Home Schooling

What is homeschooling?

Homeschooling is the education of children at home, typically under their parents' instruction or that of a tutor, rather than in a private or public school setting.

Homeschooling or homeschool may also be referred to as home education or home learning.

Since early childhood education occurs within the family or community, homeschooling in the modern sense extends that duty and serves as an alternative in developed countries to formal education.

Alternative education includes a number of approaches to teaching and learning other than mainstream or traditional education. Educational alternatives are often rooted in various philosophies that are fundamentally different from those of mainstream or traditional education.

A brief history of homeschooling

In history and in many cultures, professional teachers (tutors or formal-setting educators) were only available only to a small sector of the elite class. Until recently, the vast majority of students were educated by parents in the context of a specific type of labor that they would pursue in adult life, such as working in the fields or learning a trade.

Since the early and mid 19th century, formal schooling in a classroom setting has been the most common means of educating students throughout the world, especially in developed countries. Native Americans, who traditionally used homeschooling and apprenticeship, strenuously resisted compulsory education in the United States. In the 1970s, research conducted by educational professionals Raymond and Dorothy Moore deciphered independent studies by other researchers, and reviewed over 8,000 studies on Early Childhood Education and the physical and mental development of children.

They asserted that formal schooling before ages 8-12 not only lacked effectiveness, but was actually harmful to children. The Moores published their findings, exposing evidence that formal schooling was damaging young children academically, socially, mentally, and even physiologically.

Childhood problems such as juvenile delinquency, nearsightedness, increased enrollment of students in special education classes, and behavioral problems were the result of increasingly earlier enrollment of students.

One common theme in the Moores' homeschool philosophy is that home education should not be an attempt to bring the school construct into the home, but rather they viewed it as a natural aspect of life that occurs as the members of the family are involved with one another in daily living. In conclusion, a homeschooling environment provides students the freedom to learn at their own pace, accelerated or otherwise, and the stability of which promotes steady work ethic.