Schooling at Home? What a Great Idea!
by Mimi Rothschild
Our American school system is seriously lacking in public confidence. This has lead to a rising interest in homeschooling. Numerous families are discovering homeschooling to be a valid and beneficial alternative to traditional education.
Interest in homeschooling has grown immensely as the public’s satisfaction with the American school system has dissolved. According to the U.S. Department of Education, homeschool enrollments have tripled in the past decade! According to the same studies, three of the most common reasons that parents give for homeschooling their children are:
* A concern for the environment of other schools
* Dissatisfaction with the academic instruction of other schools
* Religious or moral reasons
Homeschooling is resolving and eliminating many of these issues found in traditional education.
Why is homeschooling an attractive education alternative?
Traditional education contains numerous restrictions. When you are 5, you should be in Kindergarten learning the alphabet. When you are 12, you should be in 6 th grade learning Ancient Civilizations. You must be ready to learn at 8:00 every day. You must sit in uncomfortable desks for 45 minutes at a time. You must get permission to go to the bathroom and get a drink. You cannot run or eat food in class or chew gum or talk with an outside voice. Those who do not, or will not, “fit in” are quickly labeled. Most of these rules were put into place to maintain order, but they also inadvertently serve to create conformist thinkers in a society that craves and rewards originality.
When you homeschool:
* you can start school at 10 am or noon or three
* you can have school wherever you please: in the diner, in the car, in the backyard
* you can make dinner a daily home economics lesson
* you can teach the alphabet to a 4 year old or a 9 year old, whenever they are ready
* you can run on the beach for gym class
* you can eat a banana while reading
* you can play Monopoly as part of a math lesson
* you can talk about God and pray whenever you desire
* a scraped knee can become a health class
Homeschooling is not a “rule free” zone of chaos. It simply is a way to create a set of rules that work with your children’s specific needs and enable your children to have fun and remain motivated while learning so that they actually love “school!”
Traditional education divides parent and child, as they spend at least 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, apart from one another. That’s at least 35 hours each week that children are influenced by outside factors. That’s 35 hours each week of peer pressure, “religion is a no-no” mindset, and homogeneous group settings…or, that can be 35 hours a week a parent spends with their child, ensuring their physical and emotional health and comfort. Homeschooled students have proven time and again to have moral character and be independent thinkers. Time spent with the family strengthens sibling relationships and respect for authority, and allows parents to guide their children in a way not possible when they are apart for most of the week.
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