Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin M
Social group segmentation is a function of human behavior, it is not because of dumping kids into a classroom together. The only thing that prevents it is isolating children to those same social groups altogether.
I still don't see the advantage of home schooling. What exactly does it provide that traditional public education lacks? And why cant parents provide those things as an addendum to the educational system rather than trying to completely bear the burden themselves?
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Nobody said that homeschooling isolates children from interaction with others. Data show that they are in fact more capable of dynamic interaction outside of their demographic. This has also been my personal observation. Good thing you said that social segmentation is a natural human function - the synthetic environment of the public school in many instances brings out the worst of this tendency, in my opinion.
Besides all of the resultant advantages I already referenced that can be observed and measured, homeschooling gives the parent the ability to choose the curriculum, the learning pace (faster or slower), schedule, and far more control over the child's focus and drive. Being able to tailor these things to the individual child is something that high teacher/student ratios give, and public education cannot. In fact, they will not. It is the focus of public education to try to make all students function as similarly as possible, not cater to diversity so that each child can excel to their unique ability. Classes would not function if every student was taught at their ideal pace, and with techniques that fitted them best.
I think that you are missing something: those parents seriously considering this WANT to be able to do this, it is not a burden but rather an interest and goal. Depending on which state you are in, political, social, and economic discrimination hinders many from being able to do it. Your addendum comment doesn't make sense: why send a child to public school for several hours, and then spend several hours more trying to undo the crap and methods that they learned there?
Bottom line, if you are fine with the State, some clueless 23yo education major, and peer groups raising your kids in an environment that you have no control over - fine, go for it. Nobody is stopping you and the system is happy to have your child there. But, in this country, we still have the theoretical freedom to manage our own kids' education ourselves (novel idea!), so fighting for less discrimination in this field is worthwhile, especially since all measurable metrics show a HUGE positive difference.