Homeschooling certainly provides a variety of advantages. But due to few reasons, many parents have to decide whether to homeschool or continue with traditional education. Therefore, it’s crucial to know the pros and cons beforehand.
Often, homeschooled children and their families face cruel criticism, stereotypes, and a ton of misunderstandings from society. It’s ideal to be ready for all kinds of illogical questions, no matter how irrational, before you switch your child’s educational path. It can be challenging to homeschool and face the brunt of the misconceptions simultaneously. For that reason, here we explore some common myths about homeschooling and try to debunk them through scientific evidence and personal experiences.
Homeschooling Makes Children Antisocial
This myth is one of the most widely-circulated ones and yet the most inaccurate. Why? Because proper socialization goes beyond peer interactions in school. Let’s take two children, for example. One goes to regular school and greets the same forty or so faces every day in the classroom. The other is homeschooled and is free to interact with relatives, parents, neighbors, friends, and their local community. Surprisingly, homeschooling hones a child’s social skills better than formal education. Plus, this form of socialization is a lot healthier than what occurs in our conventional education system.
A study by the Discovery Institute reports that counselors labeled homeschooled children as relatively well-adjusted. These children even indicated fewer signs of behavioral problems than others of the same age group.
Parents Don’t Have The Qualifications For Homeschooling
This myth usually points to the lack of educational expertise, such as a teaching degree, of homeschooling parents. Contrary to popular belief, the statistics show that any adult with a high school degree can easily partake in homeschooling. There’s an ample supply of tools and strategies for the homeschool novices, hint: the internet! They can pick from various curricula, including instructor manuals, lesson plans, answer keys, and practice tests. Here’s some beneficial information on how to become a tutor at home and facilitate your children’s academic growth. Homeschoolers can also join shared classrooms with other home-bound students or participate in homeschooling co-ops.
Even parents can transfer their valuable knowledge and expertise to their children by homeschooling. Imagine you have a Computer Science prodigy as a father and French literature expertise as a mother. Wouldn’t you want to transfer that to your kids?
Homeschoolers Can’t Face The Real-World
Another prevalent myth about homeschoolers is that they never get the chance to leave their homes and experience the real world. However, students tend to spend more time observing, learning, and interacting with their surroundings when homeschooled.
While the traditional school-goers spend their entire days in a limited classroom space, homeschooled students can move around and interact with different people. And given their flexible and adjustable study schedule, homeschoolers can have greater involvement in their community activities, such as volunteering at a shelter. Homeschooled children have more freedom to join and travel for sports and other extra-curricular activities without the fear of missing school.
Homeschoolers Lack A High-school Experience
A survey asked homeschoolers if they felt they were missing out on a high-school experience or teenage life. The results showed that most homeschooled teens deem their traditional school-going counterparts to be the ones missing out, not themselves.
One reason might be that homeschoolers have the power to pick and direct their school activities. Nothing’s stopping them from spending countless hours exploring a topic of interest or sleeping in late on weekdays. What’s more, homeschoolers don’t have to engage in tedious homework or memorize useless jargon.
Many ambitious homeschoolers can surpass traditional school-goers and finish the usual four-year high-school curriculum in less than two years! Researchers indicate that learning doesn’t even account for a full hour in each school day. Where does the rest of it go? Towards disciplining, cleaning, giving instructions, collecting and submitting papers, and commuting.
Concerning time, homeschoolers have a certain edge over the others. By enrolling in online schools or community colleges, homeschoolers can easily accumulate college-level credits in their teens. So, when college admission time comes around, they’ll be ready to join as juniors or sophomores.
Homeschooled Children Can’t Enter A Good College
This myth is the simplest to dispose of. You’d be amazed to know how many Ivy League colleges such as Yale and UC Berkeley go after homeschoolers. Plus, as research shows, homeschoolers enter these colleges at a faster rate than regular high-schoolers. Students learning at home carry a unique skill set and personal qualities, resulting in better college academic performance. Homeschoolers have learned how to manage time effectively, be responsible for their studies, and be self-disciplined above all. Given the importance of such skills in today’s academia, home-educated students are more equipped to deal with college life than their traditional school-going peers.
To Summarize
Dear parents, don’t think of homeschooling as an easy feat to accomplish. Though it contains moments of considerable joy for you and your children, it also requires putting in efforts and hard work. There’s a painful process of unlearning conventional academic concepts and learning new ones before you can get comfortable. This article tried debunking some prevalent myths about homeschooling to ease your transition to this educational approach.
