General Articles: The Real Home-Schoolers Stand Up to Be Counted
By Mimi Rothschild
Home-school is a more popular and frequent occurrence in America today than many people realize. Two million school-aged children are home-schooled, and that number may be even higher. In many states, parents who home-school are not required to report their decision to the state, and many are left out of the statistics. Despite the false notion that home-school is a practice favored by religious extremists, the practice of home-schooling children for many reasons—from religion to convenience to the desire for a better quality of education—is alive and thriving in our nation today.
The home-school movement has effectively altered the political atmosphere as intelligent, conscientious adults dispel more of the myths surrounding this practice. The public acceptance rate of home-school as a viable method of education has nearly tripled since its modern resurrection (parents have been home-schooling for hundreds of years; only recently has the practice returned to popularity). Where legislators and school board members once railed against home-school, many are now touting its benefits and citing examples of acquaintances, friends, or even relatives who excel in a home-school environment. Institutions are also more accepting of home-school; many colleges, including most of the country's prestigious universities, are admitting home-school students in record numbers.
Home-school families employ a surprising array of teaching and learning methods when it comes to educating their children. Common knowledge puts forth the belief that home-school students learn at their kitchen tables, the same way students in the public education system do time at their desks. In reality, however, the flexible home-school environment allows parents to adopt teaching methods that complement their children's learning styles. The typical home-schooled student is encouraged to seek his or her own path and is presented with many opportunities to learn through hands-on activities, experiments, community volunteerism and field trips, along with traditional learning. Many parents who home-school supplement their children's education with online classes in tougher subjects they may not feel prepared to teach. Others hire private tutors to work with children in the home.
In any event, home-schooling defies the most prevalent myth surrounding the topic: that home-schooled children are social pariahs who remain ignorant of the real world until adulthood gives them a nasty wake-up call. In fact, the opposite is true. Because the walls of the classroom do not restrict home-school students, they tend to become involved in more social activities than the average student in the public education system. Home-school students also frequently enroll in extracurricular activities through their local public school districts, or join home-school networks and meet regularly with other home-school students.
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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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