Home School Teaching: Are You Ready for the Responsibilities?
The Challenge of Home Schooling
Do You Have the Time and Commitment to Teach Your Child At Home?
Many parents hope to improve their child's academic success by separating the child from the traditional public school system. The objective may be to rescue the child from large classroom sittings where it is virtually impossible to get special help or rescue the child from the increasing danger of school bullying and violence that is occurring within the American school system. Whatever the reason, every parent must make sure this is the right thing for their child. Many challenges comes with the decision for home schooling.
Criteria for Home Schooling
In order to teach your child at home, you must inform the Superintendent of the school system regarding your intents. This can be done with a letter. It is his responsibility to monitor your child's progress during home study. In addition you must submit to the Superintendent evidence that you can meet the minimum educational requirements expected by the school district. In order to determine the readiness of your child's ability to successfully do home schooling, you must submit a list of the books and materials that your child used the previous year. You will most likely have to commit these items as well: copies of your child's work along with standardized tests, a witness who have observed the success of your child. The district's education board will determine if the home study program meets the district's standards.
Curriculum for Home School
The curriculum for home school must be in alignment with the standards set by the the state public school board. In other words, the curriculum must correspond to the age and grade level of that required by the state education board. The foundational courses of the curriculum should include English or language arts, mathematics, social sciences, biological science, health and physical development as well as music and fine arts. The home school program that you choose for your child's education must engage your child in these subjects or else it will most likely be unacceptable.
Schedule/Time Frame
Even though parents will have freedom to decide the tools and material of the home study program suited to their child's need, the schedule for instruction and seat work will need to be similar to that of a regular classroom. Therefore, in order to meet the curriculum requirements of the school district, you will need to consistently abide by an effective time frame. Attempting to teach everything in the morning or in the afternoon will not be good for the child. Leaning needs to be spaced out in order to be effective. Piling up large amounts of material upon your child will mostly likely end in failure and frustration.
Seat Work Conditions
If your child is surrounded by a chaotic atmosphere, such as a loud TV or a blaring stereo or if the room is crowded with several distractions, then learning will be a problem for your child. Effective learning must occur in an atmosphere of minimum distractions. Therefore , you as a parent must be able to offer this kind of atmosphere within your house. An atmosphere that is not conducive to studying will not allow quality learning. Therefore, you must secure a area in your home that is study-ready for the entire day.
Assessing Your Child
In order to evaluate your child's progress, you must assess them with acceptable testing material that can be presented to the school district. The quality and accuracy of the tests will determine if your child has met the qualifications. Therefore, you must choose the most appropriate testing tools to assess your child's competency for the next grade level. Standardized tests are the norm for most school districts in the American school system.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that home schooling require the same kind of commitment from a parent as it would from a regular school teacher, if not more. You can not go about doing other things in the house while your child is studying. You must be attentive to his needs at all times. As a parent, you must also be competent enough to help your child in every subject area. If you are lacking competence in some area, you must refresh your knowledge of that subject area. This will require time and commitment on your part. The type of commitment you are willing to make as a home schooling parent will determine if home school is right for your child.