More parents find their children are too busy learning to go to school. Over 1.5 million American children are learning at home and that number is growing, according to the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. Discover the benefits of homeschooling and why kids thrive without school.
One morning last month, while most kids in New York City were sitting in school classrooms, 6-year-old Benny Rendell toured an exhibit of Monet’s water lilies at the Museum of Modern Art. Later he brought out colored pencils and sketched his own versions of Monet’s paintings. The exhibit complimented Benny’s home-based art history studies on Monet and other famous painters.
Benny’s parents, novelist Joanne Rendell and Brad Lewis, a New York University professor, are like a growing number of do-it-yourself parents educating their children at home. Homeschooling has risen 36 percent in the last five years as parents seek alternatives to one-size-fits-all curriculum and emphasis on standardized testing. Many find homeschooling offers desirable advantages, including customized learning, better social opportunities, flexible family schedules, and an optimal learning environment.
Learning All the Time
Children develop at vastly different rates. Some 6-year-olds read fluently while others need more time. Challenges arise when a child forced to read too soon struggles; conversely, a child who reads at a second grade level but has to sit through an hour of phonics everyday quickly becomes bored.
Homeschooling helps alleviate struggles by allowing kids to learn when they are developmentally ready. Child development experts Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Ph.D. and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph.D., authors of Einstein Never Used Flash Cards: How Our Children Really Learn- And Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less, found that children forced into early formal reading instruction aren’t reading any better than their peers by third grade; however, studies show they are less creative and less enthusiastic about learning.
Schools drain kids’ creativity and desire to learn by standardizing education. At home, children are free to delve deeper into studies that excite them while discovering strengths and tackling challenges.
Learning can be exciting with quality resources, including real books written by experienced and passionate authors. With access to biographies, memoirs, historical fiction, hundreds of math stories and science discovery books, parents can provide a well-rounded education with little more than a library card. While homeschoolers read literature written for children, schools require textbooks compiled by committees, drills and worksheets to provide instruction.
“One of my favorite activities is reading at lunchtime. Benny and I have a routine where we eat lunch on the couch surrounded by books. We read for at least an hour, studying Ancient History, learning about famous painters, and the U.S. Presidents. We also adore novels by writers like Dahl, Cornelia Funke, and Dick King-Smith,” says Rendell.
Homeschooling offers the unique ability to meet individual learning needs and allow children to develop naturally, not on someone else’s artificial timetable. Any parent committed to helping their child learn can successfully home school; a study done by the Frasier Institute, a think-tank in the U.S. and Canada, found that students homeschooled by mothers who never completed high school still scored 55 percentile points higher on academic achievement tests than public school students from similar socio-economic backgrounds.
Social Opportunities
Critics claim children are isolated without a school community, but most homeschoolers are too busy visiting local libraries and bookstores and taking ceramics, writing, and science classes to spend much time at home. Homeschoolers view the community as an enriching classroom where children have access to real life opportunities they wouldn’t have in an institutionalized setting.
Learning at home allows children to spend their day interacting with kids of all ages, not just those born their same year. Assisting younger children builds confidence and sharpens skills; similarly, children benefit from instruction by and proximity to kids a few years older. While some progressive schools are trying to implement mixed-age classrooms, this concept isn’t feasible in most schools due to large class sizes and time constraints.
Some parents homeschool to avoid the anti-social atmosphere in schools. In a world where kindergartners are bullied and high-schoolers fear for their safety, kids are forced to either fit in or risk being targets. Fitting in often leads to survival tactics like “dumbing down,” where children as young as 6 pretend they can’t read better than their friends, or groan with the rest of their class when it’s time to write even if they secretly enjoy it. Schools force children to adhere to a herd mentality that homeschoolers are relatively immune to, according to Rachel Gathercole, author of The Well-Adjusted Child: The Social Benefits of Homeschooling.
Parents also find their homeschooled kids aren’t as influenced by corporate culture as their schooled neighbors. “Benny doesn’t have to know who or what Pokeman or Wii are because he doesn’t have to spend 7 hours a day talking about them (and competing over them) with peers at school,” Rendell says. While she admits Benny may eventually discover popular culture, she’s grateful he’s not exposed at his young age, when she feels he’s most impressionable.
Homeschoolers participate in a wider range of social opportunities and quickly develop support networks in their communities. Children build self confidence by embracing their differences without trying to hide them.
Better Learning Environment
Packed with 34 students and little room to move, the average elementary school classroom is distracting, loud, and- according to executive director of the American Public Health Association Georges Benjamin, MD, FACP- unhealthy. In a 2009 Sick Schools National Report, Dr. Benjamin blamed failing health and low grades on hazards such as asbestos, mold, and poor air quality found in many school classrooms across the country.
Compare those conditions with unlimited access to fresh air and quiet space and it’s easy to see why the home environment is more conducive to learning. Kids who have trouble focusing and sitting still in typical school classrooms often flourish at home, where they head outside between lessons to breathe clean air, as well as utilize movement while processing new information. Kids who easily become distracted in class don’t at home or in the library, simply because there are fewer interruptions.
Teachers, unable to meet the physical needs of every child in class, often use discipline and recommend medication for kids who react to poor environmental class conditions. Parents, on the other hand, can easily provide their bookworm with adequate reading light in a quiet room, or accommodate an active child by incorporating movement throughout the day.
Strong Family Bonds
Homeschooling promotes more family time and strong sibling relationships. Family life and education become fluid; discussion happens during mealtimes, caring for pets and other responsibilities are shared throughout the day, and kids participate in errands and real-life learning.
When one or both parents have atypical schedules, such as firefighters, nurses, or accountants, homeschoolers can adjust their lessons and enjoy family time whenever a parent has a day off. Vacations can start on a Tuesday; life guards and swim instructors can plan family trips for late fall, once their busy season ends. This flexibility allows families to spend more time together than kids limited to the traditional school schedule.
Homeschoolers have more time in general, since lessons at home typically require less time than in school. As every parent with a kid in school knows, homework rules family time. Schools are increasingly adding more work to students’ already-full plate. Kindergarteners spend hours doing homework some nights, leaving little room for family games, long discussions at the dinner table, or impromptu backyard football play. Child development experts find too much homework doesn’t improve learning but is causing families to spend increasingly less time together. A national study done by the University of Michigan in 2004 found the time kids spend doing homework has skyrocketed by 51 percent since 1981.
“The issue of too much homework comes up whenever I talk to parent groups, and the truth is, there’s no good research justification for it. The analyses out there just don’t make a connection between homework and success,” says child psychologist and Harvard professor Dan Kindlon in The Case against Homework: How Homework is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do about It by Sara Bennett and Nancy Kilash.
The freedom and flexibility homeschooling offers benefits the entire family. While Rendell admits homeschooling may not be feasible for everyone, she finds the advantages far outweigh any challenges home education may pose for her family. “We have pretty flexible schedules so homeschooling is much more possible for us than it might be for some people. Also, we like spending a lot of time together as a family. We like learning together and reading together and exploring together.”
Parents choose homeschooling for many different reasons, but most agree they savor the time they have with their children.
Vanessa Sheets writes about health and wellness for a variety of magazines, websites and businesses. Her articles aim to inform and inspire readers to make positive changes to improve the quality of their lives. Vanessa lives in Southern California with her husband and two boys.
Great article, thanks for this! I have a 2 year old and 4 month old and have just started looking into home schooling for my kids. Very informative!