Email of the Day:
I am a student of institute Torrent de les Bruixes. Right now I am doing a very important project about home-schooling.
While searching about it I came across yours website I must say it is a wonderful website and i really like it.
I am writing to ask if you would like to give me an interview on email, i have only few questions related to home-schooling,
I am sending all the questions below. I would be really grateful if you could answer my questions.
I look forward to receiving your reply
Questions
Why parents choose home-schooling option for their children.?
Are home-schooling students are equally socially developed compare to formal education students?
How these parents get time for teaching, along with managing their schedules and all their responsibilities?
Answer:
There are a variety of reasons that parents choose to homeschool their children:
Some do it for religious reasons, some for social reasons (often a bullying situation in school, or other bad influences), the fastest growing reason is academics (parents want better/more comprehensive/more rigorous academics for their children). Related to choosing homeschooling for academics are the parents who choose homeschooling because their children are gifted, have special needs, or both. Schools are great at catering to the middle of the bell curve — the B and C students do well — but for children at either end of the curve, it’s boring, frustrating, or both. Some families choose to homeschool because of the lifestyle it allows them to have — they can travel and spend time with their children during the best hours of the day. Some families choose homeschooling as a logical extension of their “attachment parenting” philosophy.
Homeschooling children are not equal socially to their public or private schooled peers. Instead of spending most of their time in a group of other same-aged children from the same socio-economic neighborhood, homeschooled children have a diverse range of experiences with people from all walks of life from a very early age. They are very comfortable speaking with (and befriending) people of all ages and from all walks of life. If you observe a group of homeschoolers in park, you’ll see that they divide themselves as adults do — not by age or by gender, but by mutual interest. The sporty children will play ball — the older children (teens) helping the younger children (often toddlers as young as two years old) find a place in the game. The bookish children will be discussing the latest hot novels. The children who like board games will find one that suit them all.
The reason so many people think there is an issue with socialization and homeschoolers is threefold:
1) Many people think that homeschooling is creating a tiny classroom in your home, and staying there for 8 hours a day, at a desk, like public school children do. Although some families do create a homeschool room, most abandon it in short order, finding that their formal academics happen at the kitchen table, on the sofa, in bed, etc.
2) Because many people think that homeschoolers stay at home in a single room, they can’t conceive where homeschoolers might meet other people, especially other children.
But homeschool families also spend quite a bit of time out in the community and with other homeschool families. Even in my local area (a city of 250,000, surrounded by small farm communities), there are upwards of 1,500 homeschool families). My daughter and I had to say “no” to a lot of different activities in order to manage to spend any time at all at home.
3) Many people have met (or met someone who met) a socially awkward child who happened to be homeschooled. Because of this, they think all homeschoolers must be socially awkward. Two notes on this:
a) There are lots of people in the world who are socially awkward, or just introverted. The only difference between public schoolers and homeschoolers on this front is that homeschoolers who are introverts are not penalized for being introverts.
b) Many times, the person who met the homeschooler was himself a child when they met, and what they thought was “social awkwardness” was actually a maturity that I’ve found in many homeschoolers. There are a lot of social games that young people invent in junior high and high school that I’ve noticed homeschoolers find irritating and wasteful of their time. I’ve watched homeschoolers struggle with trying to find common ground with their same aged peers on this front, to the frustration of both parties. Because homeschoolers are in the minority (about 2.8% of the US population of children 5-18), most people assume it is the homeschooler that is socially awkward, and not his same age peer whose maturity is delayed.
Homeschooling take sacrifice. It takes a sacrifice of time, and often the sacrifice of one of the parent’s careers (and thus a sacrifice of that parent’s income). Each family handles this differently. I’ve known families where the parents both work multiple jobs so that at least one of them is home with the children, but they rarely see each other. I’ve known single parent families who’ve figured out how to balance homeschool work and paid work. In my own family, I gave up my career as a college English professor to homeschool our daughter. Although we gave up my paycheck, what we gained was a lot of freedom — my husband was able to advance his career, and we were able to do quite a bit of international travel with him, without being hampered by the school schedule (hers or mine). Because homeschoolers have their children with them all the time, the children become part of the rhythm of the day, and take on responsibilities. I’ve seen many homeschool families with home-based businesses the children work in, and in larger homeschool families, the surfeit of extra hands makes for lighter work.
Warmly,
–Jen Garrison Stuber, WHO Board Advocacy Chair
More discussion here: https://www.facebook.com/washhomeschool/posts/10152946897384159