Nowadays, home schooling is not an expertise. Moreover, due to the limitations of general education, for the past years, home-schooled education became more popular. Today there are many children who get an education at home that is one of the alternatives to general education. Many people think that home schooling is a better way for a child to get education but there still others who do not agree. As other types of education, home schooling is not perfect and has some virtues and shortcomings. Let us consider what the advantages and disadvantages of home education are.
The first thing that needs to be said is that home schooling promotes the most effective learning of curriculum. Individual syllabuses allow parents to take into account child’s level of training, his abilities and potential. They also give an opportunity to adjust the tempos of material learning, duration of lessons and its time-table. Another good thing about individual syllabuses is that parents may choose many different methods of learning such as a playing from, use of PC abilities, excursions etc. Effectiveness of school learning is also reached with a chance to take into account every nuance in a short period of time. If the child does not understand something, parents can keep explaining until it becomes clear. In addition, if the child has no problems with learning some type of information, parents just do not waste time on it and move to another assignment (Sargent 16). In addition, home schooling does not require some types of pointless paper work so that the child can only pay attention to the important subjects.
Another good thing about home education is a better quality of knowledge and a high progress. Home schooling has a certain type of flexibility in material feed. Parents can choose the best moment to learn one or another subject or theme (Mountney 17). It may depend on the child interests and age or on the outside causes such as elections, different holidays and other surrounding actions. They may help to learn about political science, history events, periods etc. Parents can allow the child to learn only one certain subject for some time and they also are able to make child’s learning easy and fun. So it causes the fact that the child gets deep and qualitative knowledge with no essential compulsions. However, there is a requirement for families that use home-schooled education to meet with competent persons to confirm their syllabus and examine child’s knowledge (Van and Pitman 11).
Other positive aspects of home education for children are an active cognitive activity, inclination to the new knowledge and enjoying while learning. At home, child can pay attention to what he is interested in a certain moment. This opportunity awakes the interest to explore, know and learn more. Child gets pleasure out of this specific learning (Sargent 24). It is a well-known fact that the pleasure is a powerful factor of the motivation. In addition, isolation from the influence of stereotypes causes better development of child’s individual way of thinking. Parents are not limited in providing child the different type of books and materials. At home, child gets freedom of thinking. They do not know teachers or someone else’s opinions and are able to think and provide their truly individual ideas. Furthermore, one should not forget that at home children are in parents’ hands. They cannot tell that they were not able to do certain tasks or forgot they work at home. It develops child’s independence skills and responsibility.
However, there are several disadvantages of home-schooled education. The public in general tends to believe that home schooling cannot provide children with the sufficient level of socialization because of the lack of communication with the coevals. However, this problem for the most part is far-fetched. Moreover, this so-called disadvantage is rather a merit. First of all, home-schooled education does not exclude the communication with other children. Child can join some sports or classes in public places like dancing, singing, playing football, painting etc. In addition, child more communicates with his family and that causes good and close relationships in the family. Finally, it is a possibility to be friends with children of different ages. In other words, child can communicate with people he wants. School cannot give such opportunity. Furthermore, one should not forget that quality of home education depends on parents. Therefore, another argument against home-schooled education is insufficient parents’ qualification in the teaching process. In this case, general education may be more structured. Therefore, home education is not only about child learning but also about parents developing with their children (Mountney 27). On other hand, sometimes parents are not able to take care about child’s home education. Thus, another option is to hire qualified teachers. However, there appears another disadvantage of home-schooled education. It is expensive.
Innovation methods of educational and pedagogical processes in a number of modern schools solve all problems that usually cause parents’ decision to give a child home education. However, such types of school, unfortunately, are accessible far from for everyone. The main reasons are the paucity of such schools and the expensiveness of education. However, parents have the last word. Of course, with taking into account child’s desires. Parents know features, needs and abilities of their children. They can make a right decision that does children’s good and help them to grow all-sufficient, to keep their identity and to feel themselves comfortable in the society.
Works Cited
Mountney, Ross. Learning Without School: Home Education. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2009. Print.
Sargent, George E. Home Education: With Two Chapters on Politeness & Good Breeding. London: Groombridge and Sons, 1854. Print.
Van, Galen J, and Mary A. Pitman. Home Schooling: Political, Historical, and Pedagogical Perspectives. Norwood: Ablex Pub, 1991. Print.
