There is sometimes an underlying current of apprehension or fear when professional educators are confronted with the existence of home school educational models. Home school is gaining in popularity and some people are not sure what that means for the future of other public and private classroom educational models. Some professional educators express a concern for their careers, while others express concern over the quality of education received by those in home school settings.
Of course, those in the know are aware (or should be) that students in a home school environment, on average, out-perform their classroom counterparts. Yet, to state this fact in such stark terms already frames the home school debate in terms of mutual exclusivity. That is, it presents an either-or framework, a competitive posture where those engaged in home school seek to supplant other forms of education and those engaged in the other forms of education seek to discredit the home school option. Such competition is self-defeating for education et al, and is thankfully not always the case.
It is clear that home school has many benefits and advantages, but like any other educational program, much of its success lies in the student and the ability of his or her home school mentors to take the time to motivate and teach. In other words, home school is for some people a superior choice. For others, it is not practical or feasible, or perhaps their child does prefer and perform better in a classroom setting than they would in home school.
As the old song goes, “cooperation makes it happen.” In an ideal situation, “professional” educators and those engaged in home school work together. Certainly, the two systems share the common goal of educating youth, and it may well be that those engaged in the two systems have much to learn from each other. This proposal seems to be being borne out by a small rural school, Ruch. The Ruch story is told with relative completion by journalist Anita Burke in an article for the Mail Tribune titled, “In the Right Direction.”
Faced with imminent closure, Ruch Elementary expanded. It added the 7th and 8th grades, which meant graduating 6th graders no longer had to go to another school to finish this leg of their education. More importantly, Ruch, instead of denouncing the home school students for lowering enrollment within their district, set up a program for home school support. This included a volunteer-taught after-school enrichment program. In this way, professional educators, volunteers, and teachers in home school came together not only to save a traditional classroom school, but also to learn from each other and enrich the educational experience, however modeled, of their respective students.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling parent, author, children's rights advocate, and Founder and C.E.O. of Learning by Grace, Inc. She and her husband of almost 3 decades reside with their 8 children in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Rothschild co-founded Learning By Grace, Inc. because "our current system of education has broken its promise..." Learning By Grace, Inc. delivers Internet-based multimedia education to PreK-12 children in the United States and throughout the world.
Rothschild has authored a number of books about education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Daily Education News Blog contains feature stories on alternatives in education.