Anyway, I hope this is a good thing to be shared and under no circumstances that I intended people to just "plagiarize" what's written there without even reading the original resources as provided. Plus, I don't think the language (i.e. grammar etc) is that good to be copied anyway. Lol. Have fun reading it if you are so happened to be researching about homeschooling at the moment
INTRODUCTION
The fact that there were more than 2.0 million homeschool students in the United States (USA) during the spring of 2008 reflects the idea that homeschooling has gained popularity and has evolved from almost complete ignorance to one of the widespread awareness. However, curiosity and scepticism pertaining to the education that homeschooling children received has lead to misperceptions as homeschooling practice varies where it ranges from highly structured curriculum through to those whose children’s learning occurs mainly at home (Kennedy 2008; Clery 1998). In British, for example the homeschooled children’s educational programs are the responsibility of their parents and are not inspected by the Ministry of Education (British Columbia n.d.). Some countries like Malaysia and some parts of the USA it is compulsory for the parents to notify the school board of their intent to practice homeschooling (Ontario.ca 2008; homeschoolhomefrontier.com 2009).
Questions now arise as people seemed to think homeschool students are isolated from the outside world and are socially handicapped (Romanowski 2001). They also fear that parents of homeschoolers may not have the appropriate skills to teach thus may affect greatly the children’s academic performance (Romanowski 2001; Grubb 1998). Therefore, this has become the root of the research question:
“Homeschooling: Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?”
The three important areas of this research are:
• Background
• Advantages of homeschooling
• Disadvantages of homeschooling
The sources used will be of secondary sources such as academic journals, scholarly articles and research papers.
1.0 BACKGROUND
The background information of homeschooling is comprises of definitions and historical perspective for better understanding of the issue.
1.1 Definition
- Homeschooling is when a child participates in home education rather than attending a public, private, or other type of school (Luffman 1998).
- Homeschooling is taking place at home in a family setting with a parent acting as teacher or supervisor where instruction and learning is through planned activity (Lines 1991).
- Homeschooling is taking place when the children’s educational programs become the responsibility of their parents and is not being inspected by the Ministry of Education (British Columbia n.d.).
1.2 Historical perspective
In 1870s, where homeschooling was prevalent throughout North America as there is yet an institutionalized education that provided standardized learning to children (Basham, Merrifield & Hepburn 2007). This movement however was impeded when school attendance and professional educators were compulsory. According to Kennedy (2008) the movement gained renewed attention and interest from parents in 1960s; only this time the movement has divided into two main strains – pedagogues and ideologues. He explains that the pedagogical strain is mainly influenced by John Holt whom believed that the rights of teaching should be given to parents and teachers and not restricted by “standardized” school curriculum as to give higher value on the children’s creativity and critical thinking. The latter was said that parents wanted to impart specific values and beliefs to their children and their efforts were undermined by public schools as they fail to take religion seriously throughout the curriculum.
2.0 ADVANTAGES OF HOMESCHOOLING
There are several advantages of homeschooling. Most importantly is because it allows higher academic achievement for the children. Homeschooling also limits the negative socialization that may arise from attending public schools. Moreover, is it said that positive emotional and spiritual development in the homeschoolers can be developed over time.
2.1 Homeschooling allows higher academic achievement
To all intents and purposes it could be said that homeschooling allows for higher academic achievement. The higher success can be related to the flexible schedule of the homeschool children (Grubb 1998). As parents or the homeschoolers themselves can design their own timetable they can focus more on certain subjects that they feel need extra revision and emphasis more on school work to further enhance their level of understanding (Lambert 2007). The data obtained from Basham Merrifield & Hepburn (2007) depicts that the homeschoolers’ overall test score in United States is between the 75th and 85th percentiles which is better than the public schools’ 50th percentile. Other than that, Lambert (2007) correlates the better achievement with better learning environment at homes. She says that the use of computers as a medium to access more information online helps the homeschoolers to gain more information in helping them to understand better about particular subjects. Moreover, the environment offered at home means less distraction and be able to focus and study in more conducive setting as there are no friends or situation that can distract learning session as they are monitored by the parents.
2.2 Homeschooling limits negative socialization
Parents’ trepidation over the public schools’ negative influences make them opt for homeschooling. By practising homeschooling they believe their children will be less affected by negative peer influence such as drug abuse, bullies and many more (Basham, Merrifield & Hepburn 2007). At home, the parents act as main role model for the children as they spend most of the time with them, opening opportunity for the parents to supervise the behaviour of their children. Not only that, Grubb (1998) says that children’s safety is the main concern for the parents as they do not want their children to be involved in any act of violation that eventually resulted in fighting or even killings. As the children is less monitored at public schools whether by the teachers or the parents themselves it is not impossible that negative behaviour can develop. Hence, to go for homeschooling is rather a safer choice for the parents to prevent their children from being involved in any kind of inappropriate behaviour problem.
