4 replies to this topic

[mag1]

I have searched the longecity threads for Homeschooling and there appears to be a profound lack of discussion about homeschooling.

This is surprisng because many on this forum appear to be those who like to surf the new waves before they become tunnels of water: people here are early adopters.

 

Home schooling has now almost reached mainstram acceptance, those who want to be early adopters need to get on board sooner instead of later or they will have missed

the boat or er the wave.

 

What I think is so interesting with home schooling is that the weight of evidence firmly supports home schooling as a far superior choice for children's academic, emotional and yes

social development. Many parents appear to have reached a point at which they simply will not accept any further erosion of their children's experience in the social environment of their public schools. For them that next school shooting, or school drug bust or a long list of other troubling pathologies of a typical school would be enough for them to elect for home schooling. The statistics clearly validate this assessment. Whenever yet more outrages occur in our schools, there is usually a flood of parents wanting to seek a refuge for their children in a home school for them.

 

The research surrounding the performance of home schooled children is impressive. It is almost hard to imagine, though home schooled students can often perform 4 grade levels above

their peers in a public school and also above those from private schools.

 

On the top of the list for parents wanting to homeschool their children is concern about the school environment. Who could blame them for this concern? The drugs, violence and poor peer role models are probably unfixable problems of the modern public school. For as much as some might want to distort the topic of homeschooling, it is simply clearly and unquestionably true that an average child in a public school environment would without doubt have a better learning environment in an average family home school environment. There should be no great mystery as to why home schools have so dramatically outperformed all other educational environments. Raising a child within a context in which there would be no possibility of becoming introduced to drugs, violence, or the many other social pathologies of the modern world would be an overwhelming benefit.

 

Further, ongoing drug or alcohol problems simply would not go unrecognized in a home school environment. In a school context students are typically allowed to drift for years and years without any clear consequences for their substance abuse issues. However, with home schooling, there are daily checks of work production. Work that is not done to a stated standard must be redone. Home schooling introduces an accountability and discipline that prevents students drifting through school without achieving.

 

One really does wonder whether we might now see emerge a new super elite homeschooled human species. If these students enter the world perhaps 5-7 grade levels above their peer group, it would not be surprising for them to notice this enormous cognitive gap: a clear intellectual dichotomy between those who are homeschooled and those who are not would occur, two mutually exclusive gene pools. One of the more obvious implications of creating such massive underachievement in typical public schools is that such differentiation never develops to such an extent: everyone from public schools are seriously cognitively impaired.    

 

With all these benefits it is hardly surprising that homeschooling is now pulling away from other educational models in terms of student numbers.  3% of all US school age students in homeschooling with 7% annual compounded growth obviously implies that we are moving toward a time in the nearish future in which interest groups will become more involved about moving this topic into the public conversation. Homeschooling is approaching a liftoff point of exponential growth! What will happen to our society when more than 10% of students are home schooled within the next 20 years if present growth rates hold? 7% of 3% can now be easily ignored, however, when we move to 7% of 10% in 20 years there could be a tangible feeling that the public school system is on the way out. 

 

There is not much to reasonably argue about with homeschooling. The rebuttals that I have read online are extremely weak. Clearly if there is soon not a strategic rethink, the public school will be headed for obsolescence. Students have been voting with their feet for many many years on this question and the current social climate does not suggest a tide back to the traditional public school at anytime in the near to mid time horizons.

 

I would love to hear comments from others on the forum about homeschooling.        

Edited by mag1, 25 September 2016 - 01:05 AM.

[Immortalist188]

Where I come from, homeschooling is an alien concept. I personally believe is self-schooling which is educating myself and continuing to learn where ever I am! I think homeschooling is more useful than public education, however. Thanks for the information.

[niner]

Mag1, do you mean home schooling where the parents are the teachers?  If so, forget it.  That is not happening in America beyond a relatively small fringe.  The usual reason for home schooling is that parents want to inculcate their children with a particular religion.  A smaller percentage homeschool because their local public schools are bad.  I send my kids to a very good public school and I wouldn't dream of home schooling.   I don't expect any sort of "wave" of home schooling to develop.

[mag1]

Thank you both for replying.

I'll take them one at a time.

 

Yes, I can also see how home schooling has an alien feel about it.

This is a very good insight that you have added to the discussion, broadening the discussion to an international perspective.

When I look on wiki, almost everywhere in the world aside from the US and a few other places

home schooling is strictly controlled. In fact, most nations in Europe legally forbid home schooling.

 

I find such an assertion of state authority over all children in a nation deeply troubling. As this thread develops further I can

provide additional personal comments that would explain my position in more detail, though as a starting statement, I will say that

I simply could not see myself living anywhere in the world where the state felt that they had such unquestioned power.   

For me, it is simply beyond comprehension that home schooling could be considered criminal in the modern era.

 

The legality of hsing was firmly established in the American courts decades and decades ago.

Obviously the American conception of [I guess one might call it] the aggressive assertion of individuals

rights, as enshrined in their constitution, makes educating your children as you see fit an inalienable right.

Coupled with the ongoing deterioration of American society and it should be no mystery as to why America

is the global epicenter of the movement.

 

I live away from some of the more troubling aspects of modern reality, so home schooling also does not seem

to be a choice that would have naturally sprung from my own personal circumstances. However, over the last few

years, police have become part of the landscape of our local schools. There is a definite feeling that perhaps we

are now slowly but surely drifting toward the point where some might question why should we send our kids to

a prison/school?   

      

[mag1]

niner, from what the numbers are saying there does appear to be a long term trend in America towards home schooling.

The big question for me is whether this is truly going to go mainstream. Homeschooling was first introduced in the modern

era in America during the 1970s and 1980s. At that time it was something of a novelty: It isn't anymore. Hsers now are

3-4% of the school age population and this percentage has been consistently growing for decades and decades.

 

As you say it was originally a fringe lifestyle, though recent reports of why the next wave of parents are embracing it focus

more on mainstream concerns of the school environment- drugs, violence, poor peer role models ... . These concerns

are resonant beyond the typical stereotype of hardline religious conservatives. The achievement levels of hsers has been

quite a revelation to me. It is almost impossible to imagine that homeschooled students could be 4-5 grade levels ahead

of their at school peers. This is simply a massive cognitive difference. Certainly it is quite possible that this difference will

moderate as a wider range of students experience this mode of learning, though it appears that there exists a segment of

students that perform at a substantially higher level in a home school than in a typical school environment ( or possibly

even a very high performance school environment). I have personally had experience as a home learner and I clearly can

attest that home schooling can create the conditions necessary for extreme academic achievement.