General Articles: Home-School Support
By Mimi Rothschild It is a common misconception that a home-school curriculum is all play, or that somehow a home-school curriculum is or will be less challenging or rigorous than the classroom counterpart. Of course, almost any parent who has adopted the home-school model for their child, or any student from a home-school environment, would be quick to say otherwise. The home-school is a place not only of steep studies and rigorous (though highly rewarding) lessons, it is a place where those involved in the home-school program decide upon which quality course materials to use. In the home-school, no third party teacher or school board gets the final say over what subjects will or will not be taught. That decision, again, is between child and parent.
The growing demand for home-school course materials started in the middle of the 1980s. Many reputable classroom style schools, as well as publishers of pedagogical literature, have established their own home instruction departments or support centers to assess and address home-school needs. The results and facts are astounding. In some exemplary cases, these home-school instruction departments provide complete curriculums of course materials such as poetry, history, foreign languages, literature, algebra, and all other staples of quality education. What is more, such home-school course materials, which come from home instruction departments of classroom style schools, are generally tested in the classroom, so their applicability and quality is proven.
Of course, there is more to education than course work, and this fact applies equally to home-school. A model home-school support department, wherever based, will develop ways and suggest methods to encourage students in home-school to interact and see themselves as part of a larger community. In some cases this may take the form of pen pal relationships, home-school merchandising (i.e. pennants, t-shirts, and such), or by sponsoring home-school student social functions, field trips, or travel.
A home-school will only function as well as the parents or mentors, whose task it is to teach. A model home-school support department provides opportunities and materials to help those responsible for their children's education to become better home-school teachers themselves. Indeed, given the level of study and professionalism devoted to home-school models of education, it is no wonder that students from home-school continue to outperform their classroom educated peers in college and on standardized tests on a yearly basis.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling parent, children's rights activist, author, and Founder and C.E.O. of online education company Learning by Grace, Inc. Rothschild and her husband of twenty-eight years reside in suburban Philadelphia with their eight children.
Feeling that “our current system of education has broken its promise,” Rothschild co-founded Learning By Grace, Inc. to provide families with Internet-based multimedia education to PreK-12 children all over the world.
In addition to her twenty years of experience as a homeschool mother, Rothschild has written a number of books dealing with education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Home Education Websites Blog consists of helpful online content and activities for Christian homeschooling families.
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