Home schooling or homeschooling, if you want (in deed, you even see it hyphenated, as in home-schooling) has been about for about 30 years now, although, of course it was all parents had before state involvement in education. Remote thinly-populated places in large countries like the USA, Canada and Australia still have to rely on home schooling to a large degree, although it is less difficult now with the wide-spread use of radio, television and the Internet. Video packages also have an important role, as do books still.
Nevertheless, home schooling has become very popular in the cities as an alternative to inner city public schools, which are frequently seen as hotbeds of upheaval, violence and drugs, especially by the middle classes and not without some due reason, to be honest. However, there are also other good reasons for opting for home schooling, which we will go into at a later stage.
First, it should be stated that the decision to go for home schooling has to be a family one. This is because it will turn “normal family life” on its head and place an added monetary burden on the household budget. For example, one parent will need to cease work. This cannot be permitted to be a cause of resentment, or both parents could take part-time employment and share the children’s educational load. Whichever way you decide, you will not have two full-time salaries any longer. Working at home on the Internet could be a partial solution here.
Home schooling will also upset everyone’s social life. So, the parents’ social life is restricted by not meeting work mates every day, but so is little Johnny’s, especially if he has already spent some time in a conventional classroom. He won’t see his friends from class as often and they could drift away from him or even resent him.
On the positive side is that the family will become a lot stronger as a unit by working together at home schooling. Both parents will have a complete understanding of what their child is learning and will be learning. While following a broad-based education, you may however opt to focus on aspects of, say, history or science, that especially interest your child. It allows you the freedom to tailor your child’s education to his or her particular interests, something that state education cannot do well with over-sized classes. Your child will also come less under the influence of the bawdier elements in school and be able to concentrate more on studying.
A note of caution could be useful at this point. Do not be tempted to compel your child to progress too rapidly. It is tempting for a non-professional teacher-cum-proud parent in home schooling to push the child much harder than he can go. Don’t forget that most pupils are just average. You must be on look out for signs of burn-out and stress at all times.
Once you decide to opt for home schooling, you will have to choose a basic curriculum, run through it yourself to familiarize yourself with it, buy or locate in the library any supplementary books, videos and software, make a load of notes and stock up on pens and paper, folders, binders and filing cabinets and you’ll be ready for your first semester at home schooling.
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