Homeschooling: National Tragedy or Individual Triumph?
Aldous Huxley envisioned a future when parents and children would be totally disconnected. In A Brave New World, children were conceived in test tubes and reared solely by state employees, guardians who took care of their physical as well as their educational needs, shaped them into ideal little citizens, and socialized them just so.
Many feel that society has moved toward that place where anything goes, moral relativity reigns, and the State reaches its long arms into the homes, seeking to undo the damage it perceives parents are doing to their children. As a result, there is a movement that has grown over the years, designed in part, to return the responsibility for education to the parents. More and more parents are removing their children from the public school systems for a variety of reasons, and bringing them home for their education.
History
Homeschooling is home based education in which the parents generally assume responsibility for teaching their children. It is not a new phenomenon. Many argue that public schools are the new phenomenon, when viewed through the lens of history. (Dobson, 2000) Many prominent figures in history received their education at home: Alexander the Great, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Agatha Christie, Charles Dickens, Andrew Carnegie, and Mark Twain, to name a few. (Jones, 2004) It was not until the onset of the twentieth century and as America moved more toward an industrial society, that many states instituted compulsory attendance laws, beginning with Massachusetts, which significantly reduced the number of children being schooled at home. (Jones, 2004) The late 1950s, however, marked the onset of an age ...
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Homeschooling is becoming more popular in today’s society then before. Homeschooling is teaching school subjects to one’s children at home (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). But is homeschooling the best way to educate children? Homeschooling can bring more positive outcomes versus public or private schooling. This is because homeschooling can bring many benefits such as family orientation, no worries about bullies, less exposure to bad influences like drugs. Also it has a good success rate, adaptable cost, and flexibility. Homeschooling will keep increasing year by year. According to Dr. Brian D. Ray about 2% to 8% per annum was the growth over the past few years. For these and many more reasons is why parents choose to home school their children.
In the novel “Brave New World”, by Aldous Huxley, the book depicts an utopian society. A world where everything is under control. Everyone’s emotions and destiny are controlled from the day they are born. Western Europe, Mustapha Mond, Controls the society. Humans are born in test tubes, thus, there are no families.
In early America, schooling was taught in the home by either a parent or educated tutor. Public schools did not exist in America until the middle of the 1800s, leaving families to educate the children within the home. When public schools were formed, they were primarily church based and focused on doctrine more than academics. It wasn’t until the 1870s that public schools became more government supported academic institutions. More and more, public schools became popular. However, some parents still homeschooled their children for various reasons. Many of America’s presidents have been homeschooled, such as Washington, Adams, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. Even Thomas Edison and Mark Twain were homeschooled. In the 1960s, homeschooling was on the rise of popularity in the groups of New Age philosophers, ex-hippies, and homesteaders. It wasn’t until 1993 that homeschooling became legal in all fifty states. Before then, many families suffered hardship from the states that enforced public school attendance (Wilhelm and Firmin
Before the beginning of American public schools in the mid-19th century, home schooling was the norm. Founding father John Adams encouraged his spouse to educate their children while he was on diplomatic missions (Clark, 1994). By the 1840's instruction books for the home were becoming popular in the United States and Britain. The difficulty of traveling to the system of community schools was provoking detractors. At this time, most of the country began moving toward public schools (Clark, 1994). One of the first things early pioneers did was set aside a plot of land to build a school house and try to recruit the most educated resident to be the schoolmarm. This led to recruiting of graduates Eastern Seaboard colleges to further the education oftheir children beyond what they could do at home (Clark, 1994). As the popularity of the public school movement began to rise behind Horace Mann many states soon passed compulsory-education laws. These were designed primarily to prevent farmers, miners, and other parents form keeping their kids home to work (Clark, 1994). Ironically another factor behind public schools was the desire to use them to spread Christian morality, with its concern for the larger good over individualism (Clark, 1994). Massachusetts enacted the first such laws in 1852 requiring children ages 8-14 to be at school at least 12 weeks a year unless they were too poor. The laws proved to be effective, from 1870-1898 the number of children enrolling in the public schools outpaced the population growth. Except for certain religious sects and correspondence schools home schooling remained limited for most of the 20th century. During the 1960's the hippie counterculture exploded into the s...
