Homeschooling

I know someone who grew up in a family of seven kids, and all of them were home-schooled! After I got over the caricature of home-school stereotypes found in the media, I wanted to know more about the experience, and understand the decision to keep kids at home.  I thought that the only reason someone would be educated in their house, was because the student experienced an intolerable amount of bullying in a public school, but that’s not the only reason.  Many parents are home-schooling children now, and there are a lot of benefits as well as negatives.

While the most commonly cited pro is the quality of personalized education and high scores on standard tests, the truth is that by staying at home, a child or teen can be given a degree of responsibility and security in their educational career, that can’t necessarily be found in a traditional classroom setting.  This article http://school.familyeducation.com/home-schooling/parenting/29861.html?page=2

written by a parent who educated kids at home, explains that there are benefits such as religious freedom, and just as important, close familial relationships!  How many families now days don’t even talk at the dinner table because they’re texting, or even worse, don’t even eat together like in my family. By staying at home, parents can influence their children, and allow their children to influence them relationally, in a way that can seldom be achieved in the traditional work-school paradigm.  The students aren’t at war with their teachers or their parents, because they all work together in order to reach a common goal.  

The main issue that I saw with home-school, and is a legitimate concern, is the idea that a child who has been isolated from the rest of the world cannot attain the same social abilities that are garnered in a public school setting/atmosphere.  While there is something to be said about this issue, the relational skills learned and perfected in a familial setting could even surpass an education in the intricately unnecessary drama and b.s. of highschool.  

Thinking back on the first classes we had, the pros of home-school make we wonder if technology could provide the pro of educational freedom in a traditional classroom setting, without sacrificing the relational qualities of corporate/communal education.  Could children be given the freedom to learn at their own pace, in their own way, without having to leave classmates and friends behind?