2.3 Homeschooling promotes positive emotional/spiritual development
Other than the aforementioned advantages homeschooling also promote positive emotional and spiritual development. In his journal, Ray (2004) states that homeschooling nurture leadership as the homeschoolers have to conduct their own society’s activities without the help from experienced teachers compared to what happened in most of the public schools. The homeschoolers are able to be more independent and relying on their ability to solve problems or tasks given. This in turn teaches the homeschoolers to think more critically especially in making decisions (Lambert 2007). Moreover, homeschooling also promotes higher self-esteem to the children as they have more chance of involvement with society than the public school students do. They also become more mature in terms of thinking as they are fed by numerous information and perspectives of other people when mingling with society. Moore (1986) adds that the maturity has made homeschoolers to be friendlier due to social activities such as church activities that they attended.
3.0 DISADVANTAGES OF HOMESCHOOLING
Homeschooling however does come with drawbacks. It is said that homeschoolers lack peer interaction as they spend most of their time at home. Besides that, parent’s qualifications may also be questioned as they might not have appropriate knowledge to teach their children. Also, financial issues may arise from the practise of homeschooling as they are independent from the state government funding. Last but not least, the homeschoolers may find the admission process to apply for college to be difficult.
3.1 Homeschoolers lack peer interaction or socialization
Due to the time mostly spend at home rather than at public school the homeschoolers are said to be less socialized with same age peers. To some extent it seems that they do not mingle with each other very often (Montgomery 1989). However, one has to bear in mind that the homeschoolers do socialize but mostly with variety of age groups and not with their same age group. Simmons (1994) mentions that students need to engage in discussions, share ideas, compete, and work with other students to help them confront problems and shaping their manner. However, homeschooled children do not have the opportunity to do so hence it is said that homeschoolers have less opportunity to experience the interaction with their own age group (Montgomery 1989). The reason is simple – the homeschooled spend most of their time interacting with their own parents, siblings and other associated homeschoolers with a range of age that varies. In short, a lack of peer interaction resulted in lesser benefits gained as what other public school students experienced.
3.2 Parents qualifications may be lacking
The other concern regarding homeschooling is pertaining to the parent’s qualification to teach. Romanowski (2001) in an article mentions too much freedom under current legislation that not all states in United States require that parents have a high school diploma or general equivalency diploma to homeschool kids. In other words, any parent can practice homeschooling on their children without taking their education levels into consideration. He further explains that the parents may find it difficult to accurately assess, diagnose, and determine the curriculum and instruction as what have been done at public schools. Consequently, they might have trouble in determining the needs of a particular child appropriately in terms of subjects taught at home.
3.3 Financial issues may surface
Another drawback of homeschooling is that financial issues may arise. It seems that tax payers gain no benefit in education system as they do not send their children to public schools but at the same time paying taxes on that sector. It will be utterly a waste of money if the parents pay the taxes but not receive any help to enable them to undergo the process of homeschooling from the government. Therefore there should be consideration about exception from paying taxes in that area (Grubb 1998). Another disadvantage is lots of money is actually spent on learning materials (Lambert 2007).
On average it is estimated $2500 is spent on a homeschool child as parents have to use up-to-date textbooks, computer equipment, and paying on tutors to supplement teaching certain difficult subjects parent may not be familiar with (Earth’s Magic Inc 2000). For the poorer homeschool families the huge amount of money needed will be a financial burden for them (Romanowski 2001). This is highly reasonable as the parents who homeschooled their children do not gain any help from the state government especially on funding to conduct homeschooling.
3.4 Difficulty in college admissions process
A further disadvantage of homeschooling is depicted in the difficulty of the process of college admission. The homeschoolers are often lacking the advantage of a guidance counselor to help them work through the college search and financial aid processes (Mason 2004; Smith 1996). Not only that, they have to go through long procedures when applying for a place in college as it is to ensure the competency level in academic achievement (Ray 2004). Often skepticism further worsen the difficulties of homeschooled as many people have less or no confidence over the credibility to study and succeed when entering colleges. In addition, the need for records of continuous assessments of syllabus studied is highly necessary as homeschooled may not take any test to examine their actual performance (Ray 2004). For homeschoolers who did not have such records they may have to struggle more to obtain any equivalence proofs or statements that validate their excellence and thus enable them to submit their application for higher education.
CONCLUSION
From the information gathered, it can be deduced that to practice homeschooling people should consider the purposes and the effects it gives on children. The good things about homeschooling are it allows higher academic achievement for the children, is limiting the negative socialization that may arise from attending public schools and could develop positive emotional and spiritual development. However, homeschooling also comes with its setbacks such as homeschoolers lack peer interaction and parent’s qualifications may not be appropriate to teach their children. Financial issues may also surface from the practice of homeschooling and the homeschoolers may have difficulty in the process of college admission. The need to achieve highest possible achievement in academics persuades parents to search for alternative ways to keep the excellence level of their children at a higher degree. Homeschooling seems to be one of the preferred choices as the advantages it brings satisfy the need. Thus, viewing from the perspective of reasons behind practising homeschooling and the benefits ones may gain it seems that the advantages of homeschooling surpassed the disadvantages in various aspects.
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