Here's a reason to homeschool: time.
The dirty secret of education–even in the best-run school–is that a good part of the day is spent handling administrative details. such as taking attendance, gathering homework, handing back homework, and getting students from class to class. It's as much a managerial process as an educational one and if you have–as any class will–a few lively or disruptive students, the time spent in non-educational pursuits will tend to expand.
When my daughter started at a French immersion school when she was seven, the first words she learned in French were "Matthew, what are you doing? Stop it and sit down!" My daughter's pronunciation of that phrase was flawless, but I still question whether it was worth the tuition we were paying.
Any parent who homeschools will tell you that the educational basics are usually covered in about half the time it takes in a bricks-and-mortar school. This leaves the student the luxury of being able to follow interests, get a job or an internship (if they're older), and generally use that extra time to explore who they are and what kind of person they'd like to become.
Or maybe your worst fears come true and your children decide to use all that newfound time to play Minecraft until they become block-shaped themselves. I've never said homeschoolers were any better than the average child, and I never will. But my experience has been that this extra time adds up, every day, every week, every year to where it affords options and opportunities which the family didn't have before homeschooling. And options are always interesting.
NEXT: A reason why not to homeschool: time.
This is true, however there is just as much time "wasted" in driving or walking to see other people during the day, going to outside vendors or destinations in homeschooling. I would argue that there's better teaching one on one, but don't understand the argument about too much time wasted in schools. I see so many people who can't even sit through a meeting if the discussion isn't directly about them. Do we want to encourage people to only look out for themselves and have no patience? Overall I think the homeschool/school time "wasted" is a wash and we should just be worrying about what is the best educational model for a child to become a well rounded adult.
ReplyDeleteI'd venture to guess that most of the people you encounter who can't sit through meetings were, in fact, students of the public school system.
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