Homeschooling allows parents to take direct responsibility for their child's education. Parents can take responsibility for their child's education by choosing a curriculum, and approach to learning, and the principles and values on which these are based on. No other education arrangement offers the same freedom to arrange an education designed for an individual student; in homeschools, parents are responsible not only for selecting what their children will learn, but when, how, and with whom they will learn (Rob Reich). Homeschooling allows for the individual child to work at their own pace. I can understand why many parents would choose to homeschool their child because it allows them to control exactly what their child is learning and who is teaching their child. However, there are two negatives that I see with homeschooling. One is that children who are homeschooled do not have as many opportunities to interact with other children who have diverse perspectives. By homeschooling, students are primarily only learning what their parents beliefs are and may not be as exposed to diversity compared to those students in public schools. Customizing education may permit schooling to be tailored for each individual student, but total customization also threaten to insulate students from exposure to diverse ideas and people and thereby shield them from the vibrancy of a pluralistic democracy (Rob Reich).
Another question that I found my asking when reading about homeschooling is how qualified are these parents to be teachers? According to a 2000-2001 Barna survey, homeschool parents are 39% less likely to be college graduates. Are these children who are being homeschooled learning everything they schould be learning when they are not being taught by a certified teacher? I can understand parents wanting to teach their children because of moral and religious reasons. However, when children are homeschooled they are not being exposed to as many diverse people and ideas that they would find if they were to attend school. I am not sure if there is a solution to this problem because parents can not completely customize or control their child's education if their child is going to a traditional school.
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I absolutely agree with Jessica's post. It is nice to see parents taking an active role in their child's education. I believe it gives the parents a chance to monitor what their student is learning and move at a pace the student is able to maintain. Giving the parents the chance to increase or decrease the child's workload based on what they are able to understand. However Jessica is right when she talks about how under qualified these parents are to be their child's lone educator. You can only learn as much as the person teaches you know, once you past the point I believe it is time to move on.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rob Reich in his quote from the article The Civil Perils of Homeschooling when he says "Customizing education may permit schooling to be tailored for each individual student, but total customization also threatens to insulate students from exposure to diverse ideas and people and thereby to shield them from the vibrancy of a pluralistic democracy". Because parents can choose what their children learn they may miss out on not only different information, but also other people's opinions and ideas about the subjects. I tend to see this as being a negative point for homeschooling because children can become very narrow minded if they are only hearing one point of view (most often one of their parents).
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