Reasons Being Homeschooled

It is obvious, based on these statistics, that parents homeschool their children for different reasons including religious beliefs, problems with the school system, and disabilities. Although the reasons for homeschooling may be valid; nevertheless, the disadvantages to the parents, children, and school system will eventually outweigh the positives. Homeschool is an ever-increasing trend for those parents who are insistent on greater success for their children in today’s competitive society. The question that arises with this movement is whether or not homeschooling is actually beneficial. Thirty-three percent of homeschooling parents cite religious beliefs as their main reason for homeschooling their children, as determined by a 2002 United States Census Bureau study (Gordon, 2003, para.

As for the parents who are against home-schooling, they state that the lack of skills to socialize is a draw-back from letting their children grow as individuals, and feel tat it will conflict with how they mingle in society in their near future. What does home-schooling a child mean? Home-schooling means educating a child with the necessary equipments to knowledge the kid with factual school-related information. These information usually parallels that of which many other public and private schools also teach. The only big difference is that the child is being educated at home in the surroundings of his/her comfort and where a parent plays the role of a teacher.

(2003, May 29). Home Schooling in Cyberspace. April 12, 2005, Retrieved from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/919755/posts Shaw, I. The Pro's and Con's of Home Schooling. Retrieved April 19, 2005, from http:// familyeducation.com/article/0,1120,58-28625-0-1,00.html Smith, Jesse.

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The Innumerable Benefits to Home Schooling In his book The Right Choice – Home Schooling, Chris Klicka argues that “Sending our children to the public school … is tantamount to sending our children to be trained by the enemy” (Crank 25). Though his words may be considered harsh by some parents, many Americans agree with him and feel that public school is only endangering their children; home schooling is the modern day alternative that many mothers and fathers have chosen to turn to. Those who feel that the world of the public school is detrimental to their children’s growth and health are not alone; they share the beliefs of many parents who feel that home schooling has many benefits and advantages that public schools cannot offer to students today. Among complaints about public schools is that they are anti-religion. Advocates for home schooling say that children cannot be brought up in a religious atmosphere at home and then be sent to school where it is challenged or ridiculed.

Homeschooling has been the victim of much criticism since it originated. However, time has shown that children who are homeschooled are successful; people are beginning to change their views that the only effective education can be done in a classroom. Stereotypes are being broken and families that do not fit the typical homeschool persona are starting to homeschool. The public may stereotype homeschoolers as either societal dropouts or those with high religious moral convictions that want to isolate their children from society. While some do homeschool for spiritual reasons, the majority of homeschoolers today represent a range of backgrounds, motivations and family situations.

Home-schooling a child could be a very good decision if a child had special needs. Teaching them at home would enable the parents to monitor the development of the child and make sure they don't fall behind and are completely ready to move on to the next level of learning, where they might fall behind in a public learning institution. The parent(s) could offer the child extremely individualized attention that is much harder to find in a public school with large numbers of students, many who also have special needs. Home schooling is also a good choice for family?s who want to truly have control over what their children are taught. Possibly more religious families would want to make sure that in addition to the subjects they have to teach by law, that they teach their children about religion and other things they find important.

By exercising the choice to home school, home schooling parents are selecting the type of education their children receive. The choice to home school is both a developmental philosophy and a political response to existing educational institutions and contemporary social order. Yet dissatisfaction with public schools has made many parents more receptive in recent years to different education reforms, including home schooling. Some parents also tout home schooling as a way to teach their children religious values, which they say are absent from the secular public school system. Home schoolers tend to have an exaggerated sense of the problems in contemporary education.

Parents Guide to the Internet. Nov. 1997. 25 Apr. 1999 http://www.ed.gov/pubs/parents/internet/index.html. Winkler, Ira.

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