oftentimes, this goes on DURING class.
When in a homeschool situation, class time is for learning ONLY. After school hours, which are shorter than public schools, the kids are free to play with other kids, go off to sports or dance classes, visit family, or just relax and have fun.
Homeschool kids have more of an opportunity for social skills in a better structure than public schools. While kids in a public school are loosely supervised at lunch or recess by one or two adults to 100-300 kids, homeschool kids are watched by their parents in a smaller setting.
Of course this debate will continue on for probably a few more decades, but did many people here stop to think, for many hundreds of years before the 20th century homeschooling was the norm. A degree does not make a person an expert over the children to which we gave birth, raised and know. I think any qualified parent knows our own children better than a stranger.
Granted, the majority of parents love their children and wish to give them the best education available. For some who can afford the luxury, that might be a private school. For others, it may be in the public schools. But a good choice for SOME parents is homeschooling.
Some people homeschool for the wrong reasons and others are not qualified to teach homeschool, to deny this fact is to be ignorant of what is going on. There are some who have no business teaching their children at home.
Because of those who do give homeschoolers a bad name, the public at large assumes we are all the same stereotypes of uneducated, lazy religious fanatics who fear sending our kids out into the "real world". Those who accept the media hyped stereotypes often ignore the many qualified homeschool parents.
Before the 20th century, teaching kids at home was the norm. Public school systems were more of the exception than the rule and often those schools were backed by churches. The rich families had highly educated tutors teach their children. The rest of the families had the option to try to expose their children to educational resources so they may have a chance to break out of their poverty or send the kids to work to learn a skill which was very important to their well being at the time.
Children were not quite as valued as they are today. They were mostly viewed as another worker to keep up with the family survival and either an asset or a liability. Due to laws to help the children, something had to be done with all those kids who no longer had to work long and hard hours as an unskilled labor force. This is how the public school system became the norm.
A good intention became bogged down in a legalistic society. There was a body of people in power who made rules for the good of everyone. The power spilled over into each and every public school system. Pretty soon, it was more about what was in it for the leaders and their opinions which no one dared challenged. They are, after all, only human. What makes you think that what they think is the best for your child is the ONLY way to think?
People have given this god-like authority over doctors until they realized doctors make mistakes and are not perfect. They may have good intentions that are wrong or just plain don't care. Some doctors are so caught up in their own opinion, they won't consider anything else. The same goes for the National Education Association which is the strongest critic against homeschooling.
The NEA does have the best interests of our children in mind, but they are not gods when it comes to education. They do not KNOW our children or OUR families and our individual ABILITIES. Many who did not go to or finish college are as intelligent as those with a degree. There are many circumstances that can prevent an otherwise smart person from obtaining a degree. Even some of those with degrees have proven to be only book smart whereas they can only think within the walls of what they were taught, not much beyond that point.
If you feel you are qualified to teach your child and your child will benefit from education at home, then you should have the right to do so without everyone wagging their fingers at you.
