US vs. THEM

Home schooling has become increasingly popular in today’s culture. It is estimated that 1.2 to 1.7 million children in grades K-2 are being home schooled. This is a huge amount of students, therefore it is easy to see that home schooling is established as a significant and legitimate force in the American educational system. Once thought of as an abnormal way to educate your kids is now fast growing and for many reasons. Some parents think the public school systems are too liberal or conservative. Some parents are motivated for religious reasons. Whatever the reasoning it is very important to have a mutual understanding and a positive view between public schools and home schooling parents. Most of the tension between the two sides is the lack of understanding by public school teachers as to why parents choose to home school their children. This creates an “us verses them” mentality. In reality the school teachers and the home teachers need to come to an agreement and partnership to benefit the children no matter where they are taught. I found two new terms regarding home schooling. They both relate to the type of parent and the reason why they want to keep their kids at home to educate them. The first term is IDEOLOGUES. They have specific beliefs, values, and skills they want their children to learn and embrace. They also feel that these things are not being adequately taught in public schools so the opt to keep their children at home. The ideologues reasoning is usually religious based. They believe that the public schools do not have strong Christian values. This is correct because now a days majority no longer rules. We have become a county trying to please everyone. If we offend one single person and they speak out our country and government changes the rules around one person instead of the majority of the people in the US. Anyway, these ideologues are looking out for their children’s moral, ethical and spiritual development and don’t think that the public schools take religion seriously.

The second class of parent is PEDAGOGUES. These parents also feel that schools are unwilling or unable to serve their children and give them a proper education. Some of the parents have seen their own children or others suffer emotionally or academically in public schools. Since they don’t think the schools teach well, they want to keep their children at home as well. They don’t think it is fair for the public schools to sort, label and select their children based on a limited measure of their ability. Namely the state standardized testing. In Florida we have the FCAT, this test is given to children in grades 3-8. It puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the students to perform for this one test. It also alters the curriculum because the teachers have a certain amount of “testing” information they need to get out to their students and because of this other areas like the arts, social studies, science get left out. The children are being taught only the information on the test and not becoming well-rounded in all subjects.

social issues of homeschooling

One of the most prevalent arguments regarding home schooling children is the social issues relating to child development. Children need to learn social skills at an early age. This is very important throughout their lives. The best time to teach a child anything is when they are young. Their minds are like a sponge and they absorb everything weather it is dirty words they hear their parents saying or a foreign language they learn in school. The same hold true for developing their social skills. Children need to fit into society as productive adults some day and childhood is kind of like their training for that. If a parent chooses to home school a child especially right from the start and that child has never stepped foot in a classroom, I think it could have a detrimental impact on their lives. The parents think they are doing a good dead, and of course every parent knows what’s best for their own child, however, I really think that a child should get an education in a classroom. I also feel that most of the time, a child who has been home schooled will either return to school or be placed in a classroom for the first time. Either because of the parents financial situation or because the parent needs a break before they lose their mind. As we talked about before homeschooling a child takes a huge amount of dedication and a lot of planning and money. Once this child goes back to school, how will they react to their peers? Even if the parent could meet all the childs educational needs could they realy meet the child’s social needs? I think children need to be around other children their age. It is vital to their development. Children need to start separating from the parents and the home. School is the perfect place to do this. They are around other kids their own age, kids they have things in common with. They will quickly develop their own thinking process and start finding their identity. Everyone must be an individual, unfortunately most of the world follows eachother around like sheep. That is another important leason to learn but that is probably another paper….Anyway, a child comes to the classroom for the first time, thinking he is the center of the universe, because he has had one-on-one attention form his parent/teacher. Of course the parent/teacher role has been blurred, so if the child didn’t want to do his work at a certain time he probably didn’t have to. Well everyone knows that a classroom is a very structured and disciplined environment. What happens when this kid dosent want to his work with the rest of the class? He will be punished if this contiues he will be labeled a troublemaker. What happens when the school bully picks on him on the playground. Is child going to have the ability to adapt accordingly? The friendships and/or enemies a child creates during his years in school are just as important as learning to read and write.