Over the years I was plagued with questions about my homeschooling: “You mean you don’t go to school?” Or my favorite: “So you wake up whenever you want?”, both of which are good questions for this obscure child that doesn’t “go to school”. I was weird. Although I assumed this was simply the childish reaction, there was always part of me that dreaded the question, even from adults. Why had my parents chosen this for me? Religious reasons? Inferior public schooling? Really it boiled down to the belief that they could better tailor my education and develop a more creative and energetic mind in their children. Homeschooling was the difficult but sacrificial choice my parents made for my siblings and I, and we thank them for it. Although homeschooling seems to be gaining ground as a more acceptable and less obscure form of education than in previous years, the general public has yet to fully embrace it. One big battle is the debate over extracurricular activities offered by public schools and their policies regarding the inclusion of local homeschool children. Should they be allowed to take part in the school’s offerings, even if they don’t attend the school for classes? Extracurriculars can be an important part of a child’s development. Team sports, for example, offer lessons in fairness, teamwork, disappointment and even victory. Although perhaps some of these lessons aren’t considered necessities in the educational world, we can all agree these are beneficial lessons every child should have a chance to learn. Homeschooling is often considered a sub-par form of education when in reality it offers a full and rich educational experience that deserves similar rights to the publicly educated, including access to public school extracurr...
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...from "The State of Alabama's Tim Tebow Bill: Frequently Asked Questions and Answers." Www.timtebowbill.com. 2006. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.
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Jason Taylor, Tim Tebow, Maria Sharapova, and Serena and Venus Williams are all homeschooled students who became professional athletes. Homeschool students, as well as public school students, are both taking the same subjects throughout their high school career. Sports are a common past time that students should be able to compete in everywhere. Should homeschool students be allowed to participate in public school sports? Homeschooled students should be able to participate in public school sports because athletes have no exposure from colleges, not enough participants for their own leagues, and homeschool parents pay taxes for public schools.
Scaccia, Jesse. "The Case against Homeschooling | Teacher, Revised." Teacher, Revised | Real Talk From Real Teachers. 30 May 2009. Web. 07 Dec. 2010. .
Parents withdraw children from school for concerns that are not being managed to their satisfaction. Bullying manifest, basic skills being reinforced poorly, and no one on one interaction, consequently, dissatisfaction within the public school system exists. Under those circumstances, homeschooling in some cases is necessary. Children who are homeschooled apprehend various social settings, maintain the offbeat school scheduling, and acquire knowledge from diverse sources other than teachers, while still maintaining a sturdy set of skills.
According to Gretchen M. Wilhelm and Michael W. Firmin, in their article Historical and Contemporary Developments, the Department of Education found that over 1,700,000 students are homeschooled. That’s 3.4 percent of all school age children (304). Homeschooling is defined as an education that contains less than twenty five hours of public school teaching each week and is based out of a household. The earliest forms of education were originally taught from home, then later developed into public schools (Wilhelm and Firmin). Homeschooling not only affects the students taught, but also fellow Americans in the race to advance a nation. Homeschooling needs to be understood in order to revise education into a better and
Amanda Ripley constructed an article in which she opposes the use of athletics in American schools. She proclaims that America’s schools are placing athletics above academics. This highly controversial article was published on the cover of the Atlantic. Her argument raises opposition
Homeschooling is often portrayed as an overprotective mom - unwilling to let her kids leave her for a day at school, and a large number of children, all unable to hold a conversation, let alone function normally in society. As someone who was homeschooled from kindergarten through eighth grade, I can attest that my homeschool experience was the exact opposite of this confining stereotype.
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While the majority choose to do so for academics, the reasoning goes beyond simply that. Homeschool families are often stereotyped as extremely religious and attempting to hide their children from the corruption and sin of the world. Families that do keep children out for these reasons are still prevalent within the homeschooling community; my mother contemplated homeschooling me and my brothers for this reason, and one of my best friends is homeschooled in a religious home. As homeschooling grows more mainstream, more families believe that public school squashes a child’s creativity and attempts to conform all children into the same person. Lynn Schnaiberg, a writer for Education Weekly, gives the reasons for four homeschooling families in her article “Staying Home from School.” In this article, the first family, the Scandora’s, believe “learning is not a product of teaching” and that their children should be free to learn at whatever pace they want. Another family featured in Schnaiberg’s article, the Collins family, is dissatisfied with the Baltimore city schools, which had some of the lowest test scores in the state. The Hoyt family has two children who are considered “gifted.” Because public schools do not give proper attention
“Is getting a good education important to you?” Most people when asked this question would answer, “Yes.” This is because it teaches us valuable life skills and prepares us to communicate and engage with others in the world. Education has taken on many forms over the years, and one of the more successful components of education has been homeschooling. Once considered a criminal act of defiance, homeschooling is now legally an option in all fifty states for parents to consider, and it has a substantial
Today, many parents are homeschooling their children. A U.S. Department of Education’s report shows that approximately 1.5 million children were being homeschooled in 2007 (Lips & Feinberg, 2008). This is almost 3 percent of all school age children (Lips & Feinberg, 2008). A private researcher, the National Home Education Research Institute, estimates 2.5 million children were being homeschooled in the 2007 – 2008 academic years (Lips & Feinberg, 2008). By either count, homeschooling is growing exponentially.
In today’s American society, quality education is important for one to succeed. Without proper education, a person will find it extremely difficult to apply for college, a job, or to pursue his or her dream. Typically when Americans think of education, public education is the first to come to mind. Public education has been around for centuries and is provided to most children throughout the United States. Due to this fact, public education has been the go to education source for years. Though, this trend is slowly changing with many parents deciding to home school their children instead. Many factors are the cause for this issue, but the common arguments arise from a certain few. For students, public school provides many opportunities ranging from social connections, school sports, and the exposure to teachers who are experts in their fields. But homeschooling is often superior because it offers additional time for students to participate in various extracurricular activities and community service, allows for more individual attention, personal character development, and it offers less exposure to discrimination that is received in the public school environment.
I hated waking up 6A.M. in the morning to see faces I’ve been seeing for years and teachers who pressured me to finish assignments in an accordingly time frame each class and oh don’t get me started on school’s food ugh! Just nasty. I’ve always wondered what would it be like to be home school at home, doing work at your own pace and all the food I wanted with no distractions. I know I’m not the only one who imagined how great it would have if we as public school students were home schooled instead. As I’ve got older while knowing some of my own friends taken out of public school for home schooling, I can see why public school is the better option. The socializing, leverage of knowledge, and experience
Rivero, Lisa. The Homeschooling Option: How to Decide When It's Right for Your Family. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Print.
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