Christine Bird

 TO HOME SCHOOL, OR NOT TO HOME SCHOOL? THIS IS THE QUESTION.

Christine Anderson

Because Davie and I are going to be starting our little family soon we have been wondering what the best form of education for our child is.  We have tossed around the idea of homeschooling mostly because we have some family members that home school and it appears to be working really well for them. We also had some families in our church that home school.  Their children are exceptionally smart and I think it is because their mother teaches really well in their home.

One main reason that we want to home school is because this gives children the most one-on-one attention. I think this allows a teacher, or in the case of home schooling, the mom/dad, the chance to complete nearly 7 hours of classroom time into only2-3 hours of personalized time. Not to mention all the additional homework kids have after school.   Because the kids are involved with their parents in their education, they also learn a lot of time management skills.  I think management skills are just as important as learning math, or spelling.  I wish I would have had someone help me to learn this better.

Image borrowed from ced-aed.com

One-on-one also leads to time for more activities and furthering their education even more.  It rarely leaves a child with activities to just be a kid.  These reasons have helped me see how home schooling can put children ahead of their age group.  They seem to understand what things are more important and learn to prioritize better.  Who doesn’t want that for their child?

Another reason we are thinking about doing home school is because of the flaws of public school. My husband and I used to teach character building classes in public school.  We would be in multiple classes each day. This allowed us to meet many teachers and to see their teaching style, and sometimes their discipline styles.  Seeing all of this made us wonder if we could be better teachers than some of those who were formally educated to teach children.  I always thought that many of the problems that came up were due to over stuffed classrooms, lack of personalized teaching, and lack of time to fit all the subjects that were expected of the teacher to cover. 

 Image borrowed from greenopolis.com

I remember one particular time that explains exactly what I mean.  It was nearly nine o’clock and I was on-time to teach my 2^nd class for the day.  I opened the door and walked into the room.  The teacher looked at me and said “OK, she is here.  I want you to put your test in your test and we will finish when she is one.  I now want you to give her all of your attention”.  They had been taking a spelling test, but due to time limitations they were going to be interrupted by my scheduled class.  This was definitely something that I hope my child would never have to deal with.
            Even after seeing those potential problems with public school, I still question the possible success of home schooling.  I worry that I will be smart enough to go into depth for difficult topics.  I have not be trained on how to best teach children.  I don’t have skills on problem solving or how to best prepare lessons.  Even though I did short 20-30 minute classes on character building, this doesn’t mean I know how to be an in-depth instructor for topics such as math or social studies. 

I am still not totally sure which we will decide.  I’ll figure this out when it gets closer.  For now, I just know that neither home school nor public school is perfect.  Home school has many pros and cons, and public school seems to have so many holes in it.  I definitely don’t want to go that route.  For now I’ll keep reading and researching about it. Because have at least 5 years to learn more about this.

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