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Articles:
General Education
Home School - Pros & Cons
Rearing and educating children is an enormous and extensive responsibility. A responsibility, I contend, that belongs entirely to parents. The three primary options for educating one's children, public school, private school, and home school, are each fraught with difficulties. Each of the three have some advantages, but each has major disadvantages. Finding the solution for one's children that works and is doable is no easy task.
Home School Cons:
- Home school is a lot of work, an overwhelming amount of work if you have more than one or two children.
- It requires one spouse, usually the wife, to commit full time, and basically consumes her life. If she has an aptitude for teaching and gets along well with her children in that setting it works, but many women find that teaching their children at home is excruciating.
- What to teach and how to teach it is a constant puzzle.
- Home school costs money that most single worker families cannot afford, less than a private school, yes, but more than the public school.
- A home school mom has the added burden of needing to make money on the side while caring for a household and teaching her children.
- Children raised in a home school have fewer opportunities for activities such as sports, band, large science projects, etc.
- There is less opportunity for other significant adults to contribute to a child's life.
Home School Pros:
- Children grow up in a family environment rather than a "peer" environment, which is far healthier mentally and emotionally.
- The parents have complete control over what their children learn.
- Home school children are generally more self-motivated and better able to think for themselves than their peers.
- (Though this list of pros is short at present, the value of these three things outweighs the cons for most home school parents.
- Students who are on an individual learning path are not slowed down by teaching to the least capable.
- Homeschooled children are able to pursue a variety interests that students in a generalized, one size fits all, environment cannot.
- Children not tied to "going to school" can take advantage of spending time working with and doing things with significant adults in their lives. A sailboat trip with grandpa can provide far greater learning than much desk "busywork."
Valuable Additions for Home-Schooled Students:
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