Just as a caterpillar changes into a complex and beautiful butterfly over time, education too is evolving and changing into something completely different than the “3 R’s” of the past. How education should evolve is a highly disputed topic. Although there appear to be many solutions these solutions often have many flaws. There has yet to be a single solution to solve this dilemma. Even though their perspectives on education differ, Brian D. Ray and Rachel S. Cox seek to tackle this issue in their respective articles, “Does Home Schooling Promote the Public Good?” and “The Home School Debate.” Ray is biased toward home-schooling being the solution to the ails of public education and believes that education issues can be resolved by encouraging
Homeschooling has been around for a long period of time. People wanted their kids to be homeschooled for a number of reasons. They felt like their kids was just part of a system and that their kids was missing out on a real education. In the 1970s John Holt, “began arguing that formal schools’ focus on rote learning created an oppressive classroom environment designed to make children compliant employees (J. Gary Knowles, Stacey E. Marlow, & James A. Muchmore, 2015).” It’s ok to be a compliant employee but people want the best for the kids and the only way for that is for your kid to be the boss. With that statement John got a few people to buy in and follow his movement and started homeschooling their kids. With homeschooling as a parents you wear a lot of different hats, so with that said you have to have a lot of patients with your kids because they’re going to ask a lot of questions. People need to have some
Homeschool is a verb is defined as “to teach your children at home instead of sending them to a school” (Homeschool). This means that a child is not taught at a public or private school; But the child is not necessarily just taught at home. Many homeschooling students participate in learning with other homeschooling families. Homeschooling is legal in all fifty states, and in the United States alone, it is estimated that there are between 1.7 and 2.1 million homeschooling students. However, it is hard to know the exact number of these students since some states have different laws and do not require reporting (Frequently). Perhaps in the years to come, states will become more regulated across the board about reporting.
An estimated 4 million children are currently home schooled with a 15-20% yearly growth rate. According to a California study by researcher Dr. Brian [D.] Ray, 92 percent of school superintendents believe that home learners are emotionally unstable, deprived of proper social development and too judgmental of the world around them. The latest claim against home schooling suggests that home schoolers are potential child abusers. Mr. Ron Barnard, a Holly High School teacher says that he would prefer public schooling for his children because of the peer socialization, extra curricular, and mandated curriculum. Public schooling is more efficient in educating our youth than traditional home schooling.
Although homeschooling has its benefits, it does not always lead to the best of the best in the academic world. Many people believe that homeschooling always leads to educational success; the homeschooled student gets accepted into the top colleges, they score higher on standardized tests than public schooled kids do, and they improve faster than children in public schools. These so-called benefits of homeschooling do not really exist unless the individual works hard. Some parents homeschool their children because they think that a homeschooling parent can relax all day and take part in very few activities. Others think that homeschooling leads to the highest scores. However, the student himself has to work hard in order to have a successful
In most countries in our world, society has experienced technological advances to the point of being able to accomplish what Huxley envisioned. In contrast to Huxley’s vision, the moral standards of most nations allow all humans to enjoy basic human rights that embrace family, personal relationships, and individualism. Today’s society is able to comprehend how with the technological advances Huxley’s world could be a reality, but with the privilege of a democratic society, civilization would not allow the medical intervention for reproduction, the conditioning for happiness and consumerism. Work Cited "Brave New World by Aldous Huxley : Barron's Notes" Brave New World by Aldous Huxley: Barron's Notes. N.p., n.d. Web.
“Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley is one of his most famous novels. The author created a complex novel by developing a story focusing on a Utopian and Dystopian society. The novel was written 83 years ago and people are still amazed by the content of the book. “Brave New world” takes the reader into a world of fantasy and fiction. In “Brave New World” Huxley describes a very different society. In this futuristic society, the interaction between people changed. People could enjoy their sex lives without having to be attached to a single person. In the book, there is a phrase that express that “everyone belongs to everyone”. In the novel, technology and modernization advance on a grand scale. This means that babies were no longer being born
In the recent times, home schooling has been the most sought mode of learning by the American parents. In fact, it estimated that over 1 million children in America are now undergoing home schooling (Cooper, 2005). Although this form of learning is legally acceptable, parents are entrusted with teaching and coaching their children in all subjects. In addition, parents can also hire private tutors for their children as part of home schooling. This form of learning is aimed at ensuring that parents commit themselves in ensuring their children are able to learn like other kids in public schools.
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.
All children in America have the right to a quality education. Most students receive that education through conventional means, going to a public or private school. There is another option for today's children, home schooling. Home schooling is a controversial issue. While it does have its benefits, some people believe it has too many downfalls to be an effective method of education. In this paper, topics such as academic impact, social impact, and parental opinions of home schooling will be discussed.