The Many Benefits of Home Schooling for Children

The Many Benefits of Home Schooling for Children

“A child’s education has always been seen by parents, and perhaps by society as a

whole, as the purview of the child’s parents,” (Hiatt-Michael 1994).   When thinking about education in America today school houses, recess, and school busses often come to one’s mind.  In America today, roughly 83% of children attend public schools for their education (Davis and Bauman 2013). While the next most popular choice in children’s education is private school, more and more parents are taking control of their children’s education by home schooling.  Why are so many parents deciding to home school their children?  The answer is clear for many parents.  There are many benefits of home schooling that outweigh the benefits of traditional education for children.

            For many parents, the choice to home school their children are made in hopes to improve their child’s academic achievements.  Many parents feel that they can provide a better education for their children than the standardized public education system (Saghir 2008).

        Public schools typically suffer from relatively large classroom sizes, 15 or more students per teacher.  Larger class sizes result in less individual attention for each student and more time spent disciplining children than actually instructing children (O'Neill and Mercier 2003).  Larger class sizes also affect the length of a school day. According to Saghir, home schooled children also need less hours a day of instruction (Saghir 2008).  A majority of instruction time in public school is often wasted waiting for a teacher to answer individual questions, standing in line, listening to another student, getting children back on task, and other small tasks such as roll call, recess, and bathroom breaks (Horsburgh 2005).  For children who are home schooled, instruction can include more individualized attention, shorter days, and lessons that extend much further than the classroom.

       For many children who are home schooled they also have to opportunity to learn valuable life skills not taught in public instruction. While there is a lot of strategically placed fact based curriculum, many skills such as using surviving without technology and credit are not taught in most public schools (Saghir 2008).

       Many parents have been looking to the past to teach their children skills not offered anymore in public schools (Saghir 2008).  With more and more technology being used in public schools to save time and money, children in many schools are not even reading physical books anymore (Johnson 2014).  According to Johnson, students use computers and tablets more and more for research many not even teaching how to conduct research in a library (2014). Children who are home schooled can learn using traditional methods.  They can also study other traditional skills such as cooking, sewing, crochet, healthcare, household management, and how to manage personal finances.   Some people may be concerned that learning these extra skills may take away from a child’s academic learning but what do the academic scores say about the success of home schooled children?

       Skeptics are concerned that children who are home schooled will suffer academically.  One of the reasons so many parents are choosing to home school their children is because recent studies suggest that home schooled students score much higher in academic testing than children who attend public schools (Horsburgh 2005).  “In study after study, the homeschooled have scored, on average, at the 65th to 80th percentile on standardized academic achievement tests in the US and Canada, compared to the public school average of the 50th percentile” (Ray 2007).  In another study conducted at the University of Maryland, out of more than 20,000 home schooled students the average academic achievement test scores were in the 70^th to 80^th percentile (Saghir 2008). 

       Many parents of another type of child are equally concerned about the academic quality of their children’s education.  Special needs children make up 47% of all children who are home schooled (Johnson and Knuth 2010).  According to Johnson and Knuth special needs children are considered both children with learning impairments and children who are gifted and talented (2010). Both of these groups of children learn at a pace much different from children in their age group.  Home school education gives parents the ability to closely monitor their child’s progress, move their child along at their own pace, and handle any special behavioural issues that public school staff might not be trained to deal with (Johnson and Knuth 2010).

       While the academic benefits of time management, life skills, academic quality, and dealing with special needs students seem very clear, many parents have more than one reason for choosing to home school their children.  Because of religious diversity, public schools have tried to distance themselves from religion in an attempt not to offend any students or parents.  Some ideas and values taught in public schools even go against some religious values.  For these reasons and others, some parents choose to home school their children for religious reasons.

       For many religious parents, home schooling is a way to incorporate their beliefs into their children’s education.  Unlike children in public schools, home schooled children can pray and participate in religious activities without worrying about ridicule from other students or teachers.  “Homeschooling parents can easily and actively preserve ideologies, values and practices by which to live,” (Saghir 2008).  Saghir also states that religious beliefs deter children from participating in negative activities such as drugs, sex, and criminal activities (2008).

       Families who also practice certain religions may also face discrimination and extra hardships while their children attend public schools.  The number of home schooling families with the Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu faith are dramatically on the rise (Saghir 2008).  For Muslim children, it is especially hard due to discrimination and schools illegally refusing to let the children pray and dress according to their religion (Ray 2007).  Other religions experience similar problems. 

       Many families are not strangers to discrimination whether it is because of social class, race, or religion.  Society today is not easy on children.  Many parents see their children coming into contact with activities such as drugs and alcohol, their children becoming the victims of bullying, and their children being influenced negatively by other students. Because of the growing social issues of today, many parents are choosing to home school their children.

       Bullying is a real issue in many public and private schools across America.  Children are bullied for anything from their accent, the way they dress, their social class, their religion, or just because they’re new in school (Johnson and Knuth 2010).  Bullying can scar a child for life, and in some instances even lead to depression and suicide.  When parents choose to home school their children, there is no real pressure for these children to ‘fit in’.   There is no added peer pressure for children to conform to what a group feels is popular (Saghir 2008, 47).  Children can be themselves and develop talents they enjoy without the fear of retaliation by their peers.  Saghir says, “Studies have shown that homeschoolers have a more positive self-concept than their peers in schools” (2008, 48)

        For some parents, home schooling means keeping their children away from negative influences.  Parents often worry about their children’s’ exposure to sex, drugs, and criminal activity.  Much of the bad behaviour a child learns, it learns from other children in school (Horsburgh 2005).   A parent cannot choose who their child interacts with in public schools, who is in the child’s class, and so on.  

       Many parents believe that home schooling gives them the opportunity to guide their children towards more positive influences, monitor their social influences better, and choose to teach their children about sex when they feel the time is right (Johnson and Knuth 2010).  According to recent studies, home schooled children are 79% less likely to suffer from drug addiction, teen pregnancy, and juvenile delinquency (Saghir 2008).   These numbers are a great motivation to parents.

       The number of home schooled children is rapidly growing.  Academics, religion, and social reasons are just some of the reasons parents choose to homes school their children.  According to research, it is clear that there are many benefits to home schooling children over enrolling them in public and private schools.  With the growing number of economic, political, and social issues the number of home schooled children will most likely continue to climb well into the future.

References

Davis, Jessica, and Kurt Bauman. School Enrollment in the United States:2011. U.S. Census Bureau, 2013.

Hiatt-Michael, D. "Parent Involvement in American Public Schools: An Historical Perspective 1642-1994." School Community Journal 4 (1994): 247-258.

Horsburgh, Fergus B.N. "Homeschooling Within the Public School System." Ottawa: Simon Fraiser University, 2005.

Johnson, Ben. "Too Much Technology and Not Enough Learning?" Edutopia. March 14, 2014. http://www.edutopia.org/blog/too-much-tech-not-enough-learning-ben-johnson (accessed June 9, 2015).

Johnson, Sarah Anne, and Jessica Diane Knuth. "A Descriptive Analysis of Homeschooling Children with Autism." Sacramento: California State University, 2010.

O'Neill, Jan, and Deborah Mercier. "Incredible shrinking class size." Journal of Staff Development 24, no. 3 (2003): 18-22.

Ray, B. "The Evidence is so Positive, What Current Research Tells us About Homeschooling." Christianbook.com. 2007. http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/cms_content?page=1812612&sp= (accessed July 4, 2015).

Saghir, Aneela. "An Introduction to Homeschooling for Muslim Parents." Sacramento: California State University, 2008.