What Do You Think About Home Schooling?

I suppose that the benefit of a school is that we are able to pool personnel and resource into one strategic location so that the community benefits from the economies of sending our children to that single location for education and training. What is the purpose of education anyway? And could not the same goal be achieved by home schooling?

I propose that we educate our children in order to prepare them to relate to the environment in a productive way with knowledge, attitudes and behaviours to empower them to survive and endure, as well as enjoy the world around them. By training they acquire skills to carry out particular tasks for productive ends. These are just my off the cuff definitions but the issue for me is that the home is the best place to impart education and training to young children.

I have arrived at this view by observing the results of institutional private and public education.

1. High school graduates who are illiterates.

2. The vulgar behaviour on streets.

3. Criminal white collar geniuses.

4. Armed gangs in schools.

5. In my country there are buses in the public transportation system with tinted windows that specialise in transporting schoolgirls who want to tryst with adult men in the buses. As I write this the government is moving to put pressure on the bus operators to remove tints in order to protect the young girls.

6. Gifted children who are frustrated because they are forced to slow down in a learning environment that is not student paced.

7. Institutions that teach contrary to the religious and ethical values of the community.

8. The unsanitary environment of some schools.

9. Under motivated teachers who are marking time and just teaching for the salary.

10. Schools that are caught up with sports and extra curricular activities to the detriment of academic and life skills.

Home schooling can wipe the board clean of all of the above and offer the young child the blessed environment of home where there is love, motivation, student-centred attention, and the ethical standards of the family.

I believe that all who can provide this alternative should so do since it offers a safer and better method of imparting knowledge and survival skills to the next generation.

I am becoming more and more convinced of the wisdom of home schooling because of:

1. The benefits of student-paced learning.

2. Especially with the advent of digital and interactive learning methodologies, many resources are now available for home schooling.

3. Universities are now more accepting of home schooling.

4. Home schooling ensures that the parent child bond is kept strong even when the tutor is not the parent since the child is in the social environment of the home.

5. Home schooling avoids the negative peer influence to be found in several schools.

6. Home schooling can be far more economical since it avoids cost of transportation and school uniforms, and purchasing of additional meals.

7. Home schooling reduces the security concerns of parents.

8. Where a child is expected to continue a family business the home schooling environment can be so arranged to keep the child within the work and professional environment of the parents.

9. Of course home schooling is the natural choice of families living in geographically and culturally isolated conditions.

What do you think about home schooling? I believe it was the original plan and those who can should use